Batavia Masons plan pancake breakfast

The Batavia Masonic Temple, 28 N. Van Nortwick Ave., Batavia, will host a pancake breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 26. The meal will include eggs, sausage, juice and coffee. Tickets are $6 for adults, $3 for ages 10 and younger, and $18 for a family of four. For more information, call 630-879-9681.

Cougars plan job fair

The Kane County Cougars will conduct a job fair for part-time seasonal employees from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 at Fifth Third Bank Ballpark in Geneva. The Cougars are seeking concession stand staff, picnic servers, beer servers, suite attendants and a bartender. For more information, call 630-232-8811. Applications are available online.

Bunco event to benefit Casey’s Safe Haven

Casey’s Safe Haven will conduct a Bunco event Friday, Jan. 24 at the Old Town Pub, 40W290 LaFox Road, St. Charles. Check-in will begin at 6:45 p.m. Bunco will begin at 7 p.m. The event will include food, raffles, and prizes. A $20 donation is suggested. All proceeds from the event will benefit the dogs at Casey’s Safe Haven. For more information about the event, email Kathy at caseysdogs@yahoo.com.

More Cougars news

• The Kane County Cougars recently announced details of the 2014 ballpark concert series that will begin June 21 with a performance by the Mr. Myers Band. The series will include concerts by 7th Heaven, American English, Suburban Cowboys and Hi Infidelity. For more information about the series, visit www.kccougars.com.

• The Cougars will host their home opener at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 8. The Cougars will play a six-game home stand featuring three games with Fort Wayne, April 8  through April 10, and three games with Lake County, April 11 though April 13. The Cougars open the 2014 season on road April 3, playing a four-game series in the Quad Cities. For details about the Cougars'  2014 schedule, click here.

Rasmussen College plans career fair

Rasmussen College, 2363 Sequoia Drive, Aurora, will conduct a career fair from 3 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27. The fair will include workshops and opportunities to meet with representatives from area employers, including Microsoft, TCF Bank, DuPage Medical Group, and Verizon Wireless. Admission is free. For more information about the event, call 630-888-3500.

Save the date

The Hampshire Area Chamber of Commerce will conduct its annual Home & Business Expo from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 15 at Hampshire High School, 560 E. State St. For more information, call Bonnie at 847-683-1122, or go to www.hampshirechamber.org.

A curious lack of transparency

I am one of those voters who think it is important to have transparency when it comes to things involving government operations, elections, and the spending of tax dollars. I also think candor is crucial to building trust and credibility. This might explain my curiosity about two websites connected to the March elections.

One site, www.showyoucarekane.com, promotes a referendum question asking voters to create a new tax to fund services for individuals with developmental disabilities. The second site, www.iltruthteam.com, promises to “call ‘em as we see ‘em” and claims to “like candidates who want to change the Illinois Republican Party.”

The trouble I have with both websites is that neither site takes transparency and candor seriously. Visit these sites and you’ll have trouble learning who is responsible for the content.

Visitors to showyoucarekane.com need to sift through the website to learn, (indirectly) the site is operated by the Association for Individual Development, an Aurora-based agency serving those with development disabilities. Lynn O'Shea, AID's executive director, runs the Show You Care Kane effort, according to documents filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Oddly, I could find only one reference to the Show You Care Kane campaign at the AID website, and that was on Page 7 of a pdf version of the group's Fall 2013 newsletter. 

Visitors to iltruthteam.com are in for a real challenge in determining who is responsible for the nonsense posted to its pages. The site includes an “about us” page, but all you’ll find there is two paragraphs of poorly constructed sentences revealing nothing about those behind the site. I could not determine who runs the site or a related Facebook page. Judging by the (childish) content posted at the site, I’d say its operators are not friends of DuPage County Auditor Bob Grogan, a Republican candidate for Illinois State Treasurer in the March primary elections. 

For the record, I am Kevin Botterman, and I am responsible for the content of this blog. 

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