“When I met with the media as our season ended, I identified one person at the very top of my managerial list,” general manager Ken Williams said in a statement. “I wanted someone who met very specific criteria centered around his leadership abilities. Robin Ventura was that man. His baseball knowledge and expertise, his professionalism, his familiarity with the White Sox and Chicago and his outstanding character make him absolutely the right person to lead our clubhouse and this organization into the seasons ahead.”
Ventura replaces Ozzie Guillen, who left the Sox for the Florida Marlins.
“When I rejoined the White Sox this June, I said this was my baseball home and that part of me never left the White Sox organization,” Ventura said in a statement. “My family and I are thrilled to be returning to Chicago. Managing a Major League Baseball team is a tremendous honor. It’s also an opportunity and a challenge.
I’ve checked Ventura’s bio and this appears to be his first ever coaching job.
Discuss.
…Adding… He may be a rookie manager, but he does have some fire in his belly. Trouble is, he ain’t much of a fighter. Remember this one?…
* Democrat Debbie Halvorson went on the offensive against Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. during a media appearance this morning. She blasted Jackson in her opening statement for being against the president’s proposed jobs bill…
“The current congressman is against the jobs bill. How can you be against the jobs bill when unemployment in Illinois is worse than the unemployment nationwide.”
* But Halvorson really let Jackson have it during the question and answer session with reporters…
“This president is gonna need help. We can’t have a congressman out there who is bashing his president, who is talking against his jobs bill, who votes against things that are important to him. The people of the 2nd Congressional District elect their congressman who’s gonna go to DC to support the president… It’s ridiculous…”
Keep in mind that this is an overwhelmingly Democratic district. This is all about winning the primary. The general won’t mean much unless a third party candidate gets into the race.
* “He’s got distractions,” Halvorson said of Jackson, noting that he’d been named to a list of the most corrupt members of Congress and was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee.
After bringing up a point about where Jackson actually lives, she was asked by a reporter if she was suggesting that he didn’t live in Chicago…
“I will tell you, I’m not suggesting. He lives in Washington, DC, he raises his family in Washington, DC. He does not come home.”
Later, she even claimed the same about his wife, Ald. Sandi Jackson…
“Rumor has it that she lives in DC, too.”
* Before last night’s presser, Congressman Jackson sent out a statement touting his job creation history…
“During the past 16 years, I have maintained a narrow focus on bringing jobs to the Southland. I’ve secured more than $900 million in federal investments in the 2nd Congressional District — more than any other congressman in the state during that period.”
But Halvorson dismissed Jackson’s claim…
“I don’t see a job that came from any of it. But it’s been doled out to the party leadership or maybe the mayors to gain that loyalty.”
* Halvorson was also asked about her past support from the NRA…
“You know what, guns don’t kill, criminals do. What we need to recognize is the fact that we need to protect people from the criminals who get the guns no matter what.”
* In other news, Abdon Pallasch is live-tweeting the Cook County Democratic Central Committee’s slating session. There’s some interesting news about Ald. Sandi Jackson attempting to derail the slating of State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. First, her husband tries to derail a new district map backed by a Latino congressman, and now she goes after a Latina countywide official. Weird.
BlackBerry users click here. Everybody else can watch the ScribbleLive doohickey…
A day after state Rep. David Harris announced he wouldn’t be making a bid in the 8th District Republican primary, after all, a senior Republican operative tells us that DuPage Superintendent of Education Darlene Ruscitti is making phone calls to Republican delegates about running in the new 8th Congressional district.
The field is clear, I’m hearing, so she’ll be up against either Tammy Duckworth or Raja Krishnamoorthi.
Former Springfield Ald. Bill Clutter is no longer a candidate for state Senate.
Being a candidate for more than two months, Clutter said today, “totally diverted me from my business” as well as his work the Innocence Project, which seeks to reverse wrongful convictions.
Clutter, 53, who has an investigations and process server business, had been running for the Democratic nomination in the new 48th Senate District. He’s now endorsing the other Democrat in the race, Macoupin County Board Chairman Andy Manar of Bunker Hill.
“I think he’ll make a strong candidate to win the seat for the Democrats,” Clutter said of Manar, who is also chief of staff to Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago.
* House Republican Leader Tom Cross unveiled his economic plan in Chicago yesterday. As I’ve already told you, Cross has held some Downstate press conferences to tout the plan…
Cross cited lowering the fee for incorporating a new business to $100 from $750, extending existing enterprise zones, making permanent the research and development tax credit, raising the ceiling on estate tax liability, and allowing firms to carry losses into later tax years.
But Cross did not mention his proposed repeal of January’s corporate income tax increase, which was largely pushed through by Democrats.
“We’d go further if we were in charge,” Cross, of Oswego, later told reporters. Asked if Democrats had shown any willingness to discuss repealing or cutting the corporate tax, Cross said: “None at all. None at all.”
But Democratic Senate President John Cullerton has expressed an interest in looking into reducing the corporate rate, which jumped to 7 percent from 4.8 percent, in light of threats from several high-profile businesses to leave the state. […]
Cullerton has spoken on several occasions of lowering the corporate income tax rate in exchange for eliminating tax loopholes in a revenue-neutral fashion, said John Patterson, a Cullerton spokesman.
* Meanwhile, Laurence Msall, the President of The Civic Federation, is one of the media’s favorite go-to guys about our state’s budget and its pension problems. This is from his official bio…
As DCCA’s chief legislative liaison, Msall presented and successfully secured the passage of over 50 legislative initiatives including the tax and financial incentives used to retain the Sears merchandising group in Illinois, the creation of the State of Illinois tourism promotion program, the Illinois Enterprise Zone program, and reform of the State’s tax increment financing program.
So, Illinois TIFs were “reformed,” eh? Huh. OK. Did anyone tell the Chicago Reader?
* Msall helped pass a whole lot of business tax breaks that are now biting us in the rear. For instance, Sears…
In 1989 the state of Illinois needed to come up with a plan to keep Sears from moving out of state.
They came up with tax incentives. One of them was a property tax break program called an Economic Development Area (EDA) which took the money away from the D300 schools.
The EDA is set to expire in 2013. Sears is asking for a 15 year extension, which was then added as an amendment to SB 540
This Bill is set to be voted on October 25th, 2011.
* Most of the powers that be support this Sears EDA legislation. But as I’ve told you before, the local school district is hotly opposed…
“This is unusual in a way, for our part, to take a political side, but we are at a point right now where we are desperate,” Superintendent Michael Bregy said. “And because of what happened in the past with the Sears EDA being placed onto a bill and, at the 11th hour, almost being passed without any knowledge of our school district, we have taken a very vocal position in the issue because we have not been asked to be at the table.”
Bregy made those comments at a school board meeting earlier [last] month during which the board approved a contract with attorney Scott Nemanich of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP to act as governmental relations counsel to the district. […]
“It’s not that anybody is against Sears. Our own parents in our district work at Sears. We’re not drawing a line in the sand against Sears,” Bregy said.
But a volunteer-based group, Advance 300 that’s affiliated with the district’s lobbying push sure looks like it’s “drawing a line in the sand against Sears.” From its website…
If the Sears EDA is extended, D300 will lose at least $14 million per year for the next 15 years that it should be getting in property taxes from the Sears property in Hoffman Estates. If we do not get that money the district, and our kids’ futures, will be devastated.
Tomorrow starts our call a ireesponsible lawmaker and invite them to our OCtober 13th Rally Day. Monday’s lucky invitee is Sen. Dan Kotkowski. Sen. Kotkowski’s bill - Seante Bill 540 is the bill that was amended to include the extension of the Sears EDA. While Sen. Kotkowski told D300 administrators that he would pull the amendment, he instead filed a motion for concurrence that could actually expedite the passage of the bill once the veto session starts on October 25th. Call the “Honorable” Senator today and ask him to join us at the October 13th Rally at Westfield so that he can explain to us why it’s better to pay greedy corporations than educate 21,000 kids!
Apparently, they need a lot more education money in that district because the group has a real problem with spelling errors.
* By the way, Ohio thinks it has an in with Sears. This is from the Columbus Dispatch…
In May, one week after initial reports about a possible Sears move, it was disclosed that the Sears chairman, billionaire hedge-fund manager Eddie Lampert, had bought a large stake in the Columbus-based discount retailer Big Lots. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the 1.3 million shares of Big Lots that Lampert acquired early this year were valued at $56.5 million.
The prospect of Sears becoming a central Ohio company could make “a lot of sense,” Columbus retail consultant Chris Boring said.
“Central Ohio is a hotbed for retail executives and retail consultants, especially with Ohio State graduating thousands of business graduates every year,” Boring said. “I think this would be a very fertile territory for Sears in terms of labor. The success of central Ohio’s other retailers speaks to that.”
* In other news, one can only wonder if this Supreme Court ruling will prompt the mayor to ask the General Assembly to change state law this fall or next spring…
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Chicago can’t collect amusement taxes from websites where tickets are resold.
In a victory for StubHub Inc., an online market for ticket resellers, the state’s high court said the city overstepped its home-rule powers when it required “agents” of ticket resellers to collect taxes owed on any markup over the face value of a ticket.
The city was seeking taxes, penalties and interest dating back to 2000 from StubHub and its parent company, San Jose-based eBay Inc., which acquired the San Francisco-based Internet firm for $307 million in 2007. […]
The circuit court bumped the case back to the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled in an opinion issued Thursday that the state Legislature wanted “to allow Internet auction-listing services to opt out of any obligation regarding local tax collection. That is a policy decision this court is ill-advised to ignore.”
* Related…
* Quinn says he’s working on incentives for Ford: It’s not the first time Ford has received incentives to increase its workforce in Illinois. Since 2007, it has received at least $6.2 million in training funds and grants from the Large Business Development Assistance Program, according to the Illinois Corporate Accountability website.
* Navistar cutting about 130 jobs in Fort Wayne: Navistar International Corp. is planning to lay off about 130 workers from its Fort Wayne operations by the end of the year as it continues consolidation to a new headquarters in suburban Chicago.
* Quinn says he’ll detail gambling objections this month
* The FBI specifically warns against using its crime stats to make up silly rankings. From the agency’s website…
Each year when Crime in the United States is published, many entities—news media, tourism agencies, and other groups with an interest in crime in our Nation—use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties. These rankings, however, are merely a quick choice made by the data user; they provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, region, or other jurisdiction. Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents. […]
For example, one city may report more crime than a comparable one, not because there is more crime, but rather because its law enforcement agency, through proactive efforts, identifies more offenses. Attitudes of the citizens toward crime and their crime reporting practices, especially concerning minor offenses, also have an impact on the volume of crimes known to police.
* There are other factors that play into this as well. Chicago isn’t ranked at all for violent crimes because of the way it collects data on forcible rape…
The data collection methodology for the offense of forcible rape used by Chicago, Illinois, does not comply with national Uniform Crime Reporting Program guidelines. Consequently, its figures for forcible rape and violent crime (of which forcible rape is a part) are not published in this table.
* But, sure enough, Forbes went ahead and did it anyway and ranked Springfield, IL as the third most violent city in the nation, after Detroit and Memphis…
The Springfield, Ill., metropolitan area ranks third on our list with 855 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2010. The Illinois state capital confounds analysts who try to interpret its relatively high crime rate. The unemployment rate was lower than the national average at 7% as of July so the economy wouldn’t seem to play a major role in crime. The area’s relatively young population – 66% of the city is under the age of 44 – may be a factor, as younger areas generally have higher rates of crime.
* Forbes used the FBI’s metropolitan statistical area breakdowns for its study. I went through the FBI’s list of crimes by Illinois cities and pulled out the worst of the bunch…
* But, of course, since there’s a ranking available by a national media outlet, we’re seeing lots of local coverage here…
* Local officials did their best to convince people that Forbes relied on faulty data…
Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams and Mayor Mike Houston expressed disbelief Tuesday at statistics that suggest greater Springfield is the third most-violent metropolitan area in the U.S. – behind only Detroit and Memphis. […]
Williams suggested the city’s ranking is due to Springfield being scrupulous about reporting crimes.
“I don’t want to point fingers at anyone else,” Williams said. “But I’ll tell you that we have a very strict interpretation as to how we report our crimes.
“We continue each year to compare apples to apples, and we see a downward trend,” he said. “I respectfully dispute those statistics, as well as the methodology.”
Unfortunately for Springfield, these lists have a way of taking on eternal life. Rockford, for all its image-building effort, will forever be dogged by finishing dead last — No. 300 — in Money magazine’s “most livable cities” lists in 1993 and 1996. (Rockford was rated the 10th most dangerous city in this week’s Forbes list.)
Again, we’re not in denial that Springfield should strive to be a safer place with less violent crime.
But Springfield as the third most dangerous city in America? Figuratively speaking, those are fighting words.
* I asked the Illinois Department of Employment Security to total up seasonally adjusted job growth and declines from January through August, the latest month available. I did this because we’re starting to see questions crop up here and there about whether the income tax hike is hurting Illinois’ economy. There are good arguments that the tax hike will definitely hurt us, and we’ll get into those in another post today, but as you can plainly see, the biggest net job losses since the January tax hike have been in government…
* Here are the monthly job growth/decline figures…
Both the U.S. and Illinois unemployment rates declined in January, February and March. The U.S. rate began to increase in April.
In May, the Illinois unemployment rate followed suit and began to increase.
In July and August, the stagnant national economy finally pushed the Illinois unemployment rate up at a steeper pace than the national average.
Latest revised estimates for Q1 2011 U.S. Gross Domestic Product shows a meager annual rate of 0.4 percent; 2011Q2 was 1.3 percent. These rates indicate that the U.S. will share the fate of most of the world’s largest economies - a period of slower growth.
Housing remains the national economy’s albatross. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, in the second quarter, residential investment — money spent on building, adding to and maintaining homes — accounted for just 2.2 percent of GDP. That’s the lowest level since 1945. If residential investment were to rebound to its average share of the economy from 1950 to 2000 of 4.7 percent, GDP would be 2.5 percent higher than it is now.
* Meanwhile, Gov. Pat Quinn talked to reporters yesterday for the first time since his trip to China. Raw audio…
“The revenues are going pretty well for Illinois in the major areas of revenue that the state receives. There won’t be much of a difference between the expenditures this fiscal year and the revenues that we derive. We may actually have more revenues than expenditures… We just have to get strong economic recovery as the very best way to deal with the budget deficit of the state.”
* The governor is absolutely right about how an economic recovery will help erase the budget problem. You cannot contract your way out of this mess. Just the opposite.
And he’s right that state revenues are doing well so far this fiscal year. Revenues are coming in pretty well. The problem isn’t now, however, the problem is the near future. The Commission on Governmental Forecasting and Accountability’s latest report urges lots of caution…
Caution Urged Despite Early Performance
While the economic sources have met the Commission’s expectations to date, the forward view of revenues should be tempered with the realization that some clouds on the horizon will serve to stymie a repeat of similar growth. […]
In addition, second half revenue performance would not escape if the current economic “soft patch” continues to be accompanied by stubbornly high unemployment. Looking ahead, continued economic malaise would jeopardize even modest revenues expectations well into FY 2013.
In other words, it’s no time to be spending more money. On the other hand, considering the economy, it’s not a good time to be cutting back, either. If this state had its act together, we could better respond to problems like these. We don’t, so we can’t. We’re essentially victims of our own irresponsibility.
* Related…
* Quinn would consider keeping prison open: But Quinn said the money to keep the prison open must come from re-allocation, and that he won’t borrow cash. The General Assembly would have to agree to re-allocate the money.
* Testimony begins today in Bill Cellini’s corruption trial. I’ll post some stories in the ScribbleLive program while we await the beginning. BlackBerry users click here, everybody else can just stay on this page and watch…
