* The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has held 1,000 workshops that have helped 50,000 people become citizens in the past six years. The group has also kept track of who has taken the oath and where they live. Click the pic for a larger version…
Kevin Lyons, state’s attorney for Peoria County, traveled to the state Capitol several times to testify against the [death penalty] abolition bill. He noted that if Quinn signs the legislation, he would also have to act in favor of the inmates now on death row.
“Fairness would demand that if the death penalty is abolished, those persons would surely have to have their sentences commuted by governor act to life without parole,” Lyons said. “Fairness would require it.”
The other way of looking at it would be a compromise. Keep the current convicts on death row while banning the penalty in the future. There’s no hard “requirement” here.
Illinois has one of the three most restrictive eavesdropping laws in the country, along with Maryland the Massachusetts. And Illinois police and prosecutors are not shy about using the law to punish the taping of arrests and interrogations.
The street artist, Charles Drew, actually intended to get arrested in an act of civil disobedience targeting a Chicago ordinance banning the sale of art on the street without a permit. That would have been a misdemeanor, but he ended up charged with a felony for arranging a tape of his arrest.
Tiwanda Moore, the 20-year-old stripper, went to police headquarters to complain about an officer she said had fondled her and left her his personal phone number. An officer receiving Moore’s complaint tried to dissuade her from pursuing it. She began recording the conversation with her cell phone. When officers discovered what she was doing, they charged her under the eavesdropping statute.
Moore was scheduled to go trial this week and Drew in April. Moore is relying on a exception to the eavesdropping law that allows a conversation to be recorded surreptitiously if a crime is about to be committed. She maintains that the officer’s effort to discourage her from filing a complaint was committing a crime.
The ACLU in Illinois went to court to challenge the state eavesdropping law as a violation of the First Amendment, but a Chicago judge threw out the suit last month. The ACLU is appealing.
From the National Press Photographers Association…
“Despite consistent court rulings protecting the First Amendment rights of both citizens and the media to take photographs in public places, and despite many law enforcement agencies spelling it out in their official policies, the officer on the street either doesn’t get the word or decides to act on his own in the name of ‘security’ or ‘terrorism laws,’ often citing rules that don’t exist and exerting authority that’s non-existent. And recently in some states police have started citing old wiretapping laws that have been on the books for decades as their excuse for ordering photographers to cease videotaping officers as they’re doing their jobs in public, either during traffic stops or street arrests or while interfering with photographers who are breaking no rules and who are posing no threats to safety.”
The Illinois Republican Party plans a statewide pre-primary straw poll ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
The party made the announcement Sunday night at an event marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan. The Illinois GOP says the straw poll will be Nov. 5 and measure the support of Republican presidential hopefuls.
“Congratulations to Mitt Romney, whose strong showing today indicates he has begun to put together a strong statewide organization,” state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna said in a statement released by the Romney campaign. “There’s no question that Illinois’ demographics closely match those of the United States and this could be an indication as to whom Illinois voters are leaning toward this coming February.”
John McCain won just 4.12 percent of that straw poll vote. Oops.
Then again, holding the vote in November rather than August might help.
Rahm Emanuel’s campaign says the Chicago mayoral candidate has earned an endorsement from Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.
Emanuel campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Monday morning that Emanuel would receive the endorsement from White. Emanuel has already received endorsements from the city’s two major daily newspapers, The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times.
For knowledgeable music fans, two things jump out from the list of donors to the campaign of mayoral frontrunner Rahm Emanuel. The first is the contributions from the two top executives at Ticketmaster/Live Nation, the monopolistic giant that has become the most reviled entity in the music business.
Executive chairman Irving Azoff, the notorious “Poison Dwarf” of the music industry and a man who’s been pushing concert ticket prices ever higher since he started as manager of the Eagles, gave the campaign $10,000. And CEO Michael Rapino, as ruthless a figure as the music business ever has produced, gave $5,000.
The second fact that leaps out is that no fewer than 15 employees at William Morris Endeavor, the Hollywood super-agency run by Ari Emanuel, have donated a total of $141,000 to his brother Rahm’s campaign. Not coincidentally, William Morris co-owns Lollapalooza, which has a tax-free sweetheart deal with the city of Chicago that keeps it in Grant Park through 2018.
Never nurturing to begin with, the waning days of the Daley administration have been a singularly dreadful time for the city’s relations with the music community. The dismantling of the Department of Cultural Affairs has cast uncertainty on the future of music programming at Millennium Park, and when the push to privatize the free summer music festivals resulted in a stellar proposal that could have created Chicago’s answers to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Milwaukee’s Summerfest, Daley abruptly reversed himself and arbitrarily rejected it.
*** UPDATE *** From the Emanuel campaign…
Given his brother’s position at WME and on the board of Live Nation, Rahm would ask the City Council to appoint an outside negotiator to handle any negotiations with these companies so that there wasn’t even a question of favoritism.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Meanwhile, Gery Chico’s campaign will receive the endorsement of several labor unions today. From a press release…
International Union of Operating Engineers
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 9
Sheet Metal Workers Local 73
Ironworkers Local 1
Laborers’ District Council of Chicago & Vicinity
Painters District Council #14
* The Sun-Times looks at candidate finances today. This passage about Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins kinda jumped out at me…
Watkins, a community activist, declined to answer questions about why she lives in a house that’s owned by a church whose leader is heavily bankrolling her mayoral run. Also, she has donated sizable chunks of her income to one or more charities that she declined to identify.
Imagine 39,000 government workers being paid to do nothing.
That’s what happened last Wednesday. And it reflects a pervasive and pernicious mindset within government — government serves its employees, not the taxpayers.
As we all know, Illinois got walloped with the mother of all blizzards last week. Many folks couldn’t make it into work. And that’s perfectly understandable. The snow was deep.
Private sector workers faced with this predicament generally were told to take a vacation day or go without pay. Not surprisingly, many chose to brave the snowdrifts rather than face a lighter paycheck.
But most state “workers” were told not to even bother trying to go to work. And they weren’t asked to sacrifice vacation days or personal leave days. Wednesday was just a gift from the governor.
* The Question: Should state employees have been forced to take a vacation/personal day last Wednesday? Explain.
The state’s Secretary of Human Services met with a group representing child care providers last Monday and gave them some bad news. Prepare for $100 million in cuts to child care programs, Secretary Michelle Saddler told the group.
According to a participant in the meeting, Saddler said the state could freeze intake of new clients, “dramatically” increase parental co-pays, cut rates to providers and eliminate child care for parents who are in school or employment-related training.
The meeting resulted in an urgent alert by Illinois Action for Children imploring supporters to immediately call the governor’s office.
The $100 million cut would be for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. That cut would equal about a third of the child care program’s remaining budget, which comes from both state and federal revenue sources.
After initially refusing to confirm that the Secretary of Human Services had warned activists about that impending $100 million cut to child care programs, the governor’s budget office finally shed some light on the matter later in the week.
The cuts are not “new” cuts, according to the budget office. Instead, a spokesperson claimed, these are cuts that were ordered last year and are just now being implemented.
So, in other words, the Quinn administration waited until after the election and after the state income tax hike was passed to implement huge cuts to a program for mostly poor, single-mother families. And because the administration waited so long, the cuts are now more than twice as deep as they would have been had they been executed at the start of the fiscal year in July.
But, of course, making those cuts last summer would have hurt Quinn with his core constituencies and he needed every possible vote he could get. Women, the poor, minorities and liberal voters would have been outraged by major cuts to child care programs, which help poor families get on their feet. Now, they all can be safely tossed overboard. The election is over.
Liberals and minorities in the House and Senate almost all voted for the income tax hike, believing that the worst cuts were behind them. The deed is done, so the cuts now can be announced.
David Ormsby, a public relations consultant, claimed last week that Saddler’s department is looking at perhaps $400 million in overall cuts — equal to 10 percent of her department’s entire budget.
But since the fiscal year is more than half over, a 10 percent budget cut to the department now would be equal to more than a 20 percent reduction in the department’s remaining outlays.
Quinn sharply criticized state Sen. Bill Brady on the campaign trail last year for proposing an across-the-board cut of 10 percent, but Quinn apparently is planning to double that amount in one of the departments which he has claimed he holds dear.
And to add insult to injury, Quinn is encouraging groups and businesses that have contracts with the Department of Human Services to lobby legislators for a long-term borrowing plan to pay off the state’s past-due bills. The state owes service providers billions of dollars because it didn’t have the cash to pay them on time until the tax hike passed. Many of those providers work in the human service field. So, now Quinn wants them to work to get the money they’re owed while he’s simultaneously eviscerating their funding.
The word “chutzpah” comes to mind.
The state didn’t have enough revenue to pay for the programs it had for the past few years. That’s why we were in such a hole. And everybody at the Statehouse knew that budget cuts would have to happen even after the income tax rate was increased.
But concealing cuts to child care — of all things — until after the election and after that tax hike vote is just downright shameful.
Some think Quinn is trying to create panic by announcing these cuts and then using that angst as leverage to find legislative votes for his borrowing plan. He’s done this sort of thing before, only to back off at the last minute. But using poor single moms as human shields would not be his finest hour, to say the least.
This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.
* And the Quinn administration is actively lobbying vendors and human service providers to push for the governor’s borrowing bill…
The administration Friday began contacting 36,000 vendors owed money by the state, urging them to call on their lawmakers to support the borrowing bill. Employees in the administration and state agencies are calling each of the vendors, said Quinn spokeswoman Brie Callahan.
About 100 people were making the calls, including people on Quinn’s staff, legislative liaisons, government interns and regional staffers with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
“This is a legislative issue,” Callahan said. “This is something the governor has said from the beginning we need to do. Our goal is to help educate vendors.”
Calls and e-mails also are going out to human-service providers asking them similarly to have their clients contact lawmakers, she said. The state also is getting in touch with umbrella organizations, such as the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce.
From the e-mail sent to human service providers that was signed by the governor…
Dear Friends,
This is a call to action. I am writing to ask you to support Senate Bill 3, a debt restructuring plan to pay Illinois’ bills.
As you know, for too long, the State of Illinois has failed to pay its bills - ‘balancing’ its books on the backs of its vendors, health care organizations, and social service agencies.
Not mentioned: They’re going to balance the books on the backs of providers again.
* Related…
* New Medicaid law: Needed reform or ‘Scrooge-like’?: Opponents of the state’s recently signed Medicaid reform law say it will kick thousands of children off public health insurance and hinder the state’s ability to convince low-income families to apply for coverage in the All Kids program. “It’s kind of Scrooge-like,” said Stephanie Altman, policy director of Chicago-based Health & Disability Advocates.
A state, municipal or private worker can get thousands of tax-free dollars through workers’ compensation based primarily on a doctor’s note. All that is needed is a report stating the claimant has a wrist condition known as carpal tunnel syndrome or cubital tunnel syndrome, which can affect the elbow.
Surgery or treatment of any kind is not required. A lawyer isn’t needed.
And the public won’t know anything about it until the money is on the way.
While diagnosis-only settlements pay less, they are part of a little known overall process that takes place primarily out of the public view involving uncontested workers’ compensation claims. According to a database provided by the commission, this procedure allowed approximately 95 percent of 3,500 private and public workers outside Chicago who did not hire lawyers to be given settlements last year without the usual lengthy administrative process, which can include a public hearing. The database did not include awards by any of the 15 arbitrators based in Chicago. There are 32 arbitrators statewide. […]
Of the 3,500 uncontested settlements handled this way in 2010, the News-Democrat found that 117 involved state workers whose total of $2.9 million in awards were paid from the tax supported general revenue fund. Of that amount, approximately $1.9 million involved carpal or cubital tunnel claims or other repetitive trauma injuries.
The number of people 65 or older in the Chicago area will soar 65% to 1.7 million by 2030, estimates William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
That’s less than the 78% increase expected nationally, thanks to immigration in Chicago. Still, about 1 in 6 people in the area will be 65 or older in 2030, compared with 1 in 9 today.
From 2020 to 2030, Illinois’ economy is expected to grow 1.4% annually, down from 2.4% this decade and 3% to 3.5% in the 1990s, when the boomers were in their prime, according to Moody’s Analytics Inc.
One reason: Growth in the labor force, necessary to increase output, will slow as boomers leave the workplace. Chicago’s labor growth will decline to 0.24% in 2020 from 1.03% this year, Moody’s estimates.
* Other stuff…
* Second site bows out of high school rodeo rotation
* Quinn: Auto jobs latest proof NJ isn’t better: “[In] New Jersey, I think the last auto production was about 2005 in the state,” the governor said. “The lights have been turned out over there. We’re doing very well in Illinois, with Mitsubishi, with Ford, with Chrysler, and with Navistar that makes trucks.”
* Reform groups hope for more ethics legislation in Illinois: Political scientist and UIS professor emeritus Kent Redfield said those reforms are unlikely to be addressed in the next General Assembly. “Right now, the overwhelming priority is the budget, and in some sense it sort of sucks the air out of everything else,” Redfield said.
* NBC5 reported last night that the campaigns themselves are claiming that Gery Chico has moved into second place. From the script provided by Channel 5…
Staffers at the campaigns for — Emanuel, Braun and Chico — tell NBC 5 that their internal polls show Gery Chico making movement — this week surpassing Carol Moseley Braun in their internal surveys… Those internal polls do not yet give Emanuel the coveted 50 percent plus one he needs to avoid a run off, however all of the campaigns agree Emanuel is polling in the 40 to 45 percent range, Chico in second, in the 20 percent range and Braun now in third.
VO: Desperate and running out of time, Gery Chico’s making false attacks on Rahm’s plan to lower taxes.
The truth? Rahm would cut Chicago’s sales tax by twenty percent — saving working families up to two hundred dollars a year.
The Sun-Times calls it a “good idea,” saying many Chicagoans will be “paying less in sales tax than they do now.”
Chico would protect tax loopholes for the wealthy, while forcing you to pay hundreds more each year.
More money in your pocket? That’s Rahm Emanuel’s plan.
* And check out who’s showing up at a Chico event today…
Gery Chico Public Schedule Afternoon
Sat., Feb. 5, 2011
WHAT: Mayoral candidate Gery Chico will pick-up the endorsement of Ald. John Pope (10th Ward). Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th Ward) will also attend the event.
WHEN: 2:30 p.m., Sat., Feb. 5, 2011
WHERE: Lakeside Marketing Center (855 S. Greenbay Ave. – Suggested route: Lake Shore Dr. to South Shore Dr. to 86th St.)
* Also, the coppers and the firefighters have responded to Emanuel’s new ad that takes a bit of a whack at city employees…
Statement from Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 President Mark Donahue:
Rahm Emanuel is running a new television commercial in which he says that City Workers should know that they are “actually public servants”. This past year, members of the Chicago Police Department and the Chicago Fire Department lost 8 of their brothers in the line of duty in service to the people of this great city. This past week our brothers and sisters and the other workers in every city department went above and beyond in their efforts to serve the people of this City by ensuring the safety of their lives and property from one of nature’s most violent storms, and they continue to assist in the clean up efforts. None of these public servants need a lecture from Rahm Emanuel on the meaning of public service. I believe Rahm knows better and should take this offensive ad off the air immediatly and concentrate on real issues.
And…
Statement from Tom Ryan President of the Fire Fighters Local 2:
“On behalf of the firefighters of this city, we find Rahm Emanuel’s latest ad attacking city workers including for political gain incredibly insulting.
“We dedicate our lives to protecting and serving the citizens of this city. We run into burning buildings. We ride snowmobiles in the middle of blizzards to save lives. We don’t Emanuel to remind us that we are “actually” public servants.
“In his ad, Emanuel says “city government is not an employment agency.” We, and the men and woman of the Chicago Police Department risk our lives every day for the citizens of Chicago and to suggest we do this for any other reason is cynical and unfair.
“The next time Rahm Emanuel decides to roll out an ad attacking city workers, he should think about who is keeping his neighborhood safe.”
AFSCME also got into the game…
AFSCME Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer issued the following statement:
“City workers are public servants, not punching bags. It’s very disappointing that, in the wake of a devastating storm through which so many public employees worked tirelessly to aid their fellow Chicagoans, mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel’s new campaign ad impugns their integrity and dedication. Fire fighters, police officers, plow drivers, 311 operators, CTA drivers, emergency responders and countless others stood tall in a crisis and kept our city running. They deserve thanks, not a crass commercial that seeks to discredit them. Emanuel should withdraw this ad now and apologize. Chicago voters deserve a campaign focused on the issues that matter to working families–good jobs, good schools, and safe streets among them–not attack politics that try to turn our city against itself.”
* Gery Chico’s new TV ad is about - what else? - “the Rahm Tax.” According to the campaign, it’s a $500K buy. It’s also quite witty. Watch…
Script…
VO: The Rahm tax would be the largest sales tax in the city’s history..
Rahm’s tax would hit families on everything including pet care, to car repair to taxi cabs to bowling alleys.
Bowler: Attention bowlers… Pay the Rahm Tax.
Gery: This is crazy. This tax is going to hit families when they don’t have one more ounce to give. They can’t take one more brick on their back. And that’s what this tax is.
VO: If you thought the Stroger Sales Tax was a Killer – You’ll hate the Rahm Tax
* Chico and del Valle said the lack of access between North and Southbound lanes on LSD was a big problem Tuesday…
Mayoral challengers Gery Chico and Miguel del Valle on Friday suggested periodic gaps in the median planters that beautified Lake Shore Drive to prevent a repeat of the Blizzard of 2011 fiasco.
If there had been a few well-positioned breaks along the way, emergency vehicles would have had quicker access to stranded motorists and traffic stalled behind accidents could have been diverted to the southbound lanes before being buried in snow, both candidates said. […]
Del Valle said there are many “lessons” to be learned from the Lake Shore Drive debacle — and one of them is that, “You have to have access.”
* And the Sierra Club is backing Emanuel…
Sierra Club today announced its endorsement of Rahm Emanuel for Mayor of Chicago during a tour of a clean water job training facility on Chicago’s west side.
“Throughout his career, Rahm has not just been a strong supporter of environmental protection — he has been a key strategist in efforts to protect Lake Michigan, and to move toward a clean energy future,” said Jack Darin, director of Sierra Club’s Illinois chapter. “That’s exactly who Chicagoans need as their next mayor — someone who wants a cleaner, healthier Chicago for the future, but also has the strength and smarts to get things done. Rahm knows we can bring new jobs to Chicago and make our city cleaner by being smarter about how we use energy, and by making Chicago a global capital in the green economy. We are proud to recommend Rahm Emanuel to all the Chicagoans who want a better future for their children and new, good-paying jobs.”
CHICAGO—In a unanimous decision handed down on Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was sleazy enough to be included on Chicago’s mayoral ballot. “It is the opinion of this court that Mr. Emanuel is coarse, vulgar, and power-hungry to such a degree that he should be eligible to hold this city’s highest office,” Illinois Justice Robert R. Thomas wrote in his majority opinion, adding that Emanuel also met a key stipulation requiring that any mayor of Chicago be a bully willing to do whatever is necessary to push his agenda through the city council. “Further, Mr. Emanuel is a sleazebag and a sleazeball, both of which are criteria he fulfilled prior to filing his papers with the local election board.” The decision overturned an appellate court’s ruling that Emanuel was only sleazy enough to be the governor of Illinois, and that he lacked the slithery, snake-like attributes necessary to oversee the morally bankrupt cesspool of Chicago politics
Who would influence a Mayor Emanuel, in the way that Bridgeport friends and generous developers have influenced Mayor Richard M. Daley? By force of intellect and personality, Emanuel surely would co-opt others. It’s fair for Chicagoans to ask who would try to co-opt him. Consider:
Much attention has focused on the large number of companies that have employed Chico’s law firm and won business from city government. A different crowd could try to make demands of Emanuel: wealthy donors who have funded his campaigns. We hope those connections aren’t behind his vagueness over whether he, like the other major candidates, would block the Chicago Children’s Museum or any other institution from a land-grab in Grant Park.
That said, we think Emanuel embodies a healthy blend of tactical shrewdness, ethical conduct and inexhaustible energy. Emanuel could not let himself fail. He is among the most results-driven people to walk this Earth. That might mean more expletives fly and more fish corpses arrive by ground mail. But if Chicago emerges from an Emanuel mayoralty with its finances stabilized, its job market thriving, its schools improving and its middle class intact, his successes once again will have eclipsed his excesses.
Given all the enemies an effective mayor will have to make, he could be one term and done. But what a term it would be. We hope that, between now and Feb. 22, Chicago voters reach the same conclusion as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did when they brought him to the White House: This guy deserves a chance to get this near-impossible job done.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie flew to Illinois today, trying to sway business leaders to bring their business east. He won’t say whom he’s meeting with. One thing is certain: It’s no one from Kraft Foods Inc.
“We received an invitation to meet with the governor, but schedules were simply not conducive to a meeting at this time,” Michael Mitchell, a spokesman for Northfield-based Kraft, the state’s fourth-largest company by market capitalization, said in an e-mail. […]
The administration wasn’t releasing details of the meetings “in the interest of discretion,” said Michael Drewniak, another spokesman. Drewniak said he didn’t know whether taxpayers paid for the trip. […]
Representatives of four of the six largest publicly traded businesses based in Illinois said no meetings with Christie were planned.
* And this is from Senate President John Cullerton…
“I want to applaud Governor Quinn’s tireless efforts to draw and keep businesses like Mitsubishi here. Mitsubishi’s announcement means more jobs for Illinois and new technology to push our country’s energy and transportation policies forward. I look forward to working with Governor Quinn this session as we strive to make Illinois more competitive.”
“Illinois has reformed its pension system, enacted spending limits, recruited and retained key businesses and put itself back on track for stability and prosperity. Compare that to New Jersey where the governor is spending more of the people’s money promoting himself in the Illinois media than he is on his state’s underfunded pension systems.”
“Showmanship and 2012 aspirations don’t create jobs anywhere. A workhorse approach like that displayed by Governor Quinn is what gets results.”
Oof.
* According to a press release from Gov. Quinn’s office, Mitsubishi intends to invest $45 million into its Normal plant and build a crossover SUV. Also…
A goal to have 1,000 electric vehicles on Twin City streets by 2014 moved closer to reality Friday, as Mitsubishi Motors pledged to supply exactly that many of its new, all-electric i-MiEV car for local drivers starting later this year.
The Japanese automaker also signed a pact with Gov. Pat Quinn to boost research and development of electric vehicle technologies in Illinois, and to temporarily supply a “limited number” of i-MiEVs to the state’s fleet.
* I confirmed this for subscribers today, but the Newark Star-Ledger was able to get a comment out of Gov. Chris Christie’s office…
[New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie] will travel to Chicago today, he said, as part of his efforts to recruit more businesses to the state.
“Both New Jersey and Illinois are providing business leaders with certainty,” Christie said at a business symposium in Newark. “In New Jersey you can be certain taxes are going down over the next three years, and in Illinois you can be certain they are going up.”
The governor’s office would not provide details of the trip.
“The purpose of the trip is for the governor to meet personally with Illinois business leaders about the current economic climate, challenges and obstacles they are facing,” said spokesman Michael Drewniak. “This is not a grandstanding or media event. He wants to be able to have frank but private discussions with business leaders.”
We’ll see how far he stays away from the media. He’s more than a bit of a hound. And even some business group leaders here have seen right through the act…
Overtures by New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Indiana’s Mitch Daniels and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker are “a lot of political theater, a lot of hubris,” said Kim Maisch, director of the Illinois chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents about 10,000 small businesses in the state.
Discuss.
* Related…
* Mitsubishi to announce new vehicle for Normal plant: Mitsubishi is also expected to announce a public-private partnership today that would bring electric vehicle charging infrastructure to Normal, an initiative that would create a ready-made market for the auto manufacturer’s plug-in vehicles – seven of which are expected by 2015. Mullen said the vehicle planned for the plant will likely be the next generation of one of Mitsubishi’s more popular models -– possibly the Outlander, Lancer or Outlander Sport -– which would do well to be produced in North America.
* Might Quinn, Mitsubishi have good news for state?: Details of the announcement were being kept quiet, but it had the makings of a public-relations coup for the governor, who has faced sniping from out-of-state Republican governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who are trying to poach state businesses after Quinn raised corporate income taxes last month.
* Mitsubishi to get $29 million in state tax breaks
* New Jersey’s Christie strikes back at Maryland Gov. O’Malley: “I heard that pabulum Governor O’Malley was spewing down in Maryland,” Christie says, according to a transcript provided by the program, which is scheduled to air Thursday at 6 p.m. “He doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
* Rahm Emanuel’s latest TV ad has a good message, but all that footage of people in short sleeves seems way out of place right now. Rate it…
Script…
RAHM: City government is not an employment agency. It is delivering a service to the residents and the taxpayers of the city. I want that mindset to be different. We’re going to deliver a service to the taxpayers. We’re going to get them the best price for what they pay for, whether that’s protecting a street, cleaning a street, or plowing a street. That means making sure everybody that works for the city government knows that they’re actually a public servant representing and helping the people that pay them.
* Carol Moseley Braun still doesn’t have enough money to put an ad on TV, so she’s posting Internet videos. Here’s her latest…
* Gery Chico’s latest Internet video is entitled “Chicago businesses say NO to Rahm Tax.” Have a look…
* DJ Freddie Mac and The Blue State Cowboys have a new video spoofing Rahm Emanuel. Too Big to Fail…
You wanna play ball, put a check in the mail
I got Hollywood cash; I’m too big to fail
* Our last video has nothing to do with politics. Uptown Coyote…
* Walter Jacobson touches on something that’s been glossed over in the coverage of the Lake Shore Drive outrage: Class…
I know we don’t like inconvenience. Especially, Lake Shore Drivers don’t like it, and Gold Coasters and Lincoln Parkers are unaccustomed to inconvenience. But we were all told in advance to prepare for the blizzard. […]
The storm ended yesterday, and already today 900 cars on the drive are unstuck; the expressways to the suburbs are clean, the trains and buses are running; the plows are clearing the streets.
Not bad after 2 feet of snow and 50 mph winds. Not bad at all.
Hard to argue with that.
* WTTW’s Elizabeth Brackett posted a video which included footage of cars stranded on South Shore Drive…
Media coverage of the public outrage was almost purely focused on drivers stranded on the north end of the Drive.
Officials in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties were investigating several possible weather-related fatalities — mostly from shoveling — bringing to at least 11 the number of deaths tied to this week’s blizzard and cold weather.
DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann said his deputies assisted in four death investigations that are believed to be linked to shoveling the approximately 20-inch snowfall.
Officials in Mount Prospect are awaiting autopsy results for a man who died late Wednesday after shoveling snow from neighbors’ driveways. Police said John Soboda, of the 600 block of East Prospect Avenue, was found dead in his car. Soboda had spent Wednesday pushing neighbors’ cars and helping them clear snow, his wife, Pamela, told police.
In Lake County, the death of a Mundelein woman is being investigated as a possible exposure death. Susan Smith, 57, of the 18000 block of Meadow Lane Road, was found Wednesday in her car in a Lake Zurich church parking lot about 24 hours after she went missing, according to Lake County Coroner Richard Keller.
* Sometimes, you can’t trust your own eyeballs. ABC7’s I-Team found that out the hard way when they drove by the homes of several aldermen and discovered their streets had been cleaned. After the report aired, some irate aldermen called up to complain. An addendum was posted online…
Alderman James Balcer said he gets no special treatment, that neighbors worked on his street, and his alley was plowed by a resident who has nearby rental properties.
Alderman Dick Mell says neighbors on his street have always pitched in together to dig out with no preference from the city.
Alderman Leslie Hairston says she got no special treatment and was busy Thursday helping constituents on her own.
Alderman Margaret Laurino lives in Sauganash and says a community association pays for its own snow removal.
* Tired of waiting on city, neighbors work to clear Bucktown street
* Roof of historic church collapses after storm: It was one of the few structures to survive the Chicago fire, temporarily housing government workers during reconstruction of their offices in 1871.
* Costs are piling up around the Chicago area: The early blizzard price tag for Joliet is estimated to be about $450,000 — almost eight times more than a typical snow event… As of noon Thursday, about 25 percent of [Naperville’s] 1,200 residential cul-de-sacs remained unplowed, officials said.
* Naperville: ‘It’s taking us significantly longer to finish the job’
A task force appointed by Gov. Pat Quinn wants a law forcing insurers to spend at least 80 cents of every of premium dollar on providing health care - or pay rebates to customers.
The task force is releasing its initial recommendations Thursday. It also recommends legislation giving state regulators the authority to approve or deny health insurance rate increases. […]
Illinois Department of Insurance director Michael McRaith says for-profit insurers in Illinois now spend as little as 50 cents of every premium dollar on health care.
* Educational co-op lays off all its workers: It must wait and see about funding…
The executive committee of the Williamson County Early Childhood Cooperative approved resolutions Thursday authorizing dismissal of about 45 teachers and staff members at the end of the school year because of current nonexistent state funding.
The move is reminiscent of a year earlier. when the committee was forced to take the same action before state funding was allocated at the end of the legislative session to keep cooperative personnel and services intact.
* Will there be concerts on Northerly Island this summer?: It’s hard to see how, unless the city is once again about to hand the rights to book a temporary venue on this prime piece of real estate to the dreaded Death Star of the concert business, Ticketmaster/Live Nation, by side-stepping the bidding process…for a second time.
* Catholic hospital operators explore merger - Chicago-based Resurrection Health Care may combine with Mokena-based Provena Health
* Belleville independent candidates pledge to play fair
* More Clues About Business PAC’s Play In Council Races: Until recently, all the money raised by FBC PAC had come from a 501(c)(4) organization also called For A Better Chicago, meaning the donors were impossible to track. But in a February 1 filing with the SBOE, the FBC PAC showed a contribution of $10,000 from David Herro, an investment manager at Harris Associates, LP. Herro was a major player in the 2007 city council races, throwing significant cash at aldermanic candidates supportive of building Wal-Marts.
* Lots of bleepin’ laughs - The evil genius behind @MayorEmanuel — whoever it is — has Chicago guessing, everybody laughing
* Del Valle links rivals to convicted ex-Streets and San boss
* Seven county workers suspended from scandal-plagued jobs program: Karin Norington-Reaves, director of the Cook County Board President’s Office of Employment Training — known as POET — suspended staffers on Monday and Tuesday, including a manager related to a former POET employee sent to prison for stealing more than $100,000 from the program.
* County Treasurer Sits At $23,000 Office Set: Pappas once ran her office from a beautiful desk and credenza in her private office. But they were replaced with custom-ordered furniture costing $23,034. The furniture was part of a much larger redecorating job overseen by high-end interior designer John P. Regas. He was paid an additional $27,000 for his interior design work throughout the treasurer’s office.
* Book details ex-Illinois governor’s gangster ties: One of the most amazing details writer Jim Ridings learned while researching his books is former Illinois governor Len Small’s connection to gangsters.
Longtime Statehouse lobbyist Harry “Bud” Kelley died Wednesday. He was 78.
Kelley was one of the best-known figures among Capitol lobbyists, serving 34 years as executive director of the Illinois Association of Tobacco and Candy Distributors.
A Hillsboro native, Kelley graduated from Millikin University in 1954 and then joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a second lieutenant. He later became a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
Kelley worked for his father’s food business until moving to Springfield in 1966 to be chief administrative assistant in the state Department of Business and Economic Development.
