92nd District Representative hopeful Jehan Gordon sent out a press release a few days ago accusing her opponent Joan Krupa of being “absent from 25% of the [Peoria County Board] meetings held between April 14, 1992 and April 13, 1993.” Since Krupa had recently accused Gordon of being absent from too many school board meetings, Gordon criticized Krupa for “living in a glass house.”
Great sound bite. Unfortunately for Gordon, county board attendance records are relatively easy to verify.
The Journal Star fact-checked Gordon’s claim, and guess what?
[In] the minutes issued by the Peoria County Clerk’s Office on Friday, the actual attendance records show that of the 86 meetings held during Krupa’s tenure on the board, she attended 84 of them.
Krupa was late to a couple of meetings, including one in January 1993, which the Gordon campaign cited as one in which she was absent.
Krupa “missed only two meetings during her approximately six years with the Peoria County Board and had a 98 percent attendance rate.”
In contrast, HOI News has checked on Gordon’s attendance record on the Pleasant Hill school board:
According to District 69 Superintendent John Bute, there have been 19 Pleasant Hill school board meetings since June of 2007 when Gordon joined the board.
According to school records, since June, Gordon has missed a total of six of the 19 meetings-missing 32 percent.
Of the seven board members, on average, they missed three of the 19 meetings-missing 17 percent.
So, let’s recap:
- Krupa: Missed 2 out of 86 meetings in six years.
- Gordon: Missed 6 out of 19 meetings in 16 months.
In the words of the second President of the United States, John Adams, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
“She believes in what she’s saying,” Sen. Shadid says. Pretty soon, she’ll be the only one who believes in what she’s saying.
Gordon’s relationship with the truth has been frayed since the primary season. This is not a partisan statement. I generally vote for democratic candidates, but I may not even bother to vote this year due to my growing cynicism. So I must ask, is Jehan Gordon merely a shameless politician, or is she a pathological liar?
Seriously … Jehan Gordon has “the drive, the determination and, really, the ability to be an excellent representative”??? I generally respect Senator Koehler, but that’s complete and utter crap. She doesn’t have the determination to show up (or show up on time) to her school board meetings, so why should we believe that she’d show “determination” when she’s elected state representative?
I can’t believe the Democratic powers-that-be favored Gordon in the primary. They apparently attended the John McCain school of candidate vetting.
Gordon actually had the guts to try to smear Krupa by saying she also had a terrible attenance record. At the time it must have seemed like the best defense to an indefensible record.
Now that the Journal Star printed the facts, and Krupa has a 98% attendance record, where is the decency of an apology from Jehan Gordon to Joan Krupa for the completely untrue smear? Does Gordon have no common decency or integrity at all??