FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Contact:
Patrick Kelly, Media Coordinator, Illinois Green Party, 773-203-9631
Phil Huckelberry, Government & Elections Committee Chair, Illinois Green Party, 309-268-9974
Green Party leaders have cited Rod Blagojevich's recent appointment of a major campaign contributor and serial polluter as further evidence of the Governor putting his interests before those of the state.
Jay Bergman, already a member of the Illinois State University Board of Trustrees, is owner of Petco Petroleum Corp. In February 2006, the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB) found Petco Petroleum liable on a 16-count water pollution complaint and fined the company $135,000. Bergman was not found legally liable, even though court documents showed he was intimately aware of the workings of his company and even told the employers not to report spills to the proper authorities.
Bergman has also donated $42,000 to Blagojevich's campaign fund dating back to 2002.
Jason Wallace, Green Party candidate for 11th Congress, is currently Executive Chair of the Illinois Board of Higher Education Student Advisory Committee. "Governor Blagojevich has only taken actions that are self-serving and not in the best interest of the citizens of Illinois, and this appointment is just the latest example," said Wallace. "Public education is a public good. In Washington and in Springfield, I and other Greens will work to fill the funding shortfall that we have repeatedly seen from this administration."
Geoff Ower represents McLean County on the Illinois Green Party's Coordinating Committee, and was a member of the ISU Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) in 2006 when Blagojevich reappointed Bergman to the ISU Board. SEAC organized a petition drive to protest Bergman's reappointment then, and Bergman's response was to attack the student group, saying, "From what I understand they [SEAC] are so far to the left they make Jane Fonda look like Ronald Reagan. Their concern is to promote a radical leftist agenda, I just happen to be their target this year."
"Bergman has shown a contempt for the law, and a contempt for free thought on campus," said Ower. "And now he's been rewarded for it again."
After his appointment, Bergman told reporters that "the universities have to be run more like a business and I think that is what the Illinois Board of Higher Education has to encourage."
"If he runs higher ed like his business, we're in trouble," said Ower.
For additional information on Jason Wallace's campaign, see www.electwallce.us.
