Hey, don’t forget!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The White Sox Caucus is meeting tonight at 9 o’clock at DH Brown’s. We’re playing the Angels, so it’s a late game.
Also, tickets will be available for sale at tonight’s caucus event for our annual outing at Sox Park this July 25th. Hopefully, I’ll see you at both extravaganzas!
* Let’s make this a late afternoon/early evening MLB open thread. Go Sox.
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* Look, I have no informed opinion one way or another about whether Cook County should be allowed to close Oak Forest Hospital and turn it into an outpatient clinic. But the vote today by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board was certainly embarrassing for Gov. Pat Quinn…
The county plan needed five votes to be approved, but only five state board members were present today. Four board members voted for it, and one voted against. The nine-member hospital siting board has three vacancies that Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn needs to approve, and one member was absent today.
County officials blamed the vacancies on the board for today’s defeat. County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and health system leaders are regrouping and plan to hold a news conference this afternoon.
If we’re going to have this board, shouldn’t it have the requisite membership? Sheesh, man, get on the stick.
* Background from the county’s perspective…
Oak Forest — which in its early history served as a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients — gets six or seven patient admissions a day, but doctors there primarily see people with health issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes who would be better cared for in an outpatient setting, according to Dr. Terry Mason, formerly the county health system’s chief medical officer and now interim chief executive.
Speaking with the SouthtownStar editorial board recently, Mason said Oak Forest isn’t set up to treat patients in need of emergency care.
“Our emergency department is nothing more than the end of a hallway,” he said.
* The state’s perspective…
In an analysis of the proposal for the board, the Illinois Department of Public Health determined that the elimination of hospital beds at Oak Forest would result in a shortage of intensive-care and long-term care beds in the Southland.
* Area residents…
.But patients and residents in the area said the remaining health care facilities in southern Cook County was inadequate. Closing Oak Forest Hospital would be detrimental, they said. […]
Lynda DeLaforgue, co-director of Citizen Action Illinois, said the board’s vote gives the county a chance to reevaluate its strategic plan for health care and keep the hospital open.
Word’s been going around that President Preckwinkle may seek state legislation to allow her to close the hospital on her own.
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* I can understand this person’s argument, but if Sears abandons its Prairie Stone campus in Hoffman Estates, there won’t be many businesses left in that development to pay taxes to the schools…
Allison Strupeck, a spokesperson for Community Unit School District 300 — of which the Sears property is a part — said that [tax incentive] expiration would work for the good of the Carpentersville-based school district, calling it “the light at the end of our fiscal tunnel.”
If that state extended those property tax incentives, she said, “we would not have any financial hope for the future of our school children.
“The light at the end of our fiscal tunnel would be snuffed out in one signature of the governor,” Strupeck said.
Because of the property tax incentives, the school district currently receives the same amount of tax dollars from the Sears property it did 21 years ago, according to the District 300 spokeswoman. But Prairie Stone and the nearby Arboretum shopping center have significantly increased the value of that property, she said.
* Bail Sears out with yet another tax giveaway and we look weak for being taken advantage of. Tell the company to take a flying leap and we look far weaker if they do depart, which won’t help our standing in the world, not to mention the most important part: We’ll lose thousands of good Illinois jobs in the process…
If Sears did pull up its longtime suburban roots, it could cost the state roughly $3 billion, with the loss of about 6,200 local jobs, the ensuing unemployment insurance paid to them and the loss to nearby hotels, businesses and vendors that could ripple through the local economy for years to come, [John Melaniphy, president of Melaniphy & Associates, a Chicago-based retail research firm] said.
A study commissioned by Sears reached a similar conclusion, saying the local job loss could total 9,000 if vendors, contractors and nearby businesses were included.
And considering that Sears Chairman Edward Lampert is a “self-made multibillionaire who cut his teeth at Goldman Sachs,” you just know he’s looking for the very best deal possible. We pretty much have no choice here.
* Our situation is not ideal by any means…
It’s often difficult to parse whether a company that takes incentives to stay was serious about leaving. In Motorola Mobility’s case, the company promised to spend more than $500 million on research and development over the next three years, essentially what the company already had planned to spend.
As for Sears, the company has been shifting the nucleus of decision-making outside the state in recent years.
Sears moved its apparel buying and merchandising office to San Francisco in 2010. About 80 percent of the staff has been hired as new employees since the move, the company said at its annual meeting last week.
Sears Chairman Edward Lampert, the hedge fund manager who combined Sears and Kmart in 2005, lives and works in Greenwich, Conn. And Sears’ newly appointed CEO and president, Lou D’Ambrosio, has spent most of his career on the East Coast.
* And this very serious mortgage problem isn’t going to get a whole lot better any time soon if we have no jobs…
More than four out of 10 homes with debt in the Chicago area now are worth less than their mortgages, according to a report released Monday.
Home values here have fallen so much that 45.7% of those with debt are “underwater,” meaning their owners’ equity has been completely wiped out, according to Zillow Inc. That’s up from 38.6% in fourth-quarter 2010 and 31.8% a year earlier.
Nationally, 28.4% of homes with mortgages have “negative equity,” up from 27% in the fourth quarter and 23.3% a year earlier, according to Zillow, a Seattle-based company that tracks the residential property market.
* Related…
* Coal plant to hire 200 more workers
* State to give boost to West Side film studio working on ‘Boss’: But the Cinespace studio and its state subsidy could hurt Chicago Studio City, 5660 W. Taylor, which calls itself the biggest filming complex between the U.S. coasts. Owner John Crededio said the state has turned down his requests to help expand his nearly 120,000-square-foot facility. “I wish them well, but how do I compete when the state is subsidizing them?” he said.
* AT&T seeks to sublease Hoffman Estates campus
* Chamber: New IL Dept. of Labor director is quick to issue notices of violation
* Lakeview group says Wal-Mart agrees to store limits
* Pair of trading news outlets set sites on Chicago: Tastytrade and Benzinga
* Foreclosure suit hits office building of restaurateur Stefani
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The clown show continues unabated
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Judge Zagel is being pretty darned stern…
Objection after objection, lawyers for Rod Blagojevich took a beating in court Monday. The judge ended the day with a stern warning: If the ex-governor’s team wanted to continue to ask improper questions, they will be sidelined.
Aaron Goldstein tried and tried, over and over, to ask questions of Monday’s witnesses John Harris and later Tom Balanoff, a union head. Almost every question was met with an objection –over 150 tallied for the day.
Over 150 objections sustained during one day? Wow.
Essentially what is happening here is Rod Blagojevich’s lawyer is attempting to put on a defense during cross-examination of the prosecution’s witness. He’s supposed to do that when he presents his own case. But, as you’ll recall, Blagojevich rested without presenting its side during the first trial. Judge Zagel is making sure that the defendant can’t backdoor his defense this time around. He’s also cracking down on deviations from his orders about using the “advice of counsel” defense - that the former governor checked with his lawyers before making decisions.
* Oof…
“I will sit you down,” he warned Blagojevich lawyer Aaron Goldstein, accusing him of violating court orders not to raise the argument that Blagojevich shouldn’t be found guilty because his advisers — most of them attorneys — never warned him that his actions might be illegal.
The judge said he thought Goldstein’s questioning of two witnesses had approached that forbidden area, particularly when the attorney asked one whether he had called authorities after a talk with Blagojevich about naming someone to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama in 2008. […]
Zagel lectured Goldstein in front of the jury for asking Harris too often about his awareness of things and not what he had seen and heard himself.
“This is not a man on the street being asked if he is aware if there are American troops in Pakistan,” the judge said.
More…
Zagel sustained a long series of government objections.
Did Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan pose a big roadblock? Objection. Sustained.
Was it difficult for the governor to get any legislation through the House? Objection. Sustained.
Did Harris know the governor wasn’t getting a lot of bills passed? Objection. Sustained
“Don’t go there,” Zagel warned at one point.
More objections…
And, several times, Goldstein suggested that, whatever other deals were being discussed on tape, Blagojevich was really intent on being a US Senator himself: “You understood, at this point, the governor wanted to appoint himself?” Four times, Goldstein asked a variation on that question. Objection. Objection. Objection. Objection. All were sustained, Zagel warning at one point, “I don’t want an argument disguised as a question.”
But if some questions seemed strategic, many others were barred because Goldstein simply couldn’t word them right. Three times, he tried to ask a question about a call Harris received from political publicist Marilyn Katz, in which she urged the then-governor to appoint Valerie Jarrett to the Senate.
Three times, the government objected to the wording of Goldstein’s queries. The defense lawyer actually apologized at one point, as he struggled to find an acceptable re-wording, but eventually gave up on the question.
Still more objections…
Prosecutor Reid Schar asked Balanoff to walk the court through a series of conversations and meetings he had with Blagojevich regarding the possible appointees to the senate post, including Jarrett, and what he wanted in exchange. […]
Goldstein then pressed Balanoff about how he responded.
“After this meeting did you call the authorities?”
Zagel told Goldstein that the defense can’t build on the proposition that because Balanoff didn’t go to the authorities after meetings he had with Blagojevich that “no crime had been committed.”
* And it all resulted in crocodile tears…
With her defendant husband at her side, a visibly angry Patti Blagojevich stepped up to the microphone after court to decry what she called “a deliberate attempt to hide the truth” after U.S. District Judge James Zagel spent much of the day blocking witnesses from answering many of the defense lawyers’ questions. Zagel said the questions were improper and were a way for Blagojevich’s lawyers to back-door an improper defense, in violation of his previous orders.
“I almost want to cry,” Patti Blagojevich said after court. “I’m no lawyer, but I thought the whole idea of this was to get the truth to come out, and that’s clearly not what’s happening here.”
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Today’s controversies: Small and large
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Rep. Dan Burke (D-Chicago) is sponsoring a resolution which praises the Good Choices program for teaching values to kids. The resolution also declares that the program is in compliance with a section of the state School Code which requires character education be taught by all public school teachers.
Essentially, the resolution would mean that teachers would be encouraged to use the not-for-profit program. The program is run by Nancy Cartwright, who is the voice of Bart Simpson. But, she’s also a Scientologist and the program is based on L. Ron Hubbard’s book “The Way to Happiness.” That connection to the religion has at least one lawmaker up in arms…
Republicans on the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee initially were unaware that Cartwright’s program was influenced by a Hubbard book. Upon learning that, the panel’s ranking Republican voiced concern over the resolution.
“Would we suggest the KKK for something like this?” asked Rep. Jerry Mitchell (R-Sterling), a former school superintendent. “This might be something for a select private school, but I’m not sure it’s germane for a public school.”
* So, what prompted Rep. Burke to run his resolution? Hollywood, baby….
Initial reservations set aside, Burke said he became enthusiastic about backing the resolution because it would be “fun to have Bart Simpson’s voice down there.”
Sometimes, a fun little publicity stunt can backfire. Or partially backfire, as the case may be. Ms. Cartwright will be in Springfield tonight for a reception. We’ll see how it goes.
* On to something more important…
Defendants accused of rape, homicide, drug dealing and other serious crimes in five rural Southern Illinois counties have paid thousands of dollars into “anti-crime” funds that benefit or are controlled by local prosecutors in return for probation or dismissal of charges.
Professors at some of the nation’s top law schools say this practice undermines public trust in courts and gives the appearance that defendants with enough money get preferential treatment and can buy their way out of trouble. They say such payments violate a basic ethical principle: Monetary contributions or payments resulting from plea bargains should not in any way benefit or appear to benefit the offices of the prosecutor, the judge or police involved in the prosecution.
“It is clearly unethical and a violation of the Constitution,” said legal ethics expert Monroe H. Freedman, a professor at Hofstra University Law School in Hempstead, N.Y. Like other experts contacted for this story, Freedman cautioned he was not commenting about any specific case.
A Belleville News-Democrat investigation found that payments negotiated by prosecutors and approved by judges ranging from $1,000 to $15,000 resulted in probation or dismissal of felonies in 17 cases in Saline, Pulaski, Franklin, Wayne and Hardin counties.
Ugh.
* Related…
* Losing congressional candidate Dan Seals gets state job: Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn [yesterday] hired Seals as his $121,090-a-year assistant director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. He starts Tuesday.
* Tollway political hires fired for slacking off, harassment
* Quigley, Kirk want to restore “honest services” provision to law
* Kirk And Quigley’s Ethics Bills Could Clear Constitutional Hurdles, Experts Say
* Editorial: Welcome teamwork on ethics reforms
* Government regulation a fine line to walk
* Illinois No. 2 in dog bite claims
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* Illinois Statehouse News has a really good story today on how the House’s proposed budget is taking shape. Three of five committees have completed their work…
State Rep. Kenneth Dunkin, D-Chicago, who heads the budget committee on higher education, said his group made it under the House’s higher education budget goal of $2.1 billion by targeting for-profit schools through the state’s monetary award program, or MAP. […]
MAP funds were reduced by $17 million, which represents the largest cut for the higher education budget, Dunkin said. The program’s grants offer financial aid to Illinois residents who attend approved state colleges and demonstrate financial need.
General services also stayed in the black, making the largest cuts to those agencies that had a record of mismanagement based on audit reports, said state Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Streamwood, who chaired the general services appropriations committee. The agencies with records of mismanagement are Department of Revenue, Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and the Department of Central Management Services.
About 15 percent was cut across the board from fiscal year 2011 from the three agencies, said Crespo, who pointed to smaller cuts for all agencies in telecommunications and contractual services.
After spending hours debating individual line items, “…we realized we (couldn’t) keep nickel-diming this thing. We need to look at fundamentally how to make big cuts to really bring down that number,” Crespo said.
The K-12 approp isn’t finished yet, however…
For elementary and high school education, state Rep. William Davis, D-East Hazel Crest, expects to keep most spending flat, with most of the cuts coming from general state aid. As a result, school districts should expect 96 percent of a fully funded budget.
School transportation was the only line item that saw increased funding, Davis said.
“We left the table with something to give the Republicans to look at. I do not know if they will or will not agree with this idea. That wasn’t decided when we parted company,” said Davis, who emphasized that the budgeting process for $6.8 billion was still ongoing.
* ISN didn’t have numbers for the House Human Services Committee, but the Daily Northwestern did…
The Illinois House finalized a bill to cut state funding for the Department of Human Services by $500 million to $600 million Monday, six days after Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois & Indiana, a group that represents health care workers in Illinois, launched its advertising campaign to advocate full funding for its Child Care Assistance Program and Home Service Program, which operate under the DHS.
“It’s not that I don’t agree with the ads,” said Rep. Patricia Bellock (R-Westmont),, a member of the House Appropriations Human Services Committee. “The bottom line is, we cannot continue to provide services and not pay the provider.”
The new bill will slash state funding to the DHS, Illinois’ largest state agency, by more than 10 percent. The House committee agreed to an across-the-board cut in order to reduce the impact on individual programs, Bellock said. It also reinstated a few programs previously cut in Gov. Quinn’s budget, such as youth prevention programs and substance abuse programs.
“Rather than a few agencies take huge cuts, we try to make it that all agencies will take smaller cuts,” Bellock said.
* And Jim Nowlan checks his budgetary crystal ball…
Whatever comes out of the legislature budgeting process will involve real cuts in people programs. There will thus be intense pressure to increase revenue — painlessly.
So expect a strong push by gambling interests to expand gaming to include a casino in Chicago and others downstate, plus slots at the tracks. This could generate $1 billion plus in license fees this coming year and maybe $500 million a year later in annual tax revenue. Increasing the cigarette tax by a buck a pack could generate $300 million a year.
And “decoupling” Illinois from a federal “bonus depreciation schedule” for industry equipment purchases could raise another $600 million. Business, which already feels the state climate unfriendly, will fight this, as it would come on top of a new 9.5 percent corporate income tax rate.
I can see foresee the legislature sending the governor a budget less than he believes necessary, which could cause him to veto it and send the legislature back into special session.
* In other budget news…
Sen. Suzi Schmidt’s district office phone wasn’t working Monday, which she attributed to the state’s tardiness in paying the bill.
Schmidt’s Lake Villa office number greeted the caller with the following recorded message: “The party you are trying to reach is not currently accepting calls at this number.” […]
Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed borrowing billions of dollars to pay overdue bills and then paying off the loans with money from the recent income tax increase.
But lawmakers — Schmidt’s fellow Republicans in particular — have resisted Quinn’s plan, saying the state shouldn’t be borrowing more money.
* The State Journal-Register has editorialized in favor of cutting pension benefits for current employees, and now grieves when one top employee - Illinois State Historian Tom Schwartz - decides to leave…
While we believe Schwartz is the perfect choice to advance Hoover’s legacy [at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum], we noted with disappointment that the dismal state of financial affairs in Illinois played at least a minor role in Schwartz’s decision to leave.
“In the last two years, to take 36 furlough days is not fun,” Schwartz said. “It could be worse. The poor state workers in California are taking 48. But it doesn’t give one a lot of confidence about the future and discussions about changing pension systems and health-care plans are changing all the time to meet the state’s requirements. This is more stability, I think, in planning for the future.”
Schwartz was emphatic that the opportunity presented by the Hoover library job far outweighed any other factors in his decision.
But his mere mention of the less appealing terms of his employment in the last two years made us wonder: How many other professionals of Schwartz’s caliber does the state risk losing in similar fashion because of its precarious budget situation?
* Related…
* Tribune editorial: Oh, the temptation - Will a temporary Illinois tax hike become permanent?
* Adam Andrzejewski: Local tax share “welfare payment to local governments”
* SIU facing another year of financial woe
* Heartland Community College leaders urge lawmakers to fight for more funding
* Area lawmaker favors eliminating state gas sales tax
* “Illinois Is Broke” Peddles Broken Rhetoric: The class envy angle is particularly cynical, because the main reason private employees don’t enjoy the same benefits as public employees is that groups such as the Commercial Club have been so successful in destroying the labor movement. Now, they’re trying to turn the impoverished lower-middle class they helped create against one of the last remnants of the middle class, all so the upper class can pay less taxes.
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* No doubt you’ve heard of the new Men’s Health magazine cover story on Congressman Aaron Schock: “The Ripped Representative - Fit-to-lead Congressman Aaron Schock has a plan to change America, one set of crunches at a time.” And the cover photo…
And the inside photo…
* You may have even seen the DCCC’s spoof..
* Or read the Fox News story…
How is Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock’s recent bare-chested cover photo on Men’s Health magazine playing at home in Peoria? One local Republican says not terribly well.
Rudy Lewis, Peoria County GOP chairman says “It probably wasn’t the best thing he [Schock] could have done.”
* Or the Tribune piece…
How does this play in Peoria?
Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) is taking an unconventional approach to promote a new healthy lifestyles campaign, flaunting his chiseled chest on the cover of the new Men’s Health Magazine, which declares him “America’s Fittest Congressman.” […]
Schock, who turns 30 later this month, had previously drawn attention from gossip sites like TMZ, which posted a photo of him wearing only a bathing suit. He said he wanted to use the notoriety for a positive cause.
“You know, there is some risk with it, but I think it’s risk worth taking,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show Monday, citing the challenge of rising health costs. Eight of 10 dollars the government spends on health care is on preventable diseases, he says in Men’s Health.
* Or Phil Luciano’s Peoria column…
The rest of us could find it a tad peculiar to see our elected representative spotlighted in shirtless splendor. I don’t recall anyone ever confusing Bob Michel with a Chippendale’s dancer. And though you occasionally could find Ray LaHood plodding along various 5K races around Peoria, he wasn’t known for his intimidating physique, except perhaps World’s Mightiest Eyebrows.
But there is Schock, in several strapping magazine shots, amid the tags, “America’s Fittest Congressman” and “The Ripped Representative.” The latter description still probably fits many elected Washington muckety-mucks, not for bicep curls but 12-ounce curls. But not so much for our congressional Boy Scout, who also turns his head away from rumaki and other tasty tidbits.
“You can pack a lot of calories on the end of a toothpick,” Schock tells Men’s Health. “You have a drink and a few hors d’oeuvres and you’ve just downed hundreds of calories.”
Yep, Mr. Goodie Two Shoes. You look at the magazine cover and - even though now he is 29 and we know his youthful-politician backstory - you nonetheless can’t help but think it’s a head shot of Doogie Howser with a model’s bod Photoshopped below.
Or the almost 100 online news stories about the matter.
* I thought about posting the pics yesterday, but didn’t want to monitor the comments. However, Schock is widely rumored to be considering a statewide bid, so we ought to do something. Let’s take a poll, shall we?
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