* Tens of thousands of southern Illinoisans are still without power after last week’s devastating storm and they’re bracing for more horrid weather today. Yet the Chicago media has barely covered the story. If one of those southerners gets Swine Flu, it’ll probably be front-page news.
* I love my Mac puter, but I do despise the fact that I can’t listen to WUIS news stories on it. Maybe I should direct my ire at WUIS for excluding folks like me. [To be clear, I can listen to the live broadcast just fine, but I can’t get the individual news stories to work no matter what I do.]
* I currently live in Downstate, but I’ve been appalled for years at the disproportionate amount of road money the region gets. A new IDOT [LRB] study ought to shake things up, but I’m not so sure it will…
Between 1999 and 2007, road fund expenditures in the six-county Chicago area ranged from about 32 percent of the statewide total to 44 percent, the study found.
Spending outside the Chicago region reached a high of 68 percent in 2001 to a low of 56 percent in 2003, the study said.
The study noted, for comparison purposes, that more than 63 percent of Illinois residents live in the Chicago area, which accounts for more than half the vehicles and miles traveled in the state. […]
Meanwhile, about half of the more than 6 billion gallons of motor fuels sold in Illinois in fiscal 2008 were were used in the six-county Chicago region, the study estimated.
* This bill aimed at reducing the number of votes it takes to override Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s vetoes is an almost perfect illustration of the Statehouse’s broken sausage-making process…
A plan pending in the Illinois House would reduce the number of commissioners needed for an override from an almost impossible four-fifths to just three-fifths. […]
State Rep. Paul Froehlich, a Schaumburg Democrat, is the House sponsor. The idea was first filed in the Senate by state Sen. Dan Kotowski, a Park Ridge Democrat. The Senate approved it in April.
The proposal would not affect Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s veto of the county board’s rollback of a controversial sales tax. As written, the law wouldn’t take effect until 2011.
Kotowski said Tuesday he wants to change the plan to have an immediate effective date. Doing so would give commissioners a chance to bring forth another repeal and, if Stroger again vetoes it, have an easier time casting that veto aside.
Take a look at the bill’s history for some chuckles. As originally introduced, the bill would’ve had an immediate effective date. Sen. Kotowski amended the bill to take out that immediate date on March 11th. Now, he wants to put it back in. Oops.
Rep. Froehlich picked up the bill after it passed the Senate. The measure was sent to the Mike Madigan-controlled Executive Committee, where it never received a vote (Surprise!). The passage deadline has expired, so it’s now sitting in the purgatory of Madigan’s House Rules Committee. The above story was generated after Sen. Kotowski and Rep. Froehlich held a Statehouse press conference, but there’s no word yet on whether Speaker Madigan will let the bill out of Rules.
So, the press conference was apparently a gratuitous pop. And the bill’s fate to date is exactly why people believe the leaders have way too much power over the process.
* Stroger, by the way, can’t really be described as a politically cooked goose. The meat has been fried off his body and now we’re getting to the marrow…
As he takes political heat for blocking a push to lower county sales taxes, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is in hot water for a more personal tax issue: He owes Uncle Sam nearly $12,000 for unpaid income taxes, recently filed records show.
Lots of people have had tax liens placed on them, but lots of people aren’t running for reelection after raising taxes on one of the largest counties in the nation.
A bill that would expand gambling to help pay for new schools passed in a House committee [yesterday].
The measure, sponsored by Rep. Frank Mautino, a Spring Valley Democrat, would allow establishments where liquor is served, fraternal organizations, veterans’ clubs and truck stops to have video gaming machines such as video poker. Many places already have the machines, but they can’t legally pay out winnings. If approved, the state would require establishments that offered video poker to be licensed and would legalize betting on the games. The machines also would be taxed, with revenue going toward school construction projects and local governments.
You can read the bill by clicking here. Also, the above story has lots more details, including….
25 percent - The percentage of net profits from the video gaming machines that would be taxed.
20 percent - The amount that would go toward building schools.
5 percent - The amount that would go to local governments.
$2 - The maximum wager per hand.
$500 - The maximum payout per hand.
21 - The minimum age to play.
* The Question: Do you support this concept to help pay for the capital bill? Explain fully, as always. Thanks.
* Carol Marin writes about a conversation between Sheila Simon, a member of the governor’s independent reform commission, and Steve Brown…
One of the interesting conversations Simon had last week was with Steve Brown, the longtime spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan. Brown’s criticism, something he says he has expressed many times, is that the reform seekers, by and large, haven’t ever contributed to a political campaign. “Kind of curious,” Brown said by phone Tuesday, “that people hold themselves out when they have never made a donation.”
“That was an interesting assessment to me,” Simon said. “I’m regarded as not being a political contributor and yet I think we are regular and active participants and not naive in anyway.”
Brown argues that with regard to the last two indicted Illinois governors, Ryan and Blagojevich, “neither of the two gubernatorial scandals would have been affected by limits.” But beyond that, he says, “If you talk to people who worked in limit systems, all they talked about was how much time they had to spend raising money.”
Though Simon disagrees with the first point, on the second she does not. “I watched dad go through elections with federal limits. I’m not saying it was fun. But you don’t run for election because it’s fun, you run because there’s something you want to accomplish in government.”
Actually, a search of the Illinois State Board of Elections site shows that Ms. Simon has made just two contributions which have been disclosed by campaigns, both for $25 to Lisa Madigan.
Sheila’s father, the late US Sen. Paul Simon, constantly complained about the money he had to raise for reelection. But Sen. Simon did support campaign contribution caps when he pushed an ethics reform bill in the 1990s. Then-state Sen. Barack Obama also favored caps at the time.
I posted a comment about Ms. Simon on the blog yesterday which referred to her unsuccessful bid for Carbondale mayor. Simon limited contributions during that campaign to just $50…
[Simon’s losing, contribution-capped campaign] would make her an expert, however. She’s also an expert in running as a reformer and being bashed by the local media as a Democratic Machine tool, even though her contributions were capped at $50 and her opponent was taking tons of help from the state GOP.
The editorial boards screaming loudest these days for reform are the same ones who dumped on just about every reformer candidate we’ve ever had. Just ask Glenn Poshard about the Chicago Tribune, for example.
This is about more than just legislation. It’s about changing attitudes. And the Trib and the Southern Illinoisan have had horrible attitudes.
The Tribune endlessly banged on Poshard for bending his own, self-imposed campaign contribution caps, while endorsing George Ryan - despite clear evidence that commercial drivers licenses were being sold in exchange for campaign contributions.
Until we get a better editorial corps in this state, I’ll be wary of limiting candidate spending [contributions] too much. I still support caps, but newspaper editorial boards are a prime reason to be suspicious.
As proposed last week by House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), the bill targets nearly 3,000 state workers and members of boards and commissions who got their positions while Blagojevich and George Ryan served as governors. If Madigan’s bill becomes law, those workers can stay for another 60 days before they lose their jobs. During that time, Quinn could decide to keep the people in their positions.
Steve Brown, Madigan’s spokesman, said there’s “been some conversation between our staff and the governor’s staff” about changing the bill. He said Tuesday there’s been no agreement on the changes and refused to discuss it further.
Bob Reed, spokesman for Gov. Pat Quinn, said the office is still reviewing House Bill 4450 and “may propose some changes,” but said it is too early to discuss them.
It’s very likely that the bill will eventually be changed.
* And the Aurora Beacon-News has an interesting back and forth over the stalled Plainfield hospital proposal, which involves reform commission member Edward Hospital CEO Pam Davis…
“It is unfortunate that Edward Hospital CEO Pamela Meyer Davis and the hospital continue to try every means possible to gain approval,” wrote Brickman, Finn and Mace [area hospital CEOs]. “Their latest antic in Springfield is to fire state staff and change the rules for approving new hospitals.”
The village of Plainfield wasted no time in responding. Acting Village Administrator Don Bennett fired off a letter to the editor that questioned the executives’ motivation.
“I think that they’re trying to, through the health facilities planning board, force geographical areas to come to their facilities, even though they may not either have the resources to handle it or the ability for your doctor to go to that facility,” Bennett said Tuesday.
Chicago’s Civic Federation, for instance, issued a report Monday saying Quinn should quadruple the $1.1 billion in cuts he proposes for this year and next to more than $4 billion. But the federation listed only $41 million worth of potential cuts - less than 1 percent of the total.
That’s just beyond irresponsible. Here are the “cuts” the Civic Federation suggested…
* Eliminating the State subsidy for Coal Development and Marketing could yield $23.8 million annually;
* Eliminating compensation for appointed members of state boards and commissions could save up to approximately $6.6 million per year;
* Eliminating General Fund subsidies of the salaries of local assessors, supervisors of assessment and coroners could save up to $4.5 million per year;
* Eliminating State college tuition waivers granted by members of the General Assembly would generate up to $3.8 million in revenues;
* Eliminating agricultural research grants to public universities could save up to $2.2 million annually; and/or
* Ending the State subsidy for the DuQuoin State Fair, the State’s second state fair, could save $407,000 per year.
If somebody posted those cuts on this blog and suggested it was a budget solution, that person would be sharply ridiculed here.
If the Civic Fed is so adamant about cutting the budget, why are their suggestions so puny? Probably because there’s very little lawmakers can actually trim without drastically scaling back the state’s education, health care, and social services programs. Once you dig into those areas, there is a human cost. So they avoid specifics. And then the local media outlets fail to point this out. (The Sun-Times even went so far as to describe the Federation as “shred[ding]” Quinn’s budget.)
Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, told us yesterday that the Federation should explain exactly where the governor needs to slice costs. “There is no way there is $4 billion of fluff in this budget,” he tells us. “It’s irresponsible to just say, ‘Find $4 billion, good luck.’ If you call for cuts of this magnitude, you must have the integrity to tell voters where it’s coming from.”
Indeed, $4.25 billion represents about 15 percent of our $27 billion in General Funds spending (the other half of the state budget is covered by federal dollars).
Don’t listen to anybody who thinks such drastic cuts can be made if they don’t offer up at least a road map for getting there. Also, by reading the report, you’d never know that the Civic Federation understands the difference between the two halves of the state’s budget
* Henry Bayer, the president of AFSCME Illinois, took a very sharp whack at the Civic Federation in a recent online column. While way over the top, he does make a good point: Lots of Civic Federation corporate members have tanked their own companies, so why listen to them?
* Corrections chief not surprised by Quinn’s plan for replacement: “I pretty much knew they were going to do this,” Walker said. “You work at the pleasure of the governor.”
* Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s people, including her top campaign aide Mary Morrissey, threw lots of cold water on reports this week that the AG might run for US Senate when I talked to them. Madigan, herself, didn’t return a call, but she did tell Sneed that she was taking another look at the race…
“The governor’s race is still my main consideration,” Madigan told Sneed. But Madigan’s taking another look at the Senate race after recruitment phone calls from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. […]
Sneed also hears Madigan sent word to the Merchandise Mart’s Chris Kennedy that she is being seriously courted by the DSCC as its preferred candidate for the Senate seat once held by President Obama. Kennedy is himself considering a run for the seat.
Top political strategist and fund-raiser David Rosen tells Sneed he spoke to both Madigan and Kennedy.
• • Quoth Rosen: “I told the attorney general I was scheduled to meet with Kennedy, and she told me to tell him she had changed her mind and was thinking of running for the Senate. Lisa was not sending this message to clear the field. She just felt badly she had told Chris a week ago she was not going to run for the Senate.”
Madigan tells Sneed that Rosen called her. In the conversation, she asked Rosen to tell Kennedy about the DSCC’s courtship of her, but she stressed to Sneed that she also talks to Kennedy regularly herself and was not trying to send any message about her intentions.
“I don’t need to send a messenger to Chris,” she said. “I’m still up in the air about the Senate.”
DSCC polling shows Madigan doing the best of any candidate in the US Senate race. The Republicans say Alexi Giannoulias shows signs of serious weakness with negative polling “push” questions.
Sneed also pointed out that LMadigan has said in the past that she didn’t want to move her young children to DC.
* Lynn Sweet recalls a conversation she had last month with AG Madigan…
Thinking about the Senate? I asked.
“Never given it any serious consideration, Lynn,” Madigan said.
But you are considering running for governor?
“Correct,” Madigan said.
Since then, Madigan has had a retreat in her Chicago campaign office with her advisers, including media consultant Saul Shorr and pollster Celinda Lake. And since then, she has said the Senate is an option.
Q. If the Democratic Primary election for United States Senate were held today and the candidate were Jan Schakowsky, Chris Kennedy, Roland Burris and Alexi Giannoulias, for whom would you vote?
- 20.0 Jan Schakowsky
- 16.4 Alexi Giannoulias
- 15.9 Roland Burris
- 12.7 Chris Kennedy
- 35.0 Undecided
Q. If the general election for United States Senate were held today, which one of the following best describes how you are likely to vote between Mark Kirk, the Republican candidate and Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic candidate?
- 34.2 Mark Kirk
- 33.2 Alexi Giannoulias
- 32.6 Undecided
Q. If the general election for United States Senate were held today, which one of the following best describes how you are likely to vote between Mark Kirk, the Republican candidate and Chris Kennedy, the Democratic candidate?
- 33.2 Mark Kirk
- 32.6 Chris Kennedy
- 34.2 Undecided
Kirk and Giannoulias start out even. Madigan starts out way ahead. But if Madigan gets into the US Senate race, Kirk may just run for governor.
* IL AG: Craigslist dropping ‘erotic services’ ads - Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says that Craigslist is getting rid of its “erotic services” ads and will create a new adult category that Web site employees will review.
The Commerce Department said today that retail sales fell 0.4 percent last month, much worse than the flat reading economists expected. The April weakness followed a 1.3 percent drop in March that was worse than first estimated.
The clock is still ticking for the city of Peoria to come up with plan to stop its combined stormwater/sewer system from pumping raw sewage into the Illinois River nearly every time there’s a moderate rainstorm.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Illinois counterpart have demanded the costly fix to the antiquated system Downtown for decades. The unfunded mandate carries an expected price tag in excess of $105 million.
Gas prices around Chicago and across the nation have risen sharply in the last few weeks, and experts say a combination of investor speculation and fair-weather driving trends are likely to keep them from retreating anytime soon.
* Trains block tracks in suburbs: CN underreported delays at rail crossing, Chicago suburbs say
About 25,000 Ameren customers remain without electricity after strong storms raked southern Illinois last week.
The utility said Tuesday evening that it had 2,100 crew members working to restore power. So far the electricity was turned back on for 44,000 customers. Ameren estimated the majority of those still without power should be restored by early Wednesday.
However, Ameren said some outages would persist until Thursday and Friday.
The Chicago City Council is expected to vote Wednesday to ban the plastic chemical additive bisphenol A from food and drink containers that are used by children. Aldermen Edward Burke (14th) and Manny Flores (1st) initially proposed banning BPA from almost all children’s products. But they scaled back in response to concerns from the chemical industry and some aldermen about the feasibility of enforcing a wide-ranging ban.
* I was at the White Sox game Saturday night when our ace closer Bobby Jenks threw a pitch behind Ian Kinsler. You can watch the replay by clicking here.
Our guys had been hit twice by Rangers pitchers Saturday night, and one of those pitches was particularly egregious. Chris Getz was hit on the knee so hard that the ball must’ve bounced 20 feet in the air.
I was sitting six rows behind home plate (just another benefit of Union League Club membership, campers) with my brother Doug, a rabid Texas Rangers fan. You could umpire the game from those seats, and we did, repeatedly.
Anyway, the now infamous Jenks pitch looked on purpose from where I was sitting, but it was clearly thrown far behind Kinsler. The pitch was also a stupid move considering we were up by one run in the 9th inning and Kinsler is a great base stealer and Doug was getting all excited about a possible miracle comeback. Still, I understood why Jenks felt the need to retaliate and not apologize for it later…
“No, I meant to. To send a message,” Jenks said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “Basically I was saying, ‘I’m sick of seeing our guys get hit and hurt and almost get taken out of the game.’ I threw it with intention.” […]
“I’m not going to put a guy on in that situation,” he said, according to the Tribune. “I was not going to hit him. I made my point with that pitch and it came across the way I wanted it to.
“I’m not going to go dirty. I was going to keep it low and behind him.”
The pitch was, indeed, low and behind the hitter. This was not a killer pitch by any means. And Rangers pitchers had hit six Sox batters in four previous games this season, so it wasn’t unjustified.
Since 2004, the White Sox have been hit by a pitch 331 times, while only hitting an opponent 270 times — the fewest in all of baseball during that span. The White Sox have been hit by a pitch 16 times in 2009, the third-most in the American League and fifth overall in all of baseball. Basically, Guillen only takes care of business when he feels business needs to be addressed.
But Major League Baseball is now investigating and Jenks faces a possible suspension…
“Investigating? It’s not a crime,'’ Guillen said. “I mean Bobby didn’t even get close to hitting him. If you hit the guy and you hurt him, then I see something wrong. But they have their way to do their stuff and we are still waiting to see what decision they make and then we see what happens.” […]
“I see a lot of my hitters almost with broken hands on back-to-back days,'’ Guillen said. “I never retaliated because I think it no was on purpose. But in the meanwhile, if I’m the hitter, and I keep getting hit and my pitchers don’t protect me, I don’t want to play for them.
“That’s the way baseball is and how it’s going to be. Am I outspoken about it? Maybe it’s my fault because every time I hit somebody, I say, ‘Yes, I did.’ I got in trouble. I paid my dues. I paid my money. They sent me to correctional houses. But in the meanwhile, fans have to know what’s going on in the game.”
* What do you think about this? Should Jenks be suspended and fined, and, if so, for how long and how much?
*** UPDATE *** Todd Stroger uses a familiar tactic to “all but declare” his reelection candidacy…
Appearing combative and animated, he all but declared his candidacy for re-election, saying there are “always people on two sides of the fence.” He asserted that the tax-repeal battle had not wounded him politically.
At a press conference at Provident Hospital, he also introduced three black ministers who praised Stroger in stump-like speeches for saving the county health system by not agreeing to the percentage point tax rollback.
Former Cook County Republican Chairman Gary Skoien does not want to testify and the domestic battery charge against his wife should be dropped, the prosecutor in the case said in court this morning.
Skoien has 180 days to change his mind and cooperate with Cook County Assistant State’s Atty. Ketki Steffen, who could then reinstate the case against Skoien’s wife, Eni.
Eni Skoien was charged with battery after an incident at the couple’s Inverness home on March 8.
According to a report filed by a Barrington-Inverness police officer, Eni Skoien came home early that morning and discovered “Gary was downstairs in the children’s playroom with two prostitutes.” The report says Eni Skoien swung a guitar at her husband and punched him.
[ *** End of Update *** ]
* Attorney General Lisa Madigan appears to have dodged reporters’ questions today in Chicago about campaign finance reform and term limits…
When asked about campaign finance reform and term limits, Madigan says that she is in favor of “campaign contribution reform” and says that it is “one piece of many” that must be dealt with in Illinois to have a “comprehensive system of reforms” that “are going to change the culture” in Illinois.
Straight answers are just not her forté, apparently.
* Zorn and potential GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft spar via e-mail after Zorn suggested that Proft’s candidacy would be “fun”…
PROFT: I’m sure. I can only imagine your fair and balanced treatment in store me should I enter. Thankfully, I’m used to the counterfeit objectivity characteristic of most of the Chicago press corps. The bullies with bylines for bankrupt outlets in this town who confuse their liberal orthodoxy for intellect only encourage me. No decision yet thus no announcement date, either way.
ZORN: See, now that’s what I’m talking about! What could possibly be more fun than regular explosions of just this sort of bilious contempt for anyone who disagrees with you? I can’t wait. I mean it.
PROFT: Please. I get along famously with many people who disagree with me. Just not folks who cherry pick their facts and work backward from pre-drawn conclusions, discarding inconvenient facts. You cheap-shotted me in our previous exchange when cornered by the incongruity of your critique. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if you choose to offer anything more constructive or substantive, but that is, of course, your choice. I don’t worry about things beyond my control. It’s okay when you throw punches, even below the waistline, but when someone throws back, you resort to (silliness)–erecting straw men to knock down. Your salivating only serves to reinforce my argument.
Yep. It’s gonna be fun.
* US Sen. Roland Burris denies that US Sen. Dick Durbin ever asked him to resign. From The Hill…
“I told him that under the circumstances I would consider resigning if I were in his shoes. He said he would not resign and that was his conclusion,” Durbin said after the Feb. 23 meeting.
But Burris says Durbin never urged him to consider resigning, publicly or privately.
“I don’t know what he said at his press conference, but he did not say that to me,” Burris said. “I explained to him what happened, and he said it was going to create a problem for me. But I know what the situation is, so I’m going about my business and trying to be a good U.S. senator, and I know I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Durbin most certainly did publicly call on Burris to resign, so our Junior Senator must not be reading the papers. As to the private conversations, I think I’ll choose to believe Durbin on this one.
* I often send around links to photos before doing a caption contest to gauge reactions from people I trust. Yesterday, I included this pic of Rod Blagojevich and John Cullerton as one of three options. A couple of people thought it was hilarious and insisted I use it. Others, however, said they were just sick of Blagojevich and would rather avoid it. Which leads me to…
* The Question: Should we try to have a regular “Blagojevich-Free” day here at the blog? Or should we post news when it comes in regardless of the topic? Explain fully, please.
*** UPDATE *** * This is the announcement that I was told was coming today. Turns out, it’ll be later this week…
Gov. Pat Quinn says he’s going to appoint a new head of the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Quinn refused Tuesday to divulge who he would name, but he said an announcement was likely later this week.
[ *** End of Update *** ]
* Gov. Pat Quinn has taken some heat for hiring lots of white males to top administration and agency jobs. That begins to change today with this appointment and possibly others…
Ald. Billy Ocasio (26th) is resigning from the Chicago City Council to accept a job as a senior adviser to Gov. Quinn.
Ocasio, chairman of the council’s Human Relations Committee, is recommending that Mayor Daley appoint Rev. Jesus DeJesus to replace him.
Ocasio has been an occasional thorn in Daley’s side, so while Daley probably doesn’t relish him getting a nice job, he’s probably thankful that Ocasio is now out of the way. Progress Illinois posted this video today from Ocasio’s opposition to Daley’s last budget…
[A report in this morning’s Capitol Fax about a different minority hire was apparently premature.]
* And speaking of budgets, SEIU has a new TV ad which promises to be as ubiquitous as its last one…
No one’s getting rich being a teacher. That is why we pay into the pension. We count on that just like the kids count on us. If they don’t fund schools, our children don’t have a chance. If you don’t fund our pensions, teachers don’t have a chance.
The General Assembly will adjourn in less than three weeks, and momentum has never been greater to put in place comprehensive changes in how politics and government operate in scandal-plagued Illinois. No more delays! No more parliamentary sleight of hand in which good ideas vanish while the public is distracted by finger-pointing, hand-waving and gavel-banging!
Except, there are no bills right now…
There’s confusion on this point. Many of citizens responding to published directives to call or write elected officials demanding action are “viscerally angry,” said Rikeesha Phelon, press secretary for Senate President John Cullerton.
“They assume that the legislative leaders are stopping reform proposals and simply trying to run out the clock,” Phelon said. “They tell us to get off our behinds and quit stalling.”
The Illinois Reform Commission, the panel of experts convened by Gov. Pat Quinn that recently produced a lengthy report and series of recommendations, is still in the final stages of working with the Legislative Reference Bureau — the non-partisan arm of the General Assembly that helps draft legislation — to turn its recommendations into proposed laws.
You can’t pass a press release.
Also, as Zorn points out, since commission chairman Patrick Collins has now started negotiations with Senate President John Cullerton, everything is still up in the air. All those editorial writers and columnists demanding immediate passage of the ethics bill ignore the fact that, as of right now, there is no ethics bill, just drafts.
“A lot of this legislative stuff is inside baseball,” Collins said.
Welcome to my world, Mr. Collins.
* And the Bloomington Pantagraph wants legislative leader term limits, but may not be realistic with this prediction…
This proposed amendment would limit the House speaker, Senate president and the minority leaders of the House and Senate to 10 years in any one office and 14 years combined in two or more offices.
It would only apply to service on or after the second Wednesday in January 2011. So it wouldn’t really affect Madigan - even though he has been speaker since 1983, except for two years as minority leader when the Republicans were in power.
I dunno about that. Madigan might just bury all of us.
The Justice Department on Monday suggested the criminal trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is at least a year and a half away. And an attorney for Blagojevich estimated the trial would take six months.
Home foreclosures are surging in Chicago’s suburbs just as they level off or decline in many city neighborhoods already ravaged by mortgage defaults.
Foreclosure cases filed in the first quarter jumped between 25% and 70% from the fourth quarter in DuPage, Will, McHenry, Lake and Kane counties, according to new data provided to Crain’s by the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based housing advocacy group. Meanwhile, foreclosures fell 8% in Chicago, the first quarterly decline in a year.
Across the six-county Chicago metropolitan area, foreclosure filings rose 6% in the first quarter to 17,819, the highest one-quarter total since the housing crisis began in mid-2006.
According to the article, 9 percent of the homes for sale in St. Charles are either foreclosures or short sales. And while foreclosures are slowing in poorer Chicago-area neighborhoods, mainly because all homes that would’ve been foreclosed have already been foreclosed, they are rising in more affluent areas of the city…
The Near South Side, home to a condominium boom for much of this decade, had a 35% increase in the first quarter.
I thought we’d see far more Statehouse activity on this issue during session. The governor signed a bill in April giving homeowners an extra 90 days before they can be forced out of their homes, but that’s the only major highlight.
* Assessor Houlihand stepped in yesterday with an announcement…
Citing the battered real estate market, Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan says he’s going to lower assessments on suburban residences, even though they’re not up for reassessment until 2010 and 2011.
With foreclosures and stalled housing values, homeowners shouldn’t have to wait to get relief, he said: “In view of the economy, it is something we must do.”
Townships such as Cicero, hit by high foreclosures, will get a 15 percent reduction in assessments. Townships with stronger real estate, such as River Forest, will get a 5 percent cut. Most townships will see assessments drop 4 percent to 15 percent.
But Houlihan couldn’t promise that his initiatives would translate into tax cuts for many homeowners, and if they did come, it wouldn’t be until next year.
The reason lies in a tax system so complicated that projections can defy even experts. If assessment levels dip, then schools, municipalities and park and library districts are likely to increase tax rates to compensate. The net effect would be that homeowners could pay the same, perhaps more, even if assessments fell.
Yep.
* Meanwhile, Phil Kadner bemoans the fate of the south suburbs…
Commuting times for south suburban workers are among the longest in the nation.
While the northwest suburbs average two jobs per household, in the the southwest suburbs the average is about one job per household.
Unemployment rates in some areas of the Southland were more than 10 percent before the current national economic collapse.
Dozens of communities devastated by the demise of the steel industry have never recovered. Those high-paying jobs for working-class folks have never been replaced.
* And the Chicago Tribune continues to slam Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s sales tax hike, and yesterday’s veto of a proposed roll-back. I don’t recall the Tribune explaining how to pay for services if the tax hike is repealed in full or in part, however. You’d think that would be the responsible thing to do.
Employees at a Hartmarx Corp. suit factory in northwest suburban Des Plaines on Monday threatened a sit-in. They’re afraid the company’s main lender, Wells Fargo & Co., is pressing for an owner who will liquidate the plant.
The sit-in tactic helped laid-off employees of Republic Windows and Doors win severance packages in December after Bank of America Corp. cut off the Chicago company’s credit.
Services Employees International Union, the nation’s second-largest union, is setting up the hotline. Jerry Morrison directs the union’s Illinois council.
MORRISON: We know, once we get this registry up and running, we’re going to find probably hundreds of companies across the country that are in very a similar situation.
Hundreds of people in central Illinois have protested outside a closed-door fundraiser that featured Republican strategist Karl Rove.
Rove spoke for about an hour Monday at a gathering sponsored by the Economic Freedom Alliance, a group that opposes the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. The people rallying outside represented unions that support the legislation.
Nearly 400 applications totaling $442 million are chasing the next round of federal stimulus spending on transportation in Illinois. Included is the first section of a 38-mile bike trail west of Springfield.
Problem is, the amount available for such “non-highway” projects is only $28 million.
In an average year in Illinois, more than 7,000 crashes take place in highway work zones, resulting in an average of 2,500 injuries.
Thirty-one people died in construction zones in Illinois last year - up from 21 in 2007. Although the 31 deaths represent a decrease from the 44 killed in 2003, that number is still too high.
The deaths in 2003 spurred passage of tougher laws against speeding in construction zones. In 2006, the state began using photo speed enforcement. More than 7,200 tickets have been issued by photo enforcement units since then.
The fine for speeding in a construction zone is $375. Repeat offenders face a $1,000 fine and possible license suspension.
In response to the now-famous line from a U.S. Olympic official that the U.S. Olympic Committee and the IOC wanted to see some “skin in the game,” the city and state have offered to provide close to a billion dollars in backup funding. Of course, that guarantee is simply a euphemism. Should anything go wrong, then city and state taxpayers will be liable for the deficit.
Why don’t lawmakers — in Springfield, in City Hall, the 50 Chicago aldermen — who voted to underwrite the worst-case scenario have some skin in the game too? That is, if each of these politicians were to be personally liable for, say, $100,000 apiece, taxpayers could sleep more soundly. The same should hold for Chicago 2016 officials: What if each member signed a binding agreement to provide $100,000 toward any cost overruns or revenue shortfalls?
To avoid Illinois’ familiar pay-to-play disease, perhaps every person and group that donated time and services — consulting, printing, etc. — toward the bid thus far should be ineligible to compete for and hold any subsequent contract should Chicago be awarded the Games. And if any portion of the truly laughable commissioned economic-impact report is to be believed, then the billions of revenues the area will amass will be windfalls for some people. How about if they — the hotels and restaurants, developers, construction firms and unions — also put some skin in this game, or agree to have their largesse heavily taxed down the road?
Mayor Daley’s plan to require 3,600 non-union employees to take 14 days off without pay by Dec. 31 to pressure organized labor to do the same ran into a City Council buzz-saw on Monday.
But Jackson said she has little doubt that the Finance Committee and the full Council will approve the mayor’s furlough plan on Wednesday.
“We’re pregnant. We have to have the baby,” she said.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that 1,100 city employees — but no sworn police officers or firefighters — would receive layoff notices in the next two weeks unless their unions agree to take 14 days off without pay and comp time instead of cash overtime.
CAROTHERS: Everytime we have to make these big decisions, they always come within one day’s notice. That’s how [the] Midway [lease deal] was, that’s how parking meters were. I mean - everything that’s important, where you need to ask questions and have information, is always right to [the] finance [committee] and right to the vote on Wednesday [at the full city council meeting].
Several aldermen also criticized the Daley administration for not providing enough information at a meeting Monday. A call to the budget department was not immediately returned for comment. City officials say $10-million would be saved if workers took the unpaid days off. The committee is expected to continue the debate on Wednesday, before a full city council meeting.
Last year, Aldermen Edward M. Burke (14th) and Manny Flores (1st) introduced a measure that would have banned nearly all products made with BPA used by children under 7. That proposal never went anywhere.
Today, they unveiled a softer version and rammed it through a joint City Council committee after just a few minutes of testimony.
The new version would narrow the scope of the ban to “any empty bottle or cup specifically designed to be filled with food or liquid to be used primarily by a child under the age of 3.”
Village President Elizabeth Asperger Monday night labeled as “irresponsible” and a “disservice” a front-page story in the May 3 edition of the Chicago Tribune that highlighted an incident last summer in which village officials refused to make public documents related to its decision to give $1 million in TIF money to help renovate the La Grange Theatre.
It’s Republican beer, the invention of the Aurora Republican Women group and Walter Payton’s Roundhouse brewmaster Mike Rybinski. And now, it has an official name: Big Tent Brew.
Home foreclosures are surging in Chicago’s suburbs just as they level off or decline in many city neighborhoods already ravaged by mortgage defaults.
