Tom Weisner
Mayor of Aurora, Illinois
Incumbent
Assumed office  April 26, 2005
Preceded by	David Stover
Born	c. 1949
Political party	non-partisan
Spouse(s)	Marilyn (since c.1972)
Children	son Thaddeus and one foster son, Anthony
Alma mater	Aurora University
Occupation	Civil Service

Tom Weisner (c. 1949) is an American politician. He is the mayor of Aurora, Illinois, which is the second largest municipality in the state, behind Chicago. He won re-election 0n April 7, 2009. Prior to his election he worked for over eighteen years in high ranking positions in the city of Aurora and for five years as a volunteer in the Peace Corps.

He has been involved in several interstate new stories. In 2007, he was embroiled in an interstate advertising controversy when the Governor of Kentucky used video footage of the local casino taken on a visit to Aurora for his re-election campaign, which included a platform against gambling. In 2008, his city-wide wifi installation initiative was halted due to change in business strategy by the installing company. His decision-making skills again made headlines outside of Illinois when a Planned Parenthood clinic's permits became an issue.

Contents 1 Background 2 Campaign 3 Mayor 4 Criticism 4.1 Re-election 5 Notes

[edit] Background

Weisner is a native of Batavia, Illinois, but moved to Aurora thirty years before becoming a political candidate.^[1][2] He has one son and one foster son.^[2] As of April 2009, he and his wife Marilyn, who served on the Aurora Township Board from 1997–2001,^[1] had been married for 36 and a half years.^[3] His wife had also served on the Democratic Kane County Board. Weisner earned his bachelor's degree from Aurora University in organizational management.^[4]

Prior to becoming an Aurora city employee in 1986, Weisner worked in the private sector and spent five years in the Solomon Islands, where he gave medical services and other assistance to natives with the Peace Corps and International Human Assistance Program.^[1] He and his wife were stationed in rain forests on the Island of Guadalcanal.^[5][6]

Weisner had held several department head positions in Aurora since beginning his first position as Emergency Service Coordinator in January 1986.^[1] By fall 1987, Weisner had become the Aurora Department of Motor Vehicles Superintendent.^[7] He later served as the Aurora Director of Equipment Services and was subsequently appointed Aurora Director of Public Property in a 1991 city hall reorganization.^[8][9] In 1999, he was appointed Aurora's Director of Community Services and Organizational Development, which was his last position before running for public office.^[1] He resigned from this position in February 2004 during the city's water contamination crisis.^[10] The city's residents were under a boil water order at the time of his resignation.^[11] The order to boil drinking water contaminated with E. coli bacteria lasted for ten days.^[12]

As of the July 1, 2007 United States Census Bureau population estimates, Aurora had a population of 170,855, which ranked it as the 135th largest incorporated municipality in the United States and the second largest in the state of Illinois.^[13] It is located 35 miles (56.3 km) west of the Loop in Chicago.^[14]

[edit] Campaign

In November 2002, two-term incumbent David Stover announced he would not seek re-election. In May 2003, Weisner announced he would run for election in the February 22, 2005 municipal primary election.^[1] Weisner announced his candidacy for mayor almost two years before the election, in order to solidfy his base of support, which might have gone to other potential candidates if he waited.^[1] Eventually, a final field of five contested for the two spots on the ballot for the April 5, 2005 general election, but Weisner had endorsements from eight of the twelve city council members and a huge funding advantage.^[10][15]

In the first Aurora Mayoral race without an incumbent in twenty years, Democrat Weisner garnered 60% of the vote and Republican Richard Irvin finished second with 33% to advance to the general election.^[11] Irvin was the only African-American in the race.^[16] Weisner won eight of the city's 10 wards and nearly two-thirds of its precincts.^[17] When Obama visited Aurora on February 25th for his 10th town hall meeting after his 2004 United States Senate election in Illinois, he noted that as a Democrat he was inclined to support Weisner, but he made no endorsement.^[18] However, in the final days before the general election, Obama returned to endorse Weisner.^[19] The day after the election, the Chicago Tribune reported Weisner took 59% of the vote,^[20] and the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he took 68%.^[21] When the results were finally tabulated in Aurora, which spans four counties, the Tribune turned out to be correct.^[22] Weisner took the oath of office on April 26, 2005.^[23]

[edit] Mayor

During the first few weeks of his tenure as mayor, he made national news by considering passing an ordinance against untimely holiday decorations, when citizens complained of Christmas decorations abounding during the summer.^[24] At about the same time in June 2005, he was considering proposing a strict whistleblower protection ordinance in response to an alderman bribery scandal.^[25]

In July 2007, first-term Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher visited Weisner and took footage of the Hollywood Casino of Aurora. In August, when Fletcher's re-election ad campaign began airing on television in Kentucky, journalists began calling Weisner's office about the ads which used the footage as a backdrop for a message regarding the evils and temptations casinos bring into communities.^[26] The footage was included in the very first ads that Fletcher aired and the Kentucky press noted that Aurora City Hall was not pleased with the usage.^[27] One Kentucky journalist referred to the Aurora casino as the "unnamed villain" in Fletcher's anti-gambling ads.^[28]

One of Weisner's major initiatives was to make Aurora the first city in Illinois to construct a complete wireless Internet infrastructure.^[29] In January 2008 while it was in the middle of installing the city's wifi network, MetroFi switched from an advertising-based model to a subscription-based business model and suspended construction.^[30] MetroFi had also contracted to install a network for Naperville, Illinois and attempted to sell partially installed networks to both cities.^[31] In June 2008, Metrofi shut down all its wifi operations across the nation.^[32]

[edit] Criticism

He was also cited in The Washington Post in a controversy about the methods a Planned Parenthood clinic used to obtain permits.^[33][34] In October 2008, he co-authored a Chicago Tribune op-ed article against the Canadian National Railway plan to purchase the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway because he viewed the long-term traffic projections in the plan as substandard.^[35]

[edit] Re-election

In early March 2008, two Aurora City Council Aldermen announced their candidacies for Mayor.^[36] In May 2008, Weisner announced his intentions to run for re-election in the non-partisan February 24, 2009 primary election after the two challengers announced.^[37] In the shadow of the Rod Blagojevich corruption scandal, his campaign has since been criticized by his opponents for accepting contributions from businesses that the city awarded contracts to.^[38] However, he won re-election on April 7, 2009.^[39]

[edit] Notes

v • d • e Mayors of cities with populations of 100,000 in Illinois     Richard M. Daley (Chicago) Tom Weisner (Aurora) Larry Morrissey (Rockford) Arthur Schultz (Joliet) A. George Pradel (Naperville) Timothy Davlin (Springfield) Jim Ardis (Peoria) Ed Schock (Elgin)