04/15/2026
***Tonight, Freeport Township Supervisor Patrick Sellers, delivered his Annual Township meeting address. Below is a copy of his speech.***
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Patrick Sellers, Supervisor of Freeport Township — and tonight, as I have done year after year, I stand before you to give an honest account of where we are, how we have served you, and where I believe we must go from here. That is not merely a tradition. That is a covenant. It is the fundamental promise that every elected official makes to the people who entrust them with power.
I take that covenant seriously. And so I will not insult your intelligence tonight with half-truths, comfortable silence, or carefully worded statements designed to protect political relationships at the expense of your right to know.
Let me begin with what is good. In 2025, Freeport Township conducted all of its state-mandated services with excellence. Every program ran. Every eligible client was served. Our staff showed up — day after day — and did their jobs with professionalism and dedication. Not a single dollar of your hard-earned tax money was wasted on frivolity or excess. Our budget remains firmly in the black. We have been good stewards of the public trust, and I am proud of that record.
But pride in what we have done well does not give us permission to look away from what remains broken. And tonight, I am not here to simply celebrate accomplishments. I am here to tell you the truth — the whole truth — because that is what you deserve.
For as long as I have held this office, I have spoken openly and urgently about the deterioration of our neighborhoods. I have not done so to be dramatic. I have not done so to score political points. I have done so because I walk these streets. Because I talk to residents. Because I see, with my own eyes, what is happening to the community I was elected to serve.
I have raised concerns about dilapidated and abandoned properties that scar our blocks and invite criminal activity. I have spoken about illegal dumping that disrespects our neighborhoods and signals to residents that no one in power cares about the condition of their streets. I have warned about the creeping expansion of criminal enterprise — activity that was once largely confined east of the redline of West Street, but which has crossed further west with each passing year, following the path of least resistance, because too few people in positions of authority have been willing to confront it head-on.
I have made pleas. I have delivered proposals. I have put forward ideas, concerns, and concrete suggestions. And do you know what I received in return? Silence. Dismissal. My words were treated as unsubstantiated jargon — as if the evidence was not visible to anyone willing to open their eyes and look.
"The evidence is not hidden. It is on our streets, in our headlines, and in the grief of our families."
I have come to understand something about political culture: it is far more comfortable to maintain the illusion of peace than to do the hard, unglamorous work of confronting disorder. It is easier to host ribbon cuttings than to shut down drug corners. It is easier to attend award ceremonies than to demand accountability for the conditions our most vulnerable residents endure every single day.
My voice has been an unwelcome one in certain circles. But I would rather be unwelcome and honest than welcomed and complicit.
Some of my colleagues have worked very hard to convince this community — and perhaps themselves — that we do not have a serious problem. They operate on the belief that what is not spoken aloud does not exist. That out of sight truly means out of mind. That the optics of progress matter more than the reality of suffering.
I reject that belief entirely. And tonight, I want to name — plainly and without apology — the realities that too many people in this city would prefer to whisper about rather than confront:
When youth are being shot and killed in our streets — there is a problem.
When illegal drugs are sold openly in our neighborhoods, in plain sight, without shame — there is a problem.
When illegal fi****ms are discovered at an Airbnb in one of our more prominent neighborhoods — weapons that had no business being there — there is a problem.
When Homeland Security, the FBI, the IRS, and local law enforcement conduct coordinated raids in our communities — and residents are left to piece together the story from rumor and speculation because no one in authority will speak plainly — there is a problem.
When a 12-year-old child takes his own life — and the public response is little more than a murmur, a moment of quiet, and then silence — there is a problem.
Each one of those realities represents a failure. Not a failure of any single person, but a collective failure — a failure of systems, of priorities, of will. And they demand not silence, but sustained, courageous action.
A 12-year-old child. Twelve years old. If that does not move us — all of us — to ask harder questions, to demand better answers, and to insist on real change, then I am not sure what will. The absence of public outcry in the wake of that tragedy is itself a symptom of the numbness that sets in when a community has been failed for too long.
"When a community stops crying out, it is not because the pain is gone — it is because hope has been deferred one too many times."
We cannot allow hope to die in this city. Not while I hold this office. Not on my watch.
I am fully aware of what my candor costs me. I know that these remarks will be characterized — by some — as pessimistic, as divisive, as unhelpful. I know that I will be called an agitator. I know that certain invitations will not be extended to me, that certain conversations will go quiet when I enter the room, and that my political standing among the comfortable class will suffer for it.
Let me be absolutely clear: I am at peace with every one of those consequences.
I did not run for this office to be popular. I did not run to be comfortable. I did not run so that I could be included in the right social circles or protect my political future. I ran because I believed — and I still believe — that this community deserves a representative who will tell them the truth, advocate relentlessly on their behalf, and refuse to be domesticated by the expectations of political conformity.
There is a concept in politics called the status quo — the idea that things are as they are, and maintaining that stability is itself a form of governance. I have no quarrel with stability when stability means safety and flourishing. But when the status quo means that children are dying, that drugs flow freely, that families live in fear, and that an entire generation grows up believing that no one in power sees them or cares — then the status quo is not neutral.
The status quo is a choice. And it is the wrong choice.
I will never silence my voice to preserve a seat at that table. Not when silence could mean the difference between life and death for the people I was duly elected to serve. Not now. Not ever.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would not stand before you year after year — raising alarms, absorbing criticism, pressing on — if I did not believe, in my bones, that things can be different. That this community has the capacity for something far better than what we have settled for.
They say that the darkest hour comes just before the dawn. I believe that. We are in a dark hour — let us not pretend otherwise. But darkness is not permanent. It is not destiny. It is a condition that yields, eventually, to those who refuse to stop fighting for the light.
The power to change Freeport is not in Springfield. It is not in Washington. It is not in the hands of some distant authority waiting to rescue us. It is here. It is in this room. It is in the hands, the voices, and the votes of the people of this community.
That power was given to us — by our Creator, by our history, by every generation that sacrificed so that we could sit in rooms like this one and speak freely. And through the institution of democracy, we entrust that power to the people we elect — with the expectation, the demand, that they will use it faithfully and courageously.
Hold us to that standard. Hold me to that standard. Demand honesty. Demand action. Demand leaders who will look you in the eye and tell you the truth even when the truth is hard — and then roll up their sleeves and get to work changing it.
I remain committed to that work. I remain committed to you. And I will not stop until the dawn we are waiting for finally arrives.
"The power to change our community belongs to us. Let us use it — together."
Thank you. God bless you all — and God bless this community we are all fighting to protect.
— Patrick Sellers, Supervisor, Freeport Township | Annual Address 2026 —
