Posted by Barton Lorimor

From Greg Hinz…

Gov. Pat Quinn has launched a major behind-the-scenes effort to revive long-grounded plans to build a third metropolitan Chicago airport in far south suburban Peotone.

In recent weeks, both the governor’s budget director, David Vaught, and his operations chief, Jack Lavin, have held meetings at the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago with Will County officials, key legislators and emissaries from the office of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Chicago — all of whom hold widely divergent views on what should be built and who should be in charge.

On Wednesday, the governor himself met privately with Will County Executive Larry Walsh, who credited Mr. Quinn with doing “probably more to bring the parties together than any governor before him.”

Why now? Could Quinn be after Jackson’s support for the upcoming? The Will County Board chairman hopes not…

Will County Board chairman Jim Moustis said the county has to protect itself from any pre-election, politically motivated decisions about the proposed third major airport. […]

In the past, the county board battled with U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2nd), of Chicago, over control of the airport, which would be built on about 5,000 acres near Peotone.

Though the debate has died down during the economic recession, Moustis (R-Frankfort Township) said Thursday at the board’s executive committee meeting that he feared airport maneuvering may be happening behind the scenes. That could prompt Gov. Pat Quinn, who is in a close re-election race with state Sen. Bill Brady, to make a “knee-jerk” decision, Moustis said.

“I think he would like to make a statement, but it would be premature,” he said of Quinn.

When contacted for a reaction to Moustis’ comments, Quinn’s budget spokeswoman Kelly Kraft said that a south suburban airport is one of the governor’s “top priorities,” and the airport could create “an estimated 15,000 jobs.”

Another possible motive for the delay was Jackson Jr.’s potential involvement with Rod Blagojevich’s trial. It does seem ironic that these talks are begun now that the first trial is over.

Speaking of Blagojevich, ABC-7’s investigative team has dug up a couple stories regarding the ex-governor. The more recent being about FBI officials being caught-off guard when a bunch of Blagojevich’s old legal files turned up at an auction…

On that day in December 2008 that former governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested, the FBI went through his Northwest Side campaign office and carried out records. But the Friends of Blagojevich committee had been boxing up and storing records for years in an Arlington Heights storage facility.

When the campaign could no longer pay for storage, the company held an auction.

The storage manager tells the I-Team that about 30 buyers purchased boxes of Blagojevich records and memorabilia a few weeks ago, including a Northwestern professor and a south suburban tow truck company operator.

FBI spokesman Ross Rice says they “did not know” about the stored Blagojevich records until the auction was “publicized in the news.”

Whoops.

And earlier this week, the team put the spotlight on one of the files in the storage facility sold at auction. This one was about the 2002 Blagojevich campaign trying to find a way for the then-candidate’s name more memorable…

If “you can’t say my last name” Blagojevich was to tell black audiences, “just call me ‘B-Rod.’”

“It’s nuts, it’s crazy, it’s dumb. And, it’s insulting more than anything else, insulting,” said Prof. Robert Starks, Northeastern Illinois University. […]

The governor did command substantial black support during both elections. And he frequently played up his participation with the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the release of American prisoners of war in Serbia. “Plan B-Rod” called for Blagojevich to use that episode as the basis for helping “develop his ‘home-boy’ persona.” The message: “home boy brought soldiers back”.

“All he had to say was ‘I was Iwith Reverend Jackson when the soldiers came back from Serbia,’ that’s all he had to say. People know that. I mean, homeboy brought the soldiers back? Insane&.he didn’t bring them back. They brought them back. He was on the trip with them,” said Prof. Robert Starks, Northeastern Illinois University.

Other state news…

* Rising School Fees a Result of Illinois’ Late Payments

* Critics: Ill. lottery contract cloaked in secrecy

* Pantagraph: State schools should still race for improvement