Public blisters, backs Geneva alderwoman over Facebook post

A Geneva City Council meeting Monday played out a bit like a tennis match: Those who supported 4th Ward Alderwoman Martha Paschke and those who didn’t. For almost an hour in a standing-room-only City Council chambers, there was no middle ground.

Last week, critics targeted Paschke after a post in a private Facebook group of 31 local businesses that supported President-elect Donald Trump was leaked to Awake Illinois. The Southern Poverty Law Center flagged the group in its Year in Hate & Extremism report in 2023.

Although Paschke was an administrator of Fox Valley Activists, a group described as “impassioned progressives,” she said last week that she did not create the list and did not post it, yet she was receiving obscene and threatening messages and phone calls.

An attorney also filed an ethics complaint against her with the city.

Geneva businessman Tom Matson called for an investigation and Paschke’s resignation.

“What’s happened recently is earth-shattering to us where we have a public representative who is using a list or being part of a group that’s producing a list that’s casting shame and shadow on conservative businesses,” Matson said.

“We can’t have this in our community,” Matson said. “It is our right to say what our beliefs are and not to have someone broadcast particular businesses and cause a pall over those businesses. If in fact what I know and have read is true, I am asking for Alderman Paschke to resign and to apologize to the public.”

Real estate mortgage banker and attorney Larry Bettag said Geneva officials should take what Paschke did seriously because of the way it reflects on the city.

“Not once in my 30 years of my practice have I ever cared. Not once have I asked anybody about their political viewpoints,” Bettag said.

Geneva resident Tricia Miller defended Paschke, saying Awake Illinois also targeted librarians at the Downers Grove Public Library over a drag queen bingo event, even mailing them a bullet in an envelope.

“It was done in their name in their movement’s mission,” Miller said of Awake Illinois.

Kylie Peters, a member of Fox Valley Activists, said an anonymous person posted the business list and that it did not call for a boycott of those businesses.

“The list could be used by conservatives as a list of people who they do want to patronize. And in fact, they have created PublicSquare, which is their own app to do that very thing,” Peters said. “If a business publicly makes a statement that is political, that is going to have consequences both positive and negative – and that is just the game that you play when you make a political statement.”

Peters said Fox Valley Activists is a private group with 1,800 members. The Awake Illinois group is a public group with 26,000 members.

“They have amplified this list. This list would have been seen by very few people and now we all have seen it because they shared it,” Peters said.

Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns read aloud a review from the city’s appointed ethics adviser, attorney Charles Radovich, about Naperville attorney Lynda Segneri’s ethics complaint against Paschke.

Radovich determined Segneri’s letter was not an ethics complaint because it did not allege a violation of either a prohibited political activity or gift ban activity.

“I am well aware that the impact of these past seven days will not soon vanish,” Burns said. “For there is no balm, supplement or magic elixir that will soothe the sting we’ve all experienced.”

Burns also said the past seven days can provide the impetus toward achieving a core principle of the 2030 Strategic Plan, which is to cultivate a more welcoming community “where diversity of perspectives, thoughts and expressions are welcomed and discussed respectfully.”

“I know that our task ahead will not be easy,” Burns said. “Yet, as a resident of Geneva for more than 50 years, I am confident we will succeed because we’ve always succeeded in overcoming challenges.”