|
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Steve Schoeffel
Steve@DanRutherford.org
JESSE WHITE FOLLOWS
RUTHERFORD’S LEAD ON CUSTOMER SERVICE
Will White also copy Rutherford’s proposals to
greatly enhance service at
Driver Services Facilities?
There is still plenty of corruption to report
under Jesse White’s administration
(PONTIAC) Illinois Secretary of
State Jesse White held a news conference today to announce a change in
procedure that closely copies a proposal made two weeks ago by his
opponent, Senator Dan Rutherford. Rutherford called White’s proposal “a
day late and a dollar short,” and noted that it was made in the heat of a
campaign when Secretary White has had eight years to fine tune the
Secretary of State’s Office.
“Just two weeks ago, I proposed a
comprehensive plan to improve services at the Secretary of State’s Driver
Services Facilities,” said Rutherford. “One of the proposals was to
provide an outlet for complaints or suggestions on the Secretary of
State’s web site. Today, Jesse White followed that by proposing the
enabling of people to report corruption on his website. That’s a decent
step forward from his “hotline” that already exists. However, it falls
far short of my proposal to allow people to report details of their
experiences at Driver’s Service Facilities in an online customer care
survey.” A copy of Rutherford’s plan is available at his website,
www.DanRutherford.org.
Regarding corruption, Rutherford
pointed out that the current Secretary of State’s office has been plagued
with prosecutions and convictions for corruption in the office during
Jesse White’s administration.
Most notably, Jesse White’s
high-level administrator, Cecil Turner, is scheduled to be prosecuted by
the U.S. Attorney in federal court on September 11, 2006 for a ghost
payrolling scheme Turner set up shortly after White hired him. Jesse
White publicly brushed off warnings about Turner when he hired him for a
top position at a salary of nearly $100,000 a year. When White hired
Turner, Turner was a convicted felon for a scheme involving stealing
Veterans’ benefit checks out of the U.S. Mail.
Turner is now being prosecuted for
setting up a ghost payrolling scheme shortly after he was hired by Jesse
White, and the scheme went on for six years.
Jesse White was publicly
criticized at the time of Turner’s hiring not only for hiring a convicted
felon—who was convicted for such an egregious crime as stealing Veteran’s
checks— for such a high level position, but also because Turner apparently
had no bona fide qualifications for the position. At the time Turner was
hired he was simply an official in the Democratic Party.
The problem of corruption in the
Secretary of State’s office was compounded once Turner was hired because
there obviously was little oversight of this convicted felon since the
scheme went on for 6 years.
“Under a Rutherford
administration, all people hired are going to have to have bona fide
qualifications for the position,” Rutherford continued. “Partisan
political activity alone won’t cut it to get a job while I am Secretary of
State. When it comes to routing out corruption, nothing else comes close
to the importance of hiring on merit and not for political favors.”
“Allowing citizens improved ways
to report corruption is a good thing, but it is no substitute for hiring
qualified, honest people to begin with,” Rutherford concluded.
####
Paid for by
the Dan Rutherford Campaign Committee
|
