The matrix published in Thursday's Belleville News-Democrat listed party

affiliations for Belleville candidates. Dean Hardt and I chose to run as independents because we felt that saying one is independent with a group of specific people was inappropriate and deceptive. The focus needs to be solely on finding solutions.

I purposefully chose not to recruit candidates to run in a party. Party domination is one of the problems we are faced with currently. The current party in power chairs all

committees, and its members are the only aldermen who have the mayor's ear.

Now a new party or coalition is being proposed. This is anything but independent.

The clear motive is to disagree with everything and try to embarrass the other side.

Accentuate the negative, ignore the positive and come up with no viable solutions.

As I said from the very beginning, this election should not be about pitting my eight

soldiers against your eight soldiers, all ready for battle. It should be about working to

obtain solutions. If you are concentrating more on making the other party look bad, you naturally are not devoting your best effort to solving the problem.

Phil Elmore

Alderman, Ward 7

Candidate for mayor

Belleville