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* Officials, advocates stress AIDS’ toll in Illinois

Illinois’ public health chief Dr. Damon Arnold is joining advocates and state lottery officials to raise awareness about AIDS.

Tuesday is World AIDS Day, and the Illinois Lottery will unveil a new Quality of Life scratch-off ticket called “Red Ribbon Bonus Bucks.” All proceeds will fund HIV/AIDS-prevention education and awareness across Illinois.

The state has the nation’s seventh highest number of reported AIDS cases, totaling 30,000 since 1981. Arnold is attending a news conference Tuesday in Chicago to highlight the toll and the new Lottery program.

* Springfield church among five Illinois sites to premiere AIDS documentary

* COBRA subsidies begin to run out for jobless

Subsidies under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act began in March covering 65 percent of premiums for COBRA coverage, which is a continuation of health benefits offered by a previous employer’s plan to the departing worker.[…]

The stimulus funding made what before was considered unaffordable coverage for the unemployed possible.

* Fight over sales tax cut goes down to wire

While commissioners today are expected to successfully override Stroger’s veto of a half-penny-on-the-dollar rollback, the lobbying is expected to continue until they vote. Some commissioners have flip-flopped on the issue.

* Businesses vs. unions

The political war over Cook County’s unpopular sales tax increase outwardly has pitted county board President Todd Stroger against a majority of county commissioners who want to roll it back.

But behind the scenes, the battle has involved labor unions that have stood with Stroger against the business community, which has been howling from the start about the July 2008 tax hike. Both sides have pushed their positions strongly in the tax controversy.

* Illinois political docket: Cook County tax showdown

* Daley proposes $1.5 million boost to next year’s budget

Mayor Richard Daley’s administration today proposed using $1.5 million in new annual revenue expected from a lawsuit settlement to boost spending in next year’s budget.

* Taxpayers entitled to answers on TIFs

Daley is facing a huge budget deficit of more than $500 million, while he dips into reserves from the parking meter lease deal that were supposed to last the city for years.

He’s cutting city services as he puts workers on furlough.

Yet his slush fund remains untouched, except for the projects he wants to spend it on.

* Arlington Heights likely to ban video poker

Video gambling will not be allowed in Arlington Heights, despite gambling at Arlington Park and Trackside, the village board indicated Monday during its committee meeting.

* Layoffs, new tax on the table in Arlington Heights

Meeting as a committee, the village board expressed support Monday for a new, 3 percent tax on electric and natural gas usage as well as a property tax increase of 5.74 percent in the fiscal year that begins in May.[…]

In total, 25 positions would be eliminated, most through attrition.

* East St. Louis will tax bars to help keep police, firefighters

City officials told bar owners Monday that a 1 percent sales tax will be added next year on “immediately consumable” beverages and food — and package liquor — to help stave off layoffs of police and firefighters.

* Canal to be poisoned to stem spread of Asian carp

* We’ve wasted millions on electric barrier boondoggle

That’s the first — pretending Asian carp aren’t already in Chicago — of two main reasons I don’t want the corps anywhere near poisoning the rebounding fisheries on our urban/suburban waterways.

* Census tracts key to deciding magnet schools admission

Census tracts — not race — will play a key role in deciding admission to Chicago’s coveted magnet and selective-enrollment schools under a new proposal up for a Chicago School Board vote on Dec. 16.

* New CPS admissions policy blasted as racist

A new admissions policy for elite Chicago public schools is little more than a plot to free up seats for middle-class white families tired of paying private school tuition, black aldermen charged Monday.[…]

The new policy followed a federal judge’s decision to void a 1980 desegregation consent decree that let CPS use race to decide admissions to the coveted schools. Now, census tracts, neighborhood income levels and other socio-economic indicators will be determining factors.

* Aldermen: New CPS admissions policy gives minorities the shaft

* Critics muzzle proposal to limit number of dogs per household

Over the last 15 years, aldermen have made at least four attempts to slap a ceiling on the number of dogs to eliminate noise and stench, only to be reined in by colleagues who don’t want to find themselves in the doghouse with dog lovers.[…]

Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) had hoped to break that losing streak by rounding up 27 co-sponsors. But, the avalanche of opposition at today’s License Committee hearing made it clear that he, too, would get the leash.

* Aldermen balk at proposal to limit dogs in Chicago homes

* Car missing? You may have violated winter parking rules

* Ill. National Guard plans new facility in Kankakee

* Fermilab falls to No. 2

* Groups warn of coal mine consequences

* Son of Peoria County Sheriff charged with DUI while driving state-owned vehicle

posted by Mike Murray
Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 8:45 am

Comments

Well, I don’t know if the new CPS school policy is racist by impact but I seriously doubt that the decision-makers in Chicago are motivated by racial discrimination. Rather, by inertia or inability to manage ineffectively, or indifference.

The problems, from mu vantage point outside the city, seems to me to be the notion that there are “good” schools and “bad” schools in this system and that parents of any race are forced to compete for slots at “good” schools in order to avoid “bad schools.”

In a public system, all of the schools should be good schools. Given the billions and billions of dollars Chicagoans have paid for the Chicago school system, every single school in the system should be, not good, but fantastic.

Chicagoans are sheep. Lazy sheep, at that.

Comment by cassandra Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 9:06 am
Sorry, I mean inability to manage effectively.

Comment by cassandra Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 9:18 am
Regarding today’s scheduled vote on Toddler’s sales tax rollback veto at the Cook County Board Meeting, it should be noted here that the proponents of the override effort need to have their supportes on the Board actually be there and cast an “YEA” vote on the measure. An absent Commissioner, or one who fails to vote on the motion, is the same as a “NO” vote.

Comment by fedup dem Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 9:27 am
Put 3 jars on the table for the 10.25% tax on stuff you want to buy for every dollar you spend in Cook County, not on stuff anyone HAS to buy. Don’t include food, or medicine. In the first jar goes the 67 or so pennies that go to the state. In the second jar goes the 20 something pennies that go to the Fed’s and local municipalities. In the third jar goes the 1 and 3 quarters of a penny that goes to the County. Will somebody please explain how that 1 3/4 of a penny is the thing that’s causing all the damage? How rolling back 1/2 of a cent is gonna all of sudden make people start shopping again? Really?

State: 12 billion in the hole and rising every day.
City of Chicago: $550 million in the hole and rising every day.
County: Balanced with a penny increase after 13 years of no increase.

Also, there are 9 (someone check that number) independently elected Cook County officials that control budgets and jobs by the way. President Stroger controls less than 2 percent of the budget, as he does not control those other departments. How is it that he gets the entire blame for the problems in Cook County?

Also…how come you never see those questions in print?

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 10:48 am
The comments by Beale and Lyle are pretty appalling. According to them, white kids should be in private schools and not in public? How do they get away with making such deeply offensive comments?

Comment by OdysseusVL Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 10:49 am
This will go somewhere else, but it cannot be overlooked….As we all know Commando FraidieKat Kirk is on a big losing streak….CaribouBNarbie Invite, chickening out on adding more terrorists to our IL federal terrorists population and then wanting them.
Now his chief DC backer, former Prexy candidate WhackyJack has soiled himself with his foray into health care….”McCain was for far more drastic Medicare cuts before he was against them. In October 2008, the McCain campaign announced that the Senator would pay for his health plan “with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid … in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.” Those cuts would have reduced Medicare and Medicaid spending by as much as 20% over 10 years and cut into benefits…..”
Will the Commando send back all the cash WhackyJack helped him raise???????

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 11:46 am
Cassandra, the reason there are bad schools and good schools have to do with poverty levels.

Research shows that schools that are attended by a majority of students that live in poverty do not do as well of a job of educating even the middle classed students that attend.

This is because they tend to get overwhelmed by the problems attendant with poverty, everything from higher levels of learning disabilities due to lead and other environmental toxins to ODD and conduct disorders associated with genetic and or environmental factors (including frequently bad/neglectful parenting).

CPS is about 90% or more low income students. So there aren’t enough to do anything about economic desegregation. The selective enrollments are 65% non-low income (higher income people tend to try for the selective enrollments and when they don’t get in they go private or move–that accounts for the mathematical disparity).

The only way CPS could have all good schools is to have none that are majority poverty. There are occasionally breakout schools that buck the trend and manage to have excellence despite the poverty but these almost always stem from non-reproducible effects.

So CPS has a strategy of having the SEs for the motivated, bright students. Then there are charters for the motivated students who can’t get into the SEs, and then the neighborhood schools for the rest.

There’s probably a better way to do it, but no one seems to have found a magic bullet yet to educate students who grow up in a milieu of segregated poverty.

Comment by cermak_rd Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 12:15 pm
Opps more bad news for Commando Kirk….looks like a big backer of WhackyJack and CaribouBarbie pulls up lame in FL
“Rothstein’s office is filled with photos of him with politicians from around the country, including former President George W. Bush, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Arizona Sen. John McCain and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was also close to Miami Dolphins great Dan Marino and many South Florida business and community leaders.”

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 12:30 pm
We have to kill the waterway in order to save it. Dumping enough poison to kill everything in a six mile stretch of canal isn’t conservation, it’s not wildlife management, it isn’t green, it’s just insane.

Comment by HappyToaster Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 12:33 pm
Anon, your math is seriously off. By your extremely odd calculations IL’s share of the Chicago sales tax is over 38 times higher than Cook’s.

Comment by Independent Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 12:39 pm
Cook’s share of the Chicago sales tax on those “want to buy” items is 1.75/10.25, or just over 17% of the total.

Comment by Independent Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 12:46 pm
cermak-

I appreciate the explanation, but I can’t accept the notion that youngsters who grow up in poverty can’t be educated in such away that they can overcome that poverty. Especially, if you look at the amount of money involved–many, many billions in recent years if you are talking about Chicago.

It’s true that parents in poor neighborhoods may be too busy trying to survive to put pressure on the local school to ensure that every single child gets a high quality education. Or too busy to read up on educational theory and practice and
to combat the nefarious effects of a unionized teacher corps with lots of money to buy politicians and an allergy to performance pay and outcome measurement.

But to simply give up is inconceivable. I think the race-mongering is on the wrong track, but
the rage behind it is absolutely understandable.

Comment by cassandra Tuesday, Dec 1, 09 @ 3:34 pm