Dear former Mayor Thomas Murawski,

Dear finally former Mayor Thomas J. Murawski,

In contemplating the best location on the Internet to drop this note to you, I felt it most appropriate to leave it behind here in my Midlothian Mystery container, especially considering our history with you playing the role of Mayor and mine being that of Citizen.  Many have felt some sort of mysterious relationship between you and I, which is why I added the label “The Mystery Between Me, Myself and Murawski.”

Perhaps some will believe I should have classified this as a J’Accuse type communication, but I cannot even begin to quantify the quantity of relief I have felt leaving my existence over the last 24 or so hours.  I also can certainly try to summarize just what your leadership…or perhaps lack thereof…has left those who still choose to remain loyal to building on the history and legacy of the Village of Midlothian, Illinois and then leave it here for the rest of history for others to formulate their own judgments.

Whether or not the long list of accolades and complimentary publications laying foundation for a positive memorializtion of your political legacy might actually fundamentally truthful on the surface, once the Murawski Muzzle is lifted and additional evidence is examined, there remains no hesitation in my mind you clearly and simple demonstrate what happens when a government body is permitted to run without interference, which is nothing short of outright deceit.

However, it is even more disturbing clear evidence of your intent to strategically dismantle the legal system here in Midlothian in order to further severe accountability of Village employee activities, which is especially evident with your total wipe-out of all legislated procedures to file formal complaint against any other Village employee except for a member of the Fire Department.  It is beyond insulting how the Fire Chief can be recalled from his position of employment, but your friend from your days of your youth cannot be touched…at least according to the book of laws you left behind…in complete disarray I might add and he shouldn’t have been given opportunity to secure yet another pension since his community policing skills and talents are nothing but garbage in and subsequently garbage out.  Just one of the many places you and your loyalists try to take credit for and yet this is the same police chief who is recorded as saying during a board meeting that he would not accept any anonymous complaints…which is contradictory to the principle of community policing.  Community policing is all about needing the facts and where to gather then evidence…its not about the name attached to the submission of evidence and/or concerns.  I could go on but this is my letter specifically to you, so I shall return to the topic at hand.

Proof of your consistent dereliction of duty has been present and known long before this last election and well before I ever moved to Midlothian.  And I want to personally assure you that the mess you have left us might continue to haunt our Village for years to come, but as I hope you can now see, Midlothian is not afraid of a few ghost sightings every now and again, perhaps in part from living so close to Bachelor Grove’s Cemetery, reputedly one of the most haunted cemeteries in the United States.

Your failed public and private attempts to literally criminalize my own efforts over the past few years to shore up our ordinance issues, clean up no at least a bent and broken, if not cracked and crooked police department (which you know I can, and have repeatedly, backed up such a statement with evidence filed all throughout this entire state of ours), while somehow casting some sort of Mysterious Murawski Media Muzzle spell to where even the media would not set foot into Village Hall unless it was insisted upon.  Wasn’t the packed room last night wonderful?  So different from past meetings, don’t you think?  I personally missed your farewell speech, but you certainly disappointed those who bet on the idea you were once again going to be absent…

Speaking of past meetings, I did listen to you play your blame game tactics regarding what you implied to be lack of interest by one Senator the day our Village honored a World War II vet while patting the back of another Senator.  Just so you know, I am still in pursuit of correcting such issues since it is not the fault of any individual representative in our nation for not signing these letters any greater than motivating Washington to pull together and set the process in place to get the job done and so far all parties I have contacted remain interested in following through to completion.  It was listening to you so fluidly poking disrespect towards one Senator for not submitting a thank you letter to a veteran while patting the back of another in the same public forum that really stunned me.  That was some daring you showed that evening!  Of course, perhaps it is no more bold and daring than the rest of your attempts to lay blame upon everyone’s shoulders but your own and reject the notion that you had anything to do with what we are facing.

Next, please do not ever again speak of me as a criminal either in public or private unless such evidence is made available.  I did not appreciate the open threats you spoke over an open phone line connecting your office and mine and the way technology and the laws are currently structured, there is probably still a record of our conversation being stored somewhere so any time you want to deny this yet again…be my guest.  I know the truth about that particular conversation and the truth is not something I typically fear standing upon, especially now.

Finally, you will also cease all attempts to suggest or state that some form of deficient mental health capacity present in my biological composition is the motive for my critique and that I should subsequently be dismissed.  It turns out that we share quite a few entries in our Rolodex’s (for example, Skokie, Chicago, Springfield…all my old stomping grounds!) and when you offer up some sort of mental health deficiency defense as reasonable explanation why any of my concerns should be immediately dismissed and ignored, that really sends challenging ripples through our state, our nation and the International community as well that are totally uncalled for an unnecessary.

I may forever be severely flawed in many, many ways, but when you started to leverage my flaws and foibles as a way to formalize and Teflon-coat your already established and well-recorded stonewalling tactics, it only served to produce a waterfall of your truest colors for everyone to see.  You seemed to like to play pretend with “people with issues” until they shut up and go away and it cost you your job.  You seemed to view “people with issues” as the problem, rather it being a part of your job description to recognize and address the individual issues facing the people that hired you to perform such a task.

Do not doubt for a moment that your voice will continue to carry and ignore my demands if you must, but such trash talk about myself, my friends, my family or even this town will only serve to sink you further to the bottom of any pile of resumes you submit yours to.

I’m not the only one who doesn’t like dealing with people such as yourself, who deploy such acrimonious and acidic tactics when governing and politicking.  “The Silent Customer” is a business philosophy that continues to escape your implementation abilities for whatever reason and you might want to look into the topic.  It is always tragic when a citizen feels so trapped by their government that the only recourse available to stop a politician from performing the invisible is through a strategy designed to paint some portrait of shame, frame it and then hang it on the walls of the Internet Gallery in hopes that someone might see beyond the paint on the canvas long enough to provide what a government representative cannot, or will not.

You repeatedly proved to me you do not know how to deal with even the slightly-noisy Customers let alone being unable to stay ahead of the various curves that can be thrown by the silent ones.  It was easier for you just to play pretend I didn’t exist and with this consistent and sometimes intimidating preference for playing pretend with me, you bet I made this choice to counter-act your voice with this strongly worded dose of reality to forever be left here within the virtual community.

So if you feel any level of regret or remorse whatsoever, then perhaps you will embrace the idea there is still room in Midlothian’s history books to record more next to your name than that of what we already have as provable fact…which doesn’t look good for you at all right now…but hey!  Look at how fast Midlothian was able to implement at least one change this Village desperately needed.  What was it…21%?

In the meantime, unless you have something clearly constructive to offer us, please do not attempt to inappropriately interfere with our clean-up process while we deal with the realities we have been left with as a result of your efforts, especially considering those you will still encounter as you pursue the task of providing yourself food and shelter without the help of Midlothian taxpayer dollars.  Please do not forget you still retain the title of “Midlothian Mayor” even with the addition of the word “former” before it.

In closing, last night was the first time in a long time I actually got enough sleep so I didn’t feel so worn out and tired the next day…despite the thunder and lightening.  Whether or not this tidbit of personal information is important to you, I suspect those I know who will also inspect this letter will be happy to hear the news.

May you find comfort in knowing a great many popular songs have been written in the key of F, including the ones composed with flats and sharps because that is the only grade I can publish to the public eye with a clear conscience in a letter addressed specifically to you.

I didn’t do anything to make you fail at your job with the Village, and no matter how hard you try to vilify my previous efforts or anyone else’s for that matter…

You failed all on your own accord.

Valerie

P.S.  By the way, the next time you chat with Daley, perhaps you might think about thanking him for leading the way and setting an example when it comes to community policing…? He’s really brought the program a long way from the early days when myself and others had to pay for flyers ourselves, let alone the process it took to get a cell phone for use during our daytime and nighttime strolls down Morse Avenue…I mean really!  Have you seen their ClearPath website yet?  It’s simply amazing what resources they offer the community to help keep the peace in a relatively peaceful manner and I am excited about having the opportunity to bring some of this knowledge finally to the surface here in Midlothian, especially a clear complaint/compliment connection between the Village and the rest of us.