“If you want to come to a state that is completely screwed up, not only by the local Democrats but by the national Democrats, I invite you to come to Illinois and spend a week here,” Brady said.
* The Question: Your reaction to this quote? Try to avoid ad hominem attacks, please. Focus on the quote.
* Are the gaming bill negotiations working? Maybe…
[State Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan, one of the gambling bill’s sponsors] said he thinks the governor and the bill’s sponsors are 75 percent of the way toward a resolution.
Quinn also hinted at a timetable. “I think here by the end of the summer, we’ll have some basic principles that we have to have,” he said.
* But getting the governor to comment publicly about specifics has been nearly impossible. Yesterday, he told reporters that the Gaming Board had identified three regulatory problems with the bill, but he didn’t even say what those were. Considering that many or even most of the Board’s objections were shown to be without merit, maybe that’s why he wouldn’t elaborate. And Mayor Emanuel pointed out yesterday that he was for proper oversight…
“Jobs and proper oversight go hand in hand,” Emanuel said during an online chat hosted by the Better Government Association. “They are not at loggerheads.”
“I want the right oversight, because I want the integrity of this, and it can be done,” Emanuel added.
* Until now, one of the few specific problems Quinn has cited is that he doesn’t want slots at the State Fair Grandstand, even though people bet on horses almost every day during the event…
“Harness racing has been at the fair for a long time, but when you put in slot machines, that’s a wholly different situation,” Quinn said. “Who needs slot machines when you have (Grandstand entertainer) MC Hammer?”
A gaggle of expansion supporters flooded the rally, wearing bright orange T-shirts asking Quinn to sign the legislation.
Gerard Fabrizius, chairman of the Kane-DuPage Soil and Water Conservation District, was among them, though he didn’t have an orange shirt because organizers ran out.
The gambling package includes the promise of new money for districts like his, which is why he traveled to Springfield to show his support.
“He needs to sign it because we’re floundering locally,” Fabrizius said.
“I don’t think we can have what’s called cannibalization of gaming in Illinois, where there’s so many different places there’s gambling that it ends up hurting the overall product,” Quinn said. “We have to do this in a prudent way.”
Considering all that Illinois money going to Indiana’s casinos, however, this may not be as big a problem as it may appear. Also, Quinn has publicly dissed Danville’s bid to host a casino. Where the heck would they cannibalize from?
* Gov. Pat Quinn was more than a little defensive yesterday when asked by reporters about the union protesters outside the State Fair gates. The protesters were upset at Quinn’s decision to halt scheduled, contractual raises for unionized state employees…
“Sometimes you gotta tell your friends not what they want to hear, but what they need to know,” Quinn said. “I don’t know why they (union members) constantly focus only on me when the General Assembly is the one that didn’t appropriate the money in the first place.”
* One of the Senate’s budget experts wasn’t so kind to the governor, however…
But state Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, said the governor mishandled the situation. Lawmakers expected Quinn to hold down spending by not filling vacant positions, Sullivan said.
“If you enter into a contract and you make an agreement, and then you go back and say, ‘Well, I’m not going to adhere to that contract’ … it’s going to make it pretty tough to negotiate down the road,” he said.
Very true. Also, if the governor hadn’t made himself so irrelevant in the budget process last spring, he might not be in this mess today.
“With each passing day the governor leaves a more bitter taste in the mouths of public employees,” said Roberta Lynch, deputy director of AFSCME Council 31, the largest public employees union in the state and one of nine unions to present a united front against Quinn at Wednesday’s Democratic Party festivities.
Union protestors manned several entrances to the fairgrounds, holding up signs that said, “Gov. Quinn Keep Your Word” and “Collective Bargaining is the American Way.”
* Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White used Governor’s Day to announce he has officially changed his mind and decided to run for a fifth term…
Democrat Jesse White announced Wednesday that he plans to run for a fifth term as Illinois secretary of state, a reversal of the position he took before last year’s election.
“I used to jump out of airplanes,” said the former Army paratrooper. “You never jump off an airplane and stop halfway. It’s all the way.”
The crowd at a Democratic rally at the Illinois State Fair cheered loudly at his announcement. White is well-liked personally and has been one of biggest vote-getters in state history. Although much could change between now and 2014, another White campaign could make it much easier for Democrats to hold onto an important statewide office.
Gov. Pat Quinn called White “our secretary of state forever.”
White learned the lessons of political longevity from a master. His mentor was George Dunne, the late 42nd Ward Democratic power broker who was Cook County Board president for two decades until retiring in his late 70s.
White’s announcement drew widespread approval from Democratic crowds at a partisan breakfast and later at a rally on Governor’s Day at theIllinois State Fair.
Marion state Rep. John Bradley, the master of ceremonies at the rally, proclaimed White “secretary of state for life.”
* As usual, I couldn’t get the official State Fair video to import to my computer, but, luckily for us, Illinois Statehouse News was also at yesterday’s “celebrity” harness race…
Many congrats to Mica, who was more than a little nervous about her first time racing. Now, of course, she wants in every year. Patterson has been such a braggart about winning last year’s race that it was just a wee bit satisfying to see him out of the money this year…
The winner’s circle…
* Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon’s band played at the Miller Tent after the race…
* We had some real controversies at the Illinois State Fair back in the days of Rod Blagojevich. In 2002, when he was first running for governor, Blagojevich slammed House Speaker Michael Madigan for a $300,000 grant to the International Livestock Exposition as a “misplaced priority” and a “product of arrogance.” On Democrat Day, Madigan shot back…
“I don’t plan to get into any criticism of Blagojevich,” Madigan says. “I could do that. I could talk about his indiscretions. But I’m not going to do that because I believe in solidarity within the political party.”
Several years later, during another Blagojevich vs. Madigan war, the governor brought in a busload of Chicagoans to heckle Madigan during the Speaker’s speech.
There was actual news to cover during those State Fair experiences.
* Not so much this year. There are no statewide elections in Illinois next year - the first summer this has happened since 1999. I even skipped the State Fair that year, heading to Europe for two months to cover the war in Kosovo and other stuff. Unfortunately, that meant missing Bob Dylan’s last State Fair performance. Oh, well. I was in Paris that week with my daughter.
* Anyway, like in 1999, this year’s fair has been pretty boring, politically speaking. No statewide election means no flocks of candidates hauling down their legions of supporters. But reporters still have to find something to write about, so a large handful of union protesters, a few people supporting the gaming bill and the vacationing Speaker Madigan made due…
Labor strife marred “Governor’s Day” at the Illinois State Fair Wednesday as the state’s largest public-employee unions teed off on Gov. Pat Quinn for his “fundamental assault on worker’s rights.”
That storyline, rooted in a series of pay raises Quinn yanked last month for about 30,000 state workers, dominated the Democratic Party’s annual Illinois State Fairgrounds pep rally, which boasted a crowd of several hundred party supporters.
The day’s political events also were overshadowed by the appearance of President Barack Obama about two hours away from Springfield. They took place despite a prominent absentee, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago).
Madigan, normally a fixture at the Democratic events at the State Fair, opted uncharacteristically to skip the rally and the Obama event in order to “spend some time with members of his family out of state,” Madigan spokesman Steve Brown told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Policy disputes trumped party unity Wednesday as Illinois Democrats gathered for a perfunctory celebration of Governor’s Day at the state fair.
Unions protested Gov. Pat Quinn’s attempt to cancel raises promised in labor contracts with state government, while Quinn blamed legislators. Scores of people attended the state fair rally clad in orange T-shirts urging Quinn to sign a huge expansion of gambling. Quinn, however, continued criticizing the legislation without saying how he would like to see it changed.
State Democratic Chairman Michael Madigan, the speaker of the Illinois House, was nowhere to be seen, nor was Sen. Dick Durbin or most other Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation.
Even Quinn left his own party early so that he could join President Barack Obama at an event in the northwestern Illinois town of Atkinson.
The union members were outside the fair’s gates and the people wearing orange T-shirts were polite and even cheered at times. This was nothing at all like the controversies of the Blagojevich days.
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn faced discord from both union members and those who want Quinn to sign a bill expanding gambling in Illinois Wednesday, as he tried to rally a sparse crowd of Democrats at the Illinois State Fair.
* And the off year sparked at least one prediction of doom and gloom…
On Wednesday, as the state’s Democrats held their annual Democrat Day at the Springfield fairgrounds, the head of the state party did not show, only one congressman appeared and the governor left the main event after a few minutes.
The poor turnout reflected the fair’s diminished value for politicians. Once a celebrated affair that connected Chicago politicians to downstate voters, the state fair seems to be losing its political capital.
* Eric Zorn had never heard of the Statehouse’s agreed bill process until he read a letter to the editor. So, he checked into it…
Q. Is it truly “little-known”?
A. Not in Springfield’s halls of power or among the business and labor interests that participate in it. When I ran portions of Gallo’s letter by an assortment of legislators, aides and interest-group officials, many took issue with the characterization. After all, they pointed out, the process has been used routinely for some 30 years, mostly to mediate unemployment, worker’s compensation and other issues in which business and labor interests are in conflict.
On the other hand, the term “agreed-bill process” has only appeared in five Tribune news stories about state government in the last quarter century. And when I asked my sources where and when these stakeholder meetings take place and who, exactly, is invited to participate, the answer was usually vague.
Five times in twenty-five years? Wow. I checked my subscriber archives and found 14 exact phrase matches in the past 18 months. But, that’s my thing, writing about stuff that everybody else in the media ignores.
The process has been used for decades to make sure that neither side gets an unfair advantage in any changes to unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation laws. Labor, business and other stakeholders like local governments and doctors and hospitals (in the case of workers’ comp) all effectively have veto power over everybody else’s proposals.
People once thought the process worked well, until the last workers’ comp agreed bill process produced a badly flawed law that skyrocketed costs here. The system was abandoned this year and a bill was run that was hotly opposed by the docs and hospitals and had lukewarm backing by some business and most of labor. But the system is still in place for unemployment insurance. Whether that’ll last is anybody’s guess. The state’s UI system is deep in the red and a fix is gonna be painful.
* The subject came up for Eric because of an effort by AARP to repeal a state law that reduces Social Security and disability retirement checks by half when seniors collect unemployment benefits. Illinois is just one of two states with such a law on the books. But because the item is subject to the agreed bill process, it can’t move on its own…
Repeal advocates say the offset reduces benefits each year for more than 17,000 Illinois residents over age 62. Opponents say that repeal would cost the strapped state unemployment insurance trust fund some $55 million annually and argue that hike would increase costs to business.
The proposed repeal has been introduced in Springfield every year since 2002, but despite bipartisan sponsorship, has never even gotten a vote in committee, much less a full floor debate. Repeal supporters contend that it dies at the whim of unelected advocates operating in the shadowy recesses of the agreed-bill process.
More than three-quarters of Illinois high school graduates aren’t completely ready for college, based on their ACT scores, state results of the college-admission test released Wednesday show.
Only 23 percent of Illinois’ 2011 high school graduating class — public and private — met college readiness standards in all four ACT subjects tested: English, reading, math and science.
The biggest drag on preparedness, data showed, was college-readiness in science. There, only 28 percent of the 2011 Illinois graduating class scored high enough to predict they will probably land a C or better in the typical college freshmen science course in biology, the ACT report indicated.
Among the state’s African-American students, only 6 percent met that same college-ready science bar.
And although Illinois is one of only four states that require all public high school students to take the ACT, its composite is not that far from the national average of 21.1, noted Mary Fergus, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education.
A legislative panel has cleared the way for Illinois to extend temporary health insurance coverage for state employees through June 30.
The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability voted 8-1 Tuesday for the extension.
The state now must negotiate new contracts with health insurance companies.
The temporary contracts were set to expire Sept. 28 and were put in place as litigation over state health insurance plans works its way through the courts.
A state health planning board has voted to approve Cook County’s controverial plan to close Oak Forest Hospital.
The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board voted 7-1 Tuesday in favor of the proposal. One board member voted present. All three new board members appointed recently by Gov. Pat Quinn voted for the county’s plan.
But the vote included a condition requesting county officials return in one year to update the board on the implementation of their plan to convert the hospital to a regional outpatient center. The board also requested the that the county inform the board if they encounter any difficulty getting other local hospitals to take former Oak Forest patients.
The county now plans to close the hospital by Sept. 1.
* But hospitals are up in arms about this decision…
The Illinois Department of Revenue this morning denied three hospitals — including prominent Prentice Women’s Hospital at Northwestern Memorial — their property tax exemptions, a move that could force the hospitals to shell out millions of dollars a year in taxes.
Edward Hospital in Naperville and downstate Decatur Memorial Hospital also were denied, according to one-page rulings the Revenue Department provided.
A department spokeswoman would not specify why the hospitals were denied, referring to a document that outlined a multiprong test the department uses to decide whether a hospital qualifies for an exemption. The test includes a standard that hospitals must dispense “charity to all who need and apply.”
None of the denied hospitals listed uncompensated charity care on their financial statements as part of their exemption requests, the Revenue Department said. But in other records, Northwestern Memorial reported 1.85%, Edward Hospital 1.04% and Decatur Memorial 0.96% of net patient revenue was spent on charity care, the department said.
Edward and Decatur Memorial officials say they plan a vigorous appeal. Edward Hospital says it provided $77 million in charity care and community programs last year. Decatur Memorial officials say the denial was based on information from 2006 and they can prove the hospital currently meets the criteria for a tax exemption.
In a statement, Northwestern officials say they disagree with the decision and will review their options.
At stake are millions of dollars in tax revenues for local communities.
“Marijuana is not a gateway to the next hard drug, but the gateway to prison,” says Ford, who represents a district (the Eighth) that stretches from Chicago’s west side into the suburbs.
* Roundup…
* Quinn signs bill allowing mining near southern Illinois state park
* I’ve been wondering why President Obama was traveling to the tiny town of Atkinson today. I assumed it was about iowa politics, since Atkinson is near that state. But, it’s also about a little back-patting…
In this small Illinois farming community not far from the Iowa border, a shiny new fire station being built is testament to the stimulus plan that the Obama administration hoped would rescue the nation’s economy.
The construction job, which won a $1.3 million grant, was the kind of project the White House thought would create jobs in small towns across the nation, all the better if the locals gave Obama a little of the credit.
In the midst of a political storm over the state of the economy on his watch, Obama will find out if that’s the case when he holds one of two Illinois town halls in the community Wednesday as he wraps up a three-day, campaign-style bus tour in the Midwest. The town of 1,000 is rolling out the red carpet for him by lining parts of its main thoroughfares with more than 900 donated American flags.
Even before Obama sets foot in town, he has earned the praise of fire chief Bob Floming. Floming looks forward to the day this fall when the station is scheduled to open and he can fit all of their equipment inside instead of having to use a pole barn to hold the volunteer department’s three big rigs.
“I credit him for it, I really do,” Floming said of Obama.
After a series of stops in Minnesota and Iowa, Obama wraps up a three-day bus trip with a pair of town hall meetings in two small Henry County towns in western Illinois: Atkinson, population 1,100 (143 miles west of Chicago) and Alpha, population 671. At Alpha, Obama will appear at Country Corner Farm, an “agri-tourism” business.
While Obama needs to work to keep Minnesota and Iowa in his 2012 win column, the former Illinois senator is not seen as having any re-election problem in his adopted homestate.
I asked Obama strategist David Axelrod why Obama was swinging through Illinois and it was not, he told me, a matter of looking at electoral maps or polling. “Illinois is very much in the heartland and these small towns he is going to are very representative of communities all over the country,” Axelrod said.
The bus trip is official government business — White House advance staffers were at Wyffels on Monday. But the Republican National Committee has been sniping that it is a thinly disguised campaign run.
* Gov. Pat Quinn moved up the Governor’s Day events so he could participate in the festivities. As a result, he could miss his own fundraiser…
The Taxpayers for Quinn barbecue, minimum ticket price of $20, is scheduled to take place at a home in the 4400 block of Old Chatham Road immediately following the annual Governor’s Day rally at the Illinois State Fair, according to an invitation.
The rally will be at noon on the Director’s Lawn at the fair. Quinn probably will make that, but “I think he’s going to have to cut out early” to rendezvous with Obama, said David Rosen, the Quinn campaign’s finance director.
“He’s going to try and make the reception,” Rosen said of the fundraiser. “It’s not that far.”
But because of security surrounding the president, Rosen added, “his movements may be restricted so he can’t make it.”
As always, do your very best to keep those goofy DC talking points out of the comment section. I won’t have much time today to police y’all, and national politics tends to bring out the worst in people, so, please, take a breath. Thanks.
* Today is Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair. I’ll be there around noon and let you know if anything interesting happens.
Our annual “Miller vs. the flacks” celebrity harness race should start around 2:15 at the Grandstand. This year’s participants include Steve Brown of the House Democrats, John Patterson of the Senate Democrats (who won last year in his first outing) and Mica Matsoff from the governor’s office. The House and Senate Republican spokespeople couldn’t make it this time around. Bummer.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer is off to speak at Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair on Wednesday, the latest in a series of out-of-state speeches, but he pooh-poohed a national magazine report that he’s gearing up to run for president in 2016.
U.S. News & World Report columnist Paul Bedard wrote an article last week headlined, “Buzz Building for Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer in 2016.”
The author compared Schweitzer, who “brought down the house” at the 2008 Democratic nominating convention, with Barack Obama, who did likewise at the 2004 convention, and Bill Clinton, who bored the audience in nominating Mike Dukakis in 1988.
Bedard said there is “lots of buzz that Schweitzer would be a natural presidential candidate in 2016.”
* Meanwhile, the horrific accident at the Indiana State Fair is on a lot of minds right now, including those of Illinois officials…
Illinois State Fair officials say they’ve double-checked safety procedures following a deadly stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair.
Illinois State Fair spokeswoman Amy Bliefnick says there’s a safety plan in place and it worked over the weekend.
State Police alerted fair officials of potential inclement weather Saturday, the same day of the collapse in Indiana. Within ten minutes, the fair was essentially shut down with officials using a public address system to tell fairgoers to get inside.
Also, Bliefnick says the roof on the main stage can be lowered in case of high winds.
Saturday afternoon, for example, the rigging was lowered when the fair received a report that a storm was heading toward Springfield that had the potential for 60 mph winds.
Illinois State Police monitor the weather, and alert fair officials when a problem arises.
Fair officials also shut down the carnival and told people over the public address system to seek cover in a building.
“When we heard there was a potential for 60 mph winds, we didn’t take any chances. We closed everything down,” Bliefnick said.
Saturday night’s tragic stage collapse during a concert at the Indiana State Fair that killed five and injured dozens has become a Public Relations nightmare for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security.
Emerging issues include potential structural or design flaws in the stage, evacuation plans, and organizers response to storm warnings.
A major question that remains unanswered is was a pre-concert inspection performed? and if so by what agency? What agency, if any is responsible for the inspections remains unclear, and therefore not likely that any inspection took place.
Initially, Indiana State Fair spokesman Andy Klotz said the state fire marshal’s office was responsible for inspections, but recanted on Monday, saying he wasn’t sure whose job it is.
* And the recent craziness up in Wisconsin has focused Illinois on security…
llinois State Police says security and safety is a top priority at the 2011 Illinois State Fair.
ISP is the law enforcement agency in charge of security at the fair that began on Friday. The annual event draws thousands of residents and tourists each year but is expected to be even busier this year because of cooler temperatures.
“The State Fair is an Illinois tradition and nationally recognized event, and we want everyone to enjoy the performances and fairground festivities safely,” said ISP Director Hiram Grau.
More than 150 Illinois State Police troopers are assigned to the State Fair along with specialized medical and fire units to assist. In addition to the uniformed troopers at the fairgrounds, administrators say the carnival area is being monitored by surveillance cameras, along with non-uniformed officers
* No State Fair post would be complete without something about the state budget…
Of all of the traditions at the Illinois State Fair — the fried food, the politics, the heat and dust — few are prized as much as Tuesday night’s Blue Ribbon Sale of Champions.
The annual sale allows young people to show their champion livestock, after competitions earlier in the week in Springfield, and sell them for big bucks on a bigger stage.
But even the auction of top livestock by youngsters has been touched by Illinois dismal finances.
The state still pays the youngsters, mostly middle- and high-schoolers from small towns statewide, state fair premiums for winning their respective shows. Prizes range from $25 to about $1,000. Winners of those competitions make it to the Sale of Champions.
The youngsters are paid thousands more from the Sale of Champions. They money is donated by people and companies in the spirit of charity and in support of agriculture.
That support from private donors is, in part, making up for dwindling support from the state.
Illinois’ 4-H Club chapters and Illinois’ FFA chapters, the largest groups for young people who are involved in agriculture, will get 20 percent of the money raised at the Sale of Champions. Those dollars will fill some of the void left by the state budget cuts both groups have absorbed.
The final 2012 state budget trimmed $1.7 million from the budget for 4-H and FFA lost about $150,000. The money raised from the Sale of Champions will not make up the difference, but will help support the programs. The 2011 Sale of Champions raised a total of $128,675 Tuesday.
* And, as I told you yesterday, unions are staging a protest today…
Several hundred state workers are planning to picket outside the state fair gates today.
Illinois AFL-CIO president Michael Carrigan says they want Governor Quinn to make good on negotiated pay raises.
He says it’s not just about the money, it’s about protecting the integrity of union contracts.
Carrigan says Quinn’s move to freeze union pay raises undermines worker rights.
* But enough about tragedies and security and money and such. The State Fair is about fun. Here’s a roundup…
* Big dreams come true for J’ville teen at Illinois State Fair
* Veteran band leader heads back to Illinois State Fair
* Yesterday’s hearing of the House Public Utilities Committee in the northern suburbs turned into a six-hour hostile roast of ComEd…
Heckled by its customers and berated by lawmakers, ComEd officials are promising a brighter tomorrow for thousands of customers kept in the dark by this summer’s record outages.
Faster response times based on ComEd’s proposed “smart grid” should help, consumer advocates agree. But vows of future improvements did nothing for those who showed up at a hearing Tuesday demanding more immediate progress and compensation. […]
At one point, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Thomas Holbrook, D-Belleville, tried to calm things down, saying, “Put down your torches and your pitchforks.”
Jamming the Highland Park Country Club, many seethed as ComEd officials talked about how this summer’s wild weather caused the outages. Ten significant storms hit the area with record or near-record extremes of wind, rain and heat, resulting in an unprecedented losses of power affecting 2.4 million customers.
* Opponents of ComEd’s smart grid/rate hike bill couldn’t have asked for a more perfect response from nature. This summer’s storms have hammered ComEd’s customers with multiple, often lengthy outages. ComEd has flooded the region with technicians from all over the country. This ComEd press release sums up the company’s outlook on life…
Appearing today before a House Public Utilities hearing in Highland Park, Ill., ComEd President and Chief Operating Officer Anne Pramaggiore and other members of ComEd’s executive team highlighted lessons learned from the utility’s summer storm restoration efforts and the steps it is taking to enhance its storm response, noting that essential electric grid modernization will be needed to meet the increasing needs of customers.
“Our crews did an outstanding job restoring customers’ power this summer under extremely difficult conditions but these storms have brought two major issues to the forefront,” said Pramaggiore. “We need to enhance our storm response performance, as well as make the investment in the tools and technologies that the electric grid requires to operate at peak effectiveness.”
State Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-57th, of Northbrook questioned ComEd’s maintenance and reliability practices.
“Your maintenance budget this year is lower than last year. If you cut your maintenance, then your service reliability will continue to decrease,” she said.
Nekritz pointed out that ComEd has decreased its tree-trimmers this year by 22 percent.
“Less maintenance and a decreasing staff will not meet our needs. It’s people, not smart meters, that will make the difference in serving customers,” she said.
“I had power companies from all over the world tell me that ComEd is a joke, that we are a third world country up here,” said Janet Much.
ComEd wants the state legislature to sign off on a rate increase to fund a smart grid program, which they said would diminish the number of power outages.
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said the bill that is before the legislature does not create enough accountability for ComEd and said she intends to question the company intensely about power outages in her municipality.
* Lots of local officials testified, and all appeared furious…
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said the city’s police station lacked power for four days after the storm and the fire station had no power for three days. Some residents reported downed power lines on their driveways that were not removed for several days.
“Public safety was at risk,” she said. “Illinois residents and villages expect more from ComEd.”
Highland Park Village Manager David Limardi said local residents disposed of “22 tons of spoiled food that we had to pick up” after the July 11 storm because of lengthy outages.
Bannockburn Village Manager Maria Lasday said the village had to provide policing where a downed power line was lying on a main road for a couple days. Eventually the village had to hire an electrician to remove it.
“It is unfair for ComEd to expect communities to provide policing where there are downed power lines or where streetlights are not working,” she said. “If ComEd is unable to move the power line or provide electrical service to the streetlight, then ComEd should be required to reimburse communities for their police services.”
A growing number of Chicago suburbs, including well-known municipalities like Oak Park and Oak Brook, are cutting the cord with Commonwealth Edison Co. and inking money-saving electricity deals with alternative suppliers on behalf of their residents and small businesses.
The latest to defect is west suburban North Aurora, which knocked 26% off ComEd’s price of electricity in a two-year contract with Integrys Energy Services, a sister company of Peoples Gas. Ten other small, far-flung suburbs, including south suburban New Lenox and west suburban Sugar Grove, have signed deals in recent weeks providing similar savings.
Some 20 Chicago-area municipalities have won voter approval in referendums to solicit bids from power suppliers. Together they represent about 90,000 ComEd customers, about 3% of the utility’s 3.8 million customers.
But with bigger cities interested in moving forward, as much as 20% of ComEd’s customers could move to alternative suppliers through municipal contracting, said Mark Pruitt, executive director of the Illinois Power Agency, which buys electricity on behalf of the state’s utility customers.
* One of the lead attorneys behind the League of Women Voters’ lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state and federal remaps explained his position to the State Journal-Register…
[Tom Geoghegan] said the redistricting process in Illinois is like being told you have to move because of your political views.
“Suppose you were living in Springfield and the state government came by and knocked on the door and said, ‘You know, we have too many Democrats in Springfield and we’ve determined that you’re a Democrat and we don’t have enough over in Peoria and so we’re going to ask you to move,’” Geoghegan said. “You would say, ‘What! That’s a violation of my First Amendment rights.’ And you’d be right. The same thing happens when without moving your house, they move the district line to put you over here instead of over there.”
So, an admittedly blatantly partisan redistricting process is akin to forced mass relocations?
They might want to find a better analogy when they go before an actual judge. Just sayin…
