During last year’s mayoral election, the Daily Egyptian Editorial Board recommended Cole for the position. We encouraged students and Carbondale residents alike to go to the polls and vote Cole because of his impressive planning and interest in the student body. Unlike Flanagan, he had a course of action for every idea. Flanagan, too, had good ideas, but Cole came with a written outline of how to apply them and seemed like someone who could get them all done.

We knew Cole was in touch with the students because he did things the students do. Cole was SIUC’s student body president a decade ago, when he studied political science and biological science here. Although he doesn’t drink, he frequented Carbondale bars and spoke with students while he was out. He also spoke freely with Daily Egyptian reporters and our editorial board. We were impressed by his ideas, his plan for their implementation and his down-to-earth approach in dealing with the student body.

On the night of the election, Cole’s victory party was held at the Copper Dragon. There Cole told the Daily Egyptian he was thrilled with the student’s participation in the election.

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“We focused on the student votes just like we did any other segment of the community, and they obviously felt strongly about supporting my candidacy,” he said.

Well, they felt strongly enough to give him the slight edge he needed to win. In fact, if it weren’t for Cole’s popularity at the student-dominated precincts, Flanagan would be our mayor, as she led in the non-student precincts by 70 votes.

After such a tight race between two qualified candidates, and after the hype we dished out in Cole’s favor, we are disappointed with some of the issues surrounding the Mayor and his refusal to address them.

We certainly understand that the mayor of any small town needs two jobs. Being the mayor is one of those jobs, but considering its low salary, any mayor would need another source of income.

Cole’s income came to a halt after he was fired from his newly appointed position as senior public service administrator for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services for Southern Illinois. Upon taking office, Gov. Rod Blagojevich fired Cole and 62 other former Gov. George Ryan’s late-term appointees. Blagojevich justified his action by saying he felt Ryan should not have had the power to appoint some employees to four-year terms before leaving office.

Upon the loss of his $82,000-a-year job, Cole told the Daily Egyptian he did not plan on taking legal action or even re-applying for the position. He said he did not see how re-applying would do any good and preferred to devote time to his mayoral campaign.

In mid-May Cole changed his mind and made an appeal to the Civil Service Commission to be re-instated to his former state job. He recently won the appeal and will return to the position.

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Despite his claim that he would not try to return to his job, we understand why the Mayor would want his job – and his hefty paycheck – back. But we do not understand why the Mayor refused to talk to our reporters and editors on numerous occasions.

Does he have something to hide?

In addition, our reasoning for recommending him – that he was down to earth and in touch with students’ needs – was proven wrong during a recent phone call to his office.

Through his administrative assistant – the closest we could get to Cole at City Hall -we invited the Mayor to come speak to us at an Editorial Board meeting. We were told the mayor only takes such requests in formal letter form.

Although we have not sent the letter and – unless he gets elected to the presidency – probably won’t, the invitation still stands.

We hope he accepts, returns to earth and provides answers for those who elected him.