26 Comments - Anonymous - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:22 am: Madigan has described this as an “epic struggle” many times, even preceding GA overtime. We are calling them “hostages”, while one of the lead participants is describing this in terms of war. There are no hostages to those engaged in a war, only winners and losers. - PublicServant - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:22 am: ===So, lemme get this straight. A local enterprise zone, which could be used to help the area’s business climate, is on hold because… the economy is bad…?=== You obviously don’t understand structural reform, Rich. Providing an Enterprise Zone designation is useless unless his structural reforms are first passed. /s - Anonymous - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:27 am: Vanillaman, There aren’t as many public health facilities to close since Rahm Emanuel closed 1/2 of Chicago’s and Pat Quinn followed with the state mental health center closures. - Albany Park Patriot - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:31 am: Didn’t the guy say he wasn’t pushing collective bargaining changes any more? Or am I missing his nuance? - JS Mill - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:37 am: “The municipalities of DeKalb, Genoa, Sandwich, Sycamore, Cortland and Waterman look forward to bringing jobs and economic investment to the area by using special tax incentives the enterprise zone allows.” Please, outside of DeKalb/Sycamore those other towns will not experience much “development” other than letting the Dollar General relocate and reap a nice tax benefit. - CCP Hostage - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:41 am: Anonynous 9:22 am. A hostage is noun: hostage; plural noun: hostages a person seized or held as security for the fulfillment of a condition. In this case, the condition is the turnaround agenda. I don’t disagree this is war, but we hostages know what we are regardless of what spin is put on the situation. - Tom - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:50 am: The Governor would make a great Defense Back, lots of confidence and no memory - lake county democrat - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:52 am: Such a shame Jack Franks said that he won’t allow Madigan to end all this suffering, no matter how bad it gets. Oh wait… - Pacman - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:56 am: I don’t think we are going to be able to save any hostages, time to send in SWAT. - GA Watcher - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 9:59 am: Snark alert - Possilbe response from the Governor: The mayors of DeKalb, Genoa, Sandwich, Sycamore, Cortland and Waterman might want us to think they are collaboratin’ on an enterprise zone to bring about jobs and investment and do what’s best for their communities, but really all they want is the ability to tax and spend. They’re just like their buddy to the East, Mayor Emanuel: all tax and spend politicians. What they should be doin’ is engage with me in passin’ structural reforms that will save their taxpayers millions of dollars. Why? because I said so. - Ghost - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 10:08 am: we used to let buisness owners decide how things should get done, how to do pay, benefits etc…. this is how we got the meat packing industry in Chicago as described in The Jungle…. unions arose becuase people make bad decisions when it comes to money and how to treat workers. right now communities do have a say in all thosr things. Negotiations are a way that owners and workers discuss these things. removing bargaining rights doesnt give people a voice, it silences workers, the exact opposite of giving them a say. Rauner is appealing to the same mob rule type speeches used in cairo Illinois to start riots between the different grps. he talks to the folks who arent doing the work and says wouldnt it be great if you cpuld force them into horrible working conditions to make yourself better off….. - Wordslinger - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 10:19 am: Outside of ag, NIU is the economic engine for DeKalb County and has been for 120 years. To talk economic development there when you’re bleeding the place dry in a political power play is surreal. - Blue dog dem - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 10:28 am: That a boy Bruce. More tax incentives. Let’s tilt the playing field to a few at the expense of others. You are a true capitalist. If taxes are so egregious, change em so everybody has a chance to prosper. - Honeybear - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 10:31 am: In the Navy you have to be able to “fight the ship”. All damage to personnel or to the ship is prioritized to “fight the ship”, meaning the least injured sailor gets treated first and the damage that effects weapons and propulsion is fixed first in order to “fight the ship” that is attacking you. Rauner is not “fighting the ship”. If he was he’d fund those enterprise zones, he’d fund and staff his economic agency DCEO (weapons) and fund and staff his propulsion (IDOR). Love of God, ADM Rauner has got his fleet dead in the water while under attack, taking on water from the hits, demanding that Congress upgrade his weapons systems and stomping his feet for a nuclear reactor retrofit on ALL vessels regardless of whether that would work or not. - Norseman - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 10:33 am: === A local enterprise zone, which could be used to help the area’s business climate, is on hold because… the economy is bad…? === How pathetic can you get. - Huh? - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 10:47 am: This isn’t the first enterprise zone to be put on hold. This has been going on since July. http://www.mywebtimes.com/news/local/state-puts-hold-on-enterprise-zones/article_00bab9f1-4b6b-5dfe-b96f-f37a7b239c77.html From the above article: “In light of Illinois’ current fiscal uncertainty and ongoing budget impasse, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity will not certify the enterprise zones at this time,” department Director Lyndsey Walters said in a press release. - Langhorne - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 10:50 am: Rauner is the dumbest smart guy i have ever seen. Allowing locals to arbitrarily do away w collective bargaining, even on a permissive basis, will never pass. Get over it. No amount of pain, or hostage taking, will change that. Move on to something that can pass. Accept the reality of your situation. - Shemp - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 11:01 am: DCEO is really fouling up the enterprise zone renewal process. Right now, they are not allowing E-Zones to renew unless they are about to expire. Kind of a problem if one of the big benefits of the E-zone is a 5 year property tax freeze. On the other hand, there are a lot of legislators who want to kill or limit the Enterprise Zones in Illinois. I don’t think people realize how few incentive programs cities and counties have and this is one of the biggies. - PolPal56 - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 11:07 am: Governor Ahab fires another harpoon through the hull of the good ship Illinois. - 360 Degree TurnAround - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 11:09 am: Why is he getting away with the “local control” over collective bargaining argument? I know he’s not winning the argument. But can someone please ask him if it is local people that do collective bargaining? They don’t outsource the bargaining portion do they? Those are local people, many of whom are held accountable by the voters every so often. They already have local control. Stay reasonable my friends, stay reasonable. - Formerly Known As... - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 12:17 pm: ==Local control== reappears? Have not heard that for a few weeks, iirc. - Shemp - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 12:46 pm: =ask him if it is local people that do the collective bargaining?=== Local people do, but on fire and police, interest arbitration (and precedents from other interest arbitrations) have far more influence on the outcome than do local negotiations. Mandatory subjects of bargaining also affect the locals, especially so-called non-monetary ones likes minimum manning which sure are monetary when you are paying for it…. - Bud Keyes - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 1:07 pm: So making hundreds of millions of dollars in Illinois is not good enough for him, he needed to make a few million more so we need these changes??? - RNUG - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 1:14 pm: You know, if Rauner wants to improve local control that bad, maybe, instead of being Governor, he should resign and offer his contract negotiating services on a voluntary basis to the local entities and municipalities in order to help “regain” local control. And, maybe, he could ask fellow GOPer Mike Tristano to help out; Mike was really good at hard-nosed contract negotiation. Rauner and Tristano, Labor Negotiations … that has a nice ring to it. - Arthur Andersen - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 2:08 pm: Geez RNUG, almost 30 years later, that name still sends chills down my spine. - RNUG - Friday, Oct 30, 15 @ 3:24 pm: -AA- He was something else … and we’ll just leave it at that. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.