12 Comments - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 6:08 am: Nice to hear Sen Meeks is still committed to education reform and has a means to pressure the issue next year. Our industrial age education structure dulls students into repetition and subserviance, but our future in a competitive world demands flexible creativity and self-initiative if we want to maintain our quality of life. Perhaps our state should offer sliding-scale vouchers, while raising learning standards, as a way to offer more freedom and choices for everyone without sacrificing fairness or quality for anyone. - girl friday - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 6:15 am: Ceja should be FIRED ASAP. In addition, the two other Illinois State Police officers (Lt. Col. Diane Carper and Capt. Steven Fermon) who retaliated against their subordinate should be fired also ASAP. State law requires the immediate dismissal of policy-making officials who violate a state employee’s civil rights. Also, what is the status of the lawsuit that the state police has against the Governor for changing the vacation policy? - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 6:29 am: Nice to hear Sen Meeks is still fully committed to education reform and retains a means to pressure change next year. Our industrial age education system dulls students into repetition and subserviance needed for factory work, when our globally competitive future demands flexible creativity and self-initiative if we want to maintain our quality of life. Perhaps our state should offer sliding-scale vouchers, while raising learning standards, to encourage freedom and more choices for everyone without sacrificing fairness or quality for anyone. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 6:31 am: The only area of the entire state to receive cuts, excuse me - downsizing, is Southern Illinois. The people who can least help themselves are now getting their dose of “Blagoyevich medicine”. But he has a campaign to pay for and most of the soon-to-be-displaced-disabled people in Southern Illinois don’t vote so Why would Rod care about them? November 7 - Tessa - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 7:36 am: The parents of the disabled are right to be concerned. There isn’t any money in the DHS budget for new community placements this year and nothing is in place should a placement fail. Where do they go if the bed is gone? There are always persons with disabilities in need of assistance waiting for help, so where do they go, if beds are being cut? I’m not against community placement, if the person is ready to go, but there has to be something in place if something goes wrong. And not everyone is ready for community placement. I’ve worked both sides. There’s good and bad to both. Guardians should have the final say. Not the state and not some advocacy group, and not some audit. If they looked closer, they’d probably see the high cost is due to the amount of overtime spent because the DHS never filled the positions after early retirement and they’re still paying tons of overtime to burnt out staff. Upwards of 17% and 20+% at some centers a pay period during the course of this year. It’s not a pretty picture, when you’re mandated to work every day and you have kids at home and huge amounts of stress at work, but you love your job. DHS is not well managed on this side, but they are very much leaning towards community placement. - Pat Hickey - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 8:39 am: Reference the various Clout Contremps: Didn’t Clout -netter Patrick Fitzgerald have a Largemouth Rove hooked and boated? But, dang if that old fish didn’t get back in the pond. When will our society have a ‘cloutless’ world? Oh, when??????? I can’t wait for a day when I can go to Stewie the Bust-out, after he’s topping off on a Mickey’s Big Mouth 40 oz.er and rubbing the blood off the bridge of his nose with his MegaDeath T-shirt, in front of Fat Tommie’s Hot Dogs, for an audience to get my son a City Job. Then, and only then, will we be a truly free and open society. When a man as Clout-Free as Stewie can get the ear of those who shadow the Halls of Power, we will have the world dreamed of by Progressive Americans. Oh Happy Day! - zinged again - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 8:52 am: I am looking for direction/ thoughts on the race in the 17th - now that the Dem’s have their candidate and he has been at it for 2-weeks. I see it as two extremely weak candidates and that the status-quo will hold (Democrat retention), unless Zinga has a blockbuster FEC report come June 30 which seems quite unlikely as she has reportedly just cracked $100,000 for the 75-day period April 1 - June 15+/-. - Pancho - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 10:02 am: I’ve got one: Law Enforcement Agencies Purchasing Phone Records Of Private Individuals From Brokers: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060620/ap_on_bi_ge/police_phone_data;_ylt=AvXCvRRCecI2NYSf9eh6vsqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY- The cops can use these brokers to help catch SEXUAL PREDATORS and TERRORISTS. I think both Lisa Madigan and Rich are wrong for wanting to shut the brokers down. The brokers are helping to catch bad guys. - anon316 - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 11:11 am: Finke is right; Ceja and the two other ISP folks should be fired. Blago lacks a spine, as well as testicular verility. - post - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 12:29 pm: Welcome back from Alcatraz Rich. Everyone must be at the beach today…. Did you ask Meeks if he invited anyone from another education group to go with him to bargain with Rod? Who did he consult with? Did Ed. funding reform groups stop taking his calls? He’s doing plenty of finger pointing considering he’s the guy who cut the deal on his own. - Cassandra - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 6:55 pm: Here I am, supporting Blago on something again. If this keeps up, I’ll be voting for him in the fall…..not. There is substantial expert evidence that supported community based placements are better for the vast majority of the developmentally disabled. Blago should be applauded for at least partially changing his mind on this issue, presumably after listening to experts in the field. And I don’t agree that the guardians should be the sole decision-makers as to the type of placements. Guardians may find the change scary, and that’s understandable, but they aren’t paying..the government is. And the government should rely on scientifically based best practices, not the wishes of individual custodians when they spend our money. AFSCME has absolutely no credibility on the issue and should stay out of it. - Tessa - Tuesday, Jun 20, 06 @ 8:36 pm: So, Cassandra, do you work in the field? Have you ever? Do you know what it’s like to be in either setting? I highly doubt it. Until the community based settings can provide EQUAL OR BETTER, which is what they have to be able to do, then persons served aren’t supposed to be placed. 24 hour nursing services, not going to happen. Staff fully trained to deal with a wide array of behavioral issues, not there. Heck, just staff fully trained. Staff that are going to stick around long enough to get to know the people they are caring for and helping to learn new skills. Longevity doesn’t happen, because they don’t pay squat. Haven’t you noticed that the state keeps voting down even a COLA for them each year? They make more flipping burgers at McDonalds. Parents have every right to be concerned. And yeah, I do understand why they’re concerned. I worked both sides for more than a blink of an eye. Several years on both sides. Union and non-union. And I have family members with disabilities, thankfully I don’t have this issue to deal with. You don’t have any credibility with me, Cassandra so you should stay out of it. Until you’ve walked in our shoes, our guardians shoes, you don’t have any inkling of what it takes. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.