15 Comments - Ghost - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:12 am: So we have a little used rail line. Somone wants to buy it, and put it to use, which would create jobs maintaining the line, send cash into the US economy for the purchase, create positions for handling the trains etc. We need to work on developing our rail system as it is. So our response to a private company wanting to buy and utilize rail, is to try and stop them? And we wonder why we have income problems in IL and a poor tranist system. We need to do more to discourage business. - Ghost - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:16 am: Ganja for all. “Illinois Senate committee approves plan to use marijuana as medicine” http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/26435.asp - Ghost - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:17 am: Maybe if the approive the marijuana bill they can use its medicinal properties to help pass a budget for next year….oh wait no smoking in chambers. - Levois - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:21 am: Does the fact that no one knows about the Chicago Democratic chairmanship just show how much the county Democrats pretty much run the show? - train111 - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:28 am: re the EJ&E deal Since my id on here is Train111 and I follow the industry quite closely, here’s my opinion: Dick Durbin wouldn’t know the EJ&E from a hole in the ground if the people of Barrington weren’t screaming bloody murder about the whole deal!!! Now that I got that out of my system we need to take a look at this from both sides. There are very very good reasons to approve the EJ&E deal. Chicago is the most congested point in the nation in terms of rail service and could well lose its position as the top railroad town if something isn’t done about it. Some years back the CREATE program was started to try and secure industry money along with federal money to try and correct the situation. Federal money into the project has been extremely slow in coming and as of today only 1 out of the 50+ projects outlined in CREATE have been finished and that project has been on the table many years longer than CREATE has been around. CN has come along and offerred to use private money to ‘go around Chicago’ and help ease some of the congestion. This not only helps CN’s traffic flows, but it helps all of the others because if CN trains are moved off of various lines in Chicago it creates more capacity to ease the flow of traffic by other railroads in the area. None of the other major railroads in Chicago are opposed to the CN/EJ&E deal. The CN/EJ&E deal would also negate the need for CREATE’s most expensive project which would be the construction of several miles of new/rehabbed track to allow abandonment of the St Charles Air Line running just south of downtown. (Can’t have half million dollar condos next to the tracks–but I digress) Now before anyone thinks that I am a shill for CN, I believe that they do need to sit down with the local governments and work through all of the environmental problems created by shifting the freight traffic. This can be a win-win situation with the CN getting the route that they want and several suburbs getting the overpass/underpasses and noise barriers that they want. I reside in one of the hardest hit suburbs and there is no way that CN is going to route an additional 20 trains through town without extreme detrimental effects to traffic flow unless there is an overpass/underpass built. CN needs to engage the local communities if they want this to go through. Barrington is going to be opposed come hell or high water, but most of the other communities will probably negotiate in good faith. Incidentally, if CN wasn’t going to buy the EJ&E but worked out a deal to use the EJ&E’s Kirk Yard in Gary for their trains, they WOULD NOT have to get any federal approval to shift traffic onto those routes. (They already have trackage rights over the EJ&E through Barrington, so the point is moot) So, the NIMBYS better take a little more care in shouting bloody murder because there actually is a scenario in which they will get the trains and there is little they can do about it. That being said, CN must negotiate in good faith to remediate the environmental impacts of the traffic shifts if they ever want to get this deal approved in some sort of ‘timely’ manner. train111 - Levois - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:41 am: They can always smoke the weed before they go into chambers. LOL! - VanillaMan - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:41 am: Dr. Simon was used, abused and then tossed away by a county out of control. How he was treated is a warning flag to anyone out there asked to step in and help Cook County out. If you get a call from the county, my recommendation is not to answer the phone. - Balderdash - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:42 am: SD122’s violation of the Open Meetings Act on October 3, 2007 I believe stems back to a closed meeting in September 2006 (which is also under investigation for possible Open Meetings Act violations) while Baldermann was school board president. That closed meeting involved Baldermann voting on and the board approving some school administrators’ salary increases, including his wife’s. - Snidely Whiplash - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:44 am: Lee Roupas??? A 25 year old in a township with a paltry weighted vote??? Liz, you’ve outdone even yourself. - so-called "Austin Mayor" - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 9:58 am: “Cook GOP has new leader” Kevin, The DuPage County Democrats have new leadership as well. From the Daily Herald: ‘Operation: Turn DuPage Blue can no longer be considered an offshoot of the county’s Democratic Party. ‘They’re running things now. ‘The splinter group’s chairman, Bob Peickert, handily defeated incumbent DuPage County Democratic Party Chairman Rob Bisceglie at Wednesday night’s convention in Wheaton. ‘In all, 215 of the nearly 250 Democratic precinct committeemen showed up to vote for new party leadership. ‘”I think what this signifies is the Democratic Party is more united than ever before,” Peickert said shortly after the results were announced. “This is a party to be reckoned with. This is the biggest turnout of elected Democrat leaders in DuPage ever.”‘ http://tinyurl.com/223u4e DuPage bloggers Hiram Wurf [http://tinyurl.com/2dnsun] and Prairie State Blue’s “Michael in Chicago” [http://tinyurl.com/23lw5o] apparently attended the convention. – SCAM - Truthful James - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 6:11 pm: I kmow that youse guys can’t see tha far but out in Kendall County, Dallas Ingemunson, the boss for countless years, proposed a Republican Committee slate for the County. All his folk were soundly thrashed by a reform slate. Dallas, the puppeteer, is done for. He did achieve revenge by siccing Jim Oberweis on his hated enemy Chris Lauzen and defeating the latter in the primary. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Oberweis can win the special election Saturday. That was carefully arranged by the timing of the Hastert resignation, but it may not work out the way that Dallas wanted. - Anon Again - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 7:10 pm: City Man Arrested-You might say the Ds can blame the Rs for this one accept for the fact that IDOT Div of TS has hired under contract through EIU the once fired Asst to the Dir of TS who was over the section that handled these grants and had a close workng relationship with this gentleman Mr Sullinger close this place up Blago it reaks!! - Chance - Thursday, Mar 6, 08 @ 8:19 pm: The last time I really focused on the MWRD was a decade ago. On Jan. 5, 1996, I was standing with a camera crew outside its main office at 100 E. Erie. On that ill-fated day, FBI agents and the U.S. Attorney’s office descended on the place, hauling away boxes of records and striking fear in the hearts of at least two of its elected commissioners. One of them, Thomas Fuller, was ultimately convicted of public corruption in the government’s Operation Silver Shovel probe. Another, Joseph Gardner, died before he could be indicted. Even today, there are questions of whether the tentacles of the current Hired Truck corruption probe at City Hall have reached into the MWRD as well. Have the feds shown up with search warrants or subpoenas within the last two years? Now Today we have the current President Terrence O’Brien giving back money, more money than what the former President Fuller was indicted for. Fuller and Joe Gardner were black, O’Brien is white. Is this equal justice ? Yes, sir, all you’ve gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want. Gobbledy-gook! - Six Degrees of Separation - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 12:24 am: EJ&E - do the deal The commotion is all about waiting a few minutes at a RR Xing. Everybody screams “move more traffic to rail and save the environment” and then when a firm like CN proposes to do this AT NO COST TO TAXPAYERS then a few NIMBYs scream “OH, THE IMPACTS”. Please spare me. - Rob O - Friday, Mar 7, 08 @ 12:47 am: One thing in the Terry O’Brien/MWRD article is that one of the donors was MWRD candidate Brendan O’Connor a 40th ward member who got a subsequent job in their legal department. There was a lawyer for 40 years who got passed up for that job and many qualified minorities who were complaining about the shortage of minorities in that office. Brendan O’Connor gives money, Brendan O’Connor runs for MWRD commissioner to try to take out Patricia “Patty” Young–than he gets a spot in the legal department–is that quid pro qou? There was a Cook County State’s Attorney investigation into Commissioners taking money from MWRD employees–the biggest obviously being the President Terrence J O’Brien who gave back $39,000. Maybe Brendan O’Connor should hit those law books harder and review the MWRD Statute created by the legislature when there was real big scandal. Fuller and O’Brien are not that different except in skin color and superficial style–the same substance and approach–power, money and quid pro qou. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.