The last two weeks have been very bad for East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks.
First, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin endorsed Parks’ challenger Emeka Jackson-Hicks for mayor in the upcoming April 7 municipal elections.
Then the Illinois Supreme Court ruled 7-0 to kick Parks off the ballot as a mayoral candidate, for having insufficient signatures on his election petitions. Now Parks is forced to run as a write-in candidate.
And if a sitting mayor can’t collect enough signatures on his election petitions, then the chances of his receiving enough write-in votes to be re-elected are dismal at best.
But Parks swears that he is “planning on mounting a ferocious write-in campaign,” despite Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier’s description of Parks’ desire to remain on the ballot (after failing to collect a minimum of 136 signatures, as required by law) as “unprecedented, unworkable and contrary to law.”
Parks’ latest tactic is playing the race card; invoking the history of Selma and referring to the court system as the “oppressor” in his objection to the court’s decision.
That’s ironic, because Parks has, for the past eight years, had his lips seemingly Super-glued to the posteriors of Democratic Chairman Bob Sprague and St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern (both of whom are white) without complaint.
Now that things aren’t going his way, Parks has suddenly morphed into the reincarnation of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
But if “Alvin X” is honest, he will lose on April 7, because of his own arrogance and lack of accomplishments.
Parks lost Durbin’s support because he was remiss in his handling of ESL’s deadly nightclub scene a few years back, while opponent Councilwoman Emeka Jackson-Hicks was pro-active in reducing the late-night operations of East Boogie’s lethal nightclub scene.
Parks will lose because, on his watch, ESL lost its only hospital, held “groundbreakings” with no subsequent construction and talked about “life more abundantly” with nothing concrete to show, except the hiring of his own relatives in his administration.
Jackson-Hicks has pledged to make ESL more open to the business community, focus on fiscal accountability and transparency, restore city services, enhance neighborhood safety and create youth initiatives, all areas in which Parks has failed.
I believe that Jackson-Hicks and her ticket deserve an opportunity. Parks has worn out his welcome and is insulting the intelligence of voters with his sense of entitlement, arrogance and attempts to turn his monumental failure into a civil rights issue.
However, Jackson-Hicks supporters must not be lulled to sleep with the court decision. They must go to the polls in great numbers on April 7 and finish the job of evicting Mayor Parks and his family from City Hall.
The good news for Parks is that, when he does lose, I’m certain that his Belleville masters will reward his servitude with some position on their St. Clair County plantation. Masters always appreciate a good slave.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com; Twitter@JamesTIngram.
