ROCKFORD - The race for the 34th
district state senate seat is getting pretty heated. The ads have had a negative tinge to them for
a while, but now republican Frank Gambino is calling out democrat Steve
Stadelman for an advertisement he began running last week. Gambino says his opponent isn't telling the
whole truth, but Stadelman says the truth's out there.
The commercial
labels Gambino as a "cheater." It starts
out by saying, "Frank Gambino says we
need businessmen like him in
Gambino isn't
taking the accusation that he's being called a "cheater" lightly. He says that the issue was handled properly
"We had no
fines levied against us, we had no accusations of illegal activity," said Gambino.
"You know we had
nothing that suggested that we had done anything in the way of impropriety."
Stadelman says he
sees it differently. He says records
from the Illinois Department of Labor showed violations of labor law.
"This wasn't a
mistake or just happened," said Stadelman.
"One of the
employees filed a complaint, which launched an investigation. After the investigation, the Department of
Labor found that he owed these two women thousands of dollars in back
pay."
Gambino says one of
the women listed in the complaint still works for him. Fran Watson answers phones in Gambino's main
office in
"When I first
saw it, I knew it was me, I mean I knew I was one of the two women, and I'm
like this happened a long time ago and it was taken care of immediately," said
Watson. "I didn't even know about it
till I got the check."
But regardless of
how the situation was resolved, Stadelman says the illegal activity happened
and he believes the public should know about it.
"If he wants
to run on the basis that people should send him to
Gambino has
requested that Stadelman remove the ad from airwaves and issue an apology. Stadelman says that's not happening and he
stands by his words.
