It’s game on Thursday when members of the Champaign County Board gather for one of their regular meetings.
Or is it?
It is if board member Emily Rodriguez keeps her pledge to seek the ouster of board Chairwoman Samantha Carter.
The two women — both Democrats — have been at odds for a while, and Rodriguez said the time has come to put an end to “some of the craziness that has taken over our board.”
In her mind, that means Carter has to go.
Speaking at the Sept. 10 board meeting, Rodriguez announced she plans to propose a formal motion to remove Carter.
“Tonight, I will not make that motion because (Carter) is not here to speak to it. But I want everyone to know of my intention to raise the vote to remove Samantha Carter as county board chair next meeting and every meeting after that until we see some sort of a change,” Rodriguez said.
In response, Carter said she intends to “plead my case” and asserted Rodriguez and her supporters are motivated by disagreements over policy issues.
“Anyone not in agreement with their circus acts, they want out,” she said.
This latest turn of events reveals the depth of the enmity among board factions. But the undisguised internal discord is much less about partisan politics — super-majority Democrats against irrelevant Republicans — than it is about the D’s circular firing squad.
Carter is the second Democrat to be targeted. County Auditor George Danos is on the hit list of some fellow Democrats who are asking voters to abolish the auditor’s office in the November election.
Although at odds on other issues, Carter and Danos angered Rodriguez when they made inquiries about the location of her residence after hearing rumors Rodriguez does not reside in her board district.
Carter countered that state law requires board members to live within their districts and considered it her duty as the board’s leader to inquire when the issue came up.
She said Rodriguez’s removal motion “disappointing” but insisted that “if the board wants to move in a more positive light, they’ll stick with me.”
Rodriguez charged during a July board meeting that Carter and Danos invaded her privacy by checking into the location of her residence and suggested they were motivated by anti-Hispanic bias.
She specifically characterized Danos as a “White supremacist” who was engaging in “dog-whistle Xenophobia.”
Since then, Rodriguez said she has received continued “questions about my residency.”
“There’s a lot of talk about this among our own party and among the board (members) and among constituents,” she said.
Rodriguez’s pledge escalates the political stakes on a board rife with personality conflicts.
At the meeting where Rodriguez spoke, board members took turns expressing their disdain for each other. The exchange drove home the oft-stated reality that the personal is political, to the point that it was suggested the board needed to hire a parliamentarian to maintain order.
It’s unclear if the unpleasantness is driving turnover on the 22-member board. But both Democrats and Republicans have resigned or chosen not to run for re-election in November.
For instance, one Democratic board member, former Urbana schools Superintendent Don Owen, accepted an appointment to fill a vacant board seat earlier this year but quickly abandoned his previously announced plan to run for election.
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