Archive for August, 2008
August 15th, 2008
A few weeks ago I needed to break a $50 — which for a journalist is big money — and wandered to the nearest bank branch from the Newstower.
Since I was going to get change, I decided I’d buy a roll of the gold presidential dollar coins — by the end of the year the U.S. Mint already will be up to No. 8, Martin Van Buren.
But when I walked up to the teller and asked to break the $50, he asked me if I had an account there. I didn’t so I was told the policy was to only make change for people who have accounts with the bank.
What? I asked. I wasn’t looking to take any money away. I just wanted different kinds of money.
“That’s our policy,” I was told.
So I trudged back down State Street and, crossed the river, and found another bank.
Unfortunately, that bank had the same policy. I wondered if I was on to something big. Had a small courtesy to the public had gone the way of the full-service gas station.
Turns out I was just unlucky. There are 18 different banking institutions with branches in Rockford. I called a branch from each one and found 13 will make change without requiring an account. The five that told me over the phone that an account is required were JPMorgan Chase, Associated Bank, National City, Firth Third and Riverside Community Bank.
That’s not really a surprise because four of the five are very large regional or national banks. I looked on the Internet to see if any research had been done on this trend and couldn’t find any.
I’m not taking these banks to task — I assume it’s a guard against accepting counterfeit bills or a staffing issue. I’m just pointing it out in case you want to buy some of those gold dollars — the Andrew Jacksons are really sharp. To save time, you might want to hit a smaller, locally-based bank first.
August 14th, 2008
Realtors will readily admit that the real estate market of 2008 is much tougher than in the glory days of 2005 and 2006 when it seemed bidding wars were the norm.
It’s even much tougher than 2007, after the subprime mortgage bubble burst. Still, they stress time and time again that the market is much worse elsewhere.
That’s true even within Illinois.
The Illinois Association of Realtors publishes home prices by county quarterly, using both means and medians. In the second quarter, out of 16 northern Illinois counties, just five saw increases in the median price compared to 2007.
Fortunately, three of the counties were in the Rock River Valley — Boone, Ogle and Stephenson counties.
Winnebago County, though, was among the decliners. According to the state association, which bases its statistics off numbers received from the Rockford Area Association of Realtors, the median price in the second quarter for Winnebago County homes fell from $129,900 in 2007 to $118,500, an 8.8 percent increase.
That’s a tough drop, but Cook County homeowners had it even tougher. There median prices fell from $285,000 to $250,000, a 12.2 tumble.
To take a look at the report click here.
August 4th, 2008
Last week the Illinois Department of Transportation released its annual traffic stop data. The state has been collecting it since 2004 mostly to track whether certain departments are guilty of racial profiling when pulling someone over.
There’s a wealth of other information in there, though. One I thought was very interesting was the wide disparity in citation percentages. Not including the Illinois State Police, last year nineteen different police agencies in Boone, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago counties pulled over more than 500 motorists.
If you were unfortunate enough to be pulled over by a Winnebago County Sheriff’s Deputy, 86.8 percent of the time you received a citation. At the bottom end of the scale was the Rochelle Police Department. Out of the 1,507 motorists pulled over in Rochelle, only 601 — or 39.9 percent received citations.
There were strange disparities in several areas. Rockton, Roscoe and South Beloit are so intertwined that you can think you are in one town and actually be in another. If you are traveling on one of those in between roads and the lights go off behind you, according to the 2007 data, you should pray it’s a Rockton officer. Last year, Rockton officers gave tickets in just 51.1 percent of its traffic stops while South Beloit officers ticketed drivers 72.3 percent of the time and Roscoe officers issued citations 74.4 of the time.
The same issue pops up between Loves Park and Machesney Park. Machesney Park pays Winnebago County — and its 86.8 percent citation rate — to patrol its streets, while Loves Park has its own department and officers there ticketed drivers just 53.8 percent of the time.
There even was variation with the four sheriff’s departments. Stephenson County’s citation percentage was 82.7 percent and Boone County was 81.4 percent. But Ogle County deputies issued citations in just 1,157 of their 2,053 traffic stops — or 56.4 percent.
