Derrick Smith gets the seat vacated by new Sen. Annazette Collins, who was appointed to replace Rickey Hendon earlier this month. Hendon abruptly resigned.
Smith is director of accounting revenue under Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, who led the panel of ward committeeman who made the selection.
More to come when I can get it.
4:35 p.m. - Smith was one of four candidates for the 1st District seat on the Cook County Board. Here’s a questionnaire he did for one of the Sun Times papers.
Perhaps one of the more interesting House races last year was for the 101st District (Bob Flider versus Adam Brown). It was also one of the best covered races, as Rich pointed out. Two months after Inauguration Day the Herald & Review is still covering that contest…
In all, Illinois Democrats and Republicans poured $15.4 million into the candidates running for the Illinois House and Illinois Senate. $1.2 million of it went to former state Rep. Bob Flider, D-Mount Zion, and the man who defeated him, state Rep. Adam Brown, R-Decatur, then a Decatur City Councilman.
David Morrison, deputy director of Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said party leaders’ fervor was likely spurred by the upcoming redistricting process, which will use U.S. Census data to redraw the boundaries of legislative districts. The law grants the majority party greater control over that process.
“This year we saw more big money races and more money from leaders,” Morrison said. “There was far more at stake in this election than usual. Whoever controls the process for the next map can give themselves a huge advantage for ten years.” […]
Of Flider’s $890,000 campaign money, 64 percent came from Democratic groups and leaders, according to the reports.
Flider did not return phone calls seeking comment.
ICPR lists Brown as receiving $675,000 from Republican organizations and Flider receiving $571,000, but the reality is both campaigns also got money from the war chests of other candidates: Brown got $35,000 in sizeable donations from state Reps. Bill Mitchell, Ron Stephens, Roger Eddy, and Jim Watson, among others.
Flider, as you may know, was recently hired by a nonprofit overseeing the state’s broadband Internet service. Subscribers know a bit more.
Freshman lawmakers inherited a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. And as they reached the spring legislative session’s mid-way point, they gave their views on their short tenure in the General Assembly.
Freshman State Rep. Adam Brown, R-Decatur, said his priority is getting the budget aligned.
“I believe the light at the end of the tunnel is that we’ve got some fresh faces,” Brown said. “We’ve got us 20-plus new members with fresh ideas and new perspectives, and I think that blends well with the experience that we’ve had in the statehouse before. So I think headway is being made, but progress is going to be made very slow as well.”
(Jeremy L.) Halbreich, 59, is a former general manager of the Dallas Morning News who has been vice chairman and chief executive officer of Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC. He will retain the CEO title at the company, which owns six other dailies in the Chicago area, the thrice-weekly Naperville Sun and the Pioneer Press chain of weeklies.
Here’s a more full biography, courtesy of the University of Texas. The position, as I’m sure you are all aware, became vacant after previous chairman James Tyree died of complications from stomach cancer.
Last week the AP credited Tyree with bringing the newspaper chain out of bankruptcy. Halbreich was the CEO at the same time. Here’s a snippet from Phil Rosenthal’s interview with him last year on the financial problems…
“The financial situation was a whole lot more dire than people recognized,” he said. “Obviously, through a bankruptcy process, if we felt there needed to be changes in certain areas … you’ve just been handed an engraved invitation.
“What pleasantly surprised me was the strength of the management team in terms of their flexibility and open-mindedness to change,” he said. “There were ideas that were percolating, and they simply were not in an environment where they could act.”
Halbreich describes the Sun-Times Media ownership group, which includes Chicago Blackhawks owner and liquor distributor Rocky Wirtz, as “entrepreneurial” and “closer to the business” than previous directors.
The move will let Sun-Times Media report larger audited circulation figures than it otherwise could for any of the papers individually.
“Reporting a combined circulation number will finally allow us to show the total depth and breadth of our reach in the Chicago area,” said Rick Surkamer, president and chief operating officer of Sun-Times Media.
It might also mean the papers’ advertising rates go up. Crain’s has more…
The change was prompted by a change by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which tracks newspaper circulations across the country, that allows papers under the same ownership and in the same geographic area to report their circulations as a group, as well as individually.
The Sun-Times will now report its circulations as a group to boost its visibility with national advertisers, Mr. Halbreich said.
“It lets us add together all the newspapers’ circulations and moves us up in the listing of national newspapers, which should translate into, we believe, more advertising sales,” he said.
The consolidation would have given the group a circulation of 424,184 for Sundays through the six months ended last September and a weekday circulation of about 439,855, he said.
* Former city official Anthony Boswell loses bid for jobless benefits: The Illinois Bureau of Employment Security has upheld the city’s claim that Anthony Boswell is not entitled to weekly benefits of $534 for 26 weeks because he resigned his $161,856-a-year job as director of the city’s Office of Compliance, Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said Wednesday.
* A stork note: Mayor Daley’s former education chief Ron Huberman and Darren DeJong became the parents of daughter Abigail DeJong Huberman Monday. It is the second child for both dads: son Aiden was born in 2009.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s latest pitch for the state to borrow money to pay its old bills – including for state employee group health insurance — isn’t gaining support among a key group, the General Assembly’s Republicans. […]
Senate Republican spokeswoman Patty Schuh said the state still hasn’t adopted an overall financial plan that includes significant budget cuts. Senate Republicans last week outlined $6.7 billion in possible cuts and savings, proposals Quinn dismissed as “goofy.” […]
House Republican spokeswoman Sara Wojcicki said only that the House would consider the idea.
The federal stimulus law, passed during the height of the recession in 2009, provided states with about $80 billion in 2009 and 2010 by increasing the federal government’s Medicaid match rate to nursing homes and hospitals, with the caveat that those providers be paid within 30 days. Illinois is being matched at 59 percent until March 31. Afterward, the rate will drop to 57 percent, and ultimately end at its regular match rate of 50 percent on July 1.
House budget expert Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, said the new emphasis on borrowing for health care is stimulated by the looming deadline to maximize payments. He estimates that the state will earn about $170 million to $175 million net from federally matched funds if payments are made before June 30.
It would appear as if the Senate Republicans are standing their ground and pointing everyone towards the budget cuts they outlined, which were endorsed by another editorial board today…
The governor dismissed them, calling them “apostles of Draconian cuts,” adding, “I’m not listening to them.” This after Quinn challenged Republicans last month to craft their own budget plan if they rejected his.
Republicans are absolutely right to lay out major budget cuts. Despite major personal and corporate income tax increases in January, significant and painful budget cuts still are needed in Illinois.
Still, by making $5 billion out of a possible $6.7 billion in cuts over the next fiscal year, by 2015 Illinois could be in a position to get rid of its entire tax increase, [State Sen. Matt] Murphy says.
“If we don’t take the medicine on the front end, we continue to languish where we’ve been. … We’re saying spending cuts have to be part of this solution.”
The plan was praised by former State Budget Director Steve Schnorf, but met with some initial skepticism from leading Democrats.
“Their efforts must go beyond more than news releases and photo ops. Releasing a list of possible cuts shouldn’t be the end of their participation in the budget process,” Senate President John Cullerton quipped in a statement late last week. But Cullerton’s office said the Chicago Democrat is reviewing the GOP budget proposal.
Subscribers will recall Schnorf’s thoughts of this year’s budget.
* Meanwhile, the Tribune editorial board wants to see Sen. Dick Durbin’s proposal for an expanded online sales tax to go through Congress…
Look-alike federal legislation went nowhere in 2010, and similar efforts fizzled in the years before that. If Durbin’s bill likewise flops, states will be on their own. That will complicate efforts to spread the sales tax burden more widely and fairly.
* Insurance director: Health law helping consumers: “There is some disruption and definitely some discomfort among insurers, but consumers are definitely better protected than they were a year ago,” McRaith said in a phone call with reporters to mark the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. President Barack Obama signed the law March 23, 2010.
The estimated Chicago Public School deficit for next school year is $720 million, Mazany said. That’s up $20 million from just before his predecessor walked out the door in late November.
Mazany called for “shared sacrifice,’’ including from teachers. Their pay raises will cost $80 million but, Mazany said, any successor to him appointed after Rahm Emanuel is seated as mayor May 16 will have to decide whether to try to re-negotiate the teachers’ contract to trim that tab.
If approved, about 4,800 students would be affected by the moves, with around 700 of those changing school buildings in the fall, Mazany said. Up to 100 teaching positions could be eliminated, and eight principal positions would be lost in the short term, he said.
Despite one-time costs associated with the mergers, Mazany said, the district will see savings in the long run. He did not provide specific figures on the controversial measure, however, focusing instead on the district’s currently bleak financial situation. […]
Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, lambasted the board for not making the announcement earlier and not going to greater lengths to include the union in their decisions.
“What about a fair warning to our teachers and paraprofessionals, engineers (and) cafeteria workers who may lose their jobs?” Lewis said. “The board has a moral obligation to … stop these consolidations and closings. It’s a matter of trust, and trust is the true deficit that we face.
Some of the schools targeted for closure were already on the last to be phased out. WBEZ has the full list.
Meanwhile, the U of I has become the first public university of the year to jack its tuition…
Freshman starting in the fall at the Urbana-Champaign campus will pay $11,104 in tuition, though that figure can increase based on a particular major.
At the University of Illinois at Chicago, tuition will cost $9,764 annually. At the school’s Springfield campus, a general undergraduate credit hour will increase from $270.25 for freshmen in 2010 to $289 for freshman in 2011. Housing and mandatory fees approximately double the total costs for students.
Perpetua attorney Brian Shaw said his company hasn’t wanted to sell the cemetery since January, determining that it wouldn’t be possible to sell any more graves in the crime scene area along 123rd Street. And since a condition of selling the cemetery to Cemecare LLC hinged on adding graves in that space, Perpetua instead suggested creating a Burr Oak Cemetery Trust to care for the historic black cemetery.
“We really don’t know what his motivations are,” Shaw said of Sheriff Tom Dart. “This cemetery still fulfills the need for the black community.”
The cemetery isn’t on the block, but an offer has been made. Perpetua says it’s going to reorganize the cemetery’s administration. The Southtown Star’s editorial board came out in favor of the idea today…
Perpetua’s new reorganization plan calls for the cemetery to be put into an operating trust, supervised by a trustee. The cemetery would continue to take care of owners of burial plots, as well as family members who would like to be buried near their loved ones at Burr Oak. Once the plan is approved by a judge, which could happen next week, $7.65 million in insurance money would be set aside to maintain Burr Oak and to pay out claims to families who have sued Perpetua.
But under the plan, no new burials would take place in that section of the cemetery where additional remains were found.
“I am for a federal prison in Thomson, Illinois,” Kirk later told a crowd at a town hall meeting in Freeport. “Because we think that the president will give us that assurance soon, we are confident that the sale will go through.”
According to The (Freeport) Journal-Standard, Kirk said that if the government purchased Thomson, it would be the largest federal prison in the nation and would employ over 1,000 people, having a local economic impact of $150 million a year.
Republicans were very against this idea when it first came out, but it was introduced before last year’s primary. Though Kirk has been consistent in his opposition to the Gitmo detainee transfers, some of his colleagues criticized the idea of selling a state owned prison to the feds when overcrowding is a problem for IDOC.
* And if Greg Hinz is right, there’s another issue thought to be gone coming back…
But, after a year and a half of disappointment, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts says he’s going to to keep pitching his proposal to rebuild that aging jewel known as Wrigley Field with a combination of private and public funds. […]
Instead, his chosen tactic is more, mostly quiet talks with public officials — particularly, I suspect, with Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who unlike Richard M. Daley seems open to some public help for the team.
Sources confirm that the new mayor and the team owner had a 10-minute sitdown a few weeks ago in which Mr. Ricketts made a presentation and Mr. Emanuel listened.
No deal was reached or commitment made. All Mr. Ricketts will say — after considerable pushing on my part — is, “He understands.”
A mayoral move would indeed be decisive, given that the team already has major league support from Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and others in Springfield. But that’s still a big if.
It might be a harder sell given the Cubs’ value has risen by 6 percent since the Rocketts bought the team.
As you know by now, the master of the house has ventured away for a long weekend, which is now taking place in Las Vegas apparently. That means you guys are stuck with me for a few days. But before those begin, here are a couple things you need to know.
If you need to contact us for any reason you are better off getting in touch with me. I don’t have access to the AOL account, so here are a couple different ways to reach me:
Subscribers: The password will remain the same until at least Tuesday.
I’ll only say this once: I know how to use the infamous CapFax banishment hammer of death. Don’t forget to breathe this week because I tend to get upset and banishment happy when the rules are broken while I am in class
* I’m outta here for a few days, and, apparently, just in the nick of time. But my former intern Barton Lorimor will be handling blog duties starting tomorrow. He may do some work today. Go easy on him and stay reasonable in comments, please.
My wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said that for as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to go to spring training. Since the GA is not in session this week, we’re doing it. My wife is not a baseball fan, but she does love her some Ozzie, so I promised that in exchange for tolerating six baseball games in five days I’d somehow find a way for us to meet the guy. The stalking begins tonight.
Catholic school officials in Quincy are urging parents to support legislation that would restore funding for the Illinois Textbook Loan Program.
The $42 million program was cut from the state budget the past two years, forcing schools to find alternative funds to buy updated books that could be loaned to students. The program also has been used to buy learning materials and instructional computer software.
“The Illinois Textbook Loan Program is very important to help us in acquiring new textbooks for our students,” said Janet Bick, principal of St. Peter Elementary School in Quincy, which serves about 360 students in grades K-8.
“When that was cut from the state budget, that hurt our budgets tremendously in the Catholic schools as well as it did, I’m sure, the public schools.”
The money does not all go to private and parochial schools. It’s spread around among all schools that ask for it.
* The Question: Should private and parochial schools be eliminated from the textbook loan program? Explain.
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Myth: HB14 allows Illinois utilities to automatically raise rates every year.
Fact: That is not the case. Under HB14, utilities are required to submit to more frequent oversight (annual) and still are subject to stakeholder challenge and ICC prudence reviews over 8 ½ months.
Myth: HB14 eliminates much of the oversight currently provided by the ICC.
Fact: HB14 actually strengthens oversight because it makes the regulatory process a more frequent annual process that is transparent, allows discovery, holds utilities accountable for every dollar they invest and jobs they create. The ICC retains responsibility for reviewing utilities’ costs and setting rates.
Myth: HB14 provides utilities with higher-than-needed profits.
Fact: Under the Public Utilities Act, utilities are allowed to earn a reasonable rate of return. This is done through determining a return on the equity invested (ROE) for the utility. This rate has varied from rate case to rate case. This proposal only changes the way the ROE is set and is consistent with past ICC approved ROEs. Utilities still must establish that they managed work prudently at reasonable cost and stakeholder challenge and ICC prudence reviews remain.
* He didn’t completely back off his $8.7 billion borrowing plan to pay off old bills, but Gov. Pat Quinn is now emphasizing a different proposal…
Quinn said he is now focused on an “emergency” borrowing of “about $2 billion” to pay off health care debts.
The idea is to pay those who provide health care for the poor before July 1, when the reimbursement rate from the federal government drops and Illinois would lose out on millions of dollars. The short-term loan would be repaid using money from the recent income tax increase.
“We’re talking about roughly $175 million that we would leave on the table,” Quinn said.
State law requires that three-fifths of lawmakers vote in favor of borrowing proposals, which means that some Republican support is a must.
Quinn said he has approached Republican leaders with the idea, but said so far he has been “disappointed in them,” saying they are too busy playing political games.
The Medicaid borrowing idea isn’t exactly new, but you’d have to be a subscriber to know that.
* Despite his statements yesterday, Quinn clearly still supports the larger borrowing plan. Watch…
The Teachers’ Retirement System, the largest and costliest of Illinois’ pension programs, is now almost $40 billion short of what’s needed to cover future benefits — the deepest financial hole in 20 years of state records.
As it stands now, Illinois teachers get higher benefits, on average, than government retirees in most pension plans around the country, according to an analysis by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. Illinois’ average teacher pension for retirees covered by TRS — about $41,000 — ranks seventh highest of the 101 major pension plans tracked by the association. Illinois pensions are not taxed by the state. […]
At the same time, TRS educators contribute 9.4 percent of pay for their pensions, which Illinois Education Association president Ken Swanson pointed out is high compared with contributions required around the country.
“We understand that, in these times, IEA members generally have good jobs with good benefits. We believe preserving these benefits is essential to attracting and retaining a high-quality workforce in every public school,” Swanson said in a statement provided to the Tribune.
TRS is now 48.4 percent funded, compared to 67.1 percent for the Chicago teachers pension fund. The difference? TRS relies almost solely on the state and teachers for its money, while Chicago’s system receives relatively few state dollars. Senate President John Cullerton wants Downstate and suburban districts to start kicking in a lot more cash, like Chicago’s district does, and his spokesman John Patterson makes a good point…
“Suburban and downstate districts effectively set pensions by their salary decisions, but the state isn’t part of those decisions,” Patterson said, even though the subsequent pension costs are pushed off to state taxpayers.
* Related…
* VIDEO: Gov. Quinn on tuition increase and revenue projections
* Chicago-St. Louis fast-train project moves along: The governor milked the ‘fast train’ project for good news again Tuesday afternoon, announcing phase two of the $1 billion dollar effort to lessen the time it takes to travel by train between Chicago and St. Louis. And the supporters of the project, originally part of the Obama administration’s stimulus program, say it will create over 6,000 new jobs in Illinois.
* Illinois governor backs unions at UAW convention
* State legislators urge Quinn to look at Rockford to ease O’Hare congestion
* NBC5’s Mary Ann Ahern asked Gov. Pat Quinn today whether he was planning to pick former US Rep. Debbie Halvorson to run the Illinois Department of Transportation. Nope…
“I like Debbie,” Quinn, who appoints the position, said after an event announcing funding for a high speed rail projects. “But I have someone else in mind.”
Halvorson was at the same event, so that couldn’t have been a pleasant moment for either of them. But you can be sure that Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. is happy as a clam. He’s in power and she isn’t. Plus, his district voted for Quinn and hers didn’t. Fairly simple.
* Sometimes, Facebook actually motivates people to take “real world” action…
A virtual war of words on a social networking site led to a real fight between two men in Franklin County Monday. […]
“The two had been arguing on Facebook most of the night, which then escalated into a challenge to a fight,” Jones said.
The two met up at the parking lot and went at it in front of several spectators who had gathered for the fight, Jones said.
A crowd gathered, eh? Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the term “flash mob.”
* But sometimes, Facebook just isn’t enough. As I believe I’ve told you before, some tea party folks are organizing “THE ILLINOIS STATE WIDE TAX REVOLT” on Facebook. So far, a bit over 100 people say they’re attending the April 15th march on the Statehouse to protest the tax hikes. That ain’t a whole lot. And there are some other problems…
I have a bus reserved to leave from Rockford Cherry Vale Mall to go to this event on April 15. So far 6 out of 56 seats are spoken for. If this does not change soon I will have to cancell the bus. Seats cost $30 round trip on a charter bus with toilet and DVD player. If you want to go contact me ASAP to reserve your seat. If not we will all be driving down, and gas cost a lot more than $30 round trip!
I have been talking to FOX New Network. They are gathering info so if they call you…let them know. I just got off the phone with… Michele Nunes with Fox.
You’d think as upset as some people are about this tax hike that there would be more interest in the protest. There’s still time, of course, but so far, that Facebook-inspired redneck brawl looks far more interesting to me.
* Speaking of the online world, racist, boorish newspaper website comment sections are causing some folks to take action…
When the Tribune and Sun-Times recently posted stories dealing with immigration, Sara McElmurry saw a familiar dynamic take shape. The online comments following the pieces were heavily negative, with some casting immigrants as parasites or welfare cheats.
So McElmurry, communications manager for the Chicago-based advocacy group Latino Policy Forum, shot an email to her “Comment Corps” — a list of 3,000 people she asks to intervene when she believes online comments have become bigoted or monolithic.
But it doesn’t always work…
She’s part of the Comment Corps, and this month she leaped into the fray after the Daily Herald published a story about a protest over alleged police harassment of Hispanics. The great majority of the comments criticized the protesters, and when Brito tried to present a different opinion, her posts were buried under a barrage of “thumbs down” votes (more than four generally hides the comment from view).
Some of those newspaper comment sections are just totally out of control. The inmates are truly running the asylum. What a stupid business decision that is. Of course, newspaper owners are not exactly known for great business acumen.
* Speaking of newspapers, I sent the Sun-Times an e-mail today asking the higher-ups to please, pretty please with sugar on top, take a look at why so many old stories are suddenly popping up on their RSS feeds as brand new. Just scroll down and look to the right and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I’m breathlessly awaiting a response.
A multimillion-dollar operation under state contract was supposed to be taking care of people with special needs. Instead, its employees are accused of fatally beating two residents and several incidents of abuse. […]
Forty-two-year-old Paul McCann suffered a brutal beating in January. The man called a gentle giant, who functioned at the level of a 6-year-old, was punched, kicked, and struck with a frying pan inside his group home for reportedly taking a cookie.
McCann’s death was ruled a homicide and two men were arrested. The family has filed a lawsuit…
The lawsuit claims that the group home employees would pile heavy books on McCann’s outstretched arms, then beat him when he dropped them.
Also, the lawsuit will allege that McCann had been abused before the Jan. 19 beating. Kathleen Slovick, McCann’s sister, noticed McCann had broken his nose in April 2010. In response to McCann’s broken nose, the Illinois Department of Human Services sent Lois McCann, Paul McCann’s mother, a four-word letter response that stated, “The findings were unfounded.”
State records obtained by CBS 2, which date back to 2003, reveal 33 cases of Graywood staff abusing residents. Those cases included sexual abuse, physical battery and alleged coercion of residents to attack each other.
Even worse, in 2008, a resident named Dustin Higgins was murdered by staff. That death prompted an internal memo from the Illinois Department of Human Services Inspector General. The memo warned that Graywood residents were at risk amid an increase of serious allegations of abuse and neglect.
A resident is murdered by facility staff three years ago and it prompted an internal DHS memo, but apparently not much else because human beings were still being sent there, even though it had a “substantiated abuse rate” which was double the state average. Great job, DHS. Raises for everybody!
They found caregivers dumping water on people when they wouldn’t do their chores or get out of bed.
Other cases involved employees biting, punching, and threatening the developmentally disabled clients they were taking care of.
Many only have the capacity of a child.
And, yet, this facility has received $30 million in taxpayer money since 2001? The mind reels. Thankfully, DHS is finally moving residents out of there next week. Too late for McCann and the rest, however. I do not understand how the people at DHS who knew about this place could possibly sleep at night.
One of the government’s prime jobs is to help care for people who cannot care for themselves. The abominable treatment of residents alleged at that facility and the unconscionably slow pace of state action makes me ill.
My great aunt is severely mentally disabled and lives in a facility in Iroquois County. I can’t imagine what would happen if my family found out something like that had happened to her. It wouldn’t be pretty, I guarantee it.
I can feel my blood boiling right now, so I better stop writing.
* The General Assembly is off this week, so the news is pretty darned slow around here, and my mind is on spring training. So, let’s have a bit of fun…
That would be Gov. Quinn with Jennifer Beals, the star of The Chicago Code.
* The Illinois Student Assistance Commission should win an award for boneheaded moves. On Friday, it sent out a notice that applications for MAP grants would be closed on Monday. It was the earliest deadline ever, and caught pretty much everyone by surprise.
Yesterday, ISAC backtracked and extended the deadline to Friday. But the extension may not have been out of the goodness of their little hearts…
One of the reasons for the extension may be due to a malfunction at the processing center.
“The processing center had an outage from Saturday to Sunday,” said financial aid office director Kathleen Brunson. “We told students we needed them to get that FAFSA done when they couldn’t, so I believe that’s the reason for the extension.”
Jordan said students used to be able to mail their FAFSA as late as August to be eligible for the MAP grant. The deadline then was shortened to July, then April 19 and now March 25.
Sheesh.
* I’ve been telling subscribers about this for several days, but haven’t posted anything here. A jumbled mess like this post seems as good a time as any…
The most vocal supporter of a proposed south suburban airport near Peotone is publicly opposing a former colleague’s apparent bid to be named head of the state’s transportation department.
Incumbent Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig has announced he is stepping down after the spring legislative session, which is set to conclude by the end of May.
Former 11th District U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson told the Kankakee Daily Journal she is seeking the position and has the support of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and others.
U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said Halvorson is not qualified to be transportation secretary and that any consideration of her for the post would endanger the airport plan and other state transportation issues.
If you wanna seem something really odd, though, watch Halvorson explain the new book she’s writing. Yeesh.
A top prosecutor said he spent hours filling out questionnaires, editing speeches and tending to other political duties while working for McHenry County State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi.
Thomas J. Carroll testified Monday that he and other high-ranking staffers frequently did such political work during office hours under Bianchi’s direction.
“We had different tasks assigned us,” said Carroll, who served as Bianchi’s first assistant from 2005 until 2008, before he was demoted to a lower post.
Bianchi, a Republican serving his second term, faces felony charges alleging he ordered employees to do political work for him on county time. He has denied doing anything improper and remains in office.
* I don’t quite get the last sentence in this story…
Popular daily coupon website Groupon’s Chicago headquarters was the site of the first meeting of the Illinois Innovation Council.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s office says the Monday meeting focused on where Illinois can be a hub for innovation and where Illinois is an emerging leader, like clean energy, biotech and life sciences and information technology. […]
Other entities participating in the council include Reggio’s Pizza, Argonne National Laboratory and Baxter International Inc.
I bet that’s the first time Argonne and Reggio’s Pizza have ever been in the same sentence.
The use of traditional phone service has dropped to the point that broadband connections now exceed the number of landlines in Illinois.
Figures released on Monday by federal and state regulators showed that high-speed Internet connections outnumbered landlines in 2010 for the first time. Landline usage in the state dropped 31 percent from 2001 to 6.2 million, while the number of high-speed connections jumped from 423,000 to 6.4 million in that period.
Landlines have trailed mobile wireless connections since 2005. Illinois had about 11.6 million wireless subscribers last year.
* Those of you with children about to get a driver’s license, beware. Fees may be going up…
The maximum price high schools can charge students for driver’s education might soon be increased, thanks to state Rep. Sandy Pihos (R-42nd).
Pihos is sponsoring a House bill that would push the standard maximum fee from $50 per student to $250 per student for those taking in-school driver’s education classes, beginning with the 2012-13 school year. Waivers would be available to districts who decide they want to charge more than $250.
According to Pihos, 33 percent of the state’s school districts already apply for and receive waivers from the state that allow them to charge more than the $50. Those waivers, Pihos said, range from $75 per student to $500 per student depending on the district. […]
“I’ve worked hard with the teachers association and the drivers ed association; they are in support of the bill,” Pihos said. “In fact, as far as I can remember, there’s nobody in opposition to the bill. Through the years I haven’t had a constituent call…and express a concern.”
This actually makes sense, since so many districts apply for what are generally automatically approved waivers anyway. But some parents may not be so enamored with the fee hike.
Lisa Madigan wants to publish the names of everyone who has a Firearms Owners Identification (FOID) card. The law requires everyone who owns or handles a gun to have a FOID card.
There are many youngsters who shoot in competitions and re-enactments who would be on this list. Publishing names of law-abiding citizens by government decree also reminds me of history, namely 1936-1941 and Hitler.
* Phil Kadner has an excellent column on the late Sun-Times owner Jim Tyree…
James Tyree was about 10 years old when his alcoholic father left home, and he and his mother moved from a house in Chicago’s Beverly community to a basement apartment in Oak Lawn.
“I got the bedroom, and she slept on basically a futon in the living room,” Tyree told me last year.
About 30 years later, having worked his way through Illinois State University, Tyree was managing a multimillion-dollar international investment business. […]
What impressed me was the receptionist in the lobby of the Mesirow Financial building. As I waited for my interview with Tyree, I asked her if she had ever met the man.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
What’s he like? A real jerk, I bet?
“He’s just the nicest person. Down to earth. Talks to everyone like they’re human,” she said.
And that turned out to be an absolutely accurate description. […]
The one thing that everyone I spoke with said about Jim Tyree was this: “He’s just a really good guy.”
Of all his amazing accomplishments in life, I think that may have been his greatest.
And I think he would be darn proud to have that as his epitaph.
The two of us meant to get together to talk about the future of the paper, but I never got around to it and then he got sick. From everything I’ve heard and read about the man, he was truly a decent guy. My heart goes out to his family and his many friends. His widow is having a particularly difficult time right now because her father died just two days after her husband passed away. My thoughts are with her.
* Meanwhile, I’ve spent many a night watching Pinetop Perkins play the Boogie Woogie at Rosa’s Lounge. Often accompanied by Sugar Blue on the harmonica and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums, the last of the great Mississippi bluesmen always put on a fine show. You had to get there early for the Saturday night shows, however, because Perkins stopped playing at midnight. He wouldn’t perform on a Sunday.
It was a thrill to see the 97-years young musician and Smith win a Grammy Award this year. But Perkins passed away in Austin, Texas yesterday. He’s gonna be missed…
Perkins’ skills came not from any sort of formal training but from an innate ability and love for a musical form that arose from the South’s plantation system.
“I didn’t get no schooling. I come up the hard way in the world,” Perkins told The Associated Press in a 2009 interview.
Bob Corritore, a harmonica player who performed occasionally with Perkins and produced some of his work, said, “Pinetop could find the cracks and fill them in and be the glue and mortar of the whole band.”
* For some reason or another, I forgot to post my weekly syndicated newspaper column yesterday. Not sure why. Here it is…
A big question on a lot of Statehouse minds right now is: Why would Senate President John Cullerton all of a sudden decide to string out his members yet again on a dollar-a-pack cigarette tax hike when he surely knows that the House will kill it for the umpteenth time?
Cullerton wants to raise money from the cigarette tax so he can kill off the controversial law legalizing video gaming in taverns, clubs and truck stops. Video gaming proceeds are supposed to subsidize part of the state’s massive capital construction plan, but the video gaming program hasn’t got off the ground after two years of preparations because the Illinois Gaming Board is taking its time to develop strict standards.
Part of the answer is that Cullerton loves the cigarette tax hike idea in and of itself. The man just downright loathes cigarettes and believes raising the tax would cause people to stop smoking and prevent kids from starting.
But when the four legislative leaders sit down to cut a deal, they’re supposed to stick to that deal unless the other leaders go along. The capital plan was just such an agreement. Breaking a pact like that is just not done. Ever.
You rarely see stories about the tax and fee hikes that fund the state’s construction program, and you don’t see many articles about some of the more questionable projects in the package. That’s because all the leaders vowed to each other that they wouldn’t stir up any trouble. Those vows are usually as solemn as any priest’s, so they’re never violated, but Cullerton is now doing it. Why?
Cullerton is said to be tired of Democrats being blamed for the video poker law, which has been blasted by most editorial pages in the state. “Maybe now they’ll understand that it was the Republicans who wanted this, not us,” explained a Cullerton aide last week.
The Republicans actually came up with the idea of legalizing video gaming in taverns, clubs and truck stops. But the Democrats have worn the jacket for the much-maligned program because they’re in the majority and the hugely controversial Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Berrios was one of the top lobbyists for the video gaming industry.
It didn’t help matters much when former mobster turned government informant Frank Calabrese, Jr. told Fox Chicago the other day that he believed infiltrating the video poker industry would be a piece of cake.
“I mean, I laughed when I seen that,” Calabrese told Fox’s Dane Placko about the video poker legalization measure. “I mean, really. Why? I could go back there and show you how fast I could get in the middle of it,” he said from his Arizona house.
“It’s Math 101, OK? I’m not gonna go in there and put my name on a license and buy a bar and ask for three machines. I’m coming to you who’s totally legit and say you’re gonna buy the machines from this guy, and this is what you’re gonna pay him and that guy’s gonna help me in some way,” Calabrese said.
In the same story, former FBI organized crime director Tom Bourgeois told the channel that the General Assembly had opened the doors to the Outfit.
“You’re just providing an avenue for organized crime to re-root itself and find ways to become more powerful. It’s just too easy to do that and of course, the legislation provides opportunity for very little oversight,” Bourgeois claimed.
In reality, neither Calabrese nor Bourgeois are likely correct. For one thing, the current “amusement purposes only” video poker machines (most of which actually pay out in the real world) are already connected to the mob in one way or another. Legalization is seen by proponents as a way to get the mob out, not let them in.
To that end, the Illinois Gaming Board has spent almost two years attempting to devise a fail-safe plan to prevent organized crime from sticking its nose into the new business. A mobster just couldn’t strong-arm a tavern owner into using a particular machine, as Calabrese claimed, because machine distributors will have to undergo vigorous background checks and deal with strict government oversight — neither of which happens today.
So, publicly disassociating himself from video poker and letting Republicans take the lead in keeping the law on the books has real public relations and partisan advantages for the Senate president. And that’s why he’s doing it.
