* Indicted Chicago developer made big profit on city deal
According to the indictment, Carothers started taking bribes from Boender in 2004 in exchange for supporting the project that now includes homes, a movie theater and a job-training center for construction laborers that’s set to open next January.
Carothers is the only alderman who has been charged in connection with Galewood Yards. But Boender had relationships with several other members of Chicago’s City Council at the time they agreed to give the laborers council the money to buy Boender’s land, near Armitage and Central, on June 28, 2006. They include:
• • Burke, who’s chairman of the City Council Finance Committee. The city’s most powerful alderman, Burke also heads a law firm that has represented Boender in 14 property-tax appeal cases since 2005, a relationship the Chicago Sun-Times disclosed last week. Five of those cases were filed this year, and Burke won reductions for Boender on three of those properties.
In March 2007, Boender hosted a campaign fund-raiser for Burke’s wife, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, raising $58,250. Burke’s wife says she has refunded some of that money and has given the rest to charity.
* County Board asks state to close education office
County commissioners urged state authorities Thursday to shut down the Cook County Regional Education Office in the wake of a critical audit that revealed that Supt. Charles A. Flowers used a government credit card for personal expenses and approved questionable payments to relatives on his payroll.
The decision on what to do about the state-funded suburban education agency ultimately rests with the Illinois Legislature.
The Cook County Board’s unanimous resolution Thursday urged the Legislature to transfer the duties now handled by the regional education office to the Illinois State Board of Education.
“If Dr. Flowers is listening, he should resign,” Commissioner Larry Suffredin said. “He has really taken an office that has an important educational function and disgraced it.”
* You too can track city spending
* Education Secretary Arne Duncan counting on business leaders to help push through school reforms
Duncan said he knows what needs to be done, but scaling up requires time and resources.
Is it even possible? Some heavy hitters think it is.
“You’ve got a window of opportunity,” said ex-Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, who has teamed with former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley in an effort to jump-start public education in Illinois — akin to what Duncan is trying to achieve on the national level.
As front men for a recently formed independent advocacy group, Advance Illinois, Edgar and Daley say the potential exists for progress — even “radical” progress. But they see the usual pitfalls too.
* These education reforms have merit
According to a new advocacy group, Advance Illinois, here are just some of the issues:
- Out of every four students who enter high school in the state, only one will graduate ready for college or a meaningful job.
- Only 55 percent of high school graduates in the state even start college (based on the Class of 2006.) In New York, 73 percent of its students attend college.
- Only 36 percent of Illinois residents have an associate degree or higher. In Massachusetts, for example, 45 percent of residents have at least finished community college.
* U. of I. athletic boosters get special treatment
An ongoing Tribune investigation reveals an admissions system subject to outside influences. The latest internal documents reviewed by the newspaper suggest the athletic department requested special consideration for non-athletes who applied to the state’s most prestigious public university.
The campus e-mails and correspondence provided under the state’s Freedom of Information Act show that admissions officials gave special consideration to candidates with ties to athletic donors at the request of the department director and his deputies. In several cases, athletic officials sought a reconsideration of a student’s rejection, a more thorough review of an application or to hasten the review process.
In the 2008-09 application cycle, one candidate had been tagged as an automatic denial by admissions officials because of poor academic credentials, but was accepted after being recommended by the athletic department, according to a log of special requests. At least three of six students recommended by the department this year got in.
Top athletic administrators said they only forward applicants they feel could succeed at the U. of I. And though they acknowledge the pressures of having to raise millions each year to keep the athletics program self-supporting, Ron Guenther, director of the division of intercollegiate athletics, said the “quid pro quo” does not extend to admissions.
* UI chancellor to testify Monday in admissions probe
University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman will testify Monday before a state panel investigating the school’s admissions procedures, including whether politically connected applicants received special treatment.
Herman is one of two UI officials on the agenda for Monday’s hearing at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago.
The other is Paul Pless, assistant dean for admissions at the UI College of Law, who complained vehemently in a 2006 e-mail about being forced to accept subpar applicants.
* 11 kids bumped ahead of 149 peers
A Feb. 13, 2007, e-mail shows 11 candidates from the University of Illinois clout list were admitted to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, even though the university ranked their applications lower than 149 of their high school classmates.
When an admissions officer questioned the orders, he was told to admit the students on the list. The 11 students were accepted while their more qualified classmates were denied or wait-listed.
* Report: Treasurer’s aide helped get teen in to UI
The Chicago Tribune reported Friday that the applicant had ties to the Rev. Alexander Karloutsos, a politically connected Greek Orthodox priest. After the student’s admission, Karloutsos helped with a Giannoulias fundraiser in New York that brought in at least $120,000.
Karloutsos told the newspaper he reached out to Giannoulias adviser Endy Zemenides on behalf of the applicant, the daughter of a family friend.
Zemenides, in turn, e-mailed information about the teen to university Provost Linda Katehi in February 2008. Katehi then forwarded the details to a vice provost…
The teen was subsequently lifted from the school’s waiting list and accepted.
* SIU: Blago stumped for 2 law school applicants
The university says Blagojevich submitted letters of recommendation in 2005 for two applicants to the Carbondale campus law school, but neither applicant was accepted.
SIU says its review of applications to its other schools, including its campus in Edwardsville, from 2002 through last year turned up no other examples of Blagojevich trying to use political muscle to press admissions.
* Students get a shot at big leagues — behind the scenes
ROOSEVELT U: New program offers sports hospitality management degree
* Men, women share U. of C. rooms
The two are among 50 students who will take advantage of a new policy allowing male and female undergraduates to room together — something that was forbidden throughout the 117-year history of the Hyde Park school.
* Dad fights son’s school suspension over T-shirt
* Hospital Workers Go Back to School–At Work
* July shortage feared: A plea for blood donations
* State must combat childhood obesity
The state of Illinois recently placed in two national Top Ten lists, but it’s nothing to be proud of.
Roughly one of every three children in Illinois is overweight or obese, putting Illinois 10th in the country for children from ages 10 to 17 who are too heavy, according to a new report.
Even worse, Illinois ranks fourth strictly in terms of obesity, with about one out of every five children being obese.
* Taste of Chicago goes out quietly, attendance down 6%
Attendance at the 2009 Taste of Chicago was down about 6 percent to 3.35 million, the event hampered by a struggling economy and several days of rain, organizers said Sunday at the close of its 10-day run.
* State Farm hiking homeowners insurance rates
State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. is boosting homeowners insurance rates an average of 13 percent in Illinois, the company said Thursday, joining other insurers that have hiked rates recently.
That would raise the average homeowners policy in Illinois from $592 to $669 or by $77.
* Tribune Co. profitability continues to deteriorate
The company is much less profitable than before its filing in December and is burning through cash, financial statements for the first five months of the year show. Tribune’s revenue declined about 23% in the first half of 2009, according to an estimate by Chicago-based Morningstar Inc. analyst Tom Corbett, who reviewed the company’s financials.
“They are just like every other newspaper company I am looking at,” Mr. Corbett said. “They are seeing vertiginous losses in ad sales and their profitability is suffering from having fixed costs.”
* Kirk Homes bankruptcy leaves homeowners in limbo
“These are difficult times, particularly for home builders,” said Mark Nora, vice chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Real Property Committee and a partner with Shefsky and Froelich in Chicago. “You see more and more of this.”
As many as half of the nation’s privately held builders have shut down during the housing bust, and many others are struggling to survive. In the Chicago metropolitan area, besides Kirk, Kimball Hill Inc. and Neumann Homes have filed for bankruptcy.
* High fuel costs could return
We may have already seen the worst of gasoline prices this year.
But $3 or $4 a gallon could be back as early as next year.
* CTA fare options: To save dollars, use sense
As a result, Chicago Transit Authority ridership using the 30-day pass has increased about 15 percent overall in the first five months of the year compared with the same period in 2008, according to the CTA.
Ridership on the 30-day pass option using the Chicago Card Plus fare card has shot up even more, increasing by about 22 percent.
Meanwhile, pay-per-use riding on the Chicago Card and the Chicago Card Plus has declined a total of 7.5 percent, while on the Chicago Card alone, ridership fell about 24 percent.
Regular CTA riders who haven’t made changes might want to stop and count the money they are wasting.
* New way to avoid speed traps, police checkpoints?
* More use engine locks under new Illinois DUI law
The law, which took effect Jan. 1 in Illinois, requires first-time drunken driving offenders to install breath-monitoring gadgets that prevent engines from starting until motorists blow into the alcohol detectors to prove they are sober.
At least 7,000 Illinois residents have had to use the devices so far this year - up from around 3,000 in all of 2008 under an old law that mostly targeted multiple DUI offenders. At least 5,000 more people could install them by the end of 2009, according to data obtained by The Associated Press from the Illinois secretary of state’s office.
* Benefit of Illinois auto insurance requirement draws debate: 115,000 drivers have lost licenses in 2 years
Two years ago, Illinois law changed to take driving privileges away from people convicted of not having car insurance.
But despite the threat of a three-month license suspension, statistics appear to show people are driving without insurance anyway.
Since July 1, 2007, more than 115,000 Illinois drivers have lost their licenses after being convicted of driving without up-to-date insurance, according to state numbers. About 68,000 were suspended last year, and about 31,000 have been so far this year.
* Think fast: 220 mph rail line to St. Louis proposed
Last week, advocates unveiled an $11.5 billion plan for a Chicago-to-St. Louis high-speed rail line that could cut travel time to two hours from the current five. If built, it would be among the fastest U.S. lines and would rival systems in Europe and Asia.
Under the proposal, electric-powered trains would zoom the nearly 300 miles between Chicago and St. Louis at speeds up to 220 mph — more than 100 mph faster than diesel-powered trains under a comparatively modest plan advocated by eight Midwestern governors.
The latest plan — announced as part of a study by the nonprofit Midwest High Speed Rail Association — is generating excitement among rail enthusiasts who pooh-pooh the governors’ proposal, which envisions trains reaching top speeds of 110 mph, as too conservative.
The proposal for a 220-mph service is intended to complement, not replace, the governors’ plan, Harnish said. The 110 mph trains would serve more communities and make more stops.
* Ads fuel fight over cemetery blocking O’Hare expansion
Newspaper and radio ads about the $15 billion O’Hare International Airport expansion have drawn the ire of supporters of a 160-year-old Bensenville cemetery in the path of a planned runway.
The ads, which ran in the Chicago Tribune and Daily Herald and on WGN and WBBM-AM radio, notified relatives of people buried in St. Johannes Cemetery that Chicago “has commenced legal proceedings to acquire the cemetery” and move the graves to other cemeteries. The notice also encourages relatives to call the O’Hare Modernization Program’s cemetery administrator “to learn more about the relocation process.”.
“You may have an opportunity to participate,” the ad states. Chicago “will be responsible for paying all necessary and reasonable costs associated with the relocation of the graves.”
* Audit: FAA should address air controller fatigue in Chicago
* Why did Indiana bridge collapse?
* Internet loss halts Farmersville wind generator
Gov. Pat Quinn was among dozens of elected officials, co-op representatives and residents to turn out for a ribbon-cutting ceremony in April. The governor used the occasion to express confidence the state can reach a requirement of generating 20 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020, including solar and wind turbines “in every nook and cranny of the state.”
An American Wind Energy Association report found the number of wind farms in Illinois has grown to 10 since the first farm was completed in 2005 in northern Illinois. At least three more are under construction.
Proposed projects also continue to pop up across the state, including a major wind farm planned between New Berlin and Pleasant Plains. Developers of that project, which eventually would have to be approved by the county board, are conducting environmental studies and negotiating with landowners…
“The idea is to sit back to see if it’s going to work they way they say it’s going to,” said committee chairman Kenneth Andersen. The 150-turbine farm would include 119 turbines southwest of DeKalb and additional turbines in an adjoining county.
* Keep clean energy in good favor
* Kirk takes heat from GOP for backing climate bill
* Why Is the Vatican Going After Nuns?
Both probes were reportedly initiated by conservative prelates unhappy that American nuns are not sufficiently toeing the line of Catholic orthodoxy, not wearing habits, not living in convents and not keeping their mouths shut about the concerns of women in a modern world.
Don’t these sisters know their place?
* Champaign marathon back for 2010 with a new date
* Earl Finckle, 1927-2009: Charted area weather for years
* A Renaissance Man of Chicago’s South Side
* Real-Estate Magnate Backed Harold Washington
