I know some of y’all are probably proud of your company. Heck, I’m proud of my company. Then again, my company isn’t under two federal investigations, my company didn’t just file for bankruptcy, my company never used its editorial powers to browbeat politicians into voting to allow lights at my decrepit, company-owned ballpark, my company never used all its powers to snag a riverboat casino, my company never “put on hiatus” one of the better state politics radio shows in recent memory, my company never endorsed George Ryan for governor and I, as company owner, have never been referred to as “the ultimate vulture.” At least not to my face.
In an escalating public battle between two landmark institutions, the Chicago Tribune filed a state lawsuit this morning against the University of Illinois
Sheesh.
* Dear Jim Tobin,
What’s with your crusade against the Illinois State Police? Did you get a lot of tickets or something? No offense. Just asking…
“I think they should lay off all the state troopers. I think they’re a total waste of taxpayer money,” [Jim Tobin, the president of National Taxpayers United of Illinois] said. “We have too many cops and state police have proven time and time again they’re glorified Keystone Kops. We won’t miss them one bit.”
…As an addendum, why would any reporter quote this guy?
U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., who is under investigation by the Sangamon County state’s attorney for possible perjury for his January testimony before the Illinois House impeachment committee, was at the Sangamon County Complex Monday.
There’s no official word that Burris was at the building as part of that investigation, though in a recent visit to Springfield, Burris said he was anxious to speak with State’s Attorney John Schmidt.
The Obama administration has turned back pleas for emergency aid from one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy — the state of California.
Top state officials have gone hat in hand to the administration, armed with dire warnings of a fast-approaching “fiscal meltdown” caused by a budget shortfall. Concern has grown inside the White House in recent weeks as California’s fiscal condition has worsened, leading to high-level administration meetings. But federal officials are worried that a bailout of California would set off a cascade of demands from other states.
But, heck, man, your home state needs you now. We’re in seriously deep doo-doo here. Plus, did this dance with Pat Quinn mean nothing to you all those years ago?
* Comptroller Dan Hynes is not running for reelection. He may run for attorney general if Lisa Madigan moves up, or he may run for governor is LMadigan stays put. But you can probably expect this issue to haunt him…
In the strongest language yet, funeral homes that have lost millions of dollars from a pre-need funeral trust fund are blaming Illinois regulators charged with keeping money safe.
Furthermore, funeral home directors allege, the state comptroller’s office, which regulates the pre-need funeral industry, kept the burgeoning financial crisis under wraps. By the time the truth emerged, it was too late to stave off losses that might now exceed $100 million, say funeral directors who are suing the Illinois Funeral Directors Association and others.
“Even state regulators who took on the responsibility for monitoring the pre-need trust failed to protect plaintiffs and other pre-need trust depositors,” funeral directors say in court documents filed Friday. “Indeed, when questioned by funeral directors on why the issue was not addressed in 2001, when the (Illinois Office of the Comptroller), but not the funeral directors, knew of a budding deficit, the (comptroller’s) response was that the deficit was ‘pennies on the dollar,’ as if that excused (the comptroller) from doing anything about it.” […]
“I’m not going to talk to you, I think that’s pretty clear,” Peg Roth, assistant comptroller, told a reporter after a June 4 meeting with funeral directors upset about the fund’s financial prospects. Roth told a reporter to ask the department’s spokeswoman what the comptroller’s office did about the troubled fund before 2006. But spokeswoman Carol Knowles did not return a phone call.
Not only did the fund lose money, but it was started by Roland Burris when he was comptroller. Burris was a registered lobbyist for the funeral home people, although Hynes claims he had no direct contact with Burris once he found out who Burris worked for. Still, it’s a bad connection. Nothing connected to Burris will turn out well.
* Meanwhile, remember last week when we discussed the “shackling” of pregant Cook County prisoners while they were delivering their babies? Well, the SouthtownStar has a follow-up entitled: Shackled in labor: ‘Dehumanizing,’ ‘outrageous’ which includes this quote from an attorney who is filing a class action suit…
[Attorneys] said it is absurd that women in labor could be a security threat or flight risk.
“We think that’s nuts,” [Kenneth Flaxman] said. “And we think the courts will agree with us.”
But, last week, the Sheriff Dart’s office shared a few news stories with me about attempted escapes by women prisoners, including one who was pregnant…
JAIL GUARD SUSPENDED AFTER PRISONER ESCAPE Chicago Tribune June 13, 1997
A Cook County Department of Corrections officer was suspended without pay Thursday pending an administrative hearing for allegedly leaving a prisoner unattended Wednesday night at Mt. Sinai Hospital Medical Center.
The prisoner, Latanya Burks, 26, of the 1500 block of South Keeler Avenue, escaped during the officer’s absence after giving birth. Burks has since been caught and is being held on $5,000 bond at Cermak Hospital…..
HOSPITALIZED INMATE DIES IN WINDOW FALL Chicago Tribune May 10, 1998
Joyce Nathan, 39, a Cook County Jail inmate awaiting trial on a murder charge, died Saturday afternoon after falling or jumping from a fourth-floor window at Cook County Hospital.
Nathan was in the jail’s unit in the hospital recovering from stomach surgery performed on Thursday, said Bill Cunningham, a Cook County Sheriff’s spokesman.
Guards stationed outside the ward saw Nathan going out the window, and they believe she was trying to escape rather than commit suicide, Cunningham said, though he declined to say what evidence led to that assumption. He could not say whether windows on the ward were locked, but he said that was being looked into.
HEADLINE: Sheriff nabs suspect who fled hospital
BYLINE: Frank Main and Stefano Esposito, The Chicago Sun-Times
Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan personally nabbed a drug suspect Friday after the hospitalized woman slipped past one of his guards — who was cited earlier in the day for leaving her unattended.
Lawanda Warren, 40, of University Park, escaped about 10 a.m. from Loretto Hospital on the West Side. The escape gave more ammunition to critics of Sheahan after a recent spate of escapes from the jail.
Warren had been arrested Tuesday by Chicago Police for alleged heroin possession and was admitted to the hospital after she complained of chest pains. She had not yet been booked into the jail.
* One of the problems with the complicated federal campaign finance regulatory system is it’s a federal regulatory system. Relatively small mistakes can make honest people look like criminals or hapless fools. Still, there’s really no excuse for this…
The Federal Election Commission is reviewing a complaint against the campaign of Democratic 10th Congressional District candidate Michael Bond, who currently serves Illinois’ 31st senate district.
According to Lake County Republican Chairman Dan Venturi, who filed the complaint against Bond with the FEC, Bond has declared himself a congressional candidate and expended money on behalf of his candidacy — without timely filing the proper paperwork and disclosures (due 15 days after declaring one’s candidacy). Venturi notes that, as reported by Team America some time ago, Bond has reserved a website address and several draft pages of the site can be accessed (although not by design, it appears).
In addition, it is beyond question that Bond officially declared himself a candidate weeks ago (April 29), as evidenced by a press release and statements to the media. According to Venturi, Bond’s campaign could be subject to a fine for failure to properly and timely file his disclosures.
The above story is from a highly partisan GOP blog, so keep that in mind, please. But Bond did declare his candidacy back in April, so the clock apparently started ticking then…
“After speaking with people in our communities, listening to their ideas and hearing their concerns, I’ve decided to run for Congress.”
If you’re gonna get in the arena, you have to be prepared, and part of that preparation is hiring experienced lawyers who can help you through the labyrinth of federal regulations.
In fact, if you don’t spend $5,000 and run you don’t have to file at all. Obviously you aren’t going to win, but there are minor candidates who often don’t file for this very reason.
If you haven’t raised $5,000 yet, you don’t have to file. When you reach that threshold you have 15 days to file from that date. There is nothing in the complaint that alleges Bond raised more than $5,000 before May 16, 2009 so the Lake County Republican Chairman Dan Venturi is wasting FEC time and money with nothing other than a harassment technique while the FEC can barely keep up with legit complaints.
As President Obama spoke with doctors gathered Monday for the American Medical Association’s annual meeting in Chicago, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Highland Park) spoke with reporters about legislation he has introduced that would assure patients can keep their current doctor. […]
Kirk’s “Medical Rights Act” restricts the government from interfering with any decision and individual makes with his or her doctor.
Illinois Republicans are demanding that the state use more managed care for Medicaid, which would deprive people of choosing their own physicians and allow somebody other than their doctors to make decisions for them, but Kirk is apparently going the opposite direction.
Also, according to a recent National Journal article, Kirk’s district doesn’t appear on either Democratic or Republican “top tier” lists, which leads Swing State Project to speculate…
…maybe they aren’t confident about Mark Kirk vacating IL-10?
* 9:35 am - The governor’s office is planning a budget briefing this morning at 10:30. You can listen live by clicking here. If that link doesn’t work for some reason, click here and search around. [There’s some mainstream jazz playing on that link at the moment.]
For those who can, live-blogging in comments would be a great help to many. Thanks.
There’s also a rally planned for 11:30 this morning at the Thompson Center to oppose the upcoming budget cuts.
* 10:23 am - This press release from the Child Care Association of Illinois shows how Gov. Quinn can’t catch an even break…
Nearly 25 Chicago-area foster parents will appear [Thursday at 12:30] at a press conference in the James R. Thompson Center to denounce Governor Pat Quinn’s budget reduction by 50% of expense reimbursements and the elimination of foster child support services to the state’s 9,000 foster parents. The foster parents will implore the legislature to find the money to reverse the cuts.
Um, the General Assembly passed the budget without the governor’s input, yet almost everybody refers to it as “Quinn’s budget.” It’s not. He’s against it.
*** UPDATE - 12:12 PM *** Quinn Chief of Staff Jerry Stermer is going over the budget cuts again. Click here to listen to his first briefing.
Also, some of you have asked where to find the handout that’s being passed around at the meeting. It’s now online. Click here. [Fixed link. The state site no longer has the full document, so I’m hosting it now.]
Gov. Pat Quinn said [yesterday] he wants state lawmakers to return to Springfield next week to fix a makeshift budget that will mean big spending cuts for many social services.
Quinn has been warning for days that he will have to make dramatic cuts in services for the elderly, disabled and children unless lawmakers approve a major income tax increase. Democratic lawmakers sought to put off that politically sensitive move last month, choosing to partially fund the budget and leave the statehouse.
The Democratic governor stopped short of ordering the legislature into special session–a highly unpopular but frequent move during the Rod Blagojevich years. But he said he will be blunt with legislative leaders when he meets with them Wednesday in Chicago.
Quinn’s office said lawmakers left a hole of $9.2 billion. That amounts to nearly one-third of all the money that’s directly under state government’s control and not subject to federal restrictions. The current budget totals $67 billion, according to a report from the General Assembly, but most of that is federal money the state doesn’t really control or spending authority for long-term construction projects.
Legislators voted to protect education money, further limiting how the deficit could be closed.
Stermer said the “half-baked partial budget” would require that most cuts come from money the state pays to local organizations.
That’s far higher than the $7 billion they were talking about earlier. I didn’t get a briefing yesterday like the AP did, or I’d have asked what exactly caused the deficit to jump a full $2.2 billion. The most I’d heard so far was $1.7 billion because the state was unable to capture federal Medicaid matches.
* I’ve been telling subscribers about this for weeks…
More than 10,000 state employees face layoffs unless the state can find a way to close its budget deficit by cutting costs in other ways and raising taxes.
Officials with Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration will meet with state employee union officials today in Springfield to discuss alternatives that could reduce the number of potential layoffs.
Those alternatives include unpaid furlough days, a wage freeze or even a wage reduction.
But the administration acknowledged Monday that even with cost-cutting measures and a tax hike, some layoffs may still be necessary.
* There’s still a lot of head in the sand activity out there…
For Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, the latest pronouncement from the governor is political gamesmanship. “Last week it was they were going to cut all human service providers by 50 percent, but (the human service providers) didn’t know that. This week it is laying off thousands of employees. ‘It’s like ‘Stop scaring our families, governor.’”
Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica, said Quinn is being “totally disingenuous” with his job-cuts announcement.
Sen. Brad Burzynski, R-Clare, agrees: “I simply don’t believe that it would be a reality.”
Even AFSCME knows the budget passed by the GA will force nearly 10,000 layoffs, so I’m not sure where those legislators are getting their “reality” from.
But how long legislators will be willing to remain in Springfield is uncertain because several have been invited on a junket to Turkey the final week of June. […]
House Speaker Michael Madigan was among those invited to go on the Turkey trip, but an aide now says he will skip the trip if necessary.
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown refused to identify the sponsor of the trip, telling the Sun-Times to ask the governor’s office.
“I’d call whoever told you about it and ask those questions because I don’t have that information,” Brown said. “I’m told Quinn was telling people that story. I’d call them back and get the rest of the details.”
Always fun.
* And the Illinois Policy Institute has an op-ed today in which it claims it found at least $3.9 billion in budgetary savings. But some are impossible without reopening the union contract…
A 10 percent temporary pay cut for state employees will save $500 million.
Some are politically untenable, like cutting aid to local governments (read: Chicago)…
The state sends 10 percent of income tax receipts it collects back to local governments, a total of $1.2 billion of the $53 billion local governments spend (2.2 percent).
Some may be overstated…
In addition to our recommendations, we support many of the Taxpayer Action Board’s recommendations. For our use here, we focused on the low range in the several spending categories for a total of $419 million
Steve Schnorf, remember, said in his TAB dissent that he’d be surprised to find $200 million in savings next fiscal year.
And some may be duplicative…
Of course, some modest double counting may occur. For example, a 10 percent reduction in some government agencies may include wages, which are also included in the 10 percent pay reduction for employees.
Other than that, even implementing all those cuts would still leave a gigantic budget hole.
* Ill. American seeking another bump to water bills
The private utility company, which serves Homer Glen and Orland Hills, quietly filed a request in April to implement a “qualified infrastructure plant” surcharge rider, which would tack a surcharge of up to 5 percent on customers’ bills. That money would be used to pay for repairs to existing infrastructure, said Kevin Hillen, operations manager of field services for Illinois American’s Chicago Metro District.
He and other Illinois employers are about to be subjected July 1 to the second of three annual minimum wage hikes. On July 1, 2010, another scheduled 25-cent increase will push up the state’s minimum wage to $8.25 an hour.
Although he did not increase his prices after last year’s wage increase, Wortham said he will have to do it this time around.
“It affected my bottom line,” he said. “This time, I will have to take a small increase. I may have to go up 10 percent across the board in product, but that may be lower than what other national pizza restaurants will have to do.”
The Illinois Department of Transportation says it’s awarded nearly two-thirds of the stimulus dollars it’s received, but minority contractors here in Chicago say they haven’t seen the money. Which got us wondering who the stimulus money is working for, and how it’s working. WBEZ’s Adriene Hill explains more about tracking the allocation of stimulus funds.
The Illinois Department of Transportation says it’s awarded nearly two-thirds of its stimulus money. But Chicago contractors don’t seem to be winning the work.
HANNIG: As far as who won the bids, that usually goes to the lowest bidder and we really can’t control anything beyond that.
HANNIG: There is no doubt that the construction companies are hungry and perhaps those outside of Chicago rely more on government jobs and so maybe they put in more bids around the state and lower bids.
He speculates maybe Chicago contractors have other opportunities. But many minority contractor groups around the city say they haven’t seen stimulus dollars and would love the work.
Politicians turned out to mark the sixth anniversary of a labor strike at a downtown Chicago hotel.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn was the keynote speaker at a rally in front of the Congress Plaza Hotel on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.
The event also attracted Chicago aldermen, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown and state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (jeh-NOO’-lee-ehs), who is considering a U.S. Senate run.
Judge Sophia Hall ruled the Chicago Plan Commission illegally denied a zoning change for the hotel. Obeying Hall’s order of last week, the commission is scheduled to reconsider the proposal Thursday.
The hearing reopens an issue that originally pitted the hotel and Mayor Daley, who supported its zoning bid, against key aldermen and the political power of Unite Here Local 1, the hotel workers union.
The union Monday observed the six-year anniversary of its active strike against the Congress Plaza. Unite Here staged a noisy rally outside the hotel and brought in politicians and labor leaders.
Aldermen in attendance said they would stand firm and refuse any zoning change for the hotel. The City Council must act on any matter that clears the Plan Commission.
“We’re working to the ends that there will be no layoffs. … We may take a tough hit here — and we probably are at the end of the day. … [But], we’re under the impression that, if we do this package, they’ll rescind the 1,500 layoffs … and do none,” Gannon said.
“This is a time for organized labor to be principled, but [to] also have the ability to be flexible. … We need to do this as quickly as possible. The clock is ticking. Every day, the city is more and more in debt. … We want to do what we can do to save jobs, save families and save communities.”
Sources said union leaders have been asked to consider a painful menu that includes: reduced work-weeks or schedules; furlough days; unpaid holidays; pay cuts; delayed prevailing wage increases; comp time for overtime; increased health care contributions and reduced sick-time accrual.
But he revealed that labor is no longer holding out for a two-year, no-layoff guarantee that Daley has insisted he cannot give. Instead, a guarantee could restrict the duration of give-backs and affect such issues as pensions, health care and future privatization of city services, Gannon said.
“There’s got to be assurances that, 10 years from now, these jobs that our members have are still gonna be there for them,” he said.
Even if those guarantees can be hammered out, Gannon acknowledged that the concessions would be a tough sell.
“This is a tough ask. You’re asking for folks to [swallow] an 8 to 10 percent reduction in their salaries,” he said.
Mayor Daley wants Chicagoans to believe he knew nothing about his nephew’s risky real estate venture with $68 million worth of city employee pension funds until the Chicago Sun-Times blew the whistle nearly two years ago.
He wants us to believe that, the minute he did find out, he ordered his nephew Robert Vanecko to drop out of the deal with developer Allison Davis, only to be ignored.
The photos are from a frustrated club worker who says some officers have been slow to respond to his calls and he believes these pictures show why.
“Girls leaning into cars….”
Alderman Waguespack told us, “I would think the police department will be all over it, and looking at it as a management issue and something they have to take seriously.”
Like one picture in which a woman is sitting on an officer’s lap inside a squad car, her hands within easy reach of the officer’s gun.
* Quigley says he feels public defender’s cash pain
* Ex-DNR chief Granberg wants to push on with golf trail
Chicago’s two remaining baseball clubs open a three-game series at Wrigley Field on Tuesday night and you are thinking, remaining?
Cubs. Sox. And the ghost.
That would be the Chicago Whales, the team for whom the park was built and who, it pains me to say, show every sign of haunting the place, 94 years after they vanished. How else to explain the cruel things that have happened in the stadium ever since? A spat about a goat? Please. Darker forces are at play here, and one need look no further than the tale of the man who owned both clubs to appreciate how fate — and greed — can turn promise to despair.
His name was Charles Weeghman, and in his better days was known as “Lucky Charlie.” It would be unfair to suggest that Charlie Weeghman sold his soul to buy the Cubs. It just looks that way, given all that would befall him and the team he so badly wanted.
