This is a countdown of the top 10 stories of 2022 written by Cat Petersen and/or Kevin Woodard. These are stories in the sense of “stories we followed.” Each of these “stories” had multiple stories written about them and published on our web site.
Number 4. Sharon Chung
Democrat Sharon Chung announced her run for the 91st Illinois State House District seat on Feb. 4, 2022 stating, “Right now, we have a really exciting opportunity to have great representation for the Bloomington-Normal Community in Springfield. It’s something we were looking for many years, the way the districts were drawn.”
The 91st district for state house was redrawn as a result of the 2020 census. It now favors a Democrat being elected in what was a Republican district.
Chung, a member of the McLean County Board at the time, is a musician and music teacher. She stated early in her campaign that if elected she would focus on education and green initiatives.
IL Campaign Cash, a website managed by The Center for Illinois Politics, showed Chung had approximately $30,000 of cash on hand for her campaign in April leading all other candidates for the seat in fund raising.
Before Chung could really get her campaign rolling she was caught up in a kerfuffle in her role as a member of the county board.
At the May McLean County Justice Committee meeting, now former Sheriff Jon Sandage accused Chung of making conditions more dangerous inside the McLean County Jail. According to Sandage, Chung had been in contact with several inmates by both email and phone.
Sharon Chung Creates Danger For McLean County Correctional Officers
“She’s putting false information into these inmates’ heads, which creates tension in the facility. When you have inmates that are being told by a county board member that we are doing things that are illegal, they are going to rebel. When that happens, that puts our correctional officers in a dangerous position,” said Sandage.
Chung claims Sandage gave family members of inmates contact information for board members. She also said she considered representing inmates to be part of her job.
At the May county board meeting the matter flared up again. Board member Jim Soeldner brought up the recent confrontation involving Chung and Sandage.
After the meeting Soeldner told us, “I have been on the county board since 2008 and I don’t recall a time when a single county board member has spent so much time dealing with inmates. I know that the sheriff said her name was on a lot of emails between inmates and I’m not so sure that is the job of a county board member.”
Board member (at the time) Shayna Watchinski felt differently about the situation. She defended Chung during the meeting saying, “What I saw was the sheriff interrogating a county board member for doing what she was elected to do.” “Member Chung is willing to help all constituents,” Watchinski said.
At the same board meeting Chung was in the middle of another controversy when she seconded a questionable motion favoring unions who by the end of the month had donated $28,500 in contributions to her campaign. The board voted to postpone a request from Towanda Solar, LLC by Cypress Creek Renewables.
The problem was board members are instructed not to consider any information that isn’t first brought up at the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA). Postponing the decision did not allow any new information to be presented to the ZBA. The McLean County Board could have remanded the request back to the ZBA to allow this to happen but chose not to do so.
Cypress Creek Renewals wants to build a solar farm southwest of Bloomington. Some members of the board wanted to see local labor used on the project. However the ZBA did not include any stipulation regarding the use of local workers in the information they forwarded to council.
The idea of some members was to simply postpone the decision so discussions regarding the use of local labor could take place. But that was not the best process.
Later that month Chung announced she received an endorsement from Stand for Children Illinois. Stand for Children lauded Chung as an “education champion.”
According to Illinois Campaign Cash funding Chung’s war chest grew to $87,550 in May.
In June Chung won the Democrat primary defeating opponent Karla Bailey-Smith with 64% of the vote.
After the U. S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade Chung said she was sickened by the decision and that the state needs to act to fortify it’s laws permitting abortion.
Cities 92.9 made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to McLean County regarding emails between Chung and Sandage. In July we wrote about those emails.
Chung questioned the Sheriff’s ability to run the jail in several emails. She wrote to Smith, “I don’t know what to do going forward, I just hope that Mr. (Matt) Lane will be a better sheriff and that he can reverse some of this damage that Sandage has done in the past years. I’m just concerned what else Sandage will try to get away with in the last few months of his term.”
Lane was running for the Sherriff’s office at the time without opposition.
What we didn’t find were any emails from Chung to any inmates. We did find that Chung received email from an inmate. But it is important to note that Chung followed proper decorum responding to the email by writing to County Administrator Cassy Taylor.
The inmates time-release medication was being crushed by staff and removed from capsules before being administered to the inmate. Chung was concerned about the impact delivery of the meds in this manner might have on safety and/or effectiveness of the drug.
Taylor advised Chung that this is done for safety and security for any mental health med that can be opened or crushed due to previous situations with inmates stockpiling meds and abusing the drug or attempting suicide with the meds.
We began to focus on the general election face off between Chung and Republican Scott Preston in August. According to The Center for Illinois Politics Chung had $212,000 available for her campaign at that time.
On the campaign trail Chung celebrated Bloomington-Normal Pridefest with her children thanking The Bistro and Jan Lancaster for putting on such a fun and inclusive event. Chung attended a fundraiser in Chicago for Asian American Legislative members and candidates.
She also attended Illinois Democrat Day where she kicked the lineup off playing the National Anthem. And she hosted Governor JB Pritzker at a campaign stop in Franklin Park where after a short rally they knocked on neighborhood doors together.
An Illinois 91st House District debate between Chung and Preston was held at Illinois State University’s Bone Student Center in September. While answering a question on budget priorities Chung praised state government saying, “”We have now passed balanced budgets under Governor Pritzker. We have been paying down the debts on the bill debt log.”
Chung was clear on her position on abortion saying, “I am a woman. I am pro choice 100%. I support a woman’s right to choose unequivocally.” She was also clear on gun control expressing her belief that we need to figure out how to ban assault weapons.
In October we wrote a story about Chung blocking people on scocial media. Just under 10 voters told Cities they had been blocked by Sharon Chung including a candidate running for McLean County Board, Vicki Shultz. Shultz noticed a post from Sharon Chung about protecting women’s “health care.”
Schultz said they were discussing abortion funding availability when she said, “I thought Obamacare was suppose to make insurance affordable. And that’s when she (Chung) started insulting me that my campaign was under water and she blocked my further commenting.”
Our own Cat Petersen, as a resident in the 91st district, commenting on a public Facebook page, asked Chung, “If elected…will you as a representative reinstate the Parental Notification Act?” Petersen was blocked from further commenting.
In October Chung hired former socialist Normal Town Council candidate Alex Campbell to be her Campaign Manager. Campbell tweeted out that he prefers the name “comrade.” Comrade has a range of definitions like: “a fellow soldier or member of the armed services” or “a fellow socialist or communist (often as a form of address).”
In 2019 Alex was on the “One People” candidate slate along with other socialists like Jenn Carrillo and Joel Studebaker. Joel Studebaker used to be Chung’s campaign treasurer.
According to the “One People” website, “ONE People’s Campaign is committed to winning racial, gender, climate and economic justice by dismantling systems of oppression.
Joel Studebaker in a Twitter bio identifies as a “Socialist” and he tweeted out “4 years ago I worked with many Democrats who laughed at the attempts of leftist socialist movements to run candidates…while they were laughing we were organizing.”
On November 8th Chung won election to the Illinois State House representing the 91st district.
