Morning Shorts
Friday, Oct 1, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Poverty rises slightly in Chicago area
Every county in the Chicago area except Kendall experienced slightly increased poverty rates during the four-year period, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Cook County’s rate was 15.9 percent in 2009, up from 14.8 percent in 2008 and 15.3 in 2006.
In Illinois, the poverty rate rose to 13.3 percent in 2009, up from 12.3 percent in 2006. The national poverty rate last year was 14.3 percent.
* Poverty rate rising in Downers Grove Township
* Naperville median income dips below $100,000
* Median household income in Peoria County drops 7.8 percent
* Foreclosures make up one-quarter of Q2 Illinois home sales
A report released Thursday by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac shows there were 8,909 second-quarter foreclosure sales, accounting for 24.32 percent of all homes sold in the state. That was an increase of almost 5 percent from the first quarter of 2010.
* Schakowsky stops Devon Ave. foreclosures
For his part, Mr. Singh, who gave more than $30,000 to local Democratic politicians in the most recent presidential cycle and $2,000 to Ms. Schakowsky’s campaign in 2006, says he owns property on North Clark Street with a $5.6 million loan from Mutual Bank. He says United Central had rebuffed his attempts to ease the terms of his loan as he rounded up potential new tenants at his property, prompting him to spur the action from the tight-knit Indian-American business community in Chicago.
* Council committee OKs hefty fines for crime-ridden buildings
* Ald. Stone rips problem building crackdown as too extreme
Only 2 percent of eligible households — about 7,000 — have signed up for free meters since the program began in March 2009. And the city has installed only 2,500 of the devices.
Many Chicagoans don’t believe the meters will lower their water bills, thinking it’s cheaper not to have one. But few realize just how unfair the city’s water-billing system is.
* Water bills soak many in Chicago
* City’s chief information officer becomes first Daley cabinet member to resign
Hardik Bhatt, Chicago’s chief information officer, has resigned his $141,840-a-year job to join Cisco Systems, a California-company that bills itself as the “worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate.”
Bhatt is the first member of Mayor Daley’s cabinet to pull the plug since the mayor chose political retirement over the quest for a seventh term.
But he’s not expected to be the last.
All 956 city policymakers exempt from the federal Shakman decree banning political hiring and firing must decide whether to stick around — and hope they can defy the odds and be retained by Daley’s successor — or dust off their resumes now.
* UIC faculty may fight Ayers decision
* Niles trustees vote to keep imprisoned ex-mayor’s name on sign
* Dist. 211 adopts budget, avoids cuts
* [Aurora] employee unions quiet on payroll cut plan
* Hazel Crest board votes to cut own salaries
* Lead lawyers ask off Blagojevich case
* Attorneys plan to leave Blago team
- fedup dem - Friday, Oct 1, 10 @ 10:36 am:
Note to those UIC professors who are protesting the decision against giving Bill Ayers emeritus status… welcome to the real world! Save your ammo for a worthy battle, not for the right to give a former domestic terrorist university library rights in his old age!
- fedup Dem is Right - Friday, Oct 1, 10 @ 10:43 am:
If the truth were to ever come out about how Ayers philanthropist father got him his gig at UIC, it would make the UI admissions scandal pale by comparison.
If those UIC faculty want to be mad about something, be mad about how Ayers got clouted into a tenure track position while they had to wait tables while applying for TA positions.
- Wumpus - Friday, Oct 1, 10 @ 10:44 am:
$2000 will help save $5.6 mil, not a bad investment
- Chicagah Ain't Ready - Friday, Oct 1, 10 @ 10:50 am:
Thanks Rich for staying away from the Rahm mania today. It’s already sickening and the statewide’s are certainly more urgent and, for now, interesting.
- wordslinger - Friday, Oct 1, 10 @ 11:00 am:
I was surprised this morning by the reports that it’s the 25th Anniversary of the first Farm Aid concert at Memorial Stadium.
That long? I guess that explains the mysterious old man in the mirror who resembles my father.
The news brought a Proustian rush of memories of a beautiful, sunny Indian Summer day in Champaign. Through the fog of years. I remember:
–Dylan going electric with Tom Petty’s band, playing with the unbridled joy of kids in the garage when the parents are out of town.
– An angry Neil Young laying down a scorching “Powderfinger.”
– A surprisingly moving “Galveston” by Glen Campbell, just as the sun went down.
– Carole King at the piano doing a simple and beautiful set from “Tapestry.”
– Comeback kid John Fogerty playing everything but CCR.
– An obviously heavily medicated Loretta Lynn forgetting the words to “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” followed by sober-as-a-judge Lou Reed doing “Walk on the Wild Side.”
– Drunken emcee Debra Winger making a spectacle of herself and finally being escorted off the stage by Willie during The Beach Boys set, never to return. (Legend has it Winger met one of her future husbands, then Neb. Gov. Bob Kerrey, backstage that day; he should have known what he was getting into).
–Winger’s then-husband, Timothy Hutton, flogging Tom Harkin’s Farm Bill from the stage, as Big Jim stood in the wings staring daggers at him.
– Champaign and university cops, carrying the very latest in five-pound walkie-talkies, busting people on the field for pot with the guidance of spotters in the press box.
It may not have happened that way, but that’s how I remember it.
- Anon - Friday, Oct 1, 10 @ 2:55 pm:
I believe that Farm Aid was also the first time that Sammy Hagar sang with Van Halen
- wordslinger - Friday, Oct 1, 10 @ 3:37 pm:
I don’t recall Eddie’s set. I didn’t catch every act, but I don’t regret missing Sammy Haggar.