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Fitch Ratings on Friday revised its outlook on the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority’s credit to negative as it prepares to enter the market as soon as next week with a $500 million financing that - based on current market conditions - could include $400 million of Build America Bonds.

* Marc Correra: The Link Between New York’s Pension Scandal And “Toxic Waste” In New Mexico?

* Steve Stone: Cubs fans will pay high price for Wrigley renovation, big salaries…

Nobody’s talking about the $400-500 million it will cost to renovate Wrigley Field. If they have to play somewhere else, you’re probably talking about losing $100 million per year. The fans who come to Wrigley Field every day might not want to come to U.S. Cellular or go to Milwaukee. You could do the renovation in sections so you can continue to play in the ballpark. But realistically if you want to do it right, you need to shut it down.

So now you have a team that you bought for $850 million, and throw in the renovation, and you have $1.4 billion in the deal. Tell me how you’re going to get that back without the fans paying a tremendous part of that?

* Cubs, Sox attendance maintains in tough economy

* ComEd rates to go down next month

In 2007, the General Assembly established the Illinois Power Agency to procure power on behalf of Illinois utilities. For 2009, ComEd is purchasing electricity for its customers through this new process, which is overseen by the ICC.

The resulting electricity prices and winning bidders were made public Friday by the ICC.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan hailed the decrease and the process that led to it. “The 2009 procurement prices demonstrate conclusively that the new procurement process works as intended,” she said in a statement Friday. “The Illinois Power Agency, the new agency that administered the procurement process for the first time this year, is making a difference and that is an economically positive difference for Illinois families.”

The current procurement process originally was proposed by Madigan and adopted in 2007 as part of a settlement of numerous lawsuits filed by Madigan attacking the legality of the reverse auction and raising allegations of market manipulation, a release from her office said. The settlement also included $1 billion in rate relief for ComEd and Ameren customers.

* ComEd customers will see 7.5% drop in light bill

* ComEd rates to fall in June

“The decision to replace ComEd’s reverse auction looks even better when we look at what’s happening in other states that still use a reverse auction – where recent prices have been as much as three-times higher than the prices produced this spring by the new Illinois procurement process,” Madigan said.

* Statement from CUB Executive Director David Kolata on New Electricity Prices Announced for ComEd

* ‘Something strange was happening to me’

Like hundreds of Crestwood residents, former residents and those who worked there, Mix is concerned water consumption triggered the cancer she now is battling. She suffers from mycosis fungoides, also known as Alibert-Bazin syndrome. It’s a rare form of lymphoma that affects the skin.

* State historic sites to open 7 days a week

* How To Win The War On Crime

As Mark Kleiman of UCLA has noted, 46,000 Americans die every year on the highways. In contrast, 17,000 die from criminal violence. Granted, emergency medicine has had a big impact on the number of people who die from criminal violence, but the same can be said of highway deaths.

In some sense, the decision to avoid crime by fleeing cities in favor of auto-dependent suburbs is irrational: The move actually increases your chances of dying prematurely. That crude calculation ignores the angst and anxiety that my father had in mind when he told his white lie. No one wants to live in fear. And for any number of reasons, the fear of an impersonal auto collision can’t match the fear of the indignity of being mugged, or for that matter being stabbed or shot dead. The millions of middle -class Americans who fled inner cities were fleeing this psychic turmoil, and it’s hard not to sympathize with them. This fear also led to an explosion in the ownership of personal firearms and a climate of political and cultural polarization that is still with us.

But what if crime isn’t a natural disaster? What if it is a problem that we’ve made worse through wrongheaded policies?

* How one mayor helped businesses in Cook County

That’s why we applaud the creative maneuvers by Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld to save a dealership in his town, Steve Peters Chevrolet. We think it could serve as a model for other towns and proactive mayors, so pay attention:

Hofeld worked with the Cook County Board to establish new rules for property tax breaks for certain businesses.

* Road crews to tackle $300M in local projects

* Sears Tower to add glass balconies

* Facing investigations, Daley ally Davis quits pension board

* Chicago City Hall, Mayor Richard Daley’s administration routinely deny requests for public documents

* Daley praises retiring Banks, mum on successor

* Daley offers helping hand to ex-con high school grads

* Chicago school board president urges principals to push Olympics bid

* Former State’s Attorney Dick Devine adjusts to slower pace in private practice

* Moylan Getting To Know Other Area Mayors

* Prairie Parkway: A road to nowhere?

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, a freshman Democrat whose 14th District would be bisected by the controversial outer-belt, is trying to pull the plug on what would be the Chicago region’s latest major highway. Instead, he wants to spend the money on other road projects but will need congressional approval to do so.

* U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock is GOP’s young, rising star

* All pigs are men: why we need to learn to manage infodemics, too…

One particularly fascinating element of the infodemic phenomenon is that the spread of rumors or news throughout society looks exactly like the spread of diseases; they are communicated in the same ways and patterns. (You’ll note that in both the SARS case and the current instance, it was the infection of Americans that kicked mainstream media into gear and elevated the story into a code-one frenzy.)

* Swine flu presents test for Quinn’s team

* Quinn’s team gets high marks for flu response

* Chicago schools on lookout for swine flu as 11 probable new cases are reported in state

* Schools are appropriately cautious

* Possible swine flu closes Kinnikinnick, Belvidere school districts today

* Three confirmed H1N1 flu cases in Illinois, 96 probable

* First probable Swine Flu cases found outside Chicago

* Who is Chicago’s most prolific Twitterer?

posted by Mike Murray
Monday, May 4, 09 @ 8:29 am

Comments

Stone’s the smartest guy in baseball, and he’s certainly right about the Soriano and Bradley contracts, but $400-$500 million to renovate Wrigley? What are they going to do, install golden troughs?

With the current footprint, I can’t see how you could spend that much for safety or amenities. There’s only so much room. Now if they expand into their player’s lot or across the street to the muffler shop for a parking garage, player facilities or hotel, that’s a different story.

But a parking garage would make a bundle and should pay for itself.

Speaking of which, I’ve always wondered why Lemoyne School on Waveland doesn’t open its lot and charge on weekends or when school’s out. They could easily get 300 cars at $25 a pop. Sure beats cake walks to raise money for the PTO.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, May 4, 09 @ 9:15 am
I live 4 blocks away from the 2 lane stretch of Eola that Foster mentions. It’s like half (3/4 at most) of a mile long. Me thinks we can fix that without ending the parkway.

Also the stretch of Eola isn’t even in his district

Comment by OneMan Monday, May 4, 09 @ 9:24 am
One Man,

I don’t think the parkway is “ending” with the state making the same mistake when it cancelled the Fox Valley expressway. But it could be put on hold for an extended period of time. In the meantime, if other routes like Eola Road and IL 47 keep getting clogged with traffic even after they are widened, there will be a tipping point of public opinion on it, just like there is now with IL 53 in Lake County. Trouble is, there is not much that is shovel-ready anywhere in the region.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Monday, May 4, 09 @ 9:46 am
$400 billion is a lot of dynamite. Maybe they included the cost of dumptrucks to haul the debris away too.

Comment by Wumpus Monday, May 4, 09 @ 10:02 am
Foster obviously hasn’t tried driving 47 in a few years. What’s he going to propose - bypass routes around Elburn, Sugar Grove and Yorkville? That’s what it would take to make 47 fluid.

Comment by Ken in Aurora Monday, May 4, 09 @ 10:16 am
I like the twitter site of William Kelly, the host of “Sportsaholic,” an original, funny TV show, about sports, veterans, and politics, on Comcast Sportsnet, on Thursday and Sunday nights, 12:30-1:00. His twitter website is http://twitter.com/Williamjkelly.

Comment by ConservativeVeteran Monday, May 4, 09 @ 12:11 pm