Thursday, Sep 24, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Recently, Exelon announced that all of its nuclear plants in the PJM market cleared the most recent capacity auction and that it will defer any decisions about the future operations of its Quad Cities and Byron nuclear plants for one year. As a result, the Quad Cities nuclear power plant will run through at least May 2018, while the Byron plant will run through at least May 2019.
This is encouraging news for Illinois. According to a report by the State of Illinois, the Quad Cities and Byron plants support 5,075 jobs and contribute $1.39 billion to the state’s economy. Overall, Illinois’ nuclear energy facilities produce 90 percent of the state’s carbon-free energy, support 28,000 jobs, and inject nearly $9 billion into the Illinois economy every year.
While the recent results of the PJM capacity auction which reflect new market reforms that better recognize the unique value of always-on nuclear energy is encouraging, Quad Cities and Byron, as well as Clinton, remain economically challenged. These plants are long-lived assets with decades of useful life left and today’s announcement is only a short-term reprieve. Policy reforms are still needed to level the playing field for all forms of clean energy and best position the State of Illinois to meet EPA’s new carbon reduction rules.
The Chicago Tribune filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that Mayor Rahm Emanuel violated state open records laws by refusing to release communications about city business conducted through private emails and text messages.
The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, asks a judge to order the mayor to comply with a state Freedom of Information Act request from the Tribune and produce the documents. The lawsuit also seeks to have Emanuel declared in violation of the Illinois Local Records Act for failing to preserve emails and texts he sent or received while doing city business. […]
Illinois law says written communications by government officials are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. The law covers “electronic communications,” but does not spell out the rules for the use of personal email and text messages on private cellular phones, according to experts.
The office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan has issued an opinion on the matter. In 2011, in a case involving members of the Champaign City Council, Madigan’s public access counselor determined that written communications about government business on personal email accounts and private cellphones are subject to FOIA. In essence, the office said it was not the device that mattered but the person using the device and the content of the communications.
The case was appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court in Springfield, which took issue with some aspects of the attorney general’s opinion. But the court agreed that emails and texts on personal devices sent by council members during a public meeting were subject to FOIA.
On your blog, there has been a lot of discussion about a lack of good news. Today, the City of Chicago legalized food carts– a huge win for Hispanic food vendors who have been operating illegally. Additionally, this creates significant growth opportunities, similar to what we’ve seen from food trucks in Chicago.
Here is a copy of the legislation.
Matt
—
Matt Paprocki
Senior Vice President
Illinois Policy Action
Background article is here. The legislation is here.
* From Emily Miller at Voices for Illinois Children…
Today in an Illinois House Committee lawmakers discussed SB2046, a bill appropriating funds for social service programs, and Voices for Illinois Children heard a different tone from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
It seems that a growing number of lawmakers are listening to providers in their districts who are unsure how they will keep their doors open in the face of this budget impasse. There appears to be a growing understanding of the vital role these providers play, and a recognition that these services are worth paying for.
While SB2046 appropriates funds to pay for services, the promise of funding runs pretty shallow when you take into account the fact that Illinois lacks the revenue to make good on that promise.
Voices was very encouraged to hear Representative Tryon say in his remarks before the committee that the time to have a revenue discussion is now.
He wondered aloud how that conversation starts. We hope it just did.
I hate to say it, and I really hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t think things will move forward until some sort of major calamity happens - and maybe not even then.
Calamity isn’t enough. Then will come the blame game and then someone will have to clearly lose the blame game before this thing starts to resolve itself. Calamity will at best mark the end of the beginning and not the beginning of the end.
Thursday, Sep 24, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
The final results are in and as many analysts have noted, “Exelon was the big winner in this year’s [PJM grid capacity} auction.” Here are the highlights:
$1.7 BILLION RATE INCREASE FOR EXELON – Exelon engineered the new rules to increase their profits. Their $1.7 BILLION reward will be paid for by struggling Illinois ratepayers.
Byron and Quad Cities Both Cleared the Auction and are Obligated to Run Well into the Future
Exelon’s Low Carbon Portfolio Standard would have raised $1.6 billion over 5 ½ years for Exelon. The Capacity markets, under Exelon-pushed rules, earned Exelon $1.7 billion over only three years.
Illinois doesn’t have a balanced budget, service providers are being decimated and real people across Illinois are hurting. It’s time for Exelon to take their HUGE $1.7 BILLION WINDFALL and stop asking legislators to keep padding their profits.
Enough is enough!
Just Say “NO” to the Exelon Bailout
BEST Coalition is a 501C4 nonprofit group of dozens of business, consumer and government groups, as well as large and small businesses. Visit www.noexelonbailout.com.
* And, yes, we have video. GOP Rep. Ed Sullivan was rightly outraged at Sherman’s goofiness and Democratic Rep. Greg Harris correctly disassociated himself from the comments…
Also contrary to popular belief, the state does not tax its citizens more heavily than its neighbors. While Illinois ranks near the top nationally in property tax collections — all of which go to school districts and other local governments — the state is more middle-of-the-pack for state income and sales taxes as a percentage of personal income, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators.
* WalletHub recently ranked Illinois 46th worst for overall tax fairness. The first number is the overall rank, the second is for dependency on property taxes, the third is for dependency on income taxes and the fourth is dependency on other taxes…
You just can’t ignore property taxes. Yes, they’re local, but they’re high because of a lack of state support and because some governments are just way over-spending.
Those high property taxes meant WalletHub ranked Illinois as 10th worst for the middle class and 3rd worst for the bottom 20 percent.
As Senate President John Cullerton has argued for years, Illinois would be in much better financial shape if it had the exact same tax laws as some of its neighbors. For example, if Illinois had Wisconsin’s revenue structure — higher income tax rates, a tax on retirement income, sales tax on services — the Prairie State would collect almost $10 billion a year more than with its current taxing provisions, more than enough to cover Munger’s projected shortfall.
Or they would’ve already squandered it.
* None of this is to suggest that the state has no revenue deficiency problem. It obviously has one and raising income tax rates isn’t a killer on its own. But it also has a serious problem with high property taxes outside of Chicago, and even that’s about to change now. Those taxes should be factored into the equation, so something needs to be done about them alongside state revenue solutions.
An aide to Mayor Rahm Emanuel is testifying before state lawmakers on a proposed property tax exemption as Chicago looks to increase property taxes to help pay pensions.
Deputy Mayor Steven Koch told legislators Thursday that the city wants to protect residents whose homes are worth $250,000 or less and Chicago’s downtown business core will absorb much of the burden.
Emanuel has called for a $543 million property tax over next four years. But he needs sign off from Springfield on an exemption. Democratic legislative leaders say they’re on board, but Gov. Bruce Rauner hasn’t been as receptive.
* The Question: Do you support this concept? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* It’s a credit to all the state’s many vendors that this hasn’t been a bigger problem already. How long these folks can hold out is anybody’s guess, however…
The state’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs confirmed Wednesday that some food vendors for the agency’s veterans homes have said they may have to suspend deliveries because of the state’s ongoing budget problems.
The agency said it is working to find alternative suppliers to ensure that food service is not interrupted to the four homes the state operates.
“There are vendors who either have, or may have to suspend deliveries in the future,” Veterans’ Affairs spokesman Ryan Yantis said in a prepared statement. “For those vendors, alternate solutions have been identified to ensure the homes receive needed supplies and services to continue to provide care to residents.”
Yantis said that includes finding other companies willing to supply the homes with food products.
That may not be easy, considering the somewhat remote locations of some of those homes.
Richard Tego hasn’t coped well with the recent cutoff of services to help him deal with autism.
“He will sit and cry because he can’t go see his friends,” his mother, Veronica Morse of Carlinville, said Wednesday. “He’s going back into his shell.”
Richard, 13, an eighth-grader at Carlinville Middle School, is among more than a dozen children who were cut off from services at The Autism Program of Illinois’ Springfield center in late August because of the ongoing state budget impasse.
The regression Morse has seen is what Autism Program officials fear will happen to hundreds of children statewide as the impasse continues to cause unprecedented damage to a network of autism diagnostic and treatment services that began to be developed in 2003. […]
Diagnostic services and treatments for children with autism have stopped at nonprofit agencies in Chicago and Charleston that receive state funding through The Autism Program, Bonanno said. A program in Rockford that gets money from the program soon may run out of cash.
The Illinois State Council of the Service Employees International Union said Wednesday that it has endorsed Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza for state comptroller next year.
The SEIU is one of the state’s most politically active unions, and its backing could help Mendoza in a Democratic primary bid against state Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston. The two announced candidates are vying to face Republican Comptroller Leslie Munger in a special statewide election in 2016. Munger was appointed to the post by GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner after the December death of Judy Baar Topinka.
Tom Balanoff, president of the 150,000-worker SEIU Illinois council, said Mendoza would work to “to champion the needs of the most vulnerable Illinoisans by restoring balance, reviving neighborhoods and helping to build an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.”
With Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez on the electoral bubble, you can logically expect the Democrats and their allies will make sure there’s a Latina on the ticket next fall.
Construction and mining equipment maker Caterpillar plans to lay off more than 10,000 workers in a bid to save $1.5 billion a year in operating costs, it announced Thursday.
Nearly half those job losses — 4,000 to 5,000 salaried and management employees — will come before the end of 2016, with most completed this year, the company says in an SEC filing.
Doug Oberhelman, CEO of the Peoria-based firm, blamed “challenging marketplace conditions” in the energy and mining sectors, as Caterpillar, one of Illinois’ biggest employers, revised downward its sales projections for 2015 by $1 billion, to $48 billion.
It noted in a news release that this is the “company’s third consecutive down year for sales and revenues, and 2016 would mark the first time in Caterpillar’s 90-year history that sales and revenues have decreased four years in a row.”
· An expected permanent reduction in Caterpillar’s salaried and management workforce, including agency, of 4,000 – 5,000 people between now and the end of 2016, with most occurring in 2015, and with a total possible workforce reduction of more than 10,000 people, including the contemplated consolidation and closures of manufacturing facilities occurring through 2018.
· The company will offer a voluntary retirement enhancement program for qualifying employees, which will be completed by the end of 2015.
· Slightly less than half of the $1.5 billion of cost reduction is expected to be from lower Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A) costs. The reduction in SG&A will largely be in place and effective in 2016 and occur across the company.
· The remaining cost reductions are expected to come from lower period manufacturing costs, including savings from additional contemplated facility consolidations and closures, which could impact more than 20 facilities and slightly more than 10 percent of our manufacturing square footage. A portion of these cost reductions are expected to be effective in 2016, with more savings anticipated in 2017 and 2018.
Caterpillar remains committed to Peoria, though with Thursday’s announcement central Illinoisans shouldn’t expect construction to begin soon on the new Downtown world headquarters complex.
That was the message from the Fortune 50 company after announcing a significant restructuring and the likely reduction of 4,000 to 5,000 employees worldwide by the end of 2016 and potentially as many as 10,000 — with likely facility closures or consolidations — by 2018.
“Above all, we remain committed to Peoria and Illinois,” spokeswoman Rachel Potts said. “Our vision and our hopes and plans for a headquarters in Downtown have not changed.”
That said, “given the current conditions, now is not the time to start, and we cannot say now when that will begin,” she said by phone Thursday morning.
Illinois Times [yesterday] sued Gov. Bruce Rauner after Attorney General Lisa Madigan ruled that the governor must turn over his appointment calendar in response to the paper’s request made under the state Freedom of Information Act.
The newspaper asked for Rauner’s appointment calendar last spring after the governor walked out of a Holocaust remembrance ceremony. The newspaper’s request came after the governor’s press office ignored an emailed query asking where the governor had gone while a Holocaust survivor spoke at the annual ceremony held at the Old State Capitol.
Rauner gave the newspaper a redacted version of his appointment calendar showing that he had attended a meeting in the governor’s office while the ceremony continued. The governor redacted the names of the person, or people, with whom he met. The newspaper subsequently appealed to the attorney general, who ruled that Rauner must disclose the names of the people who attend meetings memorialized in his appointment calendar, which is prepared by public employees on public time using public equipment.
Rauner had claimed that the calendar was maintained for the governor’s convenience, but the attorney general determined that the calendar is the public’s business.
“(T)his office’s review of the redacted entries indicates that they all appear to pertain to the business of the state, rather than the personal affairs or private business interests of the governor,” Michael J. Luke, counsel to Madigan, wrote in the 18-page decision issued Tuesday. “Because the governor’s calendar was prepared and is maintained by the governor’s office and pertains to public business, it is a public record of the governor’s office for purposes of the Illinois FOIA.”
Governors leave events early all the time, but he kinda walked right into that one, so to speak.
Thursday, Sep 24, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
When you join a credit union, you’re a member — one of nearly three million in Illinois. Even so, members are not just a number. They know their credit union is a trustworthy place where the best interests of individuals and their communities come first.
Cornerstone Credit Union in Northwestern Illinois is no exception, where helping their members build strong financial futures, offering community assistance and supporting aspiring college students are top priorities.
A Community Relations Committee empowers staff to fulfill year-round outreach programs. This has been a top level initiative because the credit union’s board of directors, who serve in a volunteer capacity themselves, value the fundamental credit union principle of freely offering assistance to their neighbors in need.
For the past 17 years, Cornerstone has facilitated a scholarship program to the tune of two, $5,000 scholarships for local college students per year. That’s $170,000 of welcome relief given back to local families faced with the continuing rise of college tuition.
When life presents many financial challenges and opportunities, credit unions are the best partner to help members build strong financial futures. Isn’t it nice to know that someone is looking out for your best interests? Credit unions truly are A Smarter Choice.
* WBEZ’s Tony Arnold has a long story today about Richard Goldberg, AKA the governor’s chief legislative liason , AKA “The Prince of Snarkness.” We’ve already covered pretty much everything in the piece, but there are some funny new lines. For instance, Senate President Pro Tempore Don Harmon offered up this observation…
“Rich’s job is to be the governor’s unmentionable anatomy. And he embraces that role with the flare and enthusiasm that can only have been born of years of experience in fraternity houses and undergraduate bars,” Harmon said.
After the initial interview with Harmon, WBEZ went back to clarify what the senator mean when he said, “unmentionable anatomy.” He said he meant something that rhymes with “grass bowl.”
Rauner’s administration did not make Goldberg available for an interview for this story. But his office did send a written statement.
“It’s no surprise that these local legislators aren’t willing to clean up Springfield, when they relish the opportunity to personally attack a Navy reservist who served our country fighting terrorism in Afghanistan,” said Lance Trover, a Rauner spokesman.
In other words, Trover said: Hey Democrats, you just called a war veteran a ‘grass bowl.’
And we wonder why the two sides ain’t getting anywhere. /snark
* It’s still pretty darned early for this. Also, pay attention to the generic ballot numbers at the end…
U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, is leading Democratic challenger C.J. Baricevic 51 to 35 percent, with 14 percent undecided, in a poll of 12th U.S. House District voters released Monday by Harper Polling, a GOP-leaning polling firm. […]
Harper’s poll showed that 24 percent of those surveyed strongly approved of Bost’s job performance, while another 30 percent somewhat approved. Sixteen percent somewhat disapproved, 11 percent strongly disapproved and 18 percent were not sure, according to a survey conducted Sept. 12-13 of 400 likely 12th District voters. […]
Bost is also viewed favorably by majorities of Republican voters (71 percent) and independents (53 percent), according to the survey from Harper Polling, which is based in Harrisburg, Pa.
In addition, 71 percent of voters surveyed said they believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, while another 21 percent said it was moving in the right course. Likely voters were almost evenly split between a generic Republican candidate (43 percent) and a Democratic candidate (41 percent), with 9 percent of voters responding they are not sure, according to the poll.
That district is a lot different in presidential years. Democrat Bill Enyart defeated Jason Plummer by 9 points in 2012.
This is not to say that Bost is in trouble, by any means. Underestimate that guy at your own peril - Enyart and the DCCC did and look where that got them last year.
I’m just saying that the generic ballot doesn’t match up that well with actual district performance.
After months of an intense public campaign to expose and reverse so-called “emergency” rule changes made by Gov. Bruce Rauner to the highly-successful Child Care Assistance Program – a statewide effort driven by providers, parents, children’s advocates, even First Lady Diana Rauner herself – a new report suggests the appearance of cracks in the governor’s dam.
This morning, the Peoria Journal Star reported that Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, sponsor of the legislation to overturn Rauner’s extreme administrative CCAP changes (SB 570), has identified – and in one case already converted – Republican legislators needed to reverse Rauner’s reckless and inhumane policy:
“With the possibility that not all Democrats would be present, she called on the audience to lobby local Republican representatives, even as she warned them that child care for low-income families is not a Republican or Democratic issue.
Gordon-Booth specifically mentioned Reps. Mike Unes, R-East Peoria, Don Moffitt, R-Gilson, and Dan Brady, R-Bloomington. She said another Republican legislator, Dave Leitch, R-Peoria, would vote for the bill but he is sick and unable to attend Thursday’s session.
Contacted later, Leitch said he would probably vote for the bill if he was able to travel to Springfield. “It’s one of the unfortunate casualties of not having a budget yet,” Leitch said. “But I hope it passes, it should pass.”
Earlier this month, SB 570 came up just one vote short on the floor of the Illinois House, and is likely to be reintroduced in Springfield in the coming weeks.
Republicans are now facing the hard reality that the public understands the truth behind Rauner’s extreme rule changes to CCAP, made by Rauner himself without public input or legislative debate – that they have absolutely nothing to do with the current budget impasse in Springfield, and are intended to dismantle the program entirely.
For months, Rauner and his allies have attempted to conflate these extreme, inhumane changes to the CCAP program with the budget impasse generally. Now, it appears the truth about this terrible policy – both cruel and harmful to Illinois’ economy – is now even understood by the Republican legislators Rauner has spent so much time trying to buy and bully.
With Rep. Esther Golar’s passing, the House Democrats are at least one vote shy of the 71 votes needed to pass the bill. So, with Rep. Leitch not attending due to illness and the expected absence of at least one other Democratic legislator, I doubt we can expect a vote.
The bill is on Postponed Consideration, so supporters aren’t facing a fast-approaching deadline. As long as Rep. Dunkin doesn’t skip town again and Rep. Leitch is eventually able to make it to Springfield the bill will likely pass on the next go-around.
Democrat state Rep. Jack Franks of Marengo is constantly viewed as being vulnerable and his reluctance to back Boss Madigan on all things leaves open the possibility that Madigan and the Dems could sacrifice him if push came to shove.
Franks does represent a heavily Republican district. But the GOP has yet to find a viable opponent. Maybe that’ll change with Rauner’s bigtime money. I don’t know.
What I do know, however, is that while Madigan might possibly, conceivably, maybe, perhaps take a pass on saving a member in an overwhelmingly Democratic district during a primary (cough*Dunkin*cough), he ain’t handing over a seat to the GOP as long as he gets his vote for Speaker, no matter how much of a pain in the rear Rep. Franks can be.
The only conceivable scenario is that Madigan is putting out electoral fires everywhere next November (not hugely likely considering that it’ll be a presidential year) and Franks is so far out of contention that it isn’t worth spending money on him. But, even then, I dunno.
* This is quite titillating, but I’d have some faith in it if Smith had given us at least one example of those “dirty details”…
Andre Smith, a former personal assistant to the Rev. Corey Brooks, is threatening to dish dirty details about the clergy’s efforts to help Gov. Bruce Rauner attract black voters.
“I sat in on 98 percent of Corey’s meetings with Rauner. Nobody knows what I know,” Smith told me Friday.
Apparently, it was a cozy partnership until Rauner pulled out an ax to tackle the state budget.
“I took a stand with Corey [during the campaign] that Rauner wasn’t going to do these things, so me and Corey fell out,” Smith said.
“I believe that I am part of this dreadful thing that is hurting our people,” Smith said. “I believe that I should take the lead in helping to fix it.”
Smith, 47, twice ran for alderman in the 20th ward. He now has his sights on challenging state Rep. Ken Dunkin (D-Chicago).
Dunkin has come under fire for skipping the critical override vote on a major union bill. He was the only Democratic no-show, and his absence helped Rauner gain ground in his ongoing tug-of-war with House Speaker Michael Madigan.
All Smith will say is “stay tuned.”
This is Illinois, so obviously we can’t rule out the possibility of dirty dealings, but I’d really like to see something concrete before jumping to any conclusions.
* And speaking of Pastor Brooks, he just endorsed the governor’s choice to replace retiring Rep. Ed Sullivan. Press release…
Pastor Corey B. Brooks, Sr., founder of New Beginnings Church of Chicago and a community leader, endorses Nick Sauer for State Representative in District 51.
Pastor Brooks said, “Our state has been moving in the wrong direction for some time. We need strong and bold leadership to take us into a brighter future. I believe Nick Sauer is the type of leader we must have in these days and times if we are to forge ahead and create a better Illinois.”
Gov. Rauner appointed both Brooks and Sauer to the tollway board.
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has won the backing of two key Illinoisans: former Gov. Jim Edgar and U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the Tribune has learned. The two will be state chairmen for Bush’s White House run. Bush was tops in Illinois presidential fundraising last month.
State Rep. Edward Acevedo (D-Chicago) is angry with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and what Acevedo called “derogatory comments” towards women and Latinos. Tuesday, the ten-term lawmakers introduced a House resolution calling on the RNC to denounce Trump and “distance themselves from him in the future.”
Acevedo’s resolution says “Donald Trump has repeatedly made misogynistic, sexist, and derogatory comments towards women; and Donald Trump has repeatedly made offensive and abhorrent comments towards people of Latino descent, Mexican immigrants, and Asians ..”
If the resolution passes, Acevedo wants copies of the resolution sent to the Republican congressional leaders, RNC Chairman Rheince Priebus and the GOP members of the Illinois delegation.
Jamie Anderson grew up in the foster care system. She relies on her 4-thousand-dollar MAP grant to pay tuition at the University of Illinois Springfield. She says she works two jobs totaling 50 hours a week to cover living expenses.
So what does she do in her spare time?
“I volunteer with kids,” Anderson says. “I’m in the 4-H program, I’m a mentor, I’m in Big Brother Big Sisters Program, so I’m a Big….”
Hoping to become a child welfare worker, she’s set to graduate in May with a degree in social work. But like the other 130,000 needy Illinois college students, Anderson needs lawmakers to fund the Monetary Award Program.
Most campuses, including UIS, have floated students in the fall semester, counting on eventual repayment from the state. But State Treasurer Michael Frerichs says college administrators around Illinois have told him they cannot afford to make the same bet for the spring semester.
Fear gripped 49-year-old Tina Wardzala of Cicero by the throat at a young age. It rarely has loosened its grip.
As a young girl, Tina said while her father was away driving a truck, her mother would invite men in, get drunk and pass out. Then the men would come to “play” with her.
About 15 years ago, Tina worked as a line cook at a diner and the regulars were like family. One of those regulars was elderly and ill. Tina was delivering a meal to the customer when she entered a dimly lit apartment hallway and found three men waiting. They raped her.
Before that moment of terror, Tina had worked at the diner and a branch library. She enjoyed music and waded into crowds at Grateful Dead and Neil Young concerts. In that moment, fear took her hostage. Mental illness enveloped her. She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia and bipolar disorder. Cloaked in black, Tina shared her scariest secrets. At times, she choked out the words. At times, tears spilled. Fear has its hold. Now she also lives in fear of the state’s intractable politicians.
No court judge has risen to her rescue, nor those like her, diagnosed with mental illness. No continuing appropriation has saved her, nor the nearly 1,700 other adults and children who turn each year for help to the Family Service and Mental Health Center of Cicero, where she told her story from the safety of her therapist’s office.
“I’ve come a long way … thanks to my therapist and my team,” she said. It took Tina five years before she told her therapist about the rape that resulted in the birth of her 14-year-old son. She also has sons who are 25, 21 and 10 years old. Three still live with her, mostly on a $750 federal disability check and state food stamp money she says was cut recently from $365 to $140 a month.
Now her overarching fear is going somewhere uncomfortable, to a new doctor and a new therapist.
Executive Director John Morgan says the center got $190,000 in state grants and contracts for years. Now, only a $20,000 contract remains, one the state has yet to pay this year. Morgan has cut Tina’s psychiatrist’s weekly hours by three, as well as those of another psychiatrist, a woman who treats children and speaks Spanish in a majority Hispanic community. A crisis intervention worker and other workers’ hours also were cut. So far, Morgan has avoided layoffs. His staff refers some patients to a psychiatric hospital six miles away. There’s a six- to eight-week wait.
The problem, of course, is the lack of revenue to pay for these programs. Without a tax hike, the state is gonna run out of money or pile up unpaid bills in record amounts.
So, it’s great to put human faces on these problems, but we also need a recognition that the problems cannot be addressed without more money.
A developer is apparently hoping to launch a unique concept, a sort of casino mall, in strip malls in Crestwood and Hometown.
The idea would be to lease storefronts to multiple owners of gambling cafes, with up to five video machines in each, to create more opportunities for patrons to gamble and to generate more foot traffic.
Crestwood Mayor Lou Presta and Hometown Mayor Kevin Casey said they were eager to embrace such an enterprise, while noting that the Illinois Gaming Board will ultimately decide whether it complies with the state’s video gambling law.
Presta said the Crestwood location — just south of Cal Sag Road and west of Cicero Avenue, across from an off-track betting parlor — could eventually be home to seven storefront gambling cafes, each owned by a different person or business.
There apparently is nothing in Illinois’ gambling law that prohibits video gambling malls — a concept that may place as many as nine independently operated “casino cafes” in one location in the Southland. […]
[Hometown Mayor Kevin Casey] said that while he doesn’t gamble, he made a tour of video cafes in neighboring suburbs and saw people often waiting for a video machine to become available. He said some of those people walked out because they didn’t want to sit around and drink or eat, they wanted to gamble.
Most of those people, the mayor said, looked like middle-aged suburban housewives. And Casey figured that this idea of creating a string of gambling shops, each owned independently, in one location might prove to be a pretty nice attraction for his city.
State Rep. Robert Rita, D-Blue Island, is trying to enlist the help of the Illinois Gaming Board to stop the development of “casino malls,” but the first two video gambling malls in the state are rapidly moving forward in Crestwood and Hometown. […]
There are already more video gambling machines (about 21,200) in restaurants, bars, truck stops and veterans halls than in all of Illinois’ casinos. In August, gamblers wagered nearly $75 million on video machines, bringing the total to $590 million for the first eight months of this year, according to the Gaming Board.
“The Illinois General Assembly did not allowing these types of (casino) malls in legalizing video gaming originally and is not interested in seeing this type of activity authorized in Illinois,” Rita states in a resolution that he plans to file this week. “While proponents argue these ‘casino malls’ could generate more economic activity and revenue, there are legitimate concerns about these malls shifting video gaming away from its intended purpose of main street community entertainment for bars, restaurants and other local businesses.”
Video gambling malls proposed for Hometown and Crestwood are “backdoor casinos,” according to the chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board, who said he’s “inclined to oppose them.”
Chairman Don Tracy made those statements at an August hearing of the board after the mayor of Hometown and a developer behind the concept of the casino mall in the suburb urged the board to approve license applications for three casino cafes in a strip mall that could eventually host as many as nine such businesses. […]
A spokeswoman for the Illinois Retail Gaming and Operators Association also appeared at the Gaming Board’s August hearing to oppose the Hometown casino mall. The association represents Dotty’s, one of the first innovators in the casino cafe industry; Loredo Hospitality Ventures, which owns Stall’s and Shelby’s cafe casinos; Gold Rush Amusements; Blackhawk Restaurant Group (which owns cafes under the names of Betty’s Bistro, Penny’s Place, Emma’s Eatery and Jena’s Eatery); Gold Rush Amusements; and Trident Partners, which owns Ruby’s.
She claimed that approving licenses for operators in Hometown Plaza would open the door for someone to buy an empty warehouse for the sole purpose of locating multiple video gambling operators under one roof.
“They simply don’t want any competition if they can stop it,” Casey said of the association. “That’s all that was about. The days of mom-and-pop stores, candle stores, Hallmark’s, (independent) pharmacies is over. Those are the sorts of places that used to operate in strip malls.
Illinois Gaming Board members attempted to shut down the development of “casino malls” on Tuesday, voting unanimously to reject the video license applications of three operators who hoped to open in a Hometown strip mall.
Gaming board chairman Donald Tracy reiterated a statement he made at the board’s August meeting, saying he viewed such operations as “back-door casinos,” circumventing the oversight and regulation of traditional casinos under state law. […]
“All three of these locations relate to what have been called video gaming malls, mini-casinos, casino malls, and back-door casinos,” Tracy said before the vote. “I view gaming malls as back-door casinos, as I said at the last meeting, without the traditional safeguards of licensed casinos such as regulated security, on-site oversight, position limits, self-exclusion rules and internal controls.”
Tracy went on to say that he considers such casino malls “a threat to Illinois gaming integrity” and if the state had envisioned their creation, it would have specifically created riverboat, casino-like safeguards.
* The SJ-R explains today that the governor postponed his union worker layoff plans because of an amended union lawsuit. The governor’s folks say they’re confident that they’ll win the lawsuit, but the unions flatly disagreee…
The amended lawsuit specifically talks about the layoff of 151 unionized state workers at nine different state agencies. The unions argued that the layoffs were scheduled in violation of labor agreements.
“While the governor has the right to initiate a layoff, there has to be a legitimate reason for doing do, for example a lack of work or a lack of funds,” Lindall said. “In no case do those conditions exist for these employees. The governor can’t arbitrarily target layoffs in one area for lack of a budget over another.”
Sean Smoot, director of the PBPA that represents 33 conservation police officers who were scheduled for layoff, said that’s particularly true in the case of the officers whose salaries are paid for with fees, fines and federal money rather than general state tax dollars.
“The existence of a budget or not really doesn’t affect the funding for these folks,” Smoot said.
I imagine this post is gonna cause a whole lot of conservative heads to explode.
