State representative, other GOP candidates make pitches at Quincy Tea Party meeting

QUINCY — The two men running to replace Randy Frese in the Illinois House of Representatives spoke at a political forum sponsored by the Quincy Tea Party Tuesday night at Tower Pizza and Mexican.

Kyle Moore of Quincy and Eric Snellgrove of Beardstown each gave their pitches to the crowd of about 100 and answered questions. This was the first event where the two men had both spoken in a joint appearance, but there was no back-and-forth or any sort of debate.

Snellgrove, 36, is a member of the Cass County Board. He graduated from the University of South Alabama, and was a member of the Alabama National Guard for seven years, which included deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. He is a single parent with two pre-teen children.

He owns and operates Last Call Industrial, a pallet shop and sawmill equipment supplier in Beardstown and is running for a political office saying he’s “not a politician”.

“We have successfully raised zero money,” Snellgrove said. “So for people that care about fiscal conservatism … our efforts are put into saying hi to everybody, making sure everybody gets a good wave and a smile.

“And as crazy as our state has gotten, that’s what we need. We don’t need to be quiet. We don’t need status quo. We need to make sure that everybody is heard. That good church people are being heard. And politicians are doing what they say they’re going to do on the weekends during the week.

Snellgrove said he supported the New Illinois initiative that calls for a separation of Chicago from the rest of the state.

“If we have enough people that are willing to do the work, then there’s nothing wrong with forming another state,” he said. “Alabama didn’t always exist. My kids were born in Mobile, Alabama. Alabama’s chopped off of Georgia. And if you ask anybody from Alabama, especially a Lynard Skynard fan, they’ll say that was a good idea.”

He also said he was “for life” and “there can’t be an exception for abortion.”

If a doctor has to choose between one patient or the other on an operating table, that’s choosing between patients,” Snellgrove said. He can’t save both. And there’s a lot of mamas out there that would say ‘Save my kid before me’.”

During his intro, Moore said he was on the board for Adams County Right to Life.

Moore, a former Quincy alderman and Mayor, is currently the president of the Great River Economic Development Foundation. He also worked for his family business at one time, Moore’s Floors.

He talked about leading the effort to end the development of the hydropower plant and balancing city budgets before leaving city government with a $6 million surplus, or rainy day fund. He also touted helping ensure the Illinois Veteran’s Home would stay open after its Legionnaires outbreak.

Moore was asked why he didn’t stand up against the State of Illinois when the state began its attempt to lockdown citizens during the beginning of the Pandemic.

“I would respectfully disagree with that,” Moore said. “One of the things that we did was we gave Governor Pritzker the first plan to reopen our community. That was matching President Trump’s plan when he passed that down. We gave that plan to other communities so they could do that. We did that with input from our medical community, with our neighborhood organizations, and with stakeholders from throughout the community.

“When the Governor first proposed his reopen plan, I stood at the Elk’s Lodge and said that it was going to be detrimental to business, that it was going to close businesses down, and that it was going to completely hurt our economy in Quincy and Adams County. That was echoed throughout the different states and throughout the state.”

Moore said he supported the New Illinois effort, but said he had several questions about how it would be enacted as it is a federal issue and in the meantime “we certainly can show that downstate and Illinois has different values and different ways of life in Chicago.”

Also speaking at the event were Judge Amy Lannerd, who is running for Fourth District Appellate Court; Todd Eyler, running for Adams County State’s Attorney and Scott Graham, who is running for re-election as Adams County Coroner.

Several Republicans running for precinct committeeman spots also were given the opportunity to speak.

The Illinois primary is March 19.