Mayoral Candidates Respond to Planned Parenthood in Aurora
Posted by Roger on Thursday, March 19th, 2009
Last night, the third mayoral debate occurred at the Wesley United Methodist Church. Audience participants were provided the opportunity to submit questions to be asked of the candidates. The final question of the night was:
"In what ways does your faith form your opinion of Planned Parenthood?"
Summarizing the candidates responses, in the order they answered the question:
Richard Irvin: "… Planned Parenthood is bad for Aurora. … It's an issue of how that organization … came into our city using deceptive practices."
Stephanie Kifowit: "… as a family we are anti-abortion … I also believe … I cannot take a stand that I'm going to say I'm against something that is, of course, right now legal in the state."
Tom Weisner: "If faith informed my actions in this case I might very well be violating my oath of office … There was no legal basis for me … to withhold the permit. I do take an oath to uphold the laws governing our city."
Candidates Answers in Full
Here's an incomplete, but fairly accurate transcription of the final question:
- Moderator:
- "In what ways does your faith form your opinion of Planned Parenthood?"
- Richard Irvin:
- "I think Planned Parenthood is bad for Aurora. And it's not simply an issue of abortion. It's an issue of how that organization … came into our city using deceptive practices.
- Now this organization came into our city calling itself Gemini Construction. It pooled all its permits under this name … permits from our city to build this 20 foot high wall … bulletproof glass, cameras all around it, 14 recovery rooms and our city fathers, or leaders at the time, suggested that they had no clue what was going on with that building over there.
- And then, when they opened the doors, they threw up this big, old sign saying we're Planned Parenthood without giving our citizens an opportunity to speak out against it, without giving our citizens an opportunity to say anything, maybe we don't want you to come to town and maybe we could have fought against this big organization, but the fact is that we were never given a chance to try, never given a voice from the very beginning, and I believe that we should have.
- You know, if this were an asbestos company opening up a shop three blocks down the street from a high school or a strip club, I would expect, you know, our city fathers would have been angry. We weren't angry enough. The mayor was not angry enough, which suggests to me that he knew all along."
- Stephanie Kifowit:
- "Thank you. This is by far the number one question that I've been asked on the campaign trail. And it is a very … issue.
- I am a mother of two children, and I realize how amazing life at birth is. To create a child from something so small is truly a miracle .. as a family we are anti-abortion.
- I sat down with my daughter, she is now eleven, and I told her that we would support her in any situation that she finds herself in, and if she finds herself in a situation where she feels that she cannot afford a child or have a child that we would be there for her, and raise it for her.
- I believe in … and that is my faith, I'm Lutheran, I was brought up that way. I also believe though that by the grace of God I have not been in situations that other individuals have been: rape, abuse, issues that are just inconceivable to me, so I cannot take a stand that I'm going to say I'm against something that is, of course, right now legal in the state and legal in the federal government because there are instances where an individual to heal, an individual to improve their life might have to go down that road.
- The only thing that I can do for that person is pray for them and hope that they find what they need under that procedure. I, I cannot imagine, imagine not being able, not having a child because it is truly , truly an act of God. I agree the City Council was not given any opportunity to act."
- Tom Weisner:
- "Yeah, the question was how has my faith informed my … [Moderator interjects: "informed your opinion of Planned Parenthood"] Well, I think opinion is one thing, but to say that if faith informed my actions in this case I might very well be violating my oath of office that I took … under the constitution to follow the law.
- … and however, I took the unprecedented step of having the entire development process reviewed by two separate attorneys in a civil sense, and by a United States attorney in a criminal sense. No criminal conduct was found and there was no legal basis for me to instruct Building and Permits to withhold the permit. So according to the law, a permit was issued.
- And as mayor, I do take an oath to uphold the laws governing our city. And I do not, and should not, have the authority to ignore or disregard laws of our land, regardless of my personal beliefs. And that is the extent to which I can address that issue at this point because we are in litigation on this matter."
Beacon Liveblog Coverage
Additional coverage was given by the Aurora Beacon in an article which contains a live blog by Dan Campana that was streamed during the debate. The following is a snippet from the live blog:
7:47 Last question: How does faith inform your feelings on Planned Parenthood. Irvin says PP bad for Aurora. Not about abortion, but about how they came into city.
7:48 "Our city fathers said they had absolutely no idea what was going on," Irvin said.
7:49 Irvin says mayor knew all along. Weisner never got angry about it.
7:49 Kifowit says this in No. 1 thing she hears about it. She says she is anti-abortion.
7:49 [Kifowit says] "I believe in the family unit."
7:50 Kifowit said council had no chance to act on it.
7:51 Weisner … if faith informed his action, he would violate his oath of office. He was disappointed in PP approach.
7:51 Says two attorneys reviewed it all, and Kane state's attorney's office cleared it, permits issued.
7:52 Cuts his comments short because of ongoing litigation. Closing time…
Every Voter Should Learn More
I encourage everyone reading this blog to learn more about the candidates, their positions, and their public record regarding Planned Parenthood in Aurora.
God Bless,
Roger
P.S. If you have a clarification on the quotes above, or if I've misquoted or mis-transcribed anything, please bring it to my attention via a comment. My goal was to authentically transcribe the candidates answers as best as I was able.
What "oath" and what "law" would Tom Weisner have violated had he denied Planned Parenthood permission to open? Answer: None. You can believe that if it was revealed that the Ku Klux Klan was the real owner of the buiding, the mayor would have found a way to nix the project, and there would have been no mention of any "oaths" or "laws" to the contrary.
In appointing the so-called "independent" review of the circumstances surrounding the permitting process and the construction of the clinic, Mayor Weisner sought and received the political cover he desired in order to absolve himself of having to make what he saw as a no-win decision. When it came time to make known the decision everyone suspected was coming–that he would grant occupancy status to Planned Parenthood–Mayor Weisner courageously closed city hall to the hundreds of his constituents who were outside rallying and praying for a change of heart. In a carefully choreographed venue before outsider journalists and TV commentators, he asked the media to believe he had no choice but to grant the permit to open the facility.
Thus, Mayor Weisner failed in his moral and legal responsibility to uphold the rights of the citizenry who appealed to his office as a last resort to have their voices heard. Due to the fact that he knew the citizens of Aurora were not given a voice in the run-up to final approval for the project because Planned Parenthood used the "Gemini" name to cloak their true intent, the mayor would have been well within his rights as the city's chief executive to deny the occupancy based upon the deception alone, not to mention the many zoning and code violations about the project that had already been pointed out to him. Nevertheless, he turned a deaf ear to his constituents. He needed to wash his hands of the matter, and the press conference served as the fait accompli of his final betrayal.
With this latest mayoral debate the process has come full circle. Using the political cover he engineered in the fall of 2007, Mayor Wesiner now wants those who are gullible to believe that he had no choice but to have made the decision he did. He wants us to swallow hook, line, and sinker that his decision was ultimately a MORAL decision, and that the only way to resolve his moral quandry was to put aside his personal beliefs for the purpose of upholding the duties of his office.
Saint Thomas More, who has been designated by the Church as the Patron of Politicians and Statesmen, was asked by his friends to take the oath of loyalty to the King and thereby save his life. He responded by saying: "I believe that when statesmen forsake their private conscience for the sake of public duty, they lead the country on a short route to chaos."
Sorry, Mayor Weisner, we are not buying your story. It is possible you may get re-elected, but you have lost the respect of thousands of your constituents during the process.
March 21st, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Weisner's "I followed the law" excuse never has and never will hold water. There was no way any other so-called "business" would have ever been able to open in this city using such deceptive practices, lying on permit applications' lying on blue prints, lying to the Alderwoman who interviewed their representative at a committee meeting (she asked if it was going to be a quiet medical clinic and was told yes), zoning laws were violated, the public hearing process illegally circumvented, the city attorney was used to provide legal backing to PP, the city attorney and the former police chief tried to intimidate pro-life protesters, deals were made with state and federal Democratic backers of PP and Weisner was promised a promotion by the higher ups in the Democratic party that if he is not re-elected as mayor in this election that they will pay him back for sneaking the abortion fortress into town with another position. God help this city. Pray pro-lifers that the mutilation of innocent unborn babies will stop, pray that every corrupt, lying, deceitful person involved will be exposed, prosecuted, convicted and voted out of office. Pray that the sheddding of innocent blood will be vindicated and that this human holocaust will bring God's hand of justice and judgement. Pray Psalm 35.
March 21st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
[...] they had all commented with some negativity about Planned Parenthood and the abortion issue at the recent mayoral debate, Eric Scheidler had invited all three Aurora Mayoral candidates to come to the protest and talk to [...]
March 24th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Aurora has suffered under Mayor Weisner long enough.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
If faith was 1st in your life you would behave much differently. If faith was the center of your life, you wouldn't have to make a decision, because of PRINCIPALS!!!
See how the work!
March 27th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Weisner has never fully explained what he knew and when. I think Irvin would have had a chance at winning had he not made affirmative action/quotas in city contracts his top issue. Kifowit doesn't have the experience (to be kind) to be a serious contender, in my opinion.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
(If I got the figures right from the Aurora website):
157,267 Population (100%)
56,734 Registered Voters (36.07%)
11,722 Voted (7.45%) (6,470 Weisner, 2,868 Irvin)
Thus it took only 5,858 individuals (3.725% of the population of 157,267) to decide if the administration of the city is Prolife or Anti-Prolife.
(Seems kind of hopeless, unless we have a case of "Evil winning out because the Good did nothing)
April 8th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Hi, I came to the site planning to make the same point Jerry Vilt has already demonstrated in post #7. The frontpage article of the April 9 Beacon News says it best, "…Mayor Tom Weisner secured his second term with only 9,194 votes."
This is the bleak future of the pro-life movement.
How many Aurora homes sported one of our yellow signs only months ago? If every one of those households had averaged only two votes…how close could would the election have been?
In a city which I believed was one of the hotspots of "my movement" Auroraians didn't care enough about life to choose a leader who has already demonstrated he is on our side. We didn't care enough to vote.
There is no one to blame but ourselves. Ignoring all votes Mr. Irving may have earned from any other well-reasoned positions his campaign was based on; the pro-life community in Aurora should have been able to carry this election. We were not out gunned, we were not out spent, we were not out smarted. We can't even blame a third party for splitting the vote as Mayor Weisner captured in excess of 50%. 16,231 total votes cast in a city with a population in excess of 170,000. Pro-lifers did not care. Pro-choicers did not care. Nobody cared.
If it only take 9,194 votes in Aurora where you have a vibrant pro-life community with informed and active leaders; what hope do we have? The city of churches failed. The hotspot grew cold. The heart died.
With all of our passion, all of our protests, our legal efforts, and other talents; if we don't care enough to say "This is who we want!" What's the point?
April 9th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I have heard that many pro-lifers and conservative voters in Aurora supported Weisner with the hopes that he will die soon (they are convinced that he is terminally ill) had he will be replaced with a pro-lifer.
April 10th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Kel,
Are you serious??? If so, what are you basing this on?
April 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
There is a political blog, open line, that is advertised on this website, on the right-hand side of the screen. They have always trashed Weisner, particularly because of the Planned Parenthood opening. They also questioned his ability to act as mayor because of a cancer diagnosis they claimed he had. There is mention of it here:
http://openline.blogspot.com/2008/11/election-2009-richard-irvin-jumps-into.html
When conservative candidate Rick Lawrence dropped out of the mayoral race, and it became obvious that Weisner was the strongest candidate they made a complete flip and began supporting Weisner 100%. The blog itself never came out and said it, but several commentors stated that they hoped Weisner's cancer would either make him so ill he would step down, or kill him, in which case Rick Lawrence could step in as mayor.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I see what you mean. Thanks for the info!
April 10th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Kel and Student: If you are looking to unidentified bloggers at Openline for insights on Aurora's mayoral contest, save yourself a lot of time and trouble. Notice you have not seen any of this drivel on this site. For all we know, these fanciful musings could be pro-choice plants to make pro-lifers look bad.
Nevertheless, this is a good opportunity to look at the dangers inherent in anonymous dialog. During the presidential campaign a blog entry suggesting Sarah Palin was Trig's grandmother exploded onto the scene.
For a sample see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/archive/236/news/2008/08/30/were_going_with_the_rumor_sara_1_8598.html. Google the story and it could take days to read all of the commentary on this one ridiculous story alone.
On the other hand, when John Edwards was finally outed to be the less then admirable character we knew him to be, it wasn't until then that all sorts of credible sources said they knew about his wanderings but held back.
Of the two stories, the sensationalist sicko rumor about Palin is the stuff that makes the rounds, but the MSM protects Edwards until they finally had no choice but to report it AFTER The Enquirer beat them to it. I don't know if the two stories say more about the consuming public, or the news organizations who report them.
April 11th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Perhaps this website should not advertise for the open line blog, if it is run by a pro-choice plant and full of drivel, as you suggest. I have seen Eric Scheidler post on that site, though, and the website backed Weisner 100%.
April 11th, 2009 at 10:56 am
"I have heard that many pro-lifers and conservative voters in Aurora supported Weisner with the hopes that he will die soon…"
Kel, this statement is a self-contradiction. No pro-lifer can allow themselves to ever hope for this. As much as we may oppose Weisner as Mayor, we can not wish such an fate to fall upon him.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
I don't think Open Line is rooting for Weisner to die. That's a stretch. Open Line is not primarily a pro-life site. It's run by anonymous Lawrence supporters and is generally just negative.
As to the election, the turnout was horrible. I don't think the pro-life movement mobilized for this race in the way that they should have. Quite frankly, Irvin was outgunned as far as money on hand. Weisner ran commercials in the days leading up to the election and put out new signs on election day. He was well-funded, well-organized, and ran a good campaign.
The pastor at my church made a point of asking how could so many neighborhood members of the church be supporting a candidate who seemed more hostile to pro-lifers than the liars who snuck into town. But I never got the sense that Irvin connected enough to mobilize pro-life voters (and Weisner being a known entity with a good record on crime didn't hurt). Too bad because I like Richard and wish he'd have strung together a better coalition.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Kel: This website does not "advertise" Open Line Blog. That website is linked to in our blogroll because articles are frequently posted there which may be of interest to visitors to this site. Which is all that inclusion in a blogroll ever means.
Hans & Brian: The pro-life community in Aurora could and would have carried this election if we had had a candidate. Richard Irvin got in the race late and, though he avowed his pro-life position, he never reached out to the pro-life community the way he should have.
This election was lost by Richard Irvin, not the pro-life movement. I like Richard, but his campaign was a disaster. In total contrast to Weisner's campaign.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I think our statements generally jibe with each other, Eric. Weisner ran a very good campaign, organized to a high degree with money to spend, and a legitimate argument to make on crime. Irvin didn't connect or do enough to reach out in my opinion. I guess I'd say that even if Irvin didn't connect, pro-lifers could have mobilized on our own. It didn't happen.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Brian—I don't think you can really mobilize people to work hard for a candidate who doesn't inspire them, or just to defeat an incumbent they don't like, however bad he is.
I'm certain that the active pro-life community in Aurora voted overwhelmingly for Irvin (a few for Kifowit), but lots of pro-life people who aren't tied into the "pro-life community" I'm sure voted for Weisner.
The way to have gotten them to vote pro-life would have been to appeal to them directly through mail pieces and door-to-door canvassing.
In my experience, you just can't mobilize people to go to work for a candidate (or any mission) that doesn't inspire them. Irvin had to do the inspiring part, and he didn't.
I don't know why he didn't. I don't know why, when he was the only candidate to accept my invitation to come to the March protest at Planned Parenthood, he declined to speak to the crowd.
Frankly, I don't even know why he ran—if you can call that running. Maybe he just wanted to make sure his hat was in the ring this time so he can run again in 2013, figuring Weisner will leave office for health reasons by then. Who knows?
April 16th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I agree with what you said that people don't generally mobilize on their own and that it is up to a candidate to inspire them. My only disagreement (if in fact it is a disagreement) is that with such a horrible turn-out, a motivated group could have won the election. It happened in Waukegan, where Hispanics mobilized based on immigration enforcement.
I know that Weisner told pro-life voters that he was just as surprised as anyone that PP came to town and that his hands were tied to do anything about it. I don't buy that, but it was plausible deniability enough to get many people to vote for him (based in part on the city's successful crime reduction under Weisner, irrespective of whether he had anything to do with it or not).
Irvin's initial strategy was to focus on city contracts and minorities. That didn't have a broad-based appeal, especially because he talked about it in a quota-based manner. I thought he could sell himself as a boot-strap success story (which he is), appeal to minority voters, and mobilize pro-lifers angry about PP. That seemed like a winning coalition. It didn't happen.
April 19th, 2009 at 7:49 pm