Morning Shorts
Thursday, Sep 3, 2009 - Posted by Mike Murray
* Illinois gets $200 million for unemployment plan
Illinois will get more than $200 million in U.S. Labor Department funds to modernize its unemployment insurance program.
The money is coming from the federal stimulus program.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security can use these funds to pay unemployment benefits, or if appropriated by the Legislature, for administering its unemployment insurance program or providing employment services, according to the office of Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill.
* Major cuts hit probation department in Madison County; earlier struck St. Clair County
“How do you cut 30 people and still continue to function as a viable public-safety-driven entity?” Dallas asked.
* State: Be careful what you flush
* Stroger Hospital doctors join union
* Cut in Cook County sales tax rests on election
Stroger has previously said he might support a .25 percent rollback of the 1 percent increase that took effect just over a year ago, hiking the county sales tax to 1.75 percent. That would at least save Cook County consumers an estimated $100 million a year, if not the $200 million that would have resulted from a half-percent cut. But fresh from his victory Tuesday, when Chicago Commissioner Deborah Sims switched sides at the last moment to sustain Stroger’s veto of a July vote to cut the sales tax a half penny on the dollar, he backtracked on even that.
“Things have changed,” Stroger said. “It’s not the same. I’d have to go to the finance team, and we’ll look at the numbers, and we’ll see if we can handle that. But we do know that we have some costs that weren’t there last year when I proposed the budget, and one of them is $113 million for the pension fund.”
* Deborah Sims’ Suburban Problem
Deborah Sims can vote with impunity — or so she believes — because of several factors. First of all, she doesn’t really represent the South Suburbs, she represents her Chicago Wards — and, specifically, her loyalists are very proud of her residence in the 34th Ward. If Sims can get the votes out of the Chicago Wards and Thornton township, then she wins. Her work — her neglect of the Southland — is evidence that she understands this political calculation.
Hence her continued loyalty to Todd Stroger. Thus her neglect of the Southland.[…]
In the end, Deborah Sims has to do two contradictory things: have a strong presence in the South Suburbs (especially in Thornton township) and hope that voters don’t realize who she is. Todd Stroger won’t be successful down here — John Stroger wouldn’t have done that well if Forrest Claypool’s campaign had tried to compete in the South Suburbs.
* Too much compassion Exists in Cook County
In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday, they contend that Dart has violated their right to due process by refusing to enforce court-ordered eviction notices on tenants.
“I’ve had one tenant who hasn’t paid his rent for 10 months,” Slinkman said. “Tenants all over Cook County are gaming the system because they know there’s a court order that prevents evicting them when the temperature is below 15 degrees or when there’s excessive snow on the ground or during the holidays.
* Pace, toll chiefs aim to speed Tri-State traffic
The agencies are seeking $200 million in federal stimulus funding to get express buses running between job-scarce areas in the south suburbs and employment opportunities in the west and northwest.
If funding is approved, the so-called high-occupancy-toll or HOT lanes could be opened on the Tri-State by early 2012, officials said Wednesday.
* Plan would put Pace on Tri-State fast track
* Boy awarded $16.5 mil. in suit vs. CHA
A Chicago teen with severe mental retardation caused by lead poisoning from a CHA apartment was awarded $16.5 million Wednesday by a Cook County jury.
* Cook County investigators probe Rockford shooting
* Will County fights back as heroin makes deadly inroads with youth
Across Will County, there are hundreds of middle-class addicts — what authorities say constitutes a deadly heroin epidemic. A record 19 overdose deaths have occurred so far this year. That’s three more than were recorded in all of 2008, and nearly four times as many as in 2000.
The problem is fueled by cheap prices, easy availability and relaxed social attitudes toward a drug once considered beyond the pale.
The death toll has risen every year since 2005, according to Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil’s office, with the overdoses occurring in places including Mokena, Crest Hill, New Lenox and Homer Glen — suburbs better known for family-friendly, cookie-cutter subdivisions than widespread hard-drug use.
* Cheating shouldn’t be part of lesson plan
- Bill - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:10 am:
The post on Sims is complete bull. The South Suburbs have had great representation on the County Board from Deborah . Her courageous vote against the override is indicative of the way she votes for the best interests of her district regardless of the political risks.
Thornton Township IS the democratic party in the South Suburbs and Todd and Deborah will win in a landslide in this area.So will Murphy. It will take a lot more than a rag tag band of hippie carpetbaggers to make a dent in the great Thornton Township Regular Democratic Organization.
Bring it on!
- Third Generation Chicago Native - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:28 am:
The Deborah Sims article is so right on, and also her neighboring district Commissioner, and partner/sponser in many, many issues Joan Murphy. Both these two need to be voted out along with Butler. The Southern Cook County are needs to get these three out, but Sims/Murphy duo needs to go first.
- Cassandra - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:33 am:
Residents of suburban Oak Park have the same problem as Sims’ suburban constituents. We get ignored–lumped in with Chicago’s vote-rich West Side, a drug-ridden area of the city whose rampant crime frequently cross the border into Oak Park. We don’t get any government money for putting up with all this Chicago crime, though. Instead, we have to pay more for an outsized police department and stay very, very alert when we go out for an evening walk.
And our Democratic elected representatives have little interest in Oak Park. They are primarily interested in raising taxes and increasing state and county patronage, with all the spoils going to the city. They (Harmon, Graham, et al) don’t play to the suburbs. As I suppose the numbers dictate.
Getting redistricted out of the West Side legislative district and into a district that
actually shares some of our problems and interests? A distant dream. Redistricting may be on somebody’s reform agenda, but it is unlikely to benefit close in suburbs. And when it comes to the most important stuff, money, we’ll always be the bridesmaids.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:34 am:
Kirk should thank his lucky stars for that Immigrant Action ad. It’s dishonest, stupid and will only help him.
With enemies like that, who needs friends?
- wordslinger - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 9:52 am:
Bill, I’m shocked! What do you have against rag-tap hippies?
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:07 am:
Let me get this straight. The Illinois Tollroad Authority sells their bonds to finance new lanes on the highways to the tune of scores of millions of dollars and subjects the users of the system to untold hours of delays during the construction.
The project is not yet complete and another tax eating organization wants to appropriate the new lanes to transport 1000 people per day to the tune of 200 million to start. Many more millions to pay the operational costs of this boutique service.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to take the 200 million and divide it up among the proposed riders and let them buy a house near where they work?
This is dumb on so many levels it is not funny.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 10:54 am:
If it was ever gone, heroin is back in a big way.
There’s an apparently well-known open air marketplace in Austin, right off the Austin exit on the Ike.
Every week, the police blotter in the Oak Park paper has items on young people being arrested after copping in Austin and wandering into the relative safety of Oak Park to fix. They’re usually busted in their parked cars, on the nod with needles stuck in their arms. Often, it’s in the McDonald’s on Madison parking lot — right across the street from the Oak Park Police Department.
It’s not just a Chicago problem. Last week, some of those arrested were from Kewanee, Rockford and Crystal Lake. Heartbreaking.
- bored now - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 11:15 am:
it’s nice to see the thornton regular dems engaged in south suburban politics! i think i’ll wait for election day before i comment on your prediction, though, that “Todd and Deborah will win in a landslide” in the south suburbs. i won’t forget, bill. clearly, we are talking to different people…
- cassandra - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 12:13 pm:
Apparently, that Austin drug market has existed for decades. Sure, the kids shouldn’t be buying the drugs. But why is it so easy for them to buy. After a homicide over there recently, one of the neighbors commented that it was really quiet (the next day, when the reporter was interviewing him) because there were a lot of police around, but if you came back when things were back to normal there would be a line of cars coming up from the Ike to buy.How hard could it be to shut that down?
Hellooo….Mayor Daley. Could you take a little time off from the Olympics to chat with Weis about this?
- Bill - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 12:43 pm:
Bored,
Yeah, OK, see you at the polls.
- Great!! - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 2:08 pm:
Rich,
where I agree with commissioner Sims or not, the fact that she is receiving racist death threats over a vote on sales tax is way over the top and sick!!!!
- bored now - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 4:40 pm:
would you mind providing a link to where deborah sims is receiving death threats? i haven’t heard that.
- City News is back? - Thursday, Sep 3, 09 @ 11:56 pm:
Rich, thought you’d have said something about this: Loyola is reviving the City News Bureau, by teaching it as a university course. Students will hit the bricks and dig up stories as in the days of old, using the Old Ways as a guide. Combine that ethos with modern media techniques, something exciting may happen in local news.