Saturday, February 14, 2009

Justin Stofferahn

Had the opportunity to talk with city council candidate Justin Stofferahn earlier this week. The main theme of his candidacy is bringing the student perspective to city council, esp. since the USG president, who apparently is a non-voting student representative to the council, never bothers to show up. His main issues are:

--city assistance for middle income families in weatherproofing their homes
--housing code violations online by location
--increased fines for additional noise violations at the same location
--city funded grant program to help students buy textbooks

Stofferahn got interested in running for city council after becoming friends with Joe Moore and hearing about his experiences while running for council. His interest in politics in general grew while interning for Sen. Durbin last summer and currently he's interning for Rep John Bradley and serving as president of the College Democrats (who really need to update their website). He's a junior at SIUC but will stay in the area to serve out the 4 year term.

Upcoming events include a fund raising concert at the Big Muddy Independent Media Center, a forum on campus sponsored by the Students for Peace and Democracy (who need to update their website too, but not as badly as the Democrats) and forums/debates on March 23, sponsored by the AARP and March 24, by the Jackson County League of Women Voters (the Jackson County League of Men Voters being defunct since 1983).

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