Learning about the Mayoral Candidates: Marc Tiritilli

Written by WZND Newsroom on March 12, 2021

NORMAL, Ill.- Marc Tiritilli said he is a man who does not give up. Despite his defeat in the mayoral race in 2017, he is back with his head held high.

Tiritilli is running against Mayor Chris Koos in the election this April.

One problem Tiritilli said he hopes to fix is the overwhelming debt in Normal, he explains that Normal has extremely high interest loans.

“We have spent more in interest than we have on the roads, because of borrowing. The $100 million that was borrowed for Uptown will end up costing $150 million,” said Tiritilli.

Tiritilli said the more he dug in, the more he realized this debt accumulation is due to a large coordinated effort that most people were unaware of the scope of the plans, the ramifications and the cost.

“So when I was talking to people, they’d call and say, ‘Yeah, do you see what’s going on in Uptown?’ And I would explain, ‘Do you understand that we are a $100 million in debt?’ They were in shock, they had no idea that these things had been going on. At that point I looked around and nobody was stepping up, Mayor Koos was going to run unchallenged, again. And I thought, ‘Well, somebody needs to give a counter point at least, and if nobody else will then I will. That’s how I got into the race.”

Tiritilli said having gone through an academic track and understanding the importance of education gives him an understanding to how detrimental incentive packages, offered over the years for Uptown and other manufacturers, have been on Unit 5. Tiritilli said they’re starting to see the effects of borrowing twice over the last few years.

“They’re running deficits right now and part of it is because their revenues have been taken by the town and used to give away to developers and I don’t think that is right,” said Tiritilli. “We have a strong manufacturing base, well-organized talented labor pool and unfortunately I don’t think people have taken that into account in a lot of negotiations for some of these incentive packages. I think they’ve sold themselves short, they haven’t had the self-respect or self-confidence to stand up and say, ‘We have a lot to offer. We don’t need to be fawning all over you, we can offer you great talent and resources to make your business a success and we don’t have to do it at the expense of tax incentives that short change the schools.’ I want to take a different approach to our incentive packages because of all the great things we have to offer in Normal. ”

Tiritilli said he wants to address infrastructure, he frequently posts on social media of roads in poor condition.

“Take a look at the priorities and where we are putting our money, it is wrong to put more into debt payments than it is into our roads,” said Tiritilli. “We do have a lot of money we are taking from the community and I think we need to spend it better.”

COVID has proven to be a very important issue nation-wide, Tiritilli plans to help however he can.

“Whatever decisions are made, I will involve local health officials, and I would do so with the full involvement of the community and the council according to the regular functioning of government,” said Tiritilli. “The community has done a wonderful job of stepping up and taking responsibility. Right now, we are still in emergency powers mode since last March, Mayor Koos has the power to unilaterally take any action he feel is necessary for health and safety, which sounds okay, but these are emergency powers that don’t operate in the normal scope of government and were meant to be used for a matter of hours and we’re going on 10 months now that we’ve been doing this.”

Tiritilli said executive orders are made by one person and fall in ambiguous territory.

“I would return us to the proper functioning of government that we abandoned back in March,” said Tiritilli.

Tiritilli said he wants to bring a message to the voters of Normal: “Local politics effects you more than anything else,” said Tiritilli. “Your voice matters tremendously, the last election was decided by only 11 votes out of over 6,000.”

Tiritilli first moved to Normal in 1997. During his 15-year career as an industrial electronics technician, he received his bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from ISU in 2003.

Marc taught for five years at Tremont High School. He has also taught physics at Bloomington High School and served as the technical director for the theatre program.

Currently, he manages the IDEA Center makerspace at Illinois Wesleyan University and teaches physics and astronomy. His teaching credentials include Illinois certification in all areas of math and science.

In addition to his careers in industrial technologies and teaching, Marc has been a Danvers village trustee and has volunteered as a firefighter for Danvers Fire and Rescue.

The municipal elections for the Town of Normal and City of Bloomington is on April 6.