He didn't say that.

You weren't listening.
I attended the NENA forum at Sherman last night. I recorded the candidates.

Bruce Trego got another ovation from the Morales groupies in the audience when he said, "I would have to say in somewhat response to Mr. Prigge, I don't believe that illegal immigration is the sole cause of all our problems."

At which time someone in the audience called out, "He didn't say that. You weren't listening."

You know what, that man in the audience was right. Prigge was talking about Elgin's reputation and how illegal aliens are part of that reputation. He went on to talk about overcrowded housing and gangs.

Here's Prigge's entire concluding comment. You decide.
I’m John Prigge. I was born upstairs. Fifty years ago.
I’ve been in customer service jobs since I was 14, from making the world’s worst ice cream cones at Mr. Burger on Dundee Avenue, to working with the phone company, and then for the last 19 years I’ve been self-employed as an auctioneer, running my own business. It’s just me.

Graduate of Elgin High. Bob Gilliam was my dean. And I say that because I am very proud to have had Bob as my dean.

What I’m talking about with my perspective of what the question was, “What are the first things you want to do?”, how can we NOT go after what I believe the number one problem is here in Elgin? How can that NOT be the first thing?

The first thing is that we have a bad reputation in this city. It’s not the worst. It’s savable. We’re off the road. We’re not in the ditch, but we’re off the road.

We have to deal with illegal aliens. We have to deal with overcrowded housing. We have to deal with the reality, and what’s worse, the PERCEPTION of our reputation.

And to get real specific, right here, four blocks away, on Halloween night there were two shootings. One kid lost his life at the corner of Douglas and Plum. Outside. It wasn’t a fight that was in a basement and it wasn’t a lovers’ quarrel that went horrible. It was a gang-related shooting on that night. That kid died on the corner--outside—by a gun.

Somebody went outside and shot and killed that kid and shot another person who walked to this hospital, or came to this hospital and got treatment.

We’ve had five murders in 20 months in this city. Four of them are gang related. This happened in our vaunted historic district. In NENA. This happened here.

I travel about 25,000 miles a year, and people always ask me about Elgin. I say, “Oh! We have beautiful homes.” I tell them about Chris Dansey’s house. I tell them about all the great houses.

My doctor used to live on the 900 block on Douglas, and everything else.

We have to change that. We have to change that. We have to go after that. That is going to open up so many opportunities. So many good feelings. Guess what? I firmly believe it’s going to raise the value and the quality of our lives. It’s going to raise the value of our homes. It’s going to take burdens off of other things that we’re paying the price for right now.

So, johnprigge.com, April 7th, four year. My family’s been in Elgin for about 80 years, up on the north end on Stewart Avenue. We need your votes. This is a great opportunity. We have four seats out of seven available. That’s massive. We can change the direction of this city with one day. Four votes of the seven positions open. Thank you. (end of Prigge speech)