The News-Gazette Endorses Gordy Hulten for County Executive

From The News-Gazette:

We believe Hulten has a clear, convincing vision for the office and how it can move the county forward.

Hulten, who as clerk helped build the county board consensus to sell the nursing home, said his first goal is to straighten out the county’s finances. That’s a heavy lift, but it should be made easier without the need for regular infusions of money from the general fund to support a nursing home that is weeks away from being sold to a private operator.

Second, he said he wants to help promote the county and all of East Central Illinois as an area for economic development.

We’d hope that our governor, congressmen and state legislators would already be doing that, but Hulten’s point is that he would make it one of his top priorities.

Finally, he says he wants to shake up the county government’s “poison of partisanship” by working collaboratively with county officials. He also pledged to have county board districts drawn up by an independent commission and to use experts from the University of Illinois to help in the process.

Hulten, who earlier in life was a Republican staffer in the Illinois Senate and helped direct GOP election campaigns, has more recently worked with Democrats on county initiatives and has been a statewide leader on election issues and improving voter access.

We believe his experience, vision and promise to work for bipartisan consensus make him the superior candidate to be the first county executive in Champaign County’s 185-year history.