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* Which company will land at MidAmerica today? Analysts say Boeing would be a good fit

Is the Boeing Co. coming to MidAmerica St. Louis Airport?

If so, will the defense and aerospace giant use the struggling airport as a facility to customize its much-ballyhooed, but long-delayed 787 Dreamliner passenger plane?

Or will Boeing use MidAmerica to retrofit its 767 twin jet airliners into fuel tankers as part of an effort to win a $35 billion Air Force contract?

* Landowners chime in on plans for water pipeline from Decatur to Taylorville for energy center

* Horizon begins pitch for new McLean County wind farm

* Journal Star: Was ‘Rosty’ perfect? No. Effective? No question

* Ethical conflict in suing county?

He was elected to sit on the Cook County board that hears tax appeals, but Larry Rogers Jr. put on his lawyer hat this week and is now representing a family suing the county in a high-profile wrongful death case.

While several officials are calling this a conflict of interest, Rogers isn’t violating any ethics ordinances.

* Fourth female alderman to retire from City Council

Ald. Ginger Rugai (19th) said Wednesday she would not seek re-election, becoming the fourth of the City Council’s 17 women to retire from politics in a difficult year for incumbents.

Rugai insisted that her decision to retire had nothing to do with the anti-incumbent tidal wave sweeping the nation or the local political backlash that followed the 75-year, $1.15 billion lease that privatized Chicago parking meters.

* Rugai will not run for alderman again

* Mayor Daley offers new plan for high-speed O’Hare-Loop rail

Citing interest already expressed by investors from China, Japan and the Middle East, Mayor Daley today appointed a heavyweight panel of business and labor leaders to try to attract the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to provide express service to O’Hare.

The mayor’s mandate to Lester Crown and others is that no city money be used to build the separate tracks along the Kennedy Expressway that would be needed to duplicate the sort of high-speed rail service that’s already wildly popular in Japan.

“It has to be almost a separate private system,” the mayor told a City Hall news conference.

That means the 17-member panel will do its best to attract private investors — first to build the system, then possibly to run it for the next 25 years.

* Daley dusts off plan for upscale rail service to O’Hare

* Mayor Daley forms group to study O’Hare-downtown express train

* Businessman slated to become next RTA chairman

The candidate, John Gates, would need a super majority of 12 votes from the 16-member RTA board to become chairman. He would replace Jim Reilly, who recently stepped down as RTA chairman to become the trustee in charge of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, or McPier. Gates until recently chaired a reorganization of McPier.

* RTA to interview chairman candidate Thursday

* Navy Pier awash in visitors, sales climb

Gross sales for fiscal 2010, ended July 31, increased 5%, to $119 million, boosted in particular by the March-through-July period, when sales jumped 11%.

* Parents Sound Off on Chicago Public Schools’ Proposed Budget

* FEMA gets first-hand flood stories

* Kane Circuit Court clerk considers suing County Board for funding

* Hillside landfill to pay $1 million fine

* Judge orders Warrenville alderman to turn in passport

Alderman Christopher S. Halley was ordered held on $75,000 bail during a brief morning bond hearing in which prosecutors said he tried to flee the area Tuesday instead of turning himself in to police as promised.

Halley, 27, is charged with theft by deception and deceptive practices. It’s his second arrest in recent months. In March, he was accused of writing a bad $1,500 check to a friend in fall 2009.

* Low scores mean transfer is an option at 20 Rockford schools

Rockford is not alone. The Illinois State Board of Education expects more schools than ever will face sanctions this year for consistently failing under the No Child Left Behind Act. In the Belvidere district, 30 students are transferring from a failing school to a better-performing one this year.

Official results from standardized tests taken this year won’t be released until the fall. And while missing the federal targets doesn’t necessarily mean that test scores are down from last year, it does means that schools aren’t making large enough academic gains to keep up with rising achievement standards.

* [East Peoria] schools face $2.8 million deficit

* Heartland eyes record enrollment again this fall

* UIS rated high by U.S. News & World Report

* Mahomet-Seymour teachers on strike; classes canceled

Jordan said the board has “got to put some money on the salary” before she believes the union and board will get closer together in negotiations.

The board and the union’s bargaining team met for about seven hours with a federal mediator Tuesday night and again Wednesday night.

* After trustees are a no-show, Washington Park could shut down in bankruptcy procedure

The village is in danger of being shut down because three of the six trustees did not show up Tuesday night to vote on a resolution to proceed with a bankruptcy case first approved a year ago.
A four vote majority was needed to pass the resolution that would allow bankruptcy attorney Donald Sampson to proceed with the court filing. But only Mayor Cynthia Stovall-Hollingsworth, who is also a trustee, and trustees James Jones and Dorris Davis were in attendance. The meeting was canceled due to a lack of a quorum.

* O’Fallon seeks grants, but it will cost hundreds of thousands in matching funds

* Early audit: Dongola owes state $59,000

* Lazare: Susan Carlson to coanchor new WBBM early news show

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Aug 19, 10 @ 9:19 am

Comments

In case anyone is on pins and needles over the MidAmerica announcement, the BND says they’ll have live coverage: http://www.bnd.com/2010/08/18/1368672/live-thursday-see-the-midamerica.html

I doubt it will get the hits the Blago verdict did, but there it is.

Comment by Peter Thursday, Aug 19, 10 @ 9:48 am
Block 37 - the albatross around Daley’s neck. There’s just not much time to be saved (vs. current modes of transport) and comes with a monster price tag.

Comment by HappyToaster Thursday, Aug 19, 10 @ 11:20 am
As for MidAmerica Airport (which is really a NonAirport), it is indeed Boeing. Jerry Costello just announced. Also on stage, Pat Quinn, Durbin, Shimkus, Alexi, etc. At least Boeing has more legs than all the previous (short-lived) tenants of MidAmerica. And it’s only taken a DECADE to bring something impressive to that space! An albatross that might turn into something good, finally.

Comment by Steve Downstate Thursday, Aug 19, 10 @ 11:25 am
Why not periodically run an express train on the Blue Line from O’Hare to Downtown? Put in a second track in places where the space is available to allow the locals to pull over. Connect the existing Blue Line to Union Station. A lot cheaper than a dedicated track.

Comment by 3 beers to Springfield Thursday, Aug 19, 10 @ 11:27 am
Perhaps Daley needs to think about how to improve the existing rail network in the Chicago area. That’s where we’re really behind the rest of the world. The only new routes we need are the one connecting O’Hare’s terminal complex itself with Metra, and another one to connect Union and Ogilvie stations with the CTA ‘el. OK, maybe Mid-City and a few el extensions too. But the existing lines . . . . better maintenance, widening rights of way, electrification, stations that connect with each other, faster trains, more frequency, more capacity — that’s where the real action is. To take an example, given the population base the Red Line serves, the patronage is terribly poor — and with trains that are noisy and rough riding due to poor maintenance, and inadequate frequency, and uncomfortable stations with platforms that are dangerously narrow, and very slow running speeds, it’s not too hard to figure out why this is. And then there’s Metra Electric — built in the First World War to handle any amount of traffic you could possibly throw at it, extensively renovated a few years ago, and yet still only carrying one train an hour in each direction off-peak when it could be running more frequently than the Red Line. And local leaders wonder why so many people drive.

Comment by Angry Chicagoan Thursday, Aug 19, 10 @ 5:11 pm
what happened to the story about the man killed on I-57??

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 23, 10 @ 1:15 pm