* Gery Chico’s new TV ad is about - what else? - “the Rahm Tax.” According to the campaign, it’s a $500K buy. It’s also quite witty. Watch…
Script…
VO: The Rahm tax would be the largest sales tax in the city’s history..
Rahm’s tax would hit families on everything including pet care, to car repair to taxi cabs to bowling alleys.
Bowler: Attention bowlers… Pay the Rahm Tax.
Gery: This is crazy. This tax is going to hit families when they don’t have one more ounce to give. They can’t take one more brick on their back. And that’s what this tax is.
VO: If you thought the Stroger Sales Tax was a Killer – You’ll hate the Rahm Tax
* Chico and del Valle said the lack of access between North and Southbound lanes on LSD was a big problem Tuesday…
Mayoral challengers Gery Chico and Miguel del Valle on Friday suggested periodic gaps in the median planters that beautified Lake Shore Drive to prevent a repeat of the Blizzard of 2011 fiasco.
If there had been a few well-positioned breaks along the way, emergency vehicles would have had quicker access to stranded motorists and traffic stalled behind accidents could have been diverted to the southbound lanes before being buried in snow, both candidates said. […]
Del Valle said there are many “lessons” to be learned from the Lake Shore Drive debacle — and one of them is that, “You have to have access.”
* And the Sierra Club is backing Emanuel…
Sierra Club today announced its endorsement of Rahm Emanuel for Mayor of Chicago during a tour of a clean water job training facility on Chicago’s west side.
“Throughout his career, Rahm has not just been a strong supporter of environmental protection — he has been a key strategist in efforts to protect Lake Michigan, and to move toward a clean energy future,” said Jack Darin, director of Sierra Club’s Illinois chapter. “That’s exactly who Chicagoans need as their next mayor — someone who wants a cleaner, healthier Chicago for the future, but also has the strength and smarts to get things done. Rahm knows we can bring new jobs to Chicago and make our city cleaner by being smarter about how we use energy, and by making Chicago a global capital in the green economy. We are proud to recommend Rahm Emanuel to all the Chicagoans who want a better future for their children and new, good-paying jobs.”
CHICAGO—In a unanimous decision handed down on Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was sleazy enough to be included on Chicago’s mayoral ballot. “It is the opinion of this court that Mr. Emanuel is coarse, vulgar, and power-hungry to such a degree that he should be eligible to hold this city’s highest office,” Illinois Justice Robert R. Thomas wrote in his majority opinion, adding that Emanuel also met a key stipulation requiring that any mayor of Chicago be a bully willing to do whatever is necessary to push his agenda through the city council. “Further, Mr. Emanuel is a sleazebag and a sleazeball, both of which are criteria he fulfilled prior to filing his papers with the local election board.” The decision overturned an appellate court’s ruling that Emanuel was only sleazy enough to be the governor of Illinois, and that he lacked the slithery, snake-like attributes necessary to oversee the morally bankrupt cesspool of Chicago politics
Who would influence a Mayor Emanuel, in the way that Bridgeport friends and generous developers have influenced Mayor Richard M. Daley? By force of intellect and personality, Emanuel surely would co-opt others. It’s fair for Chicagoans to ask who would try to co-opt him. Consider:
Much attention has focused on the large number of companies that have employed Chico’s law firm and won business from city government. A different crowd could try to make demands of Emanuel: wealthy donors who have funded his campaigns. We hope those connections aren’t behind his vagueness over whether he, like the other major candidates, would block the Chicago Children’s Museum or any other institution from a land-grab in Grant Park.
That said, we think Emanuel embodies a healthy blend of tactical shrewdness, ethical conduct and inexhaustible energy. Emanuel could not let himself fail. He is among the most results-driven people to walk this Earth. That might mean more expletives fly and more fish corpses arrive by ground mail. But if Chicago emerges from an Emanuel mayoralty with its finances stabilized, its job market thriving, its schools improving and its middle class intact, his successes once again will have eclipsed his excesses.
Given all the enemies an effective mayor will have to make, he could be one term and done. But what a term it would be. We hope that, between now and Feb. 22, Chicago voters reach the same conclusion as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did when they brought him to the White House: This guy deserves a chance to get this near-impossible job done.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie flew to Illinois today, trying to sway business leaders to bring their business east. He won’t say whom he’s meeting with. One thing is certain: It’s no one from Kraft Foods Inc.
“We received an invitation to meet with the governor, but schedules were simply not conducive to a meeting at this time,” Michael Mitchell, a spokesman for Northfield-based Kraft, the state’s fourth-largest company by market capitalization, said in an e-mail. […]
The administration wasn’t releasing details of the meetings “in the interest of discretion,” said Michael Drewniak, another spokesman. Drewniak said he didn’t know whether taxpayers paid for the trip. […]
Representatives of four of the six largest publicly traded businesses based in Illinois said no meetings with Christie were planned.
* And this is from Senate President John Cullerton…
“I want to applaud Governor Quinn’s tireless efforts to draw and keep businesses like Mitsubishi here. Mitsubishi’s announcement means more jobs for Illinois and new technology to push our country’s energy and transportation policies forward. I look forward to working with Governor Quinn this session as we strive to make Illinois more competitive.”
“Illinois has reformed its pension system, enacted spending limits, recruited and retained key businesses and put itself back on track for stability and prosperity. Compare that to New Jersey where the governor is spending more of the people’s money promoting himself in the Illinois media than he is on his state’s underfunded pension systems.”
“Showmanship and 2012 aspirations don’t create jobs anywhere. A workhorse approach like that displayed by Governor Quinn is what gets results.”
Oof.
* According to a press release from Gov. Quinn’s office, Mitsubishi intends to invest $45 million into its Normal plant and build a crossover SUV. Also…
A goal to have 1,000 electric vehicles on Twin City streets by 2014 moved closer to reality Friday, as Mitsubishi Motors pledged to supply exactly that many of its new, all-electric i-MiEV car for local drivers starting later this year.
The Japanese automaker also signed a pact with Gov. Pat Quinn to boost research and development of electric vehicle technologies in Illinois, and to temporarily supply a “limited number” of i-MiEVs to the state’s fleet.
* I confirmed this for subscribers today, but the Newark Star-Ledger was able to get a comment out of Gov. Chris Christie’s office…
[New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie] will travel to Chicago today, he said, as part of his efforts to recruit more businesses to the state.
“Both New Jersey and Illinois are providing business leaders with certainty,” Christie said at a business symposium in Newark. “In New Jersey you can be certain taxes are going down over the next three years, and in Illinois you can be certain they are going up.”
The governor’s office would not provide details of the trip.
“The purpose of the trip is for the governor to meet personally with Illinois business leaders about the current economic climate, challenges and obstacles they are facing,” said spokesman Michael Drewniak. “This is not a grandstanding or media event. He wants to be able to have frank but private discussions with business leaders.”
We’ll see how far he stays away from the media. He’s more than a bit of a hound. And even some business group leaders here have seen right through the act…
Overtures by New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Indiana’s Mitch Daniels and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker are “a lot of political theater, a lot of hubris,” said Kim Maisch, director of the Illinois chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents about 10,000 small businesses in the state.
Discuss.
* Related…
* Mitsubishi to announce new vehicle for Normal plant: Mitsubishi is also expected to announce a public-private partnership today that would bring electric vehicle charging infrastructure to Normal, an initiative that would create a ready-made market for the auto manufacturer’s plug-in vehicles – seven of which are expected by 2015. Mullen said the vehicle planned for the plant will likely be the next generation of one of Mitsubishi’s more popular models -– possibly the Outlander, Lancer or Outlander Sport -– which would do well to be produced in North America.
* Might Quinn, Mitsubishi have good news for state?: Details of the announcement were being kept quiet, but it had the makings of a public-relations coup for the governor, who has faced sniping from out-of-state Republican governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who are trying to poach state businesses after Quinn raised corporate income taxes last month.
* Mitsubishi to get $29 million in state tax breaks
* New Jersey’s Christie strikes back at Maryland Gov. O’Malley: “I heard that pabulum Governor O’Malley was spewing down in Maryland,” Christie says, according to a transcript provided by the program, which is scheduled to air Thursday at 6 p.m. “He doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
* Rahm Emanuel’s latest TV ad has a good message, but all that footage of people in short sleeves seems way out of place right now. Rate it…
Script…
RAHM: City government is not an employment agency. It is delivering a service to the residents and the taxpayers of the city. I want that mindset to be different. We’re going to deliver a service to the taxpayers. We’re going to get them the best price for what they pay for, whether that’s protecting a street, cleaning a street, or plowing a street. That means making sure everybody that works for the city government knows that they’re actually a public servant representing and helping the people that pay them.
* Carol Moseley Braun still doesn’t have enough money to put an ad on TV, so she’s posting Internet videos. Here’s her latest…
* Gery Chico’s latest Internet video is entitled “Chicago businesses say NO to Rahm Tax.” Have a look…
* DJ Freddie Mac and The Blue State Cowboys have a new video spoofing Rahm Emanuel. Too Big to Fail…
You wanna play ball, put a check in the mail
I got Hollywood cash; I’m too big to fail
* Our last video has nothing to do with politics. Uptown Coyote…
* Walter Jacobson touches on something that’s been glossed over in the coverage of the Lake Shore Drive outrage: Class…
I know we don’t like inconvenience. Especially, Lake Shore Drivers don’t like it, and Gold Coasters and Lincoln Parkers are unaccustomed to inconvenience. But we were all told in advance to prepare for the blizzard. […]
The storm ended yesterday, and already today 900 cars on the drive are unstuck; the expressways to the suburbs are clean, the trains and buses are running; the plows are clearing the streets.
Not bad after 2 feet of snow and 50 mph winds. Not bad at all.
Hard to argue with that.
* WTTW’s Elizabeth Brackett posted a video which included footage of cars stranded on South Shore Drive…
Media coverage of the public outrage was almost purely focused on drivers stranded on the north end of the Drive.
Officials in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties were investigating several possible weather-related fatalities — mostly from shoveling — bringing to at least 11 the number of deaths tied to this week’s blizzard and cold weather.
DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann said his deputies assisted in four death investigations that are believed to be linked to shoveling the approximately 20-inch snowfall.
Officials in Mount Prospect are awaiting autopsy results for a man who died late Wednesday after shoveling snow from neighbors’ driveways. Police said John Soboda, of the 600 block of East Prospect Avenue, was found dead in his car. Soboda had spent Wednesday pushing neighbors’ cars and helping them clear snow, his wife, Pamela, told police.
In Lake County, the death of a Mundelein woman is being investigated as a possible exposure death. Susan Smith, 57, of the 18000 block of Meadow Lane Road, was found Wednesday in her car in a Lake Zurich church parking lot about 24 hours after she went missing, according to Lake County Coroner Richard Keller.
* Sometimes, you can’t trust your own eyeballs. ABC7’s I-Team found that out the hard way when they drove by the homes of several aldermen and discovered their streets had been cleaned. After the report aired, some irate aldermen called up to complain. An addendum was posted online…
Alderman James Balcer said he gets no special treatment, that neighbors worked on his street, and his alley was plowed by a resident who has nearby rental properties.
Alderman Dick Mell says neighbors on his street have always pitched in together to dig out with no preference from the city.
Alderman Leslie Hairston says she got no special treatment and was busy Thursday helping constituents on her own.
Alderman Margaret Laurino lives in Sauganash and says a community association pays for its own snow removal.
* Tired of waiting on city, neighbors work to clear Bucktown street
* Roof of historic church collapses after storm: It was one of the few structures to survive the Chicago fire, temporarily housing government workers during reconstruction of their offices in 1871.
* Costs are piling up around the Chicago area: The early blizzard price tag for Joliet is estimated to be about $450,000 — almost eight times more than a typical snow event… As of noon Thursday, about 25 percent of [Naperville’s] 1,200 residential cul-de-sacs remained unplowed, officials said.
* Naperville: ‘It’s taking us significantly longer to finish the job’
A task force appointed by Gov. Pat Quinn wants a law forcing insurers to spend at least 80 cents of every of premium dollar on providing health care - or pay rebates to customers.
The task force is releasing its initial recommendations Thursday. It also recommends legislation giving state regulators the authority to approve or deny health insurance rate increases. […]
Illinois Department of Insurance director Michael McRaith says for-profit insurers in Illinois now spend as little as 50 cents of every premium dollar on health care.
* Educational co-op lays off all its workers: It must wait and see about funding…
The executive committee of the Williamson County Early Childhood Cooperative approved resolutions Thursday authorizing dismissal of about 45 teachers and staff members at the end of the school year because of current nonexistent state funding.
The move is reminiscent of a year earlier. when the committee was forced to take the same action before state funding was allocated at the end of the legislative session to keep cooperative personnel and services intact.
* Will there be concerts on Northerly Island this summer?: It’s hard to see how, unless the city is once again about to hand the rights to book a temporary venue on this prime piece of real estate to the dreaded Death Star of the concert business, Ticketmaster/Live Nation, by side-stepping the bidding process…for a second time.
* Catholic hospital operators explore merger - Chicago-based Resurrection Health Care may combine with Mokena-based Provena Health
* Belleville independent candidates pledge to play fair
* More Clues About Business PAC’s Play In Council Races: Until recently, all the money raised by FBC PAC had come from a 501(c)(4) organization also called For A Better Chicago, meaning the donors were impossible to track. But in a February 1 filing with the SBOE, the FBC PAC showed a contribution of $10,000 from David Herro, an investment manager at Harris Associates, LP. Herro was a major player in the 2007 city council races, throwing significant cash at aldermanic candidates supportive of building Wal-Marts.
* Lots of bleepin’ laughs - The evil genius behind @MayorEmanuel — whoever it is — has Chicago guessing, everybody laughing
* Del Valle links rivals to convicted ex-Streets and San boss
* Seven county workers suspended from scandal-plagued jobs program: Karin Norington-Reaves, director of the Cook County Board President’s Office of Employment Training — known as POET — suspended staffers on Monday and Tuesday, including a manager related to a former POET employee sent to prison for stealing more than $100,000 from the program.
* County Treasurer Sits At $23,000 Office Set: Pappas once ran her office from a beautiful desk and credenza in her private office. But they were replaced with custom-ordered furniture costing $23,034. The furniture was part of a much larger redecorating job overseen by high-end interior designer John P. Regas. He was paid an additional $27,000 for his interior design work throughout the treasurer’s office.
* Book details ex-Illinois governor’s gangster ties: One of the most amazing details writer Jim Ridings learned while researching his books is former Illinois governor Len Small’s connection to gangsters.
Longtime Statehouse lobbyist Harry “Bud” Kelley died Wednesday. He was 78.
Kelley was one of the best-known figures among Capitol lobbyists, serving 34 years as executive director of the Illinois Association of Tobacco and Candy Distributors.
A Hillsboro native, Kelley graduated from Millikin University in 1954 and then joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a second lieutenant. He later became a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
Kelley worked for his father’s food business until moving to Springfield in 1966 to be chief administrative assistant in the state Department of Business and Economic Development.
Sanchez’s lawyers had argued a sentence of no time in prison was appropriate.
“I asked Al this morning: ‘Did you ever shut down Outer Drive?’ He said: ‘No,’” attorney Thomas Breen said of Sanchez’s tenure as Streets and Sanitation chief. “He had a plan that kept the Outer Drive open all the time.”
An agitated Sanchez spoke to the judge, saying he had to get things off his chest. He said his goal wasn’t to amass a political army by leveraging city jobs.
“I’m going to have to be able to keep Lake Shore Drive open” and keep the side streets clear of snow. “That was my goal,” not a political organization, he said.
* State Sen. Shane Cultra was interviewed by the East Peoria Times Courier the other day…
[Last] Thursday the Illinois Department of employment Security announced the unemployment rate dropped in the Peoria metro area in December. That continued a trend of declining jobless numbers through 2010.
December unemployment rates fell in every Illinois county for the first time since 1974, according to the state.
Cultra said he was unaware of that news. He said he found that hard to believe
Reality is reality, Senator. Try it sometime. You might like it.
Another Republican blasted from both sides of the spectrum for his record on emissions, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, said he is “not terribly concerned” about taking heat from green groups for his criticism of EPA action on carbon emissions.
“The consensus behind the climate change bill collapsed and then further deteriorated with the personal and political collapse of Vice President [Al] Gore,” Kirk said in a brief interview last week.
So, apparently, the merits of the issue don’t matter to Kirk because Al Gore got in trouble with a “massage therapist.” Thoughtful guy, that.
Flowers has introduced House Bill 104, which would create the Department of Minority and Women Inclusion. The new agency would be in charge of equal employment opportunity in the executive branch, as well as ensuring against racial or gender disparities in state contract awards.
Flowers said the bill will help cut state spending even though a new agency would be created.
Um, OK. I don’t get how this cuts state spending at all.
* Related…
* Reagan day in Illinois proposed: A resolution recently introduced in the state House would have designated Sunday as Ronald Reagan day in Illinois. But state Rep. Jerry Mitchell, R-Sterling, who sponsored the resolution, said it probably won’t go anywhere because the House session was canceled this week due to the blizzard hitting the Midwest. The resolution would have been a “one-time thing,” he said.
* New Beginning for 20 Illinois Representatives: State Rep. Kelly Burke (D-Evergreen Park) has experience as an attorney and also in higher education. What’s more, “I was the president of our local library board, so I have a little local government experience – experience with literacy, things like that.”
* Banking analyst Meredith Whitney boldly predicted “50 to 100 sizable defaults” by states and municipalities amounting to “hundreds of billions of dollars” when she was on 60 Minutes in December. The prediction set off a firestorm, with billions withdrawn from muni funds since then. But as I told subscribers yesterday, Bloomberg News has completely undercut Whitney’s claims by using her own research.
The news service got ahold of a copy of Meredith’s publication (annual subscription rate: $100,000) upon which her claims to 60 Minuteswere based…
A copy of the 43-page report obtained since then doesn’t mention sizable defaults amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. A person who has seen a long addendum that profiles the 15 top states said that the longer portion doesn’t, either.
“We are not calling for any specific defaults within the scope of this report,” the document says on page 42. An opening summary says there will “invariably” be local defaults, without elaborating. […]
Her report, on page 2, says “debt service at the state level is not something we believe is at risk” [Emphasis added]
* 60 Minutes billed Whitney as a visionary, but her record is unimpressive…
Bloomberg News reported in October that about two-thirds of her stock picks since starting her company in 2009 had fared worse than market indexes. Visa Inc. fell 14 percent after she called it her “single best buy,” and Capital One Financial Corp. tripled after she urged clients to sell.
She was also far from the first bank analyst to predict doom for Citigroup, contrary to the 60 Minutes profile.
* This little-discussed factoid is getting lost in the mega-uproar about the thousand or so cars stranded on Lake Shore Drive Tuesday night…
Though some people were stuck in their cars as late as 3:30 a.m., officials said most of those people were drivers reluctant to abandon their cars until firefighters ordered them to do so.
One can only wonder how many times those stubborn dolts were offered assistance before they had to be ordered out of their precious automobiles by cold, exhausted firefighters. That’s time which could’ve been far better spent helping others truly in need.
Only a fraction of the thousands of cars on LSD Tuesday night actually got stuck, and nobody was seriously hurt. Closing the Drive early would have undoubtedly caused nightmarish problems on arterial roads. We don’t know if the situation would’ve been worse, but those same cars would’ve been much more spread out than they were Tuesday, and, therefore, more difficult to reach…
“The question was do we eliminate Lake Shore Drive as an option, which would’ve essentially diverted thousands of drivers onto other roads”, [Mayor Daley’s chief of staff Raymond Orozco] pointed out. He says that would’ve created even more traffic and dangerous travel conditions on other city streets.
* Apparently, the guy in charge Tuesday was not Mayor Daley but hizzoner’s chief of staff, who was quickly fed to the angry hordes yesterday…
Aware of the complaints, Orozco took full responsibility for the timing of the Drive shutdown and apologized to the hundreds of motorists who were inconvenienced.
Still, Orozco said he made “the right decision” in waiting until nearly 8 p.m. to close the road. He said he weighed the effect of diverting traffic off Lake Shore Drive sooner and concluded the city would be safer without thousands of cars spilling onto local roads.
“In a storm of this magnitude there is no way to predict from minute to minute what problems may arise,” Orozco said. “But what we know at this time is no serious injuries or loss of life [happened] based upon the option that I chose during what was called a life-threatening storm.
“What we believe is we obtained the best possible outcome.”
“If reports that Mayor Daley was not involved in the actual decision making on the city’s response are true, that’s a disappointment, ”Carol Moseley Braun said through a spokeswoman.
A spokeswoman for Gery Chico said he believed there would be time later to play the role of “Monday morning quarterback.” Instead, Chico saluted the courage of city workers who responded to the weather emergency, especially police, paramedics and firefighters. Their unions, by coincidence, have all endorsed Chico. […]
Referring to the now internationally-notorious traffic mess along the lakefront, Emanuel said in a written statement: “We need to get to the bottom of what happened last night on Lake Shore Drive — with hundreds of passengers stranded for hours, it’s clear that there were mistakes made that we can never let happen again. And we need a comprehensive review to determine what went wrong and what went right throughout the city.”
The last time the city implemented Phase 4 of its snow plan — by calling out private contractors to assist with snow removal — it boosted the total storm tab to a whopping $77 million.
For that 1999 storm, Daley requested federal disaster assistance, as he did again this week. Back then, he was ultimately forced to raise an array of taxes, blaming at least some of it on the snow.
This time, the tab is likely to approach $100 million. The next mayor is already facing a structural deficit in the $1 billion range when pension obligations are factored in. Daley managed to hold the line on taxes in his final budget, only after draining all but $76 million from the 75-year, $1.15 billion lease that privatized Chicago parking meters.
And that’s just for Chicago. Lots of suburban and Downstate communities are gonna be in much worse fiscal shape by the time this thing is over.
* More stuff…
* Next problem: Where to put all that snow - Municipalities scramble to find acceptable dumping sites
* How about the side streets? City officials say “as soon as possible”
* Tips from Ameren on electricity, gas and weather
* Brown: Still, I get tired of the scapegoating. Maybe this one time we could just figure out what went wrong and how to avoid the same problem in the future without insisting that somebody take the fall. This was clearly a unique weather situation.
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s spokesperson Annie Thompson reacting to criticism from Springfield’s Republican state Representatives about discontinuing the $1 million state subsidy to the National High School Finals Rodeo, which means the event will not be held in Springfield this year…
“Republicans keep calling on the governor’s office to make cuts, but when those cuts affect their communities, they want no part of it.”
Pressed once again for the complete list of services he intends to tax, Emanuel said he would “work with the Legislature,” where the sales tax swap must be authorized.
* The Tribune kinda likes the idea, but, like the rest of us, wants more details…
The problem is, Emanuel can’t seem to spell out a bright line for what would be taxed and what wouldn’t. This has turned into a parlor game.
Would he tax limo rides?
Campaign says: You bet.
Car services? Maybe.
Taxicabs? Certainly not!
Huh?
“Huh?” is right. This is a major proposal. Emanuel ought to provide some details.
* Related…
* Chicago mayoral candidates tackle ethics issues - Ideas range from expanding inspector general’s duties to requiring more competitive bidding of contracts
* Mayoral candidates hit the streets, but some community members want more substance
* With early voting in action, mayoral race gets heated
* We asked mayoral candidates: Do you support ‘dibs’ on parking spots?: “Look, if a guy’s out there shoveling for an hour and a half, he’s not shoveling it for someone else to use it,” said former School Board chief Gery Chico, who calls himself unabashedly “pro-dibs,” even though he lives in a downtown condo now. He used to shovel his own place on Loomis, he said. “It’s a civil way to allocate parking and it’s been going on for 100 years in Chicago,” Chico said.
* Braun apologizes for calling rival a crack addict
* Playing Super Bowl in Chicago would be ridiculous: Chico can’t be blamed for thinking big. He’s pushing for the economic benefits a Super Bowl purportedly brings to a city. Tourists would flock to the city. Money would flock with them. But there’s a reason birds flock to the South in the winter: It’s cold in the North. It appears that same cold has caused a bad case of brain freeze for Chico.
* My brother Darian was born just before the Great Blizzard of 1967. He was born premature, so he had to stay in the hospital and the storm hit about the time he was supposed to come home. I don’t remember much about that blizzard except that we were all bummed out that our new brother was still at the hospital.
That storm was a biggie. Huge. 77 Midwesterners died during that one. Here’s a great video documenting its Chicago impact…
The blizzard of 1979 is infamous for bringing down Mayor Bilandic. Here is a wonderful short film about “dibs” back then….
* OK, enough of this cold, snowy stuff. How about something to warm you up? Remember this video from the State Fair?…
* Tuesday, 10:58 pm - Gov. Pat Quinn has ordered all state workers who aren’t serving in “continuity” functions to stay home from work tomorrow. From a press release…
SPRINGFIELD – February 1, 2011. Due to the severe winter storm and extremely hazardous conditions across Illinois, Governor Pat Quinn, in consultation with the Illinois State Police (ISP), Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) and the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (CMS), has implemented the State’s Continuity of Operations/Continuity of Government Plans (COOP/COG). The inter-agency COOP/COG plans will ensure continued delivery of essential state services during severe winter weather conditions.
Based on National Weather Service warnings and hazardous travel conditions, state government employees – except those serving in continuity of government functions – are instructed to stay home on Wednesday, Feb. 2. Regular state operations will resume on Thursday, Feb. 3.
“We have been monitoring weather conditions, and working with a number of agencies statewide to coordinate preparations for the effects of this storm. Across Illinois, essential services will continue without interruption,” said Governor Quinn. “To protect the safety of our employees and the people they serve, we are directing state employees whose duties are not critical to continuity of essential state services to avoid traveling to work Wednesday.”
COOP/COG ensures that employees responsible for continuity of operations observe the hours needed to guarantee continued delivery and availability of essential public health and safety state services, including: Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) Veterans’ Homes, Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) central health centers and centers for the developmentally disabled, Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) youth centers, Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) correctional institutions, as well as IDOT, ISP and IEMA.
Information on continued essential state services and service locations for the public, as well as situation updates for state employees, will be available online at www.Ready.Illinois.gov starting on Wednesday. Employees without Internet access may call 866-848-2125 (Springfield) and 866-848-2135 (Chicago) for this information.
The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) cautions motorists against venturing out unless travel is absolutely necessary. The agency is fully-staffed and equipped to plow and salt roadways as necessary, but the department urges motorists to use extreme caution for the duration of the storm. Motorists can acquire up-to-date roadway conditions information at www.gettingaroundillinois.com or at www.travelmidwest.com.
On Monday, Governor Quinn activated the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) in Springfield to coordinate the state’s response to the storm. Representatives from nearly a dozen state agencies are staffing the SEOC 24 hours a day throughout the duration of the storm. Governor Quinn also issued a disaster declaration for the entire state in advance of the heavy snow, ice and blizzard conditions expected over the next few days, and today activated more than 500 Illinois National Guard troops to help ensure traveler safety on interstate highways.
Other state assistance includes:
• Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) Conservation Police are using all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles and four-wheel drive trucks to assist Illinois State Police, perform welfare checks and help motorists and others throughout the storm event.
• The American Red Cross has opened 28 shelters around the state and has nearly two dozen additional shelters on standby. The State of Illinois has also opened a number of shelters (in conjunction with the Red Cross) and warming centers across the City of Chicago and counties across Illinois. More information about shelters and warming centers can be found at: www.Ready.Illinois.gov.
• Supplying generators to local units of governments as requested.
More information about Winter Storm Preparedness is available from www.Ready.Illinois.gov.
* And from the Tollway…
“Travel on the Illinois Tollway is not recommended [Wednesday] morning, “Lafleur said. “We are urging our customers to stay home unless it’s an extreme emergency.
