While the national political public commentary continues to swirl like a hurricane, the climate in Kankakee County remains calm among leadership.

That fact was evident Monday when Unity Kankakee County, organized by county Treasurer Nick Africano, met for breakfast at Bradley’s Hoppy Pig restaurant.

“I think it’s important to reaffirm our commitment to each other,” said Africano in his welcoming statement to 34 local leaders. “We’re opponents at times, … but we’re not enemies.”

The Democrats and Republicans know each other, and they work together in public often for the betterment of the county, Africano said, who is the chairman of the Kankakee County Republican Party.

“That’s mostly everybody in this room,” he said.

Every elected Kankakee County government official was present, along with almost every mayor from each municipality, as well as a few county board members.

State Sen. Patrick Joyce, a Democrat, and state Rep. Jackie Haas, a Republican, were also in attendance.

Africano said the gathering was in the spirit of unity following the Sept. 10 killing of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.

Joyce said the unity shown in the county is simple, but when you get into global and national politics, it becomes a little more difficult.

“But if you look at this room, everyone’s talking together,” he said. “Communication is the key to most of what we have going on. And locally, we’re very, very good. … We have conversations, Republicans, Democrats, Black, white, brown. If you aren’t communicating, things get ramped up.”

Joyce said he doesn’t participate in social media, and if you have something that is making your blood boil, talk to that person. He went and knocked on the door of someone who called him out on social media when it was pointed out to him.

“You should have seen the look on their face, and they have never done that again,” he said. “I said, ‘Look, here’s my cellphone, call me.’ We need more of that. You know the national rhetoric, I don’t think it really is going to have that much of an impact on us because we do this right.”

Joyce added that he and Haas often talk about many issues.

“We might be on opposite sides of an issue, but we’re going to have a conversation,” he said. “... Politics is politics, but you gotta be civil.”

Haas also addressed the group and said she was preaching to the choir because “we do it right here in Kankakee County.”

“We have open lines of communication, right?” she said. “We’ve watched a few things over the past few months that have stirred things up. The most recent event seeing somebody lose their life because they spoke their mind, which can’t continue to happen. We saw legislators in Minnesota lose their lives for no reason at all, and that impacted us in the Illinois General Assembly, too.

“People were put on heightened awareness, and people can’t lose their lives for speaking their mind. And I think we’re here today because we’re all joining together to say, ‘Enough is enough.’

“And we’ve said numerous times, many of us sitting around this room, that we should be a role model for how things should be done across the state of Illinois, and I think we need to continue to lean in to that and be that role model for how things should happen, how people work together to get things done.”

Steve Hunter, a Democratic county board member and former Kankakee alderman, said Democrats and Republicans here have always worked together and supported one another.

“I’m proud to be a part of it,” he said.

Mike Cobbs, a 6th Ward Kankakee alderman and county Democratic Party chairman, said the gathering was very proactive.

“We get along,” he said. “We do understand that what we do here is in the best interests of our constituents. … We understand our differences, and we look at our similarities. We all want the best for our people. … We’re role models, and that’s what the evidence is here.”

County Board Chairman Matt Alexander-Hildebrand said it’s great when you get everyone from both sides in one room.

“You really see how the community is put together here,” he said. “We’re all one at the end of the day.”

Kankakee Mayor Chris Curtis said that unity on the local level has been that way for a long time.

“It just reaffirms that we can still do it, but it’s still very concerning what you see on the state level and the national level; it scares you a little bit,” he said. “And social media doesn’t help it.”