In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, First Lady Michelle Obama read The Cat in the Hat aloud at the Library of Congress during the National Education Association’s Read Across America event yesterday.
Oh Illinois politics, you are so predictably and consistently colorful with your rich and recent history of “alleged” corruption and the occasional “indictment.” Illinois is a dream beat for a political reporter—you just can’t make up stories as good as we get them unless you were in perhaps Philadelphia or maybe Moscow. It would be entertaining if it wasn’t so sad. So, to cut to the chase, there’s a primary election Tuesday February 2 in which we will be selecting tomorrow’s reformers and headline makers—but also a raft of not-so-glamorous but awfully powerful public servants—among them, judges.
Who is running? Are they golden, are they crooked, are they beholden to the interests of the Amish special interests? You’ve gotta research this stuff, people, because those attack ads, well, they can be a bit inaccurate.
Start with Illinois voting info.
The Board of Election of Commissioners for the city of Chicago takes care of all your voting needs from information about polling places to how to use the balloting system. The site also allows you to preview sample ballots and has a list of all Democratic, Republican and Green party candidates running for office.
Meet the judges. Get comprehensive information about the candidates running for any judicial positions in Cook County. The site lists endorsements for candidates and ratings of candidates from professional organizations, including the Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Council of Lawyers and the Chicago Bar Association.
The Cook County Clerk lists nonpartisan information about the candidates, organized by political party. You can also view the full referenda and a schedule of public viewing.
Already have strong party ties? The Cook County Republicans will help you put a face to a name for candidates running in Cook County. There’s also a link to view federal candidates.
For undecided democrats, the Cook County Democratic Party provides endorsements and voting recommendations for each office.
Chicago’s local ABC station invited candidates to submit information about themselves, including stances on issues. Though not all responded, many of the contenders for the major offices did.
Governor Quinn’s YouTube channel
Challenger Dan Hynes’s YouTube channel
Chicago Reader’s “Election Follies”
NBC Chicago’s slide show of candidates
Tribune’s extensive coverage of the entire elections
The race for Comptroller might be the most colorful of all, more on that later.
Thanks to Amie Ninh and Julia Korol for compiling the links.
One of the state’s leading teachers unions is backing Democratic Dan Hynes and Republican Kirk Dillard in their respective governor primaries.
It marks the first time the political arm of the Illinois Education Association has issued separate endorsements in the governor’s race.
Read more on Clout Street at chicagotribune.com.
The seven Republican governor candidates used tonight’s debate to try to distinguish themselves as the best to bring new leadership to Springfield, vowing to create jobs to counter Democratic calls to raise taxes.
Little new ground was broken in the hour-long forum hosted by WLS-Ch. 7, the League of Women Voters of Illinois and the Better Government Association. The debate atmosphere largely was genteel and few criticisms were lobbed at rivals, belying the tensions of a large GOP field facing primary voters in less than three weeks.
Read more on Clout Street at chicagotribune.com.
Minutes after an armed bank heist in Calumet City last week, the three suspects met up at the home of one of their parents in neighboring Dolton. They barely were out of their vehicles when they heard sirens – getting louder and louder.
How had the cops tracked them down so quickly? The masks, getaway vehicles and meet-up location had all been mapped out earlier, but a relatively new feature in bank security – credit-card-size GPS devices hidden in stolen cash – led police almost instantly to the suspects, according to an FBI affidavit.
FBI and banking officials said they believed it was the first time the technology – similar to what is increasingly used in cell phones and other devices – had been deployed to solve a bank robbery in the ChicagoChicago reviews
region.
The FBI did use a GPS device last year to help free a man being held for $40,000 ransom, placing it in a bag of money tracked to a South SideSouth Side reviews
home.
The technology surfaced in Illinois banks about two years ago, said Illinois Bankers Association spokeswoman Debbie Jemison, and is so new the association isn’t sure how widespread its use is. But Jemison said newer security measures such as these may be part of the reason bank robberies have decreased.
The devices – which can broadcast GPS, cell-phone and RF signals that police can monitor using a Web browser – are not completely foolproof. A locksmith hired to work at one bank opened the vault while unsupervised and emptied a drawerful of cash – and a tracking device – into his toolbox, setting off an alarm, according to a 2008 wireless-industry presentation by Richard Fuller, co-founder of the firm that made the devices before it was acquired last year.
Police who responded watched as the device seemed to “shuffle” through the bank, but didn’t notice when the locksmith walked past them out the door. When the device moved away from the bank, officials at first thought it was “location uncertainty.”
The suspect then found the device while counting the cash at a McDonald’s and tossed it into the bed of the restaurant manager’s pickup truck, Fuller said. But he still got caught. After the manager turned the device over to police, witnesses reported seeing the locksmith counting cash at the restaurant.
It worked much better Dec. 30, officials said. Timothy Rucker, 33, Phillip Griffen, 31, and Brandon Barnes, 25, met at Rucker’s parents’ Dolton home to plan the robbery, according to an FBI affidavit. They settled on a TCF Bank branch at 493 Torrence Ave.
Two of the men, wearing black clothing with their faces covered, walked inside the bank about 10:40 a.m. One pointed a small handgun at a teller, and another jumped over the counter, officials said. They escaped with about $9,000 – and, unknown to them, two tracking devices – in a blue nylon bag.
The three returned to Rucker’s parents’ home in the 14600 block of Wabash Avenue in two cars, officials said.
Griffen apparently accidentally locked the keys in his car and was captured less than 10 minutes after the robbery when police saw him walking quickly away. While a police officer ran his name, Griffen rolled down a squad car window, opened the door and “jumped out,” before quickly being recaptured, the affidavit says.
About an hour after the robbery, authorities were allowed to enter the home where the GPS devices were located. In the basement, police found Barnes, a small handgun in a clothing bin and, behind a freezer, a blue nylon bag with $8,789, two tracking devices and eight bait bills.
The last bit of missing cash – $250 – was found in one of Barnes’ socks.
By the time Tucker returned in his father’s sedan, police had already searched the home, and Tucker was ready to tell federal agents “everything,” according to the affidavit.
While GPS devices are a bit more glamorous, most bank robberies are still solved with the help of security-camera footage, exploding dye packs and old-fashioned fingerprints.
Last month, William Baaske was arrested after a witness outside the Bolingbrook bank he’d allegedly just robbed saw a plume of red smoke pouring from a brown paper bag that Baaske was carrying, according to court documents. The witness wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle Baaske got into.
In June, police arrested Victor Delfi after he tried to deposit dye-stained cash he had allegedly stolen from another bank. Agents then found $1,250 in a waste bin behind his home that Delfi allegedly told authorities he threw out when the inked cash “started to smell up his house.”
A memorial service has been scheduled for the playground basketball legend who became a standout player at Dunbar High School and Northern Illinois University before moving on to the American Basketball Association.
A public memorial for Billy “The Kid” Harris will be held between 6:30 p.m. 9 p.m. Sunday at the UIC Pavilion, 525 S. Racine Ave.
Harris, 58, named by Slam magazine as “The Best Playground Baller Ever,” and twice inducted into the NIU Athletics Hall of Fame, died Sunday in Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center after suffering a stroke.
At NIU, Harris was named honorable-mention All-America in his senior year after averaging 24 points a game. He still holds the school’s back-to-back game scoring record, with 35 points against Long Beach State University at Madison Square Garden in New York and 42 points against Virginia Commonwealth University.
Harris was drafted by the ChicagoChicago reviews Bulls in the seventh round in 1973, but instead, played two seasons with the ABA’s San Diego Conquistadors.
Harris was also inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Chicago Public League Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Large crowds kicked off the holiday season today as the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival and parade on North Michigan Avenue.
The festival, sponsored by the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association, kicked off at 11 a.m. with music and other entertainment in Pioneer Court, just north of the ChicagoChicago reviews River on the east side of Michigan Avenue.
The parade, including floats and marching bands, stepped off from Oak Street on Michigan Avenue at about 5:30 p.m. and finishes with fireworks over the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive.
The entire parade route was filled with crowds, which organizers expected to be hundreds of thousands of people.
–Staff report
A major charitable event is happening in Little Rock, Arkansas, Saturday, and former Bill Clinton apparently will not be in attendance because MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has politicized it on his "Countdown" program.
As Arkansas News reported hours ago, "Nine hundred people or more will get free medical attention from noon to 7 p.m. at the Statehouse Convention Center."
Unfortunately, according to the liberal website FireDogLake, Clinton has decided not to attend as a result of some of the things Olbermann has done on his program related to this event (h/t Hot Air):
Bill Clinton told FDL’s Eve Gittelson that it would be problematic for him to attend a free medical clinic being held in Little Rock, Arkansas tomorrow because MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had “politicized” the event.” He indicated that some were turning the event into a primary kickoff against Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Eve ran into Clinton Thursday in the gift shop of the Clinton Library. She’s in Arkansas covering the Keith Olbermann’s free clinic event, organized by the National Association of Free Clinics. The former President is in town for the 5th anniversary of the Clinton Library. [...]
Eve told Clinton that she was in town for the clinic, which at least 1,500 patients are expected to attend. Clinton said that he had heard about it.
"I really wanted him to come," she said. "So I made my pitch." [...]
Clinton responded that Olbermann was politicizing the clinic, and that it wasn’t helpful for Olbermann to do that. He said he did not feel he could show up now, because the event had turned political. [...]
Clinton replied that the event was becoming political, and that it was clear what was happening: a primary of Blanche Lincoln.
Olbermann, who has invited his viewers to contribute to the National Association of Free Clinics in advance of the event, has said on his show that “I want Sens. (Blanche) Lincoln and (Mark) Pryor to see what health care poverty is really like in Little Rock.” Lincoln has met recently with Joe Biden and President Obama, but has yet to agree to vote for debate on health care to proceed in the Senate.
I wonder if Clinton will be Olbermann’s "Worst Person in the World" Monday.
Sphere: Related ContentKicking off the holiday season the weekend before Thanksgiving, the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival was expected to bring 800,000 people and close streets downtown this morning.
The festival, sponsored by the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association, is scheduled to start at 11 a.m., according to organizers. It kicks off with music and other entertainment on the Harris Stage and family activities in Pioneer Court, just north of the ChicagoChicago reviews River east of Michigan Avenue.
Activities culminate with a parade that steps off from Oak Street on Michigan Avenue at 5:30 p.m. and fireworks at 6:55 p.m. over the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, according to a press release from the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association. (Visit the festival’s Web site HERE.)
Crowds watch last year’s Magnificent Mile Lights Festival parade at Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive. (Tribune/ Candice C. Cusic)
The following streets were being closed for the festival:
–Walton Street, from State Street to Dearborn Street, starting at 4 p.m. Friday until 6 p.m. today;
–Upper Illinois Street, east of Michigan Avenue, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today;
–Oak Street, from State to Dearborn, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. today;
–Oak Street from State to Michigan; North Michigan from Oak to Wacker; and Upper Wacker Drive from Michigan east, all from 4:45 p.m. to about 7 p.m. today
The CTA also is providing more trains on the Red Line, and longer trains on the Pink, Brown and Orange lines. The CTA also is rerouting buses:
–From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, the northbound No. 22/Clark Street bus will be rerouted from Dearborn to Chicago Avenue, then LaSalle Street, then take Division back to its regular route on Clark Street. The southbound No. 22 will not be affected. At the same time, the eastbound No. 70/Division bus will turn around at LaSalle Street instead of at Dearborn.
–During the parade and fireworks, starting about 5:30 p.m., buses that normally travel along Michigan Avenue will be diverted to nearby streets. The Routes are: No. 3/King Drive; No. 4/Cottage Grove; No. 6/Jackson Park Express; No. 10/Museum of Science & Industry; No. 36/Broadway; No. 66/Chicago; No. 145/Wilson-Michigan Express; No. 147/Outer Drive Express; No. 151/Sheridan.
For details on the bus reroutes, visit the CTA’s Web site at TransitChicago.com.
Scores of residents at Wednesday night’s Barrington Hills Zoning Board of Appeals meeting expressed their displeasure with a proposed ordinance that would limit how much light could be emitted from their properties.
The village is considering a proposed ordinance to help bring “dark sky” designation to the village, which would be bestowed by the Arizona-based International Dark-Sky Association, which encourages astronomy. Wording in a draft of the ordinance would limit lumen output of lights in the village and restrict where the lights could be located.
“I paid $50,000 for landscaping lights on my property,” said Gary Tobias, a village resident who spoke out against the propose ordinance. “This ordinance doesn’t allow you to have much more than a candle.”
Brian McManus Sr., a former Barrington Hills trustee, said he can recall only a few issues that have generated such a public response.
“I’ve got a feeling that the majority of residents don’t want this lighting ordinance,” McManus said. “Look up at the sky, through the pollution, and you can see airplanes. You want to see stars? Those days are over.”
Connie Uccetta, a village resident, called the proposed ordinance “a Draconian measure.” She said residents of Barrington Hills live on big lots and need lights for security.
Jonathan Knight, chairman of the ZBA, continued the meeting to sometime in January. He said members of the board will discuss what recommendation they will make to the Board of Trustees.
–Tim Kane
The loss of a second trade show that meant big business for ChicagoChicago reviews is putting quick and powerful pressure on McCormick Place, the city’s showcase convention center, to combat the impression that the Second City costs too much to visit.
The plastics industry trade show on Tuesday said it is moving to Orlando, Fla., for 2012 and 2015 after nearly four decades in Chicago. The announcement follows a decision by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society last week to move its 2012 annual meeting to Las Vegas. Both shows cited the high cost of doing business in Chicago.
The plastic show’s decision to leave is “a very serious loss,” Mayor Richard Daley said, calling on unions and others working at the convention center to change fee structures and onerous work rules so Chicago can better compete for major shows.
“I think they have to go back, everybody involved, and say ‘This is a serious situation. It’s a serious situation for hotels, retail, (the media), everything,’ ” Daley said. “Because if the shows keep dwindling down, there will be less and less activity at McCormick Place, and that will have a deep effect on the state, county and city governments, the revenue.”
A lot is riding in the balance. Some 45.6 million visitors spent an estimated $11.8 billion in Chicago last year, generating $656 million in tax revenue, according to the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau. Business and convention visitors contributed close to half that spending.
“We will take a look at this very important economic engine, because our engine is in need of a major tuneup,” said Juan Ochoa, chief executive of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, or McPier, which owns and operates McCormick Place.
A task force of officials from McPier, the convention bureau, the unions that work at McCormick Place, the restaurant industry and the city’s hotels will convene Wednesday to attempt to devise ways to make Chicago more competitive.
And McPier will continue to seek a restructuring of its debt in Springfield as a way to ease its financial squeeze, a crunch that has hampered its efforts to match deals offered by competitors, Ochoa said. The agency also may seek a subsidy for its operations, he said, but only if the economic climate improves.
Plastics show officials said they expect their move to yield up to $20 million in savings for exhibitors and attendees, with more than half coming from savings in travel-related costs, including hotel, restaurant meals and parking.
The defections to the city’s chief rivals occur as the deep recession is cutting into the tourism and convention business, leading McPier to decide this week to trim its work force by 20 percent, or about 100 positions, as part of a larger cost-cutting program aimed at trimming a projected $28.8 million deficit this fiscal year.
The plastics show, known as NPE and produced by SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, is triennial. The June show, which drew 44,000 attendees, likely will turn out to be the 9th largest of the year for McCormick Place, generating an estimated $95.3 million in spending locally.
But the show is exiting after exhibitors complained about high costs. “With the deep recession, costs really exacerbated themselves,” said William Carteaux, president and chief executive of the association.
The plastics show said much of the savings in moving to Orlando will be derived from travel expenses, but officials say the high cost of union labor to assemble anything at McCormick put a crimp in exhibitor’s willingness to bring along their sophisticated machines. Seeing those machines in action is critical to buyers.
“With the cost structure in Orlando, we can put on a more high-quality event,” Carteaux said.
By moving to Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center, average exhibitor costs would drop by 48 percent for utilities, 19 percent for on-site hauling and rigging, 23 percent for lodging and 11 percent for travel, the trade group determined in an in-depth study this year.
The group examined detailed bills from the 2009 show, and compared them to projected costs in Orlando in 2012. For example, one exhibitor with a midsize booth paid $6,167 for utility service at McCormick Place, but would see that cut by 43 percent, or $2,648, in Orlando due to lower labor charges, the group determined.
UnionThe Union reviews work rules are another issue.
The extra labor expense of putting on a show in Chicago is often due to union rules that require certain levels of staffing and don’t permit exhibitors to perform many of the tasks required to build exhibits.
“A right-to-work state, like Florida, allows us to best mimic what our exhibitors are used to on an international basis,” said Gene Sanders, senior vice president for trade shows for the association. In overseas shows, exhibitors “typically are able to assemble their own equipment and do a lot of their own work.”
Daley acknowledged that unions working at McCormick Place agreed to previous work-rule changes, but said those changes weren’t sufficient. “We will meet with the plastics show and talk to them about some of the changes they wanted.”
–Kathy Bergen and John Byrne
Click HERE for a WGN-TV report on this story.
ChicagoChicago reviews is losing a premier medical trade show to Las Vegas because of the
high cost of electrician services at McCormick Place, the show organizer said
late Wednesday.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems
Society, which held its annual meeting at McCormick Place for the first time in
April, is taking its 2012 show to the Sands Expo and Convention Center and the
adjacent Venetian hotel.
The show rotates between several cities, and
2012 had been the next window for Chicago, which is trying to establish itself
as a center for medical meetings.
Chicago was ruled out after show
exhibitors and organizers were slammed with electrical services bills that were
four to 10 times greater than what they paid at last year’s show in Orlando,
Fla., for identical services, said Steve Lieber, president and CEO of the
Chicago-based association.
One small exhibitor saw its
electrical-services bill climb from $4,000 in Orlando to $40,000 in Chicago, for
the same booth, he said, adding that others saw costs rise by four to eight
times what they paid in Orlando.
While hourly rates are not significantly
higher here, the number of workers required and the number of hours billed for
identical jobs are much greater, he said.
“The feedback from our
exhibiting companies told us Chicago is not ready for us,” Lieber said. “The
companies that support our trade show are not in a position to be able to foot
those kind of bills, especially in this economy.”
The 2009 show in the
West Building was a choice piece of business for the city, drawing 27,000
attendees and generating an estimated $55 million in spending locally. McCormick
Place officials had touted its arrival as a sign that the city was on track to
becoming the world’s medical meetings headquarters.
The loss is a
disappointment, acknowledged Juan Ochoa, chief executive of Metropolitan Pier
and Exposition Authority, which owns and operates the convention center.
But the city has had some wins as well, he said. In September, the
American Society of Clinical Oncology committed to holding its annual meeting of
nearly 30,000 cancer specialists at McCormick Place for 10 years, starting in
2010.
And Ochoa said he hoped the city at some point could win back the
medical show. The authority restructured its electrician labor pool in
September, cutting it to 50 workers from 150, in an effort to retain only the
most skilled, he said.
“Upcoming shows will experience the most
customer-friendly and efficient electrical staff, which will cut their costs,”
he said.
The health care information association “is hoping that will
start to make some difference,” said Lieber, noting that Chicago’s central
location and health care industry concentration make it very attractive.
“But they couldn’t give us any kind of assurance that we wouldn’t see
similar type of bills in 2012,” he said.
A lesser issue for the group had
been the cost of hotel rooms for the 2009 show, and the reluctance of hotels to
budge from prices locked in prior to the deep recession, he said. But,
ultimately, some hotels modified their rates for 2009, and the hotels got
competitive when negotiating for the 2012 show, he added.
The group’s
decision to go to Las Vegas comes as Chicago is fighting to save the plastics
industry trade show, a triennial show that has been a major staple at McCormick
Place since 1971. The show’s producer, SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade
Association, also cited the high costs of exhibiting here as a factor in its
decision to consider a move to Orlando in 2012.
A decision is expected by
year-end.
The medical society’s decision comes less than a month after
Mayor Richard Daley told the Tribune editorial board that he will seek a major
overhaul in the way Chicago markets itself as a destination for tourism and
conventions.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – It’s been Taylor Swift’s year, and Wednesday was her night as she became the youngest person and the first solo female act in a decade to win the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year award.
Sphere: Related ContentAs the economic downturn drags on, Chicagoans are increasingly stressed about work and job stability, according to a new survey from the American Psychological Association, released today.
But people may be mastering the art of managing stress: More Chicagoans are exercising, walking and reading while fewer are eating excessively, drinking alcohol, shopping too much or smoking to help deal with their feelings, the survey reports (chicagotribune.com/relax).
“We think people are habituating to stress,” said Dr. Nancy Molitor, public education coordinator for the Illinois Psychological Association. “It’s the new normal.”
Seventy-two percent of Chicagoans listed their work as a significant source of stress in the survey, compared with 66 percent last year. Job stability evoked substantial discomfort for 52 percent of 208 adults who participated in the study this summer, compared with 42 percent last year.
This year significantly fewer adults said they were feeling depressed or sad (28 percent in 2009 versus 47 percent in 2008), suffering from headaches (23 percent versus 40 percent last year) or experiencing irritability or anger (32 percent versus 56 percent).
“People are just sort of enduring difficult situations and going through the motions, doing whatever they think they have to do to get by,” Molitor said.
That may be sapping their motivation to lead healthier, better-balanced lives. A whopping 46 percent said they lacked the willpower to make needed lifestyle changes, even if told they had a chronic condition. Nationally, only one-third of adults reported a similar failure of willpower.
SPRINGFIELD — Advocates for the mentally ill today continued to push for a major overhaul of how Illinois handles psychiatric patients, arguing the state should end its unique reliance on nursing homes to house people who could be treated more cheaply and effectively in community settings.
The volatile mix of felons, mentally ill people and seniors in Illinois facilities today serves none of those populations, advocates said, and records show elderly and disabled residents have been assaulted, raped and even murdered in the homes.
Several speakers urged Gov. Pat Quinn’s Nursing Home Safety Task Force to expand the meager subsidized housing for people with mental illness – less institutionalized settings where people might get proper treatment, life-skills counseling and other services.
“Nursing homes have become dumping grounds for the state to warehouse young and middle-age people with mental illness,” said Barbara McGoldrick, who described how she was forced to move her 39-year-old son to Minnesota to find supported housing for people with schizophrenia. “Since deinstitutionalization in the early 1960s, Illinois has from the beginning broken its promise and fallen short in providing community-based housing to those people who were moved out of the institutions.”
With the help of federal housing authorities, McGoldrick’s son, now 47, returned to Illinois and now resides in Naperville with three people who once lived in nursing homes, she said.
Task force Chairman Michael Gelder responded to her that “we are diligently at work on all the issues that you have raised. … We know that we need thousands of additional ways to serve people in the community.”
It was the third hearing held by the panel, which was formed in response to a Tribune investigation that found government, law enforcement and the industry have failed to adequately manage a growing influx of younger adults who cycle into nursing facilities from jail cells, shelters and psychiatric wards. The panel will submit a report to Quinn by Jan. 31.
Mentally ill people thrive in supported housing, and studies show it costs taxpayers about a quarter of the per-person price for nursing home care, said Lore Baker of the Supportive Housing Providers Association.
Illinois relies more heavily than any other state on nursing homes to house psychiatric patients, records show. Mentally ill people are no more likely than others to be dangerous or to commit crimes if given proper treatment, numerous studies have shown. But on Thursday, one speaker after another questioned whether the state’s nursing homes provide meaningful treatment to psychiatric residents.
“The residents with mental illness are not getting their needs met in nursing homes,” said Jamie Freschi, who handles patient-safety complaints as the state’s regional ombudsman in Springfield. “Facilities do not have the staff to monitor these residents.”
Several speakers also focused on the need for more immediate reforms, such as tightening the assessments of individuals entering nursing homes.
The Health Care Council of Illinois, a trade association of nursing homes, recommended that patients with violent backgrounds be reassessed annually to determine their risk to other residents, and said the assessments should include psychiatric and behavioral data.
“Some kind of risk assessment is better than nothing,” said Terry Sullivan, regulatory director.
Gov. Pat Quinn today appointed a longtime social service advocate to sit on the board that regulates utilities in the state.
Quinn named John Colgan of Springfield to serve on the Illinois Commerce Commission.
He replaces Robert Lieberman, an appointee of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich who resigned from the commission in May.
Colgan, 62, who helped found the Illinois Hunger Coalition in 1989, serves as vice president for public policy at the Illinois Association of Community Action Agencies, a coalition of groups seeking to improve the health, education and economic standards of low-income residents.
He said he will work to balance the needs of consumers against the rights of utility companies to make a reasonable profit.
Colgan will be paid $117,000 a year.
Sphere: Related Content
Rush Limbaugh is no stranger to controversy.
Every word uttered by the pugnacious pill-popper ignites a firestorm that even Beelzebub would want no part of.
It is that same polarizing quality that has denied the jolly racially intolerant fat man the distinct privilege of owning an NFL franchise.
Caving to public pressure applied by current players, the NFLPA, and civil rights dunderhead Al Sharpton, Dave Checketts has dropped the Limbaugh from his bidding team, a move that underscores the level of toxicity associated with the shock jock.
Read more…
Frank Lenti, 26-year head football coach at Mt. Carmel High School,
will have to serve a two-game suspension because of violations by
the school of the Illinois High School Association’s recruitment
rules, the Tribune’s Colleen Kane reports.
Sphere: Related Content
