FIRST WIN CL Central turned it on for major win when the game resumed Saturday against Alan Pawlicki (left) Grant / C1
August 31, 2014 • $1.50
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83 67 Complete forecast on page A12
Ryan Williams
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‘Apathy’ CANCER’S TRAGIC TOLL on voting in village COINCIDENCE OR CLUSTER?
n FRANKLIN BRANHAM
n KURT WEISENBERGER
n SUSAN KALASH
n SHELBY MAZZONE
Election data shows declining civic activity in Oakwood Hills
n PATRICK KANE
By JEFF ENGELHARDT jengelhardt@shawmedia.com
n MARION KANE
n JOHN STEPP
n KEN BETTS SR.
n JULIANNA MASS
n JUDY ROSZAK
For 13 plaintiffs, pollution lawsuits came too late By KEVIN CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com Sandy Wierschke was supposed to be dead six months after her brain cancer diagnosis. That was eight years ago. In July she held her first grandchild. Wierschke, one of the 33 plaintiffs in the McCullom Lake brain cancer lawsuits, has overcome tremendous odds – people diagnosed with deadly glioblastoma multiforme have a 3 percent chance of being alive five years after diagnosis. But other plaintiffs didn’t beat the odds. Some of them were dead long before their next of kin filed suit against Ringwood chemical manufacturer Rohm and Haas, blaming air and groundwater contamination for creating an alleged cancer cluster. Others died after joining the lawsuits, and some have died in the four-year legal limbo since the first case to go to trial was abruptly ended by a Philadelphia judge. That limbo officially ended last week when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to hear the company’s appeal of a court ruling granting plaintiff Joanne Branham a new trial. Branham’s lawsuit, and 12 others, are on the behalf of the deceased.
n FRANKLIN BRANHAM Joanne Branham met her future husband, Franklin, at the Dog n’ Suds in McHenry in 1959. He was 19, she was 17.
About this series “Coincidence or Cluster?” is the Northwest Herald’s ongoing investigation of the McCullom Lake brain cancer lawsuits. They married the following year, and in 1962 moved into a house in McCullom Lake, just down the street from where Joanne grew up. They had five children and outgrew it. Franklin in 1977 built them a new one with his bare hands, with the help of friends. The Branhams moved to Arizona in 1997, and the seizures began two years later. An MRI in May 2004 revealed that he had glioblastoma multiforme. Doctors operated to remove as much as they could, but only gave him six months to live. He barely made it one month. Just after two of his daughters arrived for a Father’s Day visit, he collapsed on his front porch and died on June 18 at age 63.
n KURT WEISENBERGER
ing homes. He founded his own building business, Kaw Construction, and worked on a side homebuilding venture with Franklin Branham and other local builders. He served a term as McCullom Lake’s village president in the late 1970s. Weisenberger was fixing a culvert in his yard when he felt a sting in his head and fell over. A good Samaritan stopped to help and called paramedics. Doctors concluded in 1998 that he had a brain tumor, but it was so deep that they could not biopsy or remove it without serious risk. After he suffered four seizures in January 2005, doctors diagnosed him with oligodendroglioma, a brain tumor so rare that only about one person in 300,000 gets it. Doctors gave Weisenberger two years to live after his 1998 diagnosis. He made it 15, but his health declined rapidly after emergency surgery last year to remove the tumor after it doubled in size. He died Oct. 11, 2013, at age 72, leaving behind a son, daughter, and seven grandchildren.
n JUDY WEISHEIT Frank Weisheit met and married his wife of 42 years, Judy, shortly after his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps. They lived in McCullom Lake for a while before buying a home in neighboring Ringwood, just west of the Rohm and Haas plant.
Weisenberger made a living out of build-
See McCULLOM, page A4
OAKWOOD HILLS – Those who filled the first few rows of the standing-room-only crowds at recent Oakwood Hills public hearings account for the total amount of people who cast a ballot at the last election. Like many municipalities throughout the country, numbers show Oakwood Hills residents have been much more reactive than proactive in civic participation. At the last election in April 2013, 11.4 percent of registered voters turned out to vote for village president and two trustee positions, only one of which had a candidate running. In that election, 183 voters of 1,602 registered cast a vote for trustee Paul Smith while all of those but one voted for the uncontested Melanie Funk as village president. It has been a consistent decline in the last decade for Oakwood Hills, where 36.7 percent of registered voters cast ballots in 2005, which featured a contested village presidential race and five people running for four trustee positions. Mike Riley, a resident of 35 years and an active protester of the proposed power plant that has stirred recent activ-
ism, said the declining interest and awareness in local government had been noticeable. “Shame on us as residents and shame on me for being so complacent,” Riley said. “Complacency is a killer ... and we’re reaping the results of our attitudes.” Riley said the residential unrest and call for change in leadership is similar to 2005 when a group called Concerned Citizens of Oakwood Hills came together and produced candidates to fight against annexing land west of Valley View Road and constructing a sewer plant on the same parcel of land now targeted for the proposed power plant. The group successfully placed a new president and three new trustees, including future village president John Theiss. Riley, who was active in that opposition group as well, said residents talked about staying active and vigilant but once the proposals were defeated everyone fell back into normal routines. He said he fears the same could happen once a resolution is reached in the power plant issue. “ T h e s a m e s e n t iments were stated the last time around but
See VOTING, page A10
Beyond governor race, big stakes in Illinois vote By SARA BURNETT The Associated Press CHICAGO – Anyone in Illinois who’s turned on a TV in recent weeks knows the race for governor is shaping up as a no-holds-barred, no-expenses-spared slugfest. While the contest between Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn and Republican businessman Bruce Rauner could be one of the hardest fought and closely
watched races in the nation, there’s plenty more at stake up and down the Nov. 4 ballot. As the campaign heats up after Labor Day, here are five things to watch for as the election nears:
WILL GOP LEAVE DEMS RED-FACED? National Republicans see Illinois and a vulnerable Quinn as a prime opportunity to pick up a governorship in one of the Midwest’s
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last remaining Democratic strongholds. The added bonus, they say, is that winning the top job in Barack Obama’s home state would send a strong message that voters are rejecting Democrats’ agenda. Both parties and their allies are funneling millions into the race, as Democrats try to paint Rauner as an out-oftouch multimillionaire and Republicans blame Quinn for Illinois’ lagging economy and ongoing political
controversies.
BATTLEGROUND COOK COUNTY Both sides said Cook County will be the key battleground and are sending in foot soldiers to saturate Chicago and its inner suburbs to secure votes. Why? Look no further than the 2010 election. Quinn defeated Republican state Sen. Bill Brady by just under 32,000 votes, despite winning just four of Illinois’ 102 coun-
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ties. But he won big in Cook – taking 64 percent, or about 500,000 more votes than Brady. This time, Quinn knows he has to do as well or better. But Rauner is aggressively courting Cook County voters, including the area’s large minority populations.
DAIRY MAGNATE VS. SENATE’S NO. 2 U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the
See STATE, page A10
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