Morning Shorts
Tuesday, Sep 22, 2009 - Posted by Mike Murray
* Third Week of School, Kids Still Lack Teachers
This is the third week of school in Chicago. But thousands of high school students still haven’t met their teachers. It’s a longstanding problem that we reported on the first day of school. It happens when more students show up at a given school than the district projects. Kids get assigned to overcrowded classes, or see a revolving door of substitutes until permanent teachers are put in place. The district promised that kids would not have to wait as long for teachers this year. WBEZ’s Linda Lutton checks in to see how things are going.
* Chicago school violence: District rushes to put anti-violence plan in place as gunfire claims new victims
Corey McClaurin, a senior at Simeon Career Academy High School, and Corey Harris, a basketball player at Dyett High School, were both claimed by gun violence, and seven other students have been shot in September.
* Nurse who was handcuffed sues Chicago
Hofstra said she told the officer the suspect had to be admitted before she could draw blood, and explained that to his lieutenant. But she says that once the lieutenant left, the officer handcuffed her, put her in the squad car and kept her there for 45 minutes.
* Moody’s downgrades CTA bonds tied to taxes
* A fair slice of the tax pie
* Daley ‘getting more confident’ Chicago will win Olympics
“Our competition comes in Rio de Janeiro…I’m getting more confident because they’re getting the 2014 (World Cup),” the mayor told reporters at the opening of a new school on the South Side.
* Insuring the 2016 Summer Olympics
Chicago’s bid team is confident it has every contingency covered to limit the risk to taxpayers
* Olympic delegation adds security to trip
* Obama team off to Denmark, just in case
* African IOC Members Could Play a Factor in Host City Selection
* Illinois gets $350,000 nutrition grant
Illinois will get a $350,000 federal grant to fight childhood obesity and pitch an active lifestyle to schoolchildren.
* CTA buses will get less idle time while out of service
The transit agency is getting $1.5 million in economic stimulus money to build electric hook-ups that will deliver power to about 80 buses parked overnight outside the CTA’s North Park Garage, 3112 W. Foster Ave.
* CTA sets vendor workshops for minority- and female-owned businesses
* Red-light camera firm’s ties to lawyer for Berwyn is questioned
* Burr Oak Owners Head Back to Court
* Bartlett family awarded millions in malpractice settlement
* Chicago plague-related death: Federal health officials probe University of Chicago geneticist’s lab site
* Rough year for grads
Jobs harder to find — and they’re paying less
* Trouble Could Be in Forecast for Illinois Farmers
This week’s expected rainfall could bring setbacks to Illinois’ two major crops: corn and soy beans. That’s according to some state agriculture experts.
* County farmers could receive government aid
* Guard members cope with returning home
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 22, 09 @ 8:36 am:
Providing safe passage for schoolchildren through various gang territories may be a laudable effort but why are the gangs there in the first place? After all these years of the Daley administration and numerous Daley-selected police chiefs and not much has changed in Chicago’s gangland. Makes you wonder, in a city which is still dominated by Democratic Machine politics.
In LA, this morning 1000 law enforcement officers arrived with warrants on an area of the city infested with a particularly nasty street gang.
It wouldn’t happen in Chicago, where violent street gangs are tolerated as part of the landscape despite occasional self serving comments by local Machine pols.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Sep 22, 09 @ 8:36 am:
The Trib has the best article I’ve seen so far on the “insurance” for the 2016 Olympics.
Bottom line: $90 million in premiums gives you golden liability and Act-of-God coverage.
But Chicago taxpayers are on the hook for the cost of the Olympic village, venues and running the games — estimated cost $4.8 billion — if sponsorships don’t come through.
- Brennan - Tuesday, Sep 22, 09 @ 8:43 am:
4.8 billion times the average expected overage cost.
1.5 times the estimate is a good figure. Start there. It will probably exceed this rate.
- Angry Chicagoan - Tuesday, Sep 22, 09 @ 8:52 am:
So much in this opening thread I don’t know where to begin. Let’s just pick on one issue, the CTA bonds, which serve as a poster child for our broken tax system in Illinois. It should not come as a surprise. As long as we persist in taxing goods heavily and barely taxing services at all with the sales tax, we’re going to see the proceeds decline in real terms. Even without exorbitant rates, people are steadily spending a smaller and smaller share of their income on goods, and the rates on goods are simply accelerating that natural trend by making people mail order.
Levy the tax on all services, average it out to one low rate (it would be as low as four percent even in Chicago with all the other local taxes, lower than three percent in parts of Downstate), and state sales taxes, local option sales taxes, transit sales taxes and any other kind of sales tax will quit losing their value in real terms and the people who depend on them can look forward to some stability. Retailers and their customers will get a welcome break, while I think hair salons, car mechanics and lawyers can afford to live with at least some sales tax.
- Speaking at Will - Tuesday, Sep 22, 09 @ 10:29 am:
Simply put, a Chicago hosted Olympics will be frought with corruption and cost over runs.
- Ghost - Tuesday, Sep 22, 09 @ 4:20 pm:
ever post something, cant find it in the thread you intended, and wonder where you must have accidentally placed it?