Chris Bailey's editorial on the Figueroa Mission

Usually impeccably attired and old enough to have a son in the U.S. military, Elgin City Councilman Juan Figueroa wouldn’t be my first choice to conduct a covert reconnaissance mission at a young adult night club.

But infiltrate The Mission in downtown Elgin he did, and what he reported to the city council afterward might have been the debriefing that finally ended the odd harassment of an entertainment milieu that seems to have been following the rules all along. (source: Daily Herald 4/23/06)

Right on. David Shelton is a V.I.P., and we've been treating him like some kind of jerk. If Elgin is serious about a 24-hour downtown, Mr. Shelton must be respected and encouraged. Nightlife is one industry that Elgin can actually dominate. This is where places like St. Charles, Geneva or South Elgin cannot compete. If we get nightlife, we'll get restaurants, corner stores, shops, and so on. We can't clamp down on one thing and expect that it doesn't affect other things. A city is a fabric, an ecosystem. We have to think in terms of ecology.

“I’m not sure the city wants to be associated with something like that,” said Bob Gilliam back in 2002, when a couple of constituents complained about some slightly risque pictures on a Web site advertising The Mission. (source: Daily Herald 4/23/06)

I'm sorry, Bob, the city has no right to tell women how to dress. Terms like "scantily-clad" or "risque" really have no place in City Hall. They're always used to describe women, and are by their nature sexist. Women have the right to dress as they see fit. Let us not impose a Taliban code of attire upon them. Elgin is an American city not a mullah-cracy.

I hope that this recent development does signal the end of Taliban rule. Perhaps now we can seriously talk about a revival of a popular music tradition in Elgin.