Quinn & IL Goes Green

* Walking the Walk – Gov. Pat Quinn Leads by Example

* Quinn won’t apologize for Blagojevich connections

* Health panel quackery

Sometime in the coming months, the scandal-plagued, corruption-scarred, worse-than-useless Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board likely will cease to exist.

You can stop applauding. It’s not what you think: The board, which regulates hospital construction, isn’t being abolished, as this page has urged.

It’s just getting a new name — the Health Facilities and Services Review Board — if a proposal in the legislature passes and is signed by Gov. Pat Quinn. The board would add four more members (for a total of nine). And the board members, who have been unpaid, would get paid. (One good thing: That would be a government salary, not the pay-to-play shakedown schemes that tainted the board in the Rod Blagojevich era.)

This is progress? Not in our book.

* Illinois historic sites: 11 closed sites to reopen

Quinn, who replaced Blagojevich after he was thrown out of office in January, was more direct on April 15 when he ordered the sites reopened. He called Blagojevich’s decision to shut them a “huge blunder” that cost the state thousands of dollars in tourism.

Quinn, who is expected to preside over the sites’ grand reopenings from the Dana-Thomas House on Thursday, authorized half of $1.6 million in public works funding to pay for their openings and management through June 2010, Blanchette said.

* Illinois’ closed historic sites to reopen

* Four Southern Illinois historic sites reopen today

* Quinn calls for greener Illinois

* Earth Day: Quinn aims for greener governor’s mansion, tough standards

* Quinn orders agencies to cut waste, pollution

Gov. Pat Quinn marked Earth Day by ordering state agencies to cut waste and making the Governor’s Mansion more environmentally friendly, but he gave a cold shoulder to fighting pollution through Illinois taxes and regulations.

After signing an executive order Wednesday requiring state agencies to conserve energy and reduce pollution, Quinn said he remains opposed to raising gasoline taxes, even if that would encourage the use of more fuel-efficient cars.

* Gov expected to bring fund news

Mayor Larry Morrissey plans to fly back to Rockford Thursday with Gov. Pat Quinn after lobbying for state capital money for various infrastructure projects and federal stimulus funding for passenger rail service and green-technology development.

Quinn is expected to hold an afternoon news conference here Thursday to announce Rockford is receiving up to $7 million in weatherization grants over two years. The money, administered by the city’s Human Services Department, will make homes of low-income families more energy-efficient with new furnaces, windows and improved insulation.

“The governor understands that Rockford is pushing to be on the cutting edge of economic development opportunities and on the cutting edge of industrial and manufacturing opportunities,” Morrissey said. “We will talk about going green and going global.”

* Governor Dedicates Gob Nob Wind Turbine

* Blowing Green in Tazewell and Logan Counties

* Wind power convention shifts to Chicago

About 80 Illinois firms will be exhibiting at this year’s show, Ms. Bode said. The typical wind turbine has 8,000 components, such as gears and fasteners, and “Illinois is right in the middle of the manufacturing boom because they have this expertise.”

Illinois currently ranks eighth in the nation in wind energy production, she added, with about 915 megawatts of capacity, or enough to power more than 200,000 homes.

* Exelon to build largest U.S. urban solar power plant on Chicago’s South Side

ComEd parent Exelon Corp. plans to build the nation’s largest urban solar power plant on the city’s South Side by year’s end.

The $60 million project is expected to create about 200 temporary construction jobs and 10 to 15 permanent positions at the plant. The project is contingent upon Exelon getting a federal loan guarantee for up to 80 percent of its cost under the federal stimulus package that is doling out money for green jobs and emissions reductions.

The plant’s 32,800 solar panels would convert the sun’s rays into enough electricity to meet the annual energy requirements of 1,200 to 1,500 homes. It would eliminate about 31.2 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions a year, the equivalent of taking more than 2,500 cars off the road or planting more than 3,200 acres of forest, Exelon said.

* Illinois’ first hybrid school bus debuts to cheers

* Illinois producing less trash, recycling more

Blagojevich Round-UP

* Blagojevich on ‘Today’ this morning

* Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich still considering appearances on reality TV shows

* Bernard Schoenburg: Cellini doesn’t seem to have Blagojevich’s money woes

Constitutional Officers

* Fairmount Park’s future is in U.S. Supreme Court’s hands

The case of Empress Casino Joliet Corporation v. Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois State Treasurer is a case the Illinois Supreme Court ruled on last June that said the four largest casinos in the state must pay all Illinois race tracks money that had been held in an escrow account for two years. At the time, Fairmount was set to receive about 10 percent or about $7 million of a reported $70 million.

Half of that $7 million would be used to increase purses for the horsemen at Fairmount, while the other half would be spent by management for operations and capital improvements of the facility.

But lawyers for the casinos appealed the Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling last December to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the federal high court agrees to review the case, it could be a year or more before a ruling is issued, and a delay that long could doom the Collinsville facility.

Congress

* Englewood pride: Congressman Bobby Rush salutes Bulls’ Derrick Rose

GA

* State lawmakers getting raises despite move to block

* House Democrats block GOP bid to prevent lawmaker raises

* Illinois poised to expand gambling and entice losers

* Franks 
to co-host 
radio show

* Dan Brady asks public to attend town hall meeting on state budget

Capital Bill & Budget Stuff

* Springfield hears push for ‘human capital’

Despite the state’s financial crisis, State Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-7th Dist.) contends state legislators understand the need for a capital bill.

“I don’t think you can find one person in Springfield that doesn’t want to pass a capital bill,” she said. “They know it is necessary.”

* Q-C business leaders push for projects in western Illinois

“Our message is really about the need for a capital bill,” said Rick Baker, president of the Illinois Quad-City Chamber of Commerce.

This trip was more pleasant than in years past because lawmakers are more willing to work with Quinn than ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Baker said.

“That lack of trust that existed between legislators and the governors office is gone, which gives us a lot of optimism for a capital budget,” he said.

* State owes Sandwich schools $1 million

* Ill. Obama license plate sales break record

Economy

* GM to shut most plants during summer months

* GM employees may get shutdown details this week

* Diageo Invests $20.2 Million to Expand Capacity at Illinois Plant as Ready-to-Serve Cocktails Grow

* Local governments expect to receive $14 million in stimulus funds

* We can make the South Side a model for health-care reform

Reese’s fate gives a sense of the vast health-care challenges in underserved areas like the South Side. Tight financial resources here can make it difficult to sustain advanced-care centers such as Reese and the University of Chicago Medical Center, where I work.

No single hospital will solve the South Side’s health disparities by working within its own four walls. And no center here can thrive without strong affiliations — that’s one lesson of Reese’s demise. But if we learn to trust one another and work together, we can help our patients and prevent more hospital lights from flickering out.

* Sun-Times Media Group names new advertising VP

* $200K helps keep StreetWise on streets

Donations totaling nearly $200,000 have given StreetWise and its magazine vendors something to shout about.

Bruce Crane, StreetWise’s executive director, said $195,000 raised in the past week is more than enough to keep the doors open for the rest of the year.

* Chicago’s StreetWise saved

* O’Hare radar: New radar activated for future runways, backup for primary system failure

* Express bus? Only if Sandra Bullock is driving

RTA’s own financial disposition fact sheet explains the transit system faced a $400 million structural deficit prior to the General Assembly’s sales tax hike. While the legislation also included a real estate transfer tax to sustain the RTA and its agencies, that revenue has been lower than anticipated.

RTA receives a total of $410.5 million annually. The money, however, is less than half of what is needed for one year just to maintain the current system and its maintenance needs, according to RTA.

The RTA estimates it needs $10 billion during the next five years to address crumbling infrastructure on trains and buses. It spends more than $50 million annually to operate outdated equipment. It is one of the oldest transit systems in the country.

And yet, express coach buses are under consideration? How about fixing the machines and improving the routes it currently operates?

* Use found for invasive Asian carp

City Hall and Stroger Round-Up

* Unions Asked to Ease Chicago Budget Trouble

When you stop and think about it, organized labor cannot give the city $350 million worth of concessions, because they’re not there. There (aren’t) enough adjustments that we can do to ease their budgetary woes.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, union leaders have been warned that 1,600 workers could lose their jobs if a new agreement isn’t reached. That’s on top of the 420 union employees the city has already laid off.

* City Council to rule again on Wal-Mart in Chicago

As promised, Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) introduced an amended redevelopment agreement at Wednesday’s Council meeting that would allow Wal-Mart to build its second Chicago store - and first “supercenter'’ that sells groceries - at a former Chatham industrial site at 83rd and Stewart.

Brookins’ decision puts the City Council back on the hot seat with labor unions, which opposed allowing Wal-Mart to open in the city. But Brookins sloughed off the suggestion that he’s putting his colleagues between a rock and a hard place.

“This economy has put us between a rock and a hard place….People really need jobs….The only people who appear to have money in this economy are Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. They’re the only stores that are expanding,” the alderman said.

He added, “Midway [Airport] didn’t get sold. The city’s facing a significant deficit. We need all the revenue we can find so we can avoid laying off workers.”

* Chicago parking meters: City Council belatedly questions deal that privatized parking meters

Less than five months after the Chicago City Council quickly and overwhelmingly approved the deal, aldermen buffeted by public complaints pushed a slew of ordinances Wednesday targeting the $1.2 billion lease of Chicago’s parking meters to a private company.

One measure calls for hearings to examine the deal, which ushered in dramatic rate hikes at 36,000 meters across the city. Another would halt rate increases until all meters are uprooted and replaced with “pay and display” equipment allowing motorists to pay with credit cards and place tickets on their dashboards. Yet a third would require a 30-day waiting period before aldermen could approve any plan to privatize city assets.

* Aldermen Demand Review Of Large City Asset Sales

* Chicago Schools CEO Wants Classes Year-Round

* Teachers Union Hesitant to Support Year-Round Classes

* Number of year-round schools expected to double

The number of Chicago Public Schools operating on a year-round schedule is expected to more than double following a vote today by the Board of Education.

Schools CEO Ron Huberman said the 132 schools that will start the 2009-10 school year on the so-called “Track E” — which replaces the traditional 10-week summer break with shorter breaks interspersed throughout the calendar year — are designed to prevent students from losing information over an extended summer break.

* 1 in 4 grade schools going year-round

* Maggie Daley, wife of Mayor Richard M. Daley, awaits results of bone biopsy

* Maggie Daley: Mayor’s wife undergoes biopsy

* At City Hall, this reporter can’t be beat

Just last year, Fran produced more than 600 bylined stories from City Hall, and I can tell you her great frustration was that — in an era of shrinking newspapers — there wasn’t room for hundreds more she wanted to write.

On a typical day, Fran will propose six stories, settle with the editors on three or four for which there is space, then write four or five anyway. Nowadays, the stories that previously wound up on the cutting-room floor are published on the Web site, suntimes.com, which only partly placates her.

Nobody fences with Mayor Daley more than Fran Spielman — nobody.

* Stroger unfit to govern

* Cook County Republicans join growing chorus for Todd Stroger to Resign

* Stroger hires Magee for Forest Preserve

* Cook County political scandal: Judge increases bail for fired worker hired by Todd Stroger

* Fired county employee Tony Cole cursed out probation officers

“Basically, he was cursing us out and [saying] to leave him the “f - - - alone,” Ponder said. “He also said ‘I’m not coming down the f - - - - - - stairs.’ ”

Cole’s attorney Peter Bormes questioned why his client was checked on 76 times over 64 days.

Cook County Circuit Judge James P. Murphy said it appeared to be 66 times and that on eight occasions Cole couldn’t be found.

According to the county’s adult probation office, officers made 45 home visits and phoned Cole 29 times between Jan. 30 and his mid-April arrest, acting Chief Probation Officer Jesus Reyes said. His records show Cole couldn’t be found on four occasions.

* Ex-Cook county employee to remain in jail

Other Interesting Tid Bits

* College of DuPage: Lame-duck board votes to extend president’s contract

College of DuPage President Robert Breuder said he won’t reject a three-year contract extension approved by trustees last week amid a torrent of controversy and protests in a packed-to-capacity meeting.

“Your contract was for 42 months, giving you plenty of time to show that you are worth the big bucks,” Debbie Fulks, of the community-based group DuPage United, said to Breuder. “Extending your contract is a dirty trick by a lame-duck board that the voters have kicked out of office. Do we really need to bring shenanigans worthy of [former Gov. Rod] Blagojevich to DuPage?”

* Bad water, bad officials in Crestwood

* DuPage board member’s fundraiser raises some eyebrows

* Free lunch? Not on taxpayer’s dime, please

* Zounds, let thee speaketh like … Elmer Fudd?

* Eberts donate $1 million to U of I

* Witness in Chicago hiring fraud trial takes leave after DUI arrest

* Guard who abused inmate in Sweden got job at Illinois prison, authorities say

* Duckworth confirmed to federal post