* Barring some big news, we’re done until Monday. Hopefully, this governor won’t screw up our summer holidays like the last governor did. We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath.
Anyway, have a wonderful Independence Day. I hope it’s a great one.
* Following our tradition of posting July 4th Grateful Dead videos, here’s Jerry Garcia and Great Speckled Bird from a July 4, 1970 show…
* 2:21 pm - Republican DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett is calling around this afternoon saying he plans to run for attorney general.
This would be Birkett’s second try at AG. He lost to Lisa Madigan in 2002. He ran for governor four years later, dropped out and became Judy Baar Topinka’s running mate. He had been considering a bid for governor next year, but that race is getting pretty crowded.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Here’s the announcement via e-mail…
I’ve made the decision to remain a prosecutor and to run for the Office of Illinois Attorney General in 2010.
I invite you to watch the brief video below in which I explain my decision. I will continue to aggressively engage with you online to build a statewide organization that provides each and every citizen a voice in Illinois government, once and for all.
Never one to back down from a fight, DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett plans to run for Illinois Attorney General in 2010 - even if incumbent Lisa Madigan seeks a third term.
Birkett made the political announcement Thursday during a Daily Herald interview.
As Madigan wavers between a possible run for U.S. Senate, governor or to retain her current office, Birkett said the attorney general post is the best fit for him regardless of whom he faces on Election Day. […]
“You have to be who you are,” the 54-year-old Wheaton man said. “I’m a prosecutor. I’ve come to the conclusion I should remain one. That’s where I belong. It’s my passion.”
I kid you not. That’s the actual Daily Herald story. And it even gets “better,” if you can believe it, but I shouldn’t paste more than four grafs here. Go read it yourself.
* Ah, the Tribune editorial board. Not blowhardish at all. Today’s editorial blasts Gov. Pat Quinn, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton…
You evidently have one priority: You want what’s best for the people of this state — provided you don’t have to seriously affront the public employees unions and other interest groups that have such influence with you.
Actually, the General Assembly passed a budget which was opposed by those groups.
The Trib also claimed that the three men have ignored any spending reforms and “relentlessly focused on raising taxes.”
Let’s see, the governor has proposed $2 billion in cuts, including Medicaid reform, employee layoffs, etc. Cullerton already passed a tax hike, and Madigan says he won’t move a tax hike plan until he is sure there are enough votes. Both say a tax hike proposal is fruitless now without GOP votes. Quinn is the only one focusing “relentlessly” on a tax increase. The other two are saying the soup isn’t even on the stove yet.
Mr. Madigan, Mr. Cullerton, enough. Accept the spending and ethics reforms and pass a budget. Republicans will help you.
They will? Is the edit board sure about that? Did the Republican leaders specifically tell the Tribune editorial board “If we get X, Y and Z, and here are our details and specific legislation that we want, then we’ll put enough votes on a tax hike vote to pass it”? That would be big news and those quotes should’ve been reported on the front page. Maybe I just missed that blockbuster.
Then on Tuesday [Quinn] signed into law a sales tax exemption for wind energy projects.
Governor, Illinois is broke. Please stop digging this hole deeper and deeper.
Sales tax exemptions for newsprint, ink, advertising and newspaper printing machinery=Excellent. Sales tax exemptions for an almost brand new business that will create reliable new jobs=Stupid.
* Look, the Democrats have a lot to be blamed for here. A whole lot. They had the majority and they failed to finish the job. No question about it whatsoever. And it’s not like they got their act together in June, either.
But if anybody thinks that the Republican leaders are now really, truly pushing redistricting reform and pension reform in exchange for putting significant numbers of votes on an income tax hike, they need to have their heads examined. Cross was the House floor leader during debate on that goofy congressional map which everybody complains about. His members ain’t exactly thrilled about the reform idea, either. And I have yet to see evidence that a majority of Republicans are excited about voting for a two-tiered pension system.
The spring session is long over. It failed. Badly. But it’s a new day now and GOP votes and specific GOP ideas are crucial, so it would be nice to see a modicum of even-handedness and reality-based reasoning from Mother Tribune.
Caught in the crossfire are social-service providers who were previously warned by Quinn that dramatic cuts of 50 percent or more would result if lawmakers didn’t come up with more money. In a statement, Quinn warned that organizations providing services not backed by a court order did so “at the risk of not being paid.” He said nine organizations have sued stemming from the impasse.
Frank Anselmo, chief executive officer of the Community Behavioral Healthcare Association of Illinois, said providers of services to the mentally ill already have laid off staff and stopped taking patients. He said Quinn has not put in place contingency contracts that guarantee eventual payment, something prior administrations have done.
Instead of contingency contracts, Quinn told vendors and providers that they were outta luck…
[Quinn’s] office then released a statement that Illinois “has very limited authority to pay its vendors and grantees.” The state, however, “will continue to operate and provide essential services to protect the health, safety and welfare of Illinois citizens, such as maintaining prisons and providing emergency services and legally-required social services. Other vendors and grantees who currently perform state services do so at the risk of not being paid,” the statement concluded.
And these statements by Comptroller Hynes show a lack of understanding about how providers and state vendors operate…
Hynes says social service agencies wouldn’t miss any payments from the state until later in the summer, because - even when there is a budget - they aren’t paid immediately.
HYNES: If they provided services today, by the time they got their paperwork into the agency and it’s submitted to our office, and with the cashflow delays we’re having, we’re talking several months. So that’s why the day-to-day social services don’t have a real, hard-and-fast deadline like a payroll does.
Hynes does acknowledge that the governor’s letter is going to create some hardships. The reason is that these social service agencies are basically just small to mid-sized businesses. For-profit vendors are almost all traditional businesses. Like all businesses, they occasionally have to borrow money to level out their revenues. Quinn’s letter, however, will scare the devil out of bankers.
Quinn suggested lawmakers shouldn’t dillydally, but they aren’t scheduled to return to the Capitol to deal with the budget situation for two weeks.
And Quinn indicated that he wouldn’t bring them back before then. Another blow to those social service groups and vendors.
* Everybody else, including state workers and Public Aid recipients, are pretty safe…
…the lack of a budget for now may mean very little for most state agencies. Court orders require the state to make public aid payments regardless of the budget status. And the last time the state found itself in a similar position, a court told the state to continue sending out paychecks while the budget remained up in the air.
So you can most likely ignore most of the huffing and puffing about that issue. It’s the vendors and the providers who are in most danger now…
Twelve of the 33 employees at A Woman’s Fund in Urbana already have lost their jobs, said the agency’s executive director, Tami Tunnell.
And 31 of the 210 staffers at the Mental Health Center of Champaign County were told Wednesday that they are being laid off, said Chief Executive Officer Sheila Ferguson.
At the H Group in West Frankfort, administrators cut 33 jobs and 12 employees took pay cuts and demotions, said John Markley, executive director.
“If any legislator was looking for the blood on the sidewalk so to speak, it’s today (Wednesday),” Markley said. “If legislators are wondering if it’s really a crisis or not they can come and sit in our office and watch us tell our clients we can’t serve them; watch us have to tell our staff there is no need for their service because they aren’t funded by the sate anymore.”
Markley estimated the H Group, which provides mental health and addiction services in Williamson and Franklin Counties, will serve 1,000 fewer people this year than the 7,000 served last year. […]
[Fellowship House in Anna’s CEO Mickey Finch] said she has already cut seven jobs at Fellowship House and cut the number of patient beds from 40 to 20. She said the agency can make it until the end of the calendar year before shutting down.
Sabrina’s been laid off. And Keith is on a 14-day unpaid furlough, his job future uncertain. It’s a devastating one-two punch for the couple.
The Georges both work for Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC), an agency that was used by the courts to divert non-violent convicts with addiction problems away from prison, to probation and treatment. But Tuesday, after Illinois failed to pass a budget, the agency laid off 50 workers and furloughed 150 more for two weeks.
Asked the status of those 150 furloughed employees, TASC Executive VP Peter Palanca said, “We don’t know, given the uncertainty of the budget, given what’s going on. It’s anyone’s guess what’s going to happen.”
As a result, the office is deserted. Rows and rows of empty desks, and boxes piled high with files of clients who aren’t being helped.
* I put together a couple of videos last night that you may want to watch. The first is House Speaker Michael Madigan and Gov. Quinn talking about the governor’s apparent flip-flops. Make sure you watch all the way to the end for the “best” Madigan zinger…
The second video is Madigan answering questions about his poor relationships with Democratic governors in the past and allegations that he has deliberately undercut Gov. Quinn this year…
I’m still learning this video stuff, so be patient, please.
Investigators raided the home and office of the Cook County regional schools superintendent Wednesday, carting out laptop computers, cell phones and boxes of files, sources said.
Dr. Robert Weinstein was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison. The name means nothing to most of you, I realize, which is a shame, because you sure know a lot about his longtime partner, Stuart Levine, the crook who brought down the Blagojevich administration.
Weinstein was Levine’s partner in business and partner in crime, although there’s nothing to indicate they made a distinction between the two.
At the Tony Rezko trial, Levine testified that he and Weinstein shared the proceeds from everything they did, including his shady deals, and unlike Rezko, there was plenty of tape-recorded evidence with Weinstein’s own voice to prove that was the case.
The wiretapped phone conversations between Levine and Weinstein provided some of the most eye-opening moments of the Rezko trial as Levine bragged about his schemes to arrange secret kickbacks from companies seeking to do business with state boards on which he sat — and secretly controlled.
At this week’s City Council meeting, Reilly introduced an ordinance that would rein in so-called “nightly vacation rentals.”
It would allow condos to be turned into hotel suites only if owners get prior approval from the condo association, secure at least $1 million in liability insurance and obtain a two-year “vacation rental license” for a $500 fee.
The city’s 3.5 percent hotel tax would have to be tacked on to the nightly rental fee. No unit could be rented for fewer than 10 straight hours.
Three hold-out unions with 650 layoffs hanging in the balance —Teamster 726, Laborers 1001 and AFSMCE Council 31—are standing in the way of a two-year deal on cost-cutting concessions to save the jobs of 1,504 city of Chicago employees targeted for layoffs.
Mayor Daley refused today to say what he would do if the unions don’t get on board by the July 15 deadline.
“The city must take the appropriate action on the 15th,” Daley said at a City Hall news conference. “We think, in the long run, on the 15th, all of ‘em will be there. I firmly believe that. I pray for it. I hope they are…because this will not be good for their membership.”
The deal would require union workers to take unpaid days off. But a few of the unions working with the city say they won’t accept the plan. Ken Brantley is the vice president of Teamsters Local 726. He says his members are done negotiating.
BRANTLEY: Over the years they’ve gave up enough. They’re tired of giving back and nothing is being given to us. The mayor wants everything, it’s not just the furlough days.
Laborers’ Local 1001 and AFSCME are the other two unions that won’t agree to the plan. In a statement, AFSCME says its members are among the lowest-paid city workers. Labor leaders say all the unions working with the city have to accept the terms before the plan is implemented. Mayor Richard Daley says unions have until July 15 to reach an agreement before more than 1500 workers are laid off.
The $33-million deal brings to a close the recent financial woes of the Chicago-based video-game maker. Midway Games filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February not long after media mogul Sumner Redstone sold his majority stake in the firm. Midway had warned in November that the change in control would allow bondholders of $150 million in debt the right to call their notes. The company did not have the money to pay the entire debt.
Midway Games has been saddled with annual losses since 2000 as it has been unable to develop a sought-after game following its “Mortal Kombat” blockbuster.
An Illinois agency has begun recovery efforts at Rock River, where tens of thousands of fish suddenly died on the same weekend as an explosive train derailment in northern Illinois.
And court officials say the new rules bring the regulation of lawyers into the 21st century, specifically issuing guidelines for new technology including e-mail, Web sites and cell phones.
Among other things, the new rules also make it easier for lawyers to perform pro bono legal services, and they redefine the standards for client confidentiality.
* Theft of 5,000 pounds of commercial-grade fireworks worries cops
A five-inch mortar shell — one of the most common items taken — is powerful enough to kill someone if it detonates nearby and could even destroy a car if it blows up while being transported, DuPage County Sheriff’s Department officials said Wednesday.
Illinois Issues magazine’s annual environment issue came out today.
In it, you’ll find “Wind power,” a story about Illinois being at a turning point in its energy-producing future. It’s written by Michael Hawthorne, the Chicago Tribune reporter who broke the Crestwood water contamination story.
* Yesterday was a huge traffic day on this site. It wasn’t quite a record (the mark set on Rod Blagojevich’s arrest day will probably stand for a while). But everything slowed down to a crawl yesterday because so many people were trying to access the blog at once.
So, we’re doing some major infrastructure upgrades. This should prevent crashes and slowdowns - except for days when governors are arrested (even the Trib and Sun-Times were inaccessible part of that day).
In order to do this, however, the site will need to be taken down sometime after 8 o’clock tonight. It’ll hopefully be back up within an hour, but I just wanted to give you a heads up.
This is just the first step in our total site revamp. Stay tuned.
Thanks again for all of your support in making this the preeminent website for Illinois politics. Y’all are the best.
*** UPDATE - 7:50 pm *** My hosting company just called and said the migration to the new servers is complete. Sweet.
* I’m gonna run home and upload more, but here are a few videos to get you started. All three are from Gov. Quinn’s veto press conference. Quality is poor, since Mike is gone and I did them….
* 2:15 pm - The governor just announced he had vetoed SB 1197, which funds social service grants, among other things. More in a few.
Here’s a brief video of the veto ceremony. Watch how hard he whacks the bill with his veto stamp. Funny…
* From SEIU..
“Governor Quinn did the right thing today by rejecting a budget that would force deep cuts to vital services millions of Illinois families depend on. Now it’s time for the General Assembly to come back to Springfield and finally do their job by passing a fair income tax increase that provides enough revenue to stop these devastating cuts to home care, child care and vital human services.”
- Keith Kelleher, SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana President
* From Dan Hynes, in response to Quinn’s statement that providers of state services do so in the new fiscal year “at the risk of not being paid”…
The governor’s statement is the wrong message and borders on the irresponsible.
* 2:32 pm - Speaker Madigan is expected to hold a Statehouse presser soon. Stay tuned.
Anybody else notice that the state’s main website is down at the moment? What, did they not pay their hosting bill?
SENATE PRESIDENT AND SPEAKER OF the HOUSE CALL JOINT SESSION to address the budget
SPRINGFIELD, IL - Demonstrating their continued commitment to resolving the state budget crisis, Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan are calling a Joint Session of the General Assembly.
According to the joint proclamation released today:
“The purposes of the Special Session shall be (i) to take action on any vetoes, amendatory vetoes, or reduction vetoes by the Governor of legislation related to the budget for Fiscal Year 2010 and (ii) to consider any legislation, pending or otherwise, related in any way to the budget for Fiscal Year 2010, including but not limited to appropriation, budget implementation, or additional revenue resources.
The Special Session will convene at 2:00 pm on July 14, 2009 at the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois.”
* The Governor’s Office issued a press release this morning indicating that Governor Quinn will take veto action at 1:30 this afternoon…
SPRINGFIELD – Governor Pat Quinn will take veto action. There will be a b-roll and photo opportunity inside of the governor’s office, with a press availability immediately following in front of the office.
TIME: 1:30 p.m.
The press release, however, did not specify what veto action Quinn intends to take and the Governor’s Office has not provided additional details as of yet…
Quinn spokesman Bob Reed said he could not provide details of the veto action this morning. When asked whether the governor would veto the budget and call lawmakers into special session, Reed responded, “Details to follow.”
Investigators from Cook County state’s attorney’s office this morning raided the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education in Westchester in connection with an ongoing investigation into Supt. Charles Flowers.
Numerous purchases made on Flowers’ regional office credit card were of a personal nature, the audit shows. Credit card statements obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests detail thousands of dollars spent on food and restaurants, a trip to a hair salon and limousine charges. Documents also reveal that Flowers began his tenure with a credit card limit of $5,000, and it is now at $20,000.
This is all coming from an office where Flowers hired family and friends, including a nephew whom the audit shows was paid to eat lunch. Flowers approved $15,000 in cash advances for his executive assistant - who is also his sister - and another employee. In addition, two assistant superintendents each collected their $80,000-plus paychecks along with $12,000 and $9,400 in grant money for “consulting services” they did during normal working hours, according to the audit.
When schools chief Charles Flowers borrowed $190,000 for operations from the Cook County Board a year ago, he had until Tuesday to pay it back.
In a move that Cook County Commissioner Elizabeth Doody Gorman (R-Orland Park) called “embarrassing,” the embattled Suburban Cook Country Regional Office of Education superintendent did not make good on the loan.
“He just took the money and ran. And he’s still running,” Gorman said
It’s already begun: Sneed hears Mayor Daley has not only pulled the plug on supporting embattled Cook County Board President Todd Stroger for re-election, but he has hatched plans to back Ald. Toni Preckwinkle for the Cook County Board presidency.
Chicago aldermen agreed Tuesday to swallow a bitter pill and force it down the throats of all 3,700 non-union city employees: 15 unpaid days off by Dec. 31 to ease the city’s budget crisis.
The 42-to-6 vote was designed to pressure organized labor to agree to similar concessions to avert the need for 1,504 layoffs. But, aldermen also turned up the heat on Mayor Daley.
Burned by the parking meter fiasco and spurned in their demand for specific information about city contracts, aldermen are making noises about hiring their own budget analysts and generating their own spending plan to rival the mayor’s version, just as they did during Council Wars.
“We can’t have a partnership when there is no trust. We can’t make a decision on partial information,” said Ald. Manny Flores (1st).
The first round of Chicago Public Schools layoffs is set to begin Wednesday when more than 550 administrative employees will be fired as part of a cost-cutting plan, district sources said.
The cuts will come from a pool of about 5,300 non-classroom positions and are expected to result in savings of up to $100 million, sources said. Another round of layoffs is expected later in the summer as the district’s new CEO, Ron Huberman, is looking at up to 1,000 layoffs.
The nation’s third-largest school district hopes to save as much as $200 million from layoffs and cutting contracts, but even that would amount to less than half of a budget deficit pegged at $475 million to $600 million, depending on state aid.
Federal grant money may save the jobs of Springfield firefighters.
The Springfield Fire Department could lose 29 employees, more than 12 percent of its 229-member staff, according to the scenarios provided by the mayor’s office. Springfield’s International Association of Fire Fighters Local 37 represents 214 of those employees.
* Chicago aldermen take on Daley’s plan for 2016 Olympics
Ald. Manuel Flores (1st) introduced an ordinance to cap the city’s liability for 2016 losses at $500 million. Just 10 other aldermen in the 50-member council signed as co-sponsors. “I remain a supporter of the Games, but it has to be done in a thoughtful and transparent manner,” Flores said. “What types of guarantees are we offering?”
Restrictions like what Flores proposed could severely harm Chicago’s bid, several observers said. The International Olympic Committee will choose Oct. 2 between Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
Chicago 2016 must open its books to an “objective” third-party — possibly the Civic Federation — for an analysis of the city’s Olympic bid, under a resolution approved by the City Council Tuesday.
The resolution calling for a Civic Federation analysis was co-sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) and Traffic Committee Chairman Pat O’Connor, Daley’s unofficial City Council floor leader. It drew widespread support.
“There’s a lot of people in my community who don’t trust the 2016 committee,” said Ald. Richard Mell (33rd).
The bitter battle that gave birth to the big-box minimum-wage ordinance that was snuffed out by Mayor Daley’s only veto returned to the City Council today.
It happened when Ald. Howard Brookins (21st), business and community leaders turned up the heat on aldermen to give Wal-Mart the go-ahead to build its second Chicago store — and first super-center that sells groceries — at a former Chatham industrial site at 83rd and Stewart.
With the city facing a $300 million budget shortfall and unemployment among African Americans topping 20 percent, Brookins said it makes no sense to block a $64 million project that would create 600 full- and part-time jobs.
Daley has said Brookins’ request “is not gonna fly” because Wal-Mart backers “don’t have enough votes.” The mayor is reluctant to pick a fight with organized labor before the International Olympic Committee’s Oct. 2 vote on a host city for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
Chicago will get more than $27 million in Energy Efficient Conservation Block Grants as part of the federal stimulus program. It wants to spend that money retrofitting nearly a thousand intersections with LED traffic signals, greening city facilities, and replacing some alley and street lights with lower wattage designs.
Starting today and lasting until just before Labor Day, the county’s court system essentially is calling a time out until it can get its arms around an ever-growing mountain of foreclosure cases.
Notices sent Tuesday to some 20,000 homeowners, excluding condominium owners, in and around Rogers Park show a median 6.1 percent drop in assessed values, according to the Cook County assessor’s office.
“The downturn in the real estate market combined with the increase in foreclosures are having a pronounced impact on the city reassessment,” said Eric Herman, a spokesman for the office.
The assessor’s office slices the county into thirds — city, north suburbs, south suburbs — examining each section once every three years. This year, it’s the city’s turn.
“This will be the first reassessment of Chicago property that has seen a decline in the assessed value in [recent] memory.”
The truck will let the food depository double the number of its mobile pantry sites to 20, with an additional 960,000 pounds of food to be distributed in fiscal year 2009-10, spokesman Bob Dolgan said. With the Chicago pilot program as its model, Kraft has committed to spend $4.5 million on 25 trucks that will work in six other cities in the next three years, including New York, San Antonio and Madison, Wis.
Since 2008, the Greater Chicago Food Depository and the St. Charles-based Northern Illinois Food Bank each say they have seen a 35 percent surge in need at area food pantries.
“We have had seniors and single mothers and people with disabilities” in the past, she said. “Now we also have professionals whose unemployment has run out.”
A pair of powerful aldermen — Rules Committee Chairman Richard Mell (33rd) and Transportation Committee Chairman Tom Allen (38th) — are demanding that the Park District cancel plans to start charging people this fall to park at lakefront parks and beaches.
The $700,000 plan calls for 4,400 lakefront spaces where parking is now free to cost $1-an-hour while rates at 537 metered spaces double or quadruple.
The latest round in a years-long battle over the streets surrounding Wrigley Field began Tuesday when the local alderman introduced a proposal to expand a ban on peddlers and street performers.
Chicago Ald. Thomas Tunney, whose 44th Ward includes the ballpark, is sponsoring a measure to add several blocks to the area where it’s already illegal to bang on buckets or sell food and merchandise from a cart, table or other temporary stand.
“It’s a public safety issue,” Tunney said. “You can’t walk to the park.”
From July 1, 2007, to July 1, 2008, Chicago grew by 20,606 people, according to population estimates released Wednesday by the Census Bureau. That’s more than three times the previous year’s reported increase of 6,400 people, which reversed five consecutive years of population declines.
Census data released Wednesday highlight a city resurgence in coastal regions and areas of the Midwest and Northeast, due to a housing crunch, recession and higher gas prices that have slowed migration.
Metra is alerting its riders that they will soon see federal Transportation Security Administration personnel patrolling their commuter trains.
The so-called VIPR teams — that’s short for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response and pronounced “viper” for those of you keen on law enforcement acronyms — will consist of federal air marshals, transportation security officers, TSA-certified canine teams, surface transportation security inspectors and local law enforcement.
To be clear, “transportation security officers” are those same TSA folks who already order you around at the airport, some with more attitude than others.
A Metra statement says they’ll work with existing security to bolster detection and deterrence. It adds the intention is to use unpredictability to disrupt potential terrorist planning activities.
The statement says the initiative isn’t a response to any specific threat.
An ex-Chicago cop was sentenced today to almost 11 years in prison for robbing drug dealers — a case that prompted the judge to declare he’s tired of the growing pace of wrongdoing by police officers.
“In this city, it seems to me we are bombarded by stories and cases and prosecutions of police misconduct,” said U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, who imposed the sentence on Richard Doroniuk. “It’s been accelerating . . . It’s very discouraging.”
Honeywell is consolidating two smaller sites, one in Chicago and another in Skokie, into the larger Bolingbrook headquarters. Most of the jobs will be filled with workers who transfer from those locations, said Jeff Morris, president of Honeywell Safety Products. But there will be some open positions now and in the future, he said. Information on job openings is available at www.honeywell.com.
Of the 125 jobs at the site, 75 will be manufacturing spots and 50 will be office workers.
Fireworks shows are being canceled or scaled back in some small and midsize cities, as municipalities’ tax revenue dries up. Funding from corporate sponsorships also has fizzled.
Last week, west suburban Berwyn joined North Riverside, Elgin and Gurnee, among others, in canceling their annual shows. North Aurora opted to forego its usual display and instead donated $4,000 to fund neighboring Aurora’s event. Joliet struggled to pay for fireworks, but donors came through. And Woodridge, which put on two nights of fireworks last year, will have only one night this year.
HAMMOND, Ind. — A federal judge has rejected a move by environmentalists to stop the $3.8 billion expansion of BP’s oil refinery along Lake Michigan.
The facility is the largest oil refinery in the Midwest. BP has said the expanded refinery would be the nation’s top processor of heavy high-sulfur Canadian crude oil.
* Deer in Illinois: Researchers track culinary clues left by deer in forest preserves
Nearly extinct a century ago in Illinois, deer have adapted to urban environments and are increasingly brazen when tempted with tasty vegetation. Forest preserve managers, like any backyard gardener, don’t want to waste money with plantings that become instant breakfast to a ravenous herd. They hope the university can help them figure out the deer’s gastronomic preferences so they can plant accordingly.
The Sears Tower Skydeck opens its lure for thrill-seekers Thursday. It’s called the Ledge and it gives the illusion of standing on air a few feet outside the building, 103 stories off the ground.
It could put the Skydeck on the must-see list for tourists, right up there with the museums and Michigan Avenue shopping. It’s supposed to be an engineering marvel.
A widely circulated e-mail over the past few weeks warns drivers that, beginning today, Illinois State Police are going to be using cameras in work zones to enforce work zone speed limits — and ticketing drivers for being as little as 1 mph over the limit. […]
But tickets are “obviously not given for 1 mph over,” Lt. Luis Gutierrez, state police public information officer, emphasized Tuesday.
State police offices in both Springfield and Chicago said they don’t how this old e-mail keeps getting passed around.
“It’s generated every time summer comes around,” said Gutierrez.
I don’t get many of those chain e-mails. Maybe I just know smart people. Maybe I’m just lucky. Maybe now that I’ve written this, I’ll get a kabillion of them.
Anyway, I’m curious. So…
* The Question: Do you ever get these things? And, if so, what do you do when you get obviously false chain e-mails from friends or family members? What was the weirdest one you received?
I’m not talking about those Nigerian spam letters, or some such. I mean chain letters forwarded to you by people you know who think they’re real.
* Blogger Cal Skinner is being sued by the parent company of the Northwest Herald…
The civil lawsuit challenges Cal Skinner Jr.’s June 3 post on his political blog alleging that the newspaper received a multimillion dollar-loan from McHenry County government at submarket rates to prevent it from moving outside the county. It also challenges a comment that the loan was made “to put the paper in the back pocket of the Republican Party.”
Northwest Herald Publisher John Rung said Skinner’s assertions were “reckless and completely fabricated.”
“We are saddened and disappointed – although perhaps not surprised – that he would publish such malicious falsehoods,” Rung said. “His motives here are clear: By lying about our integrity and financial health, he is attempting to injure our business. Because of the severity and irresponsibility of his accusations, we feel that it is necessary to ensure that the truth becomes part of the public record.”
The lawsuit, filed in McHenry County Circuit Court, states that the newspaper never received a loan from the county, never contemplated moving out of the county, has never been in the back pocket of the McHenry County Republican Party and is not “in extremis.” […]
The newspaper company also contends that Skinner made the statements with “malice or ill will” because of its past stories detailing the former lawmaker’s contentious divorce and child custody battle.
I remember those “contentious divorce and child custody battle” stories well because I knew they were coming and had talked with the paper about them before and, I believe, after they were published. I wrote some pretty negative stories about Skinner based on those NW Herald pieces. I even reprinted one of them when Skinner decided to run statewide. Yet, Skinner blogs at Illinoize about state stuff on occasion, so it doesn’t appear that he still carries a total grudge against me.
* You can read the newspaper’s complaint by clicking here. From the complaint, here’s what Skinner actually wrote…
And, who could forget the multimillion loan to the Northwest Herald at sub-market rates?
I filed a Freedom of Information request for the details a couple of years and got nothing. Guess it’s time to try again.
In any event, the NW Herald was not an “in extremis” condition then.
The excuse for loaning the money was to keep the county newspaper from moving out of the county.
The real reason was to put the paper in the back pocket of the Republican Party. (Anyone want to deny the strategy worked?)
* From the complaint…
COUNT II – FALSE LIGHT
…The false statements about Plaintiff by Defendant place Plaintiff in a false light before the public, as purported “mouthpiece” for the Republican party, rather than as an award-winning member of the independent press.
It looks to me like Skinner overdid it. I often bash newspapers, but I can certainly see why this paper was upset. I would’ve been, too. But, really, are we now supposed to refer to the Northwest Herald only in the context of being an “award-winning member of the independent press”?
I think not.
There’s no denying that the paper’s editorial stance leans Republican and has done so for a very long time. That fact was pointed out to me this week during a conversation with the paper’s own attorney, Don Craven…
Skinner also maintained that his comment on his political blog about the Northwest Herald being in the back pocket of the local Republican Party was an opinion protected from such lawsuits.
But Don Craven, an attorney for the printing company, disagreed.
“Statements of opinion are protected,” Craven said. “Statements of opinion which include defamatory facts are not protected.”
Plaintiff is not now, and has never been ‘in extremis’ condition.
Here’s what Skinner wrote…
In any event, the NW Herald was not an “in extremis” condition then.
Craven told me Skinner was implying with that sentence that the paper is currently “in extremis.” I just don’t see that. I’ve read it over and over again, and I can’t see it. That allegation looks way over the line to me.
* And what about the claim that the loan was made to “keep the county newspaper from moving out of the county”? From the complaint…
Plaintiff does not now and has not considered moving the NORTHWEST HERALD from McHenry County.
There are no public records which would support the statements published by Defendant.
Skinner’s reply Monday included a copy of a 1985 county board resolution authorizing a $2.6 million Economic Development Revenue Bond… The resolution states its purpose as “increasing and retaining employment within (McHenry County’s) boundaries.”
* From the complaint…
Plaintiff has never been the recipient of a multi-million dollar loan from McHenry County at sub-market rates.
Plaintiff has never been the recipient of any loan, from any public body, at market or sub-market rates.
The loan transaction in question consisted of a $2.6 million bond issued and sold by the County of McHenry to the Dixon National Bank (the “Bond”) for the purpose of providing funds to finance the costs of acquisition, construction and equipping of a printing, warehousing and office facility….
The owner of the Project was Shawmor. The Project was leased to the Shaw Free Press Media, Inc.
But the paper didn’t get the loan directly from the county, so I see their point. Yet, is that enough to file a lawsuit? Then again…
Newspaper attorney Don Craven said Skinner’s focus on the loan issue sidesteps what he sees as the larger issue: allegations the Northwest Herald is in the GOP’s back pocket.
“He’s offered no evidence to support that ludicrous statement,” Craven said.
Skinner’s statement may well have been ludicrous, but we’re treading on some dangerous turf here. I can’t think of a single newspaper that hasn’t accused some politician at one time or another of being in somebody’s back pocket - often with a whole lot of flimsy “evidence.” Glass houses, etc.
Then again, that was a pretty bold accusation leveled by Skinner, so he ought to put up or apologize.
* Back to the complaint…
The statements made by Defendant were intended to deter members of the public from purchasing the news products offered by Plaintiff, and to undercut the news products offered by Plaintiff.
Really? I shudder to think what’s gonna happen if Big Media starts suing bloggers who criticize their content and call into question their motives (like the media does to politicians, by the way).
* Skinner has been a thorn in that paper’s side for a very long time, so maybe they just got fed up and decided to whack back. I get that. I can even empathize.
But, man, that seems to me like a harsh way to do things. And bad karma to boot.
No comments on this one because we don’t need to fire anybody up who might already be fired up. Not that they would get fired up. Just sayin…
* One of the best publicly available roundups of yesterday’s events is at Illinois Issues’ blog…
Despite the governor’s wishes, the legislature didn’t even consider raising taxes [yesterday]. Lawmakers, instead, sent him pieces of what Quinn dubs a “half-baked budget” that would mean drastic cuts to human services and, in some cases, has already resulted in layoffs and program cuts within community-based services. Quinn said he would veto the spending plan. […]
And he gained one more reason to veto the so-called 50 percent budget late in the day. It would carry an even larger deficit than anticipated because the legislature failed to approve a short-term borrowing scheme to free up $2.2 billion. Senate Bill 415 actually failed twice [last night]. […]
And in a strange turn of events, Schoenberg confirmed that the governor’s office had called some senators to urge them not to vote for the bill, which the governor proposed and supported earlier in the day. Schoenberg said members were told the borrowing plan would take pressure off of the legislature to act on more substantial revenue sources, a.k.a. an income tax increase. […]
The disagreement is just one sign of the tension between the legislative and executive branches in the past month. They can’t even agree on the size of the deficit, let alone the methods to fill that gap.
House Speaker Michael Madigan said the governor and the legislature had “legitimate differences of opinion” but that they will continue to work through the differences. In the meantime, he said the governor has now received a package of bills that would allow him to spend the amount of money they expect to be available in fiscal year 2010. “The governor’s complaint is that he wants more money to spend,” Madigan said. “The legislature has said, ‘We’re not going to give you authority to spend money when we don’t think that money will be available.’”
Neither House Speaker Michael Madigan nor Cullerton knew when lawmakers would reconvene in Springfield to continue budget negotiations.
The first day of state payroll for the new fiscal year is July 14. State Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, expects Quinn to veto the bills and call lawmakers back into session before then to continue negotiations on an income tax increase and a balanced budget.
“Things will limp along a little bit, but without an appropriation, no payments will go out from the Comptroller’s Office starting on midnight (Wednesday),” he said.
The Comptroller cuts checks for nearly all facets of state government, from state employees to teachers’ salaries to human service groups.
This is worse than Rod Blagojevich. Social service agencies that help the developmentally disabled and mentally ill throughout the state are cutting programs and laying off employees because elected officials in Illinois don’t know what they’re doing.
That’s as close as I can come to giving you an accurate report on the budget crisis in Illinois. […]
A director for Southwest Community Services in Tinley Park told me she has laid off three full-time employees and a part-time mental health worker this week and told 17 clients they no longer would be able to receive mental health services through her agency because of the state budget cuts.
State Rep. David Miller (D-Lynwood) told me he didn’t realize cuts were taking place in “real time” and said he was under the impression they wouldn’t start happening until the end of July. People close to the governor gave me the same impression.
Does anybody in Springfield actually understand what’s going on in the real world?
If anything, the clash between the Democrats left social service providers in even bigger limbo than when Quinn’s administration sent out notices that their grants would be slashed by half or better, forcing layoffs and service cuts.
“People want to know where they stand, right?” said Rep. Susana Mendoza (D-Chicago). “Right now, you know where they stand? Under the bus.”
With court battles sure to continue over legislative guarantees to provide social service funding, Quinn maintained that lawmakers won’t have acted properly until they discard the political tactics of one-upmanship and take responsibility for raising taxes.
“The bottom line is we need the revenue to balance the books,” Quinn said. “We cannot live in a pretend world, a fantasy world, that you somehow have manna from heaven that will pay for the expenses. The bottom line is the money isn’t there.”
Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, a key budget negotiator for the Senate Democrats, said it is all up to Quinn at this point.
“I assume he’s going to veto the budget,” Sullivan said. “If he does veto the budget, then obviously we will have to come back to Springfield. If he doesn’t veto the budget after his address today, I think his credibility is going to be further damaged.”
Sullivan said it’s been frustrating trying to forge a compromise because Quinn has a “lack of consistency” in his positions.
“He’s zigged and zagged and been all over the board to the point where I don’t think anybody really knows for sure what he wants,” Sullivan said. “He threatened to close the four veterans homes, including the one in Quincy, and yet he comes out today and says ‘I can’t imagine anybody cutting services to veterans with two wars going on.’ ”
* Non-Profit Group Sues Over Budget Cuts To Disabled
* As new fiscal year begins, Illinois remains without budget: If the state doesn’t put together a budget that pays for those services, “we’re going to be sued from here to kingdom come,” Quinn said.
* We had a lot of excellent videos yesterday. In fact, so many of you watched the videos that we were ranked 29th in the world on YouTube reporter sites…
* Many of our best videos were posted after most of you stopped reading the blog last night. So, here’s a recap of the late ones…
* Speaker Madigan held a rare press availability and got in a couple of subtle shots at Gov. Quinn…
* Senate President John Cullerton was obviously furious at Gov. Pat Quinn last night after the pension note bill failed the second time. Watch it…
* Sen. James Meeks said in an exclusive sit-down interview that the governor ought to veto the budget bills and allow the government to crash if necessary. He also had some harsh words about Speaker Madigan’s House and talked about why the pension note bill failed to pass the Senate…
* House GOP Leader Tom Cross talked about how the appropriations numbers have jumped all over the place and how the governor wanted to base a 30-day budget extension on a projection which included the income tax hike, which hasn’t passed yet…
* Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno agreed that the governor was being disingenuous about asking for a budget extension based on revenue estimates that included a tax increase which never happened. She also talked about how the Democrats can’t even agree on the deficit estimate…
* Senate Democratic “budgeteer” Donne Trotter said that the governor needs to sign the budget bills that are now on his desk. “To do anything less is irresponsible,” Trotter said…
* And here’s one I never posted. My intern Mike Murray’s last full day was yesterday. He’ll still be doing Morning Shorts and he’ll try to be here for occasional summer session days, but he gone. Take care, Mike…
