It was Tuesday, September 4th. I awoke at 6:24 a.m. to an ill wind blowing in from the northwest. I have often found an ill wind blows no good. I had a hunch it was an omen.
I hadn’t slept well last night. My mind kept replaying yesterday’s conversation with the distraught woman outside the donut shop: “Cook County commissioners are out of control on spending,” she had said, “and they are not listening to the people . . . to the people . . . to the people . . .”
She had spotted my badge.
As cops, our badge is not something we hide behind. It’s something we live up to. And I wasn’t about to let her plea fall on deaf ears.
Interrogating government at any level can test your limits; especially small town powerbrokers. It’s like putting together pieces of a puzzle. Sometimes the hardest pieces of a puzzle to assemble, are the ones missing from the box.
And from what I was discovering, there are a number of missing pieces.
I was going to at least try and find those pieces. But where to start?
It was suggested–by more than a few residents– that I track down a lifelong native of Cook County by the name of Speck; Lloyd Speck, to be exact. A man who I was told has 18 pick axes; which should tell you something about his tenacity, grit and commitment to busting through the hard stuff of life.
Speck has earned quite the reputation. He works like a mule and his plainspoken– often gruff–words can “kick” like a mule. He’ll hammer you with the bitter truth; truth which is one hundred percent valid but is hard for some people to accept. Namely, those that find it convenient to hide behind lies and half-truths. For many in this town he’s become the voice for the voiceless, those who dare not speak for one reason or another.
7:59 a.m.: I found Lloyd splitting firewood out back of his home set into the hillside along Lake Superior.
Built like a fireplug, he was fit and muscular for a man entering his 70s.
“Getting ready for winter?” I initiated.
Speck turned, wiped his brow and set his long-handled ax against a stack of freshly split wood.
Before he could respond, I introduced myself, “Name’s, Friday. I’m a cop looking into the dealings of local government.”
“Well ya got the right word,” he quipped.
“What’s that?”
“ Dealings! . . . That’s pretty much the way things are finagled when it comes to our county administrator and commissioners,” he elaborated.
“How so?”
“Let’s just say the administrator and majority of commissioners know which side their bread is buttered on,” Speck scoffed as he launched a curl of loose bark into the air with the toe of his weathered boot.
It was obvious he was a man who doesn’t mince his words.
“So what can you tell me,” I inquired?
“Lots!”
Speck told me he had been clipping newspaper articles ever since 2002, served a term on the local Planning and Zoning Board and once lost a bid in a run for county commissioner.
I asked him why he decided to throw his name in the hat?
He said he “wanted to shake up county leadership with someone new. Someone who would represent the local people born and raised here.”
It was clear he would have brought a necessary perspective to the board.
We spent the rest of the morning sifting through notes and newspaper articles Speck had collected over the past 16 years.
12:02 p.m.: “In a community that prides itself on creativity and color, this man epitomized both . . . they don’t make them like this anymore,” I thought to myself as I angled up his driveway toward town . . . my first pieces to the puzzle in the box.
Dum- da- dum- dum- DAH!
(Stay tuned for the closing episode to appear in the December 29th issue.)
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics.
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