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Your tax dollars at work

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* From an October 29, 2014 press release by the Bruce Rauner campaign…

As of today, Pat Quinn has doled out nearly $500 million in the last four weeks. In the last two days alone, he doled out $36 million.

* One of those grants was to SIU for lighting campus pedestrian pathways near the quad. Quinn announced the grant in late September, just days after his office did this…

[Kevin Bame, vice chancellor for administration and finance at SIU] said the grant came about from Quinn after his office asked school officials in September 2014 to submit to him a request for a capital project, specifically one that dealt with campus safety. SIU chose this project, as the plan to install LED lights should brighten up those interior parts of campus, Bame said.

So, essentially, Quinn begged the university to help him make a campaign point by finding a suitable project. No wonder a Democratic state legislator introduced a bill to stop that sort of thing.

The grant, by the way, has since been frozen by the Rauner administration.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 9:49 am

Comments

And he wants a comeback…..

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 9:50 am
Not to seem like a partisan hack, but those lighting projects are a good deal for everybody involved. The schools get super fast paybacks, local electricians and electricity supply houses get lots of business, and the aging electricity infrastructure gets to take a load off. I get the whole election angle to this, but it’s not like those incentive programs didn’t exist long before election season came around

Comment by Johnny Pyle Driver Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 9:55 am
RAUNER owes $9 million on his electric bill. Maybe he should figure out a way to pay that.

Comment by Langhorne Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 9:57 am
This is important now, because of ????????

Comment by Citizen A Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:06 am
Um, before we jump on the ever-popular Bash Quinn Bandwagon.

From Illinois Issues, November 2014:

The nationwide campus crisis hits home in Illinois

by Tara García Mathewson

Researcher estimate one in five women on college campuses are sexually assaulted before they graduate. They are more likely to be raped than their peers who do not go to college. And 90 percent of them do not report their assaults….

…For perhaps the first time ever, there seems to be a concerted effort to stem the tide. Dr. Bernice Sandler, a senior scholar at the Women’s Research and Education Institute in D.C. and the so-called “Godmother of Title IX,” theorizes the latest round of attention can be traced to online communities….

…Schools received new guidance in April 2011 from the Department of Education specifically advising them of their responsibility to protect students from sexual violence under Title IX….

…State governments have kept the momentum going, with a handful proposing or passing laws requiring schools to take specific preventative action and respond in certain ways to allegations of sexual assault. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe formed a task force to study campus sexual assault and come up with best practices in prevention and response.

And President Barack Obama’s administration has helped keep the issue in the headlines — spurred on by Vice President Joe Biden, who introduced the Violence Against Women Act when he was a U.S. senator in 1990. The Obama administration launched NotAlone.gov in the spring — following another task force recommendation — and now provides resources for sexual assault survivors, an enforcement map tracking cases on college campuses across the country and guidance for institutions in their policy-making.

At the end of September, the administration launched a second website, ItsOnUs.org,….“It is on all of us to reject the quiet tolerance of sexual assault and to refuse to accept what’s unacceptable,” Obama said in a White House event announcing the campaign.

Southern Illinois University launched an It’s On Us student task force in September, and the University of Chicago also committed to the effort, according to local newspapers….

Sometimes, coincidences are just that. It’s hard to believe that Quinn masterminded the control of the White House, Office of Civil Rights, and the online community of rape survivors.

And according to the federal government, universities have an affirmative duty under Title IX to reduce sexual assaults. True, Governor Quinn’s efforts might have been aimed at just a small piece of the puzzle, but you can’t really use capital dollars to fund date rape prevention programs either.

Meanwhile, the fair question becomes, since Rauner has halted efforts to stop sexual assaults, while also simultaneously defunding other sexual assault prevention programs: are the universities out-of-compliance with Title IX?

Comment by Juvenal Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:10 am
To: the women on the S.I.U. campus.

From: your governor.

Your safety is one of my top concerns! As soon

as my turnaround agenda is passed, and the campus

becomes 100% union-free, I will think about your

safety. Until then remember to hang in there!

Comment by DuPage Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:38 am
For all the grief Rauner gets, some of it deserved, he deserves more credit for some of the basic things he is doing like this and the reforms he made to DCEO grants aka corporate handouts.

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:41 am
Quinn seriously wanted to solve problems in our state, and used capital funding to do it. Just because a university’s leaders were not creative enough to come up with solutions of their own doesn’t make them bad ideas.
Quinn’s wheels were always spinning on how to improve the lives of others.

Comment by Solid Dwight Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:46 am
Citizen A has a valid question, Rich. How about answering it. Why now? That was yesterday and yesterday’s gone.

Comment by ottawa otter Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:54 am
SIU has a known sexual assault problem. Several interior areas of that campus between the classrooms and the dorms are full of trees and devoid of lights. Regardless of political reasons, a request for lighting seems like a no-brainer to me. Maybe you need to have had offspring there to understand the issue.

Comment by Thoughts Matter Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:59 am
Hey, I know, let’s get a pinata with Quinn’s face on it, we can bash it every once in awhile and the candy high will take our mind’s off what IPI and Rauner are doing to the state!

Comment by Ottawa Otter Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 10:59 am
===Why now?===

Because it’s in the news again.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 11:00 am
After making my comment, I realize I may be talking about a different program. I was referencing DCEO lighting incentives, which involve the state sending reimbursement grants to public entities that upgrade their lighting to more efficient lights. I now see this may be talking about life and safety money, which as I understand it, comes from a different pot

Comment by Johnny Pyle Driver Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 11:02 am
Campus sexual assault was a big deal. New laws enacted, but the SuperStars concluded a brick was needed. Is this part of the one year tribute to the SuperStars.
BTW The story managed to make past the “spam filters” at the Southern and get into the papar.

Comment by Annonin' Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 11:14 am
I am confudled, Rich. In the news again? What I have missed, where? Not bickering, just want to figure out why I missed it.

Comment by ottawa otter Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 12:00 pm
Public lighting (especially on a State university campus) should, almost by definition, be considered a public safety priority.

Clearly an appropriate use of state capital authority.

What if your child was a student there?

Comment by Handle Bar Mustache Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 12:10 pm
If public safety was such a big issue(and it should be), our state universities are busting at their seams with “distinguished FELLOWS”. Ex-gov Quinn should have have recommended the elimination of those positions , and the ensuing cost savings to pay for the lighting,rather than the last minute attempt to buy votes.

Comment by Blue dog dem Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 12:31 pm
–So, essentially, Quinn begged the university to help him make a campaign point by finding a suitable project. No wonder a Democratic state legislator introduced a bill to stop that sort of thing.–

That’s exactly what he did, usually through back channel communication. Many units of local government was asked for projects and given a dollar range to ask for. The intent was to make an announcement before the election.

Comment by Ahoy! Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 1:18 pm
==Quinn begged the university to help him==

Every state university has a looong list of needed capital improvements. They surely did not have to be begged.

But if they were, at least Quinn used his authority to do something positive.

Governor Rauner is using his authority to freeze or end construction all over the state.

I give Quinn major credit for not grinding the state’s public works effort to a halt in the midst of a recession.

Comment by Handle Bar Mustache Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 4:38 pm
So Quinn wanted to invest in capital projects? GOOD. That objective looks even better while they are being decimated.

I’m also unclear why we are talking about this right now.

Comment by State worker Monday, Jan 11, 16 @ 5:13 pm