Saturday, November 21, 2009 East Central Illinois

Central Illinois Gazette

County Ds and Rs hold their conventions

Posted by: Tom Kacich

Thursday, April 20, 2006 8:47 AM


There were no fireworks last night at either of the Champaign County political party conventions. County Republicans had a peaceful changing of the top guard with Jason Barickman succeeding Steve Hartman as party chairman. Democrats reelected Tony Fabri to a second term as party chairman. Both meetings took about an hour.

Neither party had a contest for chairmanship, a position that Republicans noted about a dozen times is one of the most thankless tasks in politics.

The new Republican team is Barickman as chairman, Greg Knott as vice chairman, Lisa Mettler as secretary and Brett Penick as treasurer. It was interesting to note that of the four, only Barickman had been an elected precinct committeeman as of last night. But the other three have now been nominated to serve as committeemen and will be formally elected to the position -- along with about 10 other people -- at the next meeting of the county GOP central committee.

The Republicans had a nice turnout at their meeting, held at the Jolly Roger Restaurant in Urbana, with 29 of the 41 elected precinct committeemen in attendance. (There are 117 precincts in Champaign County). Turnout undoubtedly was boosted by the fact that this was the last chance to formally thank Hartman for his service to the party ("I got more out of it then I put into it," he said modestly), and to hear some of the plans Barickman has.

About 26 of the 48 Democratic precinct committeemen attended the session at the Brookens Center where Fabri was reelected chair, along with the following officers: Al Klein as first vice chair, Gerrie Parr as second vice chair, Geraldo Rosales as vice chair for diversity, Gerrie Kirchner as vice chair for development and Jennifer Gentry as treasurer.

In accepting a second term as party chair, Fabri acknowledged his shortcomings, particularly his problem with returning phone calls and keeping party officials in the loop about information. "I got my butt kicked a little bit (in making phone calls to precinct committeemen)," he said. "Well deserved, I might add. I promise I will work on it."

Comments

Be the first to share your opinion!

Add a Comment

Create an account

I forgot my password