Last week, we profiled James Tinsley (District 11) and Steve Summers (District 9), Democrats running for two of the only contested seats in the Champaign County Board election. This week, we chatted with Astrid Berkson (District 9) and Lloyd Carter (District 11), both Democrats and long-time Board members.
We also reached out to Barbara A. Burch Rogers (Republican, District 11), but she did not respond to our request for an interview.
Astrid Berkson (District 9)
Astrid Berkson (District 9)Smile Politely: What are your connections to Champaign County?
Astrid Berkson: We’ve been here for 50 years. We raised our children here. They went to the public schools. My husband worked at the U of I until he retired. I worked there for eight years, and then I worked in an insurance until I retired. We like it, so we stayed here.
SP: What is your professional background?
Berkson: I have Bachelors in Mathematics from Mount Holyoke, a Masters in Mathematics from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. from Northwestern. I taught at Cal State Northridge for four years and then at the U of I for eight years. Then I worked for 20 years as an insurance broker.
SP: What leadership or political positions have you held?
Berkson: I have been on the County Board for five years. I have been active in numerous organizations: the Audubon Board, the Business Professional Women’s Club, Jobs With Justice, the Central Illinois Progressive Democrats of America, and the Central Committee of the Champaign County Democratic Party, to name a few.
SP: How would you describe your political philosophy?
Berkson: I’m a Democrat. I believe in giving the power to the people — all the people.
I believe in Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. Everyone used to know them: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. You don’t hear much about freedom from want or freedom from fear anymore. But a lot of people fall into want as the rich get richer every year. Freedom from want and fear are very good ideas, and I’d like to bring them back to America and in particular to this county.
SP: Why are you running for the Champaign County Board?
Berkson: We’ve made a good start on the county justice system. There is a task force on social justice that I chaired, which made a number of recommendations, and even in times of tight budgets, we’ve made progress. The County Board and Mental Health Board have devoted lots of money to the mentally ill in the justice system. Many have landed there because we no longer have many programs for mentally ill in this county. I want to remain on the County Board to continue working on those projects.
SP: What, in your view, are the most important decisions facing the Board in the coming months?
Berkson: One of most important decisions we will face in the coming months has to do with facilities. We have $150 million worth of buildings but no maintenance fund. Two big buildings in this county must be demolished because they are in such disrepair. And we must come fully into compliance with the ADA by 2018. We can’t put that off indefinitely. Everyone is complaining about how the buildings have deteriorated from lack of maintenance, but no one wants to pay for them. The County Board has to tackle this issue.
Also, the jail looks like a mosaic. It needs a lot of work. For a long time, we have had a number of people incarcerated in inhuman conditions, including in the downtown jail. It is infested, there is frost inside in the winter, and it is terribly hot in the summer. It has not been maintained. There are no single cells for men, and yet there are incarcerated people who need to be protected from other inmates or whom other inmates need to be protected from. The mentally ill are kept in booking rooms along the entrance. There are no rooms that will hold hospital beds, but we have inmates who need hospital beds. Nobody is going to support the proposal to spend $32 million to build a new jail. But we do need to do something to take care of the people who are now in really bad conditions.
And then there is our commitment to the nursing home. The poor and elderly have been a responsibility of the county since way back in English history. They were when I was a child, and they still should be. The nursing home is coming out with a positive cash flow, so we have to start doing a better job maintaining their facilities.
SP: What would you most like to see change about Champaign County?
Berkson: We love it here. We built our home here. But I would go back to the four freedoms. We see more and more people who don’t have freedom from want or freedom from fear. We see more violence. Kids are not as safe in the parks and the streets as our kids were when they were growing up. Kids go to school hungry, and that shouldn’t be. Children don’t have the proper clothes, and that shouldn’t be. Equal opportunity has to start in the schools. I would like to see this county bring back equal opportunity for children.
Lloyd Carter (District 11)
Lloyd Carter (District 11)Smile Politely: What are your connections to Champaign County?
Lloyd Carter: I have lived here for 60 years.
SP: What is your professional background?
Carter: I owned Carter Electric.
SP: What leadership or political positions have you held?
Carter: I have been on the Champaign County Board for 24 years. I have also served on many, many boards.
SP: How would you describe your political philosophy?
Carter: I’m a Democrat.
Photo Courtesy of the News-Gazette
SP: Why are you running for the Champaign County Board?
Carter: I’m running because they asked me to run. We have problems with the nursing home. My district wants me to get that straightened out. We have some racial problems that we need to look into. And we need more diversity on the boards in this community.
SP: What, in your view, are the most important decisions facing the Board in the coming months?
Carter: We’ve got to do something about the incarceration of young black men in our community. We’ve got to make sure that we keep the nursing home open because low-income people can’t afford to go to first-class nursing homes. We have to have one in this community that accepts low-income people. And we need to work more on diversity.
SP: What would you most like to see change about Champaign County?
Carter: Racism. It’s going to destroy America if we don’t do something about it.