Education cuts total $282 million
Thursday, Jun 24, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Gov. Quinn assured many that he could hold education harmless this coming fiscal year by using his powers to move money around. But here come the cuts…
The Illinois State Board of Education agreed to ax nearly $300 million from its budget on Wednesday, canceling financial support for everything from agricultural education to arts education to alternative schools that get high school dropouts back in class.
State Superintendent Christopher Koch called the reductions “an unraveling of the infrastructure for state education.” […]
The board initially faced $480 million in cuts to targeted programs based on the budget proposal passed by state lawmakers. But Gov. Pat Quinn averted deep reductions in early childhood and bilingual education by providing another $194 million, state education officials said.
Board members grappled Wednesday with where to squeeze $282 million from the spending plan for next year. They targeted after-school programs, school breakfast reimbursements as well as principal and teacher mentoring.
The advantage of being in the minority party (or the Tribune editorial board) in a situation like this is you can demand cuts and then attack the majority for the cuts they do make. Expect just such a react soon.
You can listen to today’s meeting of the state board live by clicking here (Real Media) or here (Windows Media).
* Related and a roundup…
* State’s outstanding bills dog DuPage county budget: In all, the state is behind $7.8 million in its payments to the county. Sales tax receipts also are lagging about 7.7 percent below the projected half-year figure of $39.3 million.
* Doctors group will chime in on medical claim denials
* State government wipes out expired leases, expects to save $20 million
* Quinn signs tax credits bill at Abbott ceremony
* Quinn signing of STAR bill delayed
* Legislators Flider, McCarter forego mailings: In order to save the state money, Rep. Bob Flider, D-Mount Zion, and Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, are foregoing the brochures that commonly explain what they accomplished during the spring legislative session in Springfield.
* A look at proposed unified standards
* Springfield decisions will affect SIU borrowing
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* The Republicans are actively trying to push this story into the bloodstream…
Illinois state Treasurer and Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias’ name came up Wednesday at the trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D).
There’s was no smoking gun — or anything close to it — but with Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) struggling mightily beneath his misrepresentations of his military record, Republicans’ hopes of tying Giannoulias to the trial and changing the subject could be buoyed.
That WaPo mention was prompted by this Sun-Times passage about Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias calling on behalf of Valerie Jarrett’s appointment to the US Senate after Barack Obama’s election win…
In the same call, [chief of staff John Harris] is overheard talking about getting a message from Illinois state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.
“So Alexi called me. He wanted to have a discussion about the Senate seat,” John Harris is heard telling Blagojevich. “I imagine he’ll tell me … Barack wants Valerie.”
Blagojevich: “Listen to me, don’t see him today. Just … let’s run the clock now.”
Back to the WaPo…
The recording, which is from a phone call about a month before Blagojevich and Harris were arrested, suggests Giannoulias is serving as some kind of intermediary for Obama.
Not true, said Giannoulias spokeswoman Kathleen Strand. “Alexi did not call Harris at the behest of President Obama,” she said. “Alexi thinks very highly of Valerie Jarrett, and it was well known that he thought she would make a terrific senator. So naturally, he was an advocate for her appointment.”
For Republicans, the back and forth between Harris and Blagojevich gives them something with which to tie Giannoulias to the trial and the deeply unpopular former governor. But nothing in the brief tape suggests any wrongdoing on GIannoulias’ part.
I took a look at the surveillance transcript of that Harris/Blagojevich conversation. After the above exchange, the conversation moves on and then they come back to Giannoulias and Jarrett…
HARRIS Right. The question is if Alexi is coming in on her behalf, do we use Alexi to get the word back to her?
BLAGOJEVICH No, I don’t trust Alexi, I, no, under no circumstances.
HARRIS Mm-hmm.
BLAGOJEVICH No, no. Absolutely, not.
Seems like almost a vindication to me.
*** UPDATE *** From the IL GOP…
For more than a year and a half, Alexi Giannoulias failed to disclose this phone call. If Alexi tried to hide this phone call, what else might he be hiding about this case?
Key Questions for Alexi Giannoulias:
1) Why did you call Blagojevich Chief of Staff John Harris regarding Illinois’ U.S. Senate seat?
2) Did you make any other phone calls to John Harris, Rod Blagojevich or any other Blagojevich associate?
3) Did you, your staff or your family at anytime speak with John Harris, Rod Blagojevich or any other Blagojevich associates regarding Illinois’ U.S. Senate seat? If so, what was discussed each time?
4) Do you believe you are recorded on any federal wiretaps of John Harris, Rod Blagojevich or other individuals in connection with this criminal trial?
[ *** End of Update *** ]
* In other Senate campaign news, the AP has published a national story about the race. The lede pretty much says it all…
Republican Mark Kirk has stepped on a political landmine of his own creation, leaving him as damaged as his Democratic opponent in the race for an Illinois Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.
* Pat Gauen of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch looks at what he believes is political strategy…
[Treasurer Giannoulias] announced June 13 that he will begin granting family medical leave to employees of his office who are in committed homosexual relationships, just as though they were married. It’s novel in Illinois state government and obviously timed for the election year. (He has had 3½ years in office to do it. And if it isn’t about politics, why not announce the same terms for committed but unmarried straight people?)
OK, a Democrat courting votes from gays and lesbians isn’t very deep strategy. But gently laying the subject on the voters’ table in this instance is subtle, potentially venomous, gamesmanship. […]
Giannoulias, you will remember, is running for Obama’s old Senate seat in what early polls say is a dead heat with an upstate Republican congressman named Mark Kirk. Here, too, Giannoulias is quietly using a homosexual-themed buzz to electoral advantage.
It serves as a small reminder that Kirk’s generally good marks from the gay-lesbian community have not endeared him to the political right and its hefty block of votes. Moreover, floating the subject reminds true homophobes that enemies in Kirk’s own party have garnered even mainstream news media attention by floating persistent rumors that he is gay. Kirk, who is divorced, denies it.
* Related…
* Green Party IL-SEN Candidate: I Could Win This Thing
* Carl Officer says he kept Senate campaign secret because of St. Clair County Dems: Asked what he thought the county Democrats might have done to hurt his campaign, Officer responded, “I am not going to speculate.”
* Illinois conservative independent doesn’t file to run in U.S. Senate race: llinois State University political scientist Robert Bradley said it’s questionable how many votes Niecestro would have drawn from Kirk’s total in November. “I have a sense that the tea party is not as organized (in Illinois) as it is in other places,” Bradley said.
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* I’m not totally sure yet how this impacts the Rod Blagojevich case or the George Ryan conviction, but the US Supreme Court just handed down its ruling in the Skilling case. AP…
The Supreme Court has sided with former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling in limiting the use of a federal fraud law that has been a favorite of white-collar crime prosecutors.
The court said Thursday that the “honest services” law could not be used in convicting Skilling for his role in the collapse of Enron. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her majority opinion that the ruling does not necessarily require Skilling’s conviction to be overturned.
Houston Chronicle…
In an opinion written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with varying support from other justices the court finds the honest services law only covers bribery and kickback schemes, and Skilling was not accused of either.
This means some of his charges could be retried or dismissed and his 24-year sentence could be further reduced.
At issue is the “honest services” law, a broad anti-fraud law that makes it a crime to “deprive another of the intangible right of honest service.” Skilling and others argued the law was too vague and was misused by prosecutors.
Tribune…
Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is being tried on multiple charges of corruption, including depriving the public of honest services.
Over the past two decades, the law against “honest services” fraud has been used routinely in cases in which public officials or corporate executives were accused of secretly scheming to benefit themselves at the expense of the public or their stock holders.
From the ruling…
The Government charged Skilling with conspiring to defraud Enron’s shareholders by misrepresenting the company’s fiscal health to his own profit, but the Government never alleged that he solicited or accepted side payments from a third party in exchange for making these misrepresentations. Because the indictment alleged three objects of the conspiracy—honest-services wire fraud, money–or-property wire fraud, and securities fraud—Skilling’s conviction is flawed. See Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298. This determination, however, does not necessarily require reversal of the conspiracy conviction, for errors of the Yates variety are subject to harmless-error analysis. The Court leaves the parties’ dispute about whether the error here was harmless for resolution on remand, along with the question whether reversal on the conspiracy count would touch any of Skilling’s other convictions. Pp. 49–50.
554 F. 3d 529, affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.
* The Supremes also ruled that Conrad Black’s appeal was improperly denied. From the ruling…
We decided in Skilling that §1346, properly confined, criminalizes only schemes to defraud that involve bribes or kickbacks. That holding renders the honest-services instructions given in this case incorrect, and brings squarely before us the question presented by the Seventh Circuit’s forfeiture ruling: Did Defendants, by failing to acquiesce in the Government’s request for special verdicts, forfeit their objection, timely made at trial, to the honest-services instructions? […]
We hold, in short, that, by properly objecting to the honest-services jury instructions at trial, Defendants secured their right to challenge those instructions on appeal. They did not forfeit that right by declining to acquiesce in the Government-proposed special-verdict forms. Our decision in Skilling makes it plain that the honest-services instructions in this case were indeed incorrect. As in Skilling, ante, at 40–41, we express no opinion on the question whether the error was ultimately harmless, but leave that matter for consideration on remand.
For the reasons stated, we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform…
Here in Illinois, most will ask how the ruling may affect the case against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. We note that the indictment against the ex-governor was already revised to minimize its reliance on the Honest Services law. Even if the Honest Services law had been wiped out entirely, most of the charges against the ex-governor would survive.
Testimony in the trial to date certainly makes it appear that Rod Blagojevich saw public office as a tool for forcing payments to benefit himself. Whether the subject was the issuance of state grants, the signing of legislation, or even the filling of the US Senate seat, Rod Blagojevich approached his public duties with both eyes focused on what he could get for himself — a job, a campaign contribution, a personal benefit.
We hope the trial will continue, and that justice will be done. The people of Illinois have endured an impeachment and removal from office; we have seen our state’s reputation dragged through the mud. Politicians, like everyone else should be held accountable for their criminal actions. The trial must proceed. Justice is served by having the trial continue.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Judge Zagel won’t stop the trial…
Lawyers for Rod Blagojevich were quick to pounce on the U.S. Supreme Court decision this morning weakening the so-called honest-services law on which some of the charges against the former governor are based.
Aaron Goldstein, one of Blagojevich’s many lawyers, filed a motion to suspend the trial until at least next week so the defense team could digest the high court’s 114-page decision.
It has been known for months that the Supreme Court ruling was coming, and Blagojevich’s lawyers sought to seize on that even before the trial began to get Zagel to postpone the proceedings. He consistently said no dice.
And Zagel did so again this morning, telling Blagojevich’s lawyer that “my preliminary reading (of the Supreme Court ruling) is it may not offer a lot of hope for you.”
*** UPDATE 3 *** I was gonna do a separate Blagojevich trial post, but here’s a roundup instead…
* Harris: Obama knew of Blagojevich plot
* Blago trial a distant, unwanted headache for Obama
* ‘Prince of Darkness’ plotted with Blagojevich to sell Obama Senate seat
* $190,000 not enough for Blagojevich: “I want to make money.”
* Blagojevich on Jarrett: “How bad does she want to be U.S. Senator?”
* Blago saw Obama’s rise as an obstacle
* Blagojevich frustrated by gridlock
* Blago calls Obama ‘hen-pecked’ by Michelle
* Blagojevich ‘depressed’ on re-election night
* In a clash of styles, judge favors reserve in Blagojevich trial
* Rod Blagojevich on foundation jobs: “Salvation Army… have to wear a uniform, forget that.”
* Tape: Rod Blagojevich considers union foundation job for himself, his wife
* Blagojevich, Harris prep for job bargaining with Tom Balanoff
* Testy exchange between husband and wife
* Rod Blagojevich snaps at Patti on recording: “You’re just wasting f-ing time!”
* Judge Zagel says no gag order; Blagojevich can keep on claiming innocence
* Hinz: Blago shows true colors in court tapes
* Sneed: Grand plans on Blago’s Indian pad
* RR Star: Blago’s trial paints ugly portrait of indifference
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Hopkins Park gets dumped on - literally
Thursday, Jun 24, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* If this story doesn’t disgust you, nothing will.
A very prominent Kankakee-area businessman was indicted by the US Attorney’s office this week on five felony counts. The businessman, Michael J. Pinski, allegedly hired people to strip asbestos out of one of his buildings. They then dumped the highly toxic material into a field in Hopkins Park.
Hopkins Park, you will remember, is an almost all-black, exceedingly poor town in Kankakee County. The last time we checked in with that community, the county board chairman hadn’t even bothered to ask that the town be declared a disaster area after a big tornado tore through. Gov. Quinn had to step in and unilaterally declare the county a disaster area or they never would’ve gotten any help.
* Pinski is a local real estate developer and owner of Kankakee County Title Co. Both are pretty major K3 concerns. My dad says Pinski’s father was my pediatrician brothers’ dermatologist when I was a child. He comes from a wealthy, successful and quite prominent Kankakee family.
According to the indictment, Pinski allegedly hired Duane O’Malley, who runs a fire protection company, at a price that was “substantially less than a trained asbestos abatement contractor would have charged to remove the asbestos insulation.” And then they allegedly stuffed the asbestos into 127 large plastic garbage bags and dumped them all in that Hopkins Park field.
* Huge news, eh? It’s not often that a bigtime Kankakee businessman is indicted by the feds on five felony charges that each carry 5-year prison terms. Throw in the racial and class angle, and it’s a truly hot item.
So, how was it covered? I give you the complete Kankakee Daily Journal story…
Three Kankakee County men are scheduled to appear in an Urbana federal court later this summer, indicted for improperly removing asbestos from a Kankakee building and dumping about 127 bags of the hazardous material in a Hopkins Park field.
Charged with four counts each of illegal asbestos removal and handling were: Michael J. Pinski, 41, of 17 Marquette Lane, Kankakee; Duane L. “Butch” O’Malley, 57, of 5649 N. 5000E Road, Bourbonnais; and James A. Mikrut, 47, of 43 S. Poplar St., Manteno. The charges were in connection with the August 2009 removal of asbestos from 197 S. West Ave., in Kankakee.
The building, which was being renovated, is owned by Pinski’s company, Dearborn Management Inc., according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois.
O’Malley, owner of Origin Fire Protection, and Mikrut also were indicted on one count each of illegal asbestos disposal, and Mikrut and Pinski also were indicted on one count each of making a false statement to an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency inspector, according to a copy of their indictments, obtained Monday by The Daily Journal.
That’s it. Nothing more.
A check of past issues shows the Daily Journal has interviewed Pinski several times. They talked to him about the Kankakee mayor’s race and how he’s surviving the economic downturn. They did a big puff piece on Pinski a few years back while he was developing the Dearborn Business Center downtown. But now that he’s under indictment? A little more than passing mention.
Pinksi and his cohorts allegedly endangered the health of who knows how many people by disgustingly dumping asbestos - of all things - in an open field, and it gets four grafs in the only paper in town.
Maybe now you’re getting a better idea of why Hopkins Park has always been on the short end of the stick. It’s a dumping ground for the area’s prejudices and, apparently, its dangerous pollutants. And nobody, including the newspaper, appears to care.
Frankly, I hope the feds throw the book at those clowns. And I hope that someday, somehow, the people who run the Kankakee Daily Journal will finally take just a wee bit of notice at what’s really going on around them. Shame on them. And shame on this entire state for letting it get this far.
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Morning Shorts
Thursday, Jun 24, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Former state Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw dies
Cowlishaw grew up in Rockford, where she was valedictorian of her graduating class at West Rockford High School. She majored in journalism at the University of Illinois and did post-graduate work at Northwestern University. She also received several honorary degrees.
She came to Naperville in 1958. For more than five years she worked as a feature writer for the Naperville Sun, winning a first-place award from the Illinois Press Association for investigative reporting for a series about substandard conditions at a local nursing home.
Naperville Sun viewpoint editor Tim West said Cowlishaw was a valued employee and public servant.
“During the years Mary Lou worked with us, she was always hardworking and industrious, but approached her stories with a lot of good humor,” he said. “During her public career she was a very important person in town and she will be missed.”
* Longtime Naperville representative dies
Mrs. Cowlishaw was described as generous, perceptive and purposeful by District 203 Board member Suzyn Price, who knew her for more than 10 years.
“She was a distinguished woman of enormous gravitas,” Price said. “Besides being a wonderful human being — a warm and committed and compassionate human being — we lose a powerful voice for community and education.”
She said Mrs. Cowlishaw’s work in male-dominated fields — first as a reporter, then school board member and a state representative — was an inspiration to women in leadership and politics.
As she neared retirement as a legislator, a 2001 story in the Tribune noted that her most visible achievements in Springfield were her roles in Chicago public school reform and in legislation that ensured education for homeless children.
An elementary school in Naperville is named after her.
* CPS test scores up
Combined results in reading, math and science showed 69.5 percent of Chicago third- through eighth-graders passed Illinois Standards Achievement Tests taken in April, up 2 percentage points from 2009, according to preliminary results released by the district.
* CPS elementary students post modest gains on ISAT
Science scores rose the most sharply year over year with a 3.6-point increase, district officials said. Reading showed the smallest increase, lifting half a percentage point from 2009 levels.
* Union blasts Chicago Public Schools’ tenure attack
Experts called the system’s new layoff rules unusual but part of a “growing drumbeat'’ to allow districts to use something other than seniority and tenure in determining who should be laid off, especially in tough economic times.
* Flowers’ office still owes teachers, state police
While former Regional Supt. Charles Flowers is awaiting trial on felony charges of theft and official misconduct, his office in Broadview is housing a backlog of 2,500 teacher certifications that are supposed to be completed by July 1.
* CPS chief wants to lay off worst teachers first
* Daley selects Robert Hoff as new fire commissioner
* Daley appoints third-generation hero firefighter to lead department
* NBC-Comcast marriage gets Daley blessing, but many object
* Tribune: Say ‘yes’ to jobs
* Sun-Times: Say yes to Pullman Wal-Mart
* Hinz: Council ought to open its eyes, hold its nose and vote for Wal-Mart
* Daley proposes to Wal-Mart: Pay best workers more after 1 year
* Carp creeps into Lake Calumet
A commercial fisherman patrolling the calm waters of Lake Calumet netted a 19-pound Asian carp Tuesday, the first physical discovery of the feared invasive species in the Chicago waterway system north of the electric barriers.
Within minutes of the official announcement on Wednesday, lawmakers from Michigan and environmental advocacy groups were once more chastising Illinois’ response to the Asian carp crisis and threatening a new round of legal action aimed at permanently closing Chicago-area shipping locks.
* Asian carp netted beyond barrier
* Asian carp caught over barrier in Lake Calumet
* Elgin researching program to inspect foreclosed homes
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