Submitted on 3/30/09 by Pete Gorham:

 Marilyn Webb for Mayor

    As a number of our mayoral candidates have stated, Galesburg needs “new vision.” I agree. It is time to make bold and aggressive changes if we wish to become a vital city again, rather than a city whose goal is just
to survive. I think mayoral candidate Marilyn Webb most clearly represents a new vision for Galesburg.
    Marilyn Webb has recently moved here and is very positive about Galesburg; she is a professor at Knox College; she is a successful author of a book about dying, called “The Good Death”; she has been an editor of well-known magazines; and, she’s a woman.
    Marilyn Webb represents a “new vision” precisely because she is new to Galesburg and can see its good points and its potential in the clear way that a visitor can. How many times have visitors to Galesburg said, “What an amazing jewel this city is: the friendliness, the old houses, the brick streets, the trees, the history, the downtown, Knox College!” Marilyn Webb herself still makes similar positive comments like these
about the city of Galesburg.
    Marilyn Webb represents a “new vision” in part because she is a professor at Knox College, whose history and focus are devoted to “new vision.” The town of Galesburg is here because George Washington Gale had “new vision” and came here (from New York, incidentally, like Marilyn Webb) to found Knox College. Knox College and Galesburg have been brother and sister for over one-hundred-seventy years. It would
show “new vision” to have a mayor come from our sister, Knox College. The college community itself might feel more involved as well in helping to move the city of Galesburg forward. Knox College, where Marilyn Webb teaches, is one of America’s most venerable educational institutions. It is respected worldwide and its influence is global. The College has
attracted influential and prestigious commencement speakers like John Block, Brian Lamb, John Kenneth Galbraith, Bill Clinton, Ed Asner, Barack Obama, George Will, Madeline Albright, David Brinkley, Studs Terkel, Ted Koppel, Admiral William Crowe, Charles Percy, to name just a few.
    Marilyn Webb is an author. She has written an important book about “the new American search to reshape the end of life.” Anyone who has been a caregiver to the aged knows how badly America needs “new vision” in regard to the way we treat old people and the way we regard dying itself. Galesburg is now and has been for a long time a community of older people. I would like a mayor with “new vision” and sensitivity about “reshaping the end of life.” In addition, however, Marilyn Webb is equally concerned about the nourishing and the shaping of children, since she has four children of her own and five grandchildren. Marilyn Webb has had wide experience in business and in leadership positions. She has been the editor of major magazines and the founding director of the Journalism Department of Knox College. As such, she knows how to communicate and is experienced at working cooperatively
with others in order to achieve mutual goals, skills vitally needed in working with the city council, the city manager, and the citizens of Galesburg.
    Marilyn Webb is a woman. In one-hundred-seventy-two years, Galesburg has never had a woman mayor! What better way to show “new vision” than to elect Marilyn Webb.
    I believe that all of the candidates running for mayor love Galesburg. But in my opinion the candidate who sees most clearly the possibilities for what Galesburg can become, whose vision still sees the refreshing luster that only new eyes can see, is Marilyn Webb.

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