Why Nancy Thorner Is a Proud Liberty Leader
Recently, we asked some of our more active Liberty Leaders to let us know what they are up to and what has made them successful in their efforts to promote liberty around the State of Illinois.
by Brian Costin
Recently, we asked some of our more active Liberty Leaders to let us know what they are up to and what has made them successful in their efforts to promote liberty around the State of Illinois. If you would like to share your story please email me at bcostin@illinoispolicy.org.
Below is a Nancy Thorner’s story of why she is a Liberty Leader for the Illinois Policy Institute.
How and Why I Remain a Proud and Dedicated Liberty Leader
Nancy J. Thorner, Lake Bluff
I first became involved with the Illinois Policy Institute and eagerly signed on to become a citizen Liberty Leader, fervently believing in its stated mission of “free market principles and liberty-based public policy initiatives for a better Illinois” when Richard Lorenc was the Director Outreach prior to Brian Costin assuming the role in January of 2010.
The role of Liberty Leader was a perfect fit for me. Years before joining the Liberty Leader program, I had an insatiable inner drive to take stands on issues. I found I could no longer enjoy the luxury of sitting back and watching events unfold before me which were deemed intolerable to me as a citizen and to the public at large.
And write I did! Countless Letters to the Editor were submitted on a multitude of issues, and are still being published, in Chicagland newspapers including the “Trib Local;” the “Madison/St. Clair Record;” “Illinois Review;” “Champion News;” “GOPILLINOIS;” the “American Thinker;” “Freedom Pub” at the Heartland Institute; and my own local Pioneer Press publication, the “Lake Forester.”
As I became more involved with the Illinois Policy Institute’s Liberty Leader Program, I became interested in issues that were important to the Institute, such as education, health care, spotlighting government spending, addressing Illinois’s state pension system, its economic reform agenda to get Illinois back on track, and transparency or letting “the sunshine in.”
Letters written in empathy with the Illinois Policy Institute followed and can be noted by checking my blog: http://www.wordpress.com
In the last few months I’ve been concentrating much of my time and effort on what Rod Adams at his Atomic Insights blog has called a one woman’s crusade.
Countless letters have been written to state legislators, with very few responses back, indicating interest at the fate determined for Zion by Exelon Corporation when Zion was prematurely shut down in 1998 and kept closed until Zion Solutions was given the contract by Exelon to dismantle Zion in September of last year. With the acceleration of the price of electricity, my mission is to spread the word that Zion, with its potential 2100 MW’s of clean, cheap, and green energy, should be refurbished and restarted.
Perhaps my most important mission so far as a Liberty Leader is my continuing investigation into the Lake Forest School Districts #67 & #115. My interest in looking at transparency in my own local Lake Forest School Districts was sparked upon hearing about the Illinois Policy Institute’s “10-point Transparency Project.”
So far I have written two article about “the right for the pubic to know information,” using facts obtained after sifting through countless FOIA responses.
Posted at TribLocal are two articles with more to follow:
“Superintendent’s Harry Griffith’s lavish salary” and “Lake Forest School chief’s extravagant compensation exceeds governor”
Why do I keep writing as I do which consumes so much of my time? Not only do I find writing an enjoyable experience, finding pleasure as I do in the act of writing, but it also gives me a sense of accomplishment and the knowledge my written thoughts are perhaps making a positive
impact upon those who read them.
In regard to the Illinois Policy Institute, the organization is one that I can call my friend in many ways. As such I remain a proud and loyal member of the Illinois Policy Institute whenever duty calls.