October 26th, 2009 03:39pm
Wally Haas
I was in Springfield last weekend for the Illinois Conservation Congress, the first such gathering in six years.
Read Chris Young of the Springfield State Journal Register HERE and HERE.
Read Dale Bowman of the Chicago Sun-Times HERE.
I have been interested in the outdoors and conservation for as long as I can remember. I’ve canoed, kayaked, hunted, fished, camped, biked and hiked (when I had my original knees). In high school, which was many, many years ago, I won a scholarship to a conservation workshop at Illinois State University. Recently, I’ve written columns about how the Illinois Department of Natural Resources was “decimated” by the Blagojevich administration and how I think new DNR Director Marc Miller can turn the agency around. Read latest column HERE.
One of the points made by Miller and others during the Congress was that DNR needs our (Congress members, the public) help to restore the agency to what Gov. Pat Quinn thinks should be “second to none.”
Funding is a big part of that, as Bowman points out. Politics, however, may be a bigger part.
Blagojevich was able to nearly kill the DNR because there was little public outcry when the agency was being cut. Some of my Congress colleagues disagreed and said there was plenty of outrage where they lived. I didn’t see much concern about the agency and the work it does until Blagojevich closed the state parks. That helped focus outdoor lovers, but by that time it was too late for DNR.
Another Congress participant said because the DNR had cut itself off from constituents, the constituents didn’t care anymore.
The Congress brought together what Bowman termed an “eclectic” group. I counted more than 90 affiliations. There were traditional hooks & bullets types and all kinds of advocates for parks, waterways, trails, etc.
A couple of participants urged this eclectic group to become a political force, to keep outdoor issues in front of a legislative power structure whose knowledge of the outdoors ends at the Daley Plaza.
If the Congress members become politically active, it could help the DNRÂ provide more public access for outdoor activities. Illinois ranks 48th out of 50 states in land available to the public. That’s abysmal.
The Congress was an opportunity for those of us with varying interests to get to know each other and each other’s issues and perhaps find common ground so we can enjoy the activities we advocate.
I’ll have more about the Congress in Friday’s print and online editions.
October 23rd, 2009 08:43am
Wally Haas
Sorry, I was slow to moderate the comments about reader-submitted cartoons. There are 19 comments there now, two are responses from me. Click HERE.
There is no plan to eliminate the reader-submitted cartoons. I wanted to know what readers thought of them, just as I did when I posed a similar question about Doonesbury a few years ago.
October 22nd, 2009 12:57pm
Wally Haas
A young woman was killed in Chicago when she was run over by a delivery truck. Read the Tribune story HERE.
There’s a good discussion about bicycle safety in the comments under the story. Although Chicago is a tougher city to bike, I think some of the things Trib readers write apply to Rockford cyclists as well.
I can relate to the cyclist who was killed. When I was a pre-teen growing up in Chicago, I once fell off my bike and saw it slide under a truck. The truck crushed the bike, but I was OK except for some scrapes and bruises. Reading about the latest Chicago incident made me realize how lucky I was way back then.
In good bike news, there’s this Associated Press story out of Fort Wayne, Ind.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Fort Wayne’s mayor wants to make bicycling more convenient by adding more than 100 bike racks around the city’s downtown.
Mayor Tom Henry says public comment has show downtown as the top destination people want to reach with their bikes. He says about $19,000 will be spent on the 117 bike racks, which will be installed at numerous spots downtown, along with Headwaters Park and the Parkview Field baseball stadium.
Officials also are working on plans to designate bike travel lanes on several city streets. That work is expected to begin next spring.
October 21st, 2009 02:24pm
Wally Haas
Don Schlomann, who left Belvidere two years ago, closed St. Charles East High School because so many students were absent with swine flu, seasonal flu and bronchitis.
More than 900 of the school’s 2,200 students were sick Tuesday. In a story by The Associated Press, Schlomann said he hopes weekend athletic events will go on as scheduled. He said he hopes school can reopen Monday.
So far, three Illinois schools have closed because of flu-like illnesses.
October 21st, 2009 10:58am
Wally Haas
A couple of colleagues at other newspapers and a few folks here at the News Tower have told me that they think it’s time to ditch the reader-submitted cartoons that we publish Sundays.
We’ve been accepting cartoons for at least a decade, but in recent years only a handful of people have been sending us their work. The original idea was to allow those who do better with art than words to have an outlet for their opinions. We envisioned dozens of folks sending us cartoons every week and then choosing the best two or three. That hasn’t happened.
Some of the better cartoonists moved away, got too busy with their real jobs, or died.
Also, when we started with those cartoons, we had an Opinions section, i.e, more space to publish them. Now that we only have two pages on Sundays, is it time to use that space for other material?
I’d like to get your thoughts.
October 19th, 2009 04:40pm
Wally Haas
Illinois Department of Natural Resources Director Marc Miller will be in town Thursday night to speak at the Flatlanders Chapter of Muskies Inc. meeting. The meeting is free and open to anyone who cares about hunting, fishing, waterways, or anything else under the DNR’s huge umbrella.
Miller will speak for a while and then take questions.
The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at the VFW in Loves Park, 2018 Windsor Road.
I wrote about Miller on Friday. HERE’s a link. The DNR’s online survey was taken down Friday so ignore that reference in the column.
This weekend (Sept. 24-25) is the Illinois Conservation Congress. Wisconsin has had a Conservation Congress for 75 years and it seems to be working pretty well. Illinois hasn’t had one it about six years.
The purpose of the Congress is to have the people who use the resources the DNR manages to have a say. Read more HERE.
I’m going to attend. I’m secretary and membership chairman for the Flatlanders Chapter of Muskies Inc. so I’m very interested in how the DNR works with clubs like ours. Read more about the Flatlanders HERE.
October 13th, 2009 02:34pm
Wally Haas
Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey wrote a guest column for last Sunday’s paper about the city’s budget challenges before a tentative deal was reached with the city’s firefighters. City Legal Director Patrick Hayes called me about 7:30 Friday night to let me know the firefighters had a tentative deal and whether we could add an editor’s note to the mayor’s article that said it was written before the deal.
I said it would be better to have the mayor re-write the piece, which the mayor did. However, the mayor’s original article was posted online without an editor’s note. We took that down and posted the revised version when it was brought to our attention that the version online was not the version in the print edition.
Some folks are trying to make a controversy of this and have all kinds of conspiracy theories. It’s not a big deal. We should have kept the original up and added the revised version instead of replacing the original. There’s nothing to hide. HERE’s a link to the original. HERE’s the revised version.
October 9th, 2009 07:46am
Wally Haas
The Editorial Board has long advocated that the Winnebago County Board be cut in half. Champaign County is the most recent county to consider a reduction in it’s county board. Read the News-Gazette’s editorial on the topic HERE.
I particularly liked this paragraph: “Unfortunately, the same board members who adamantly refuse to join in the heavy lifting often are the same ones who adamantly refuse to reduce the board’s size. Why? Either because it might cost them a seat on the board, something they’re loath to surrender, or compel them to expend some energy if elected to a smaller board.”
October 6th, 2009 12:52pm
Wally Haas
Since the Barmore shooting, there have been some in Rockford — and outside of Rockford — who have called for a citizens police review board. Urbana has such a board. Read today’s editorial from the Champaign-Urbana News Gazette HERE.
September 30th, 2009 10:58am
Wally Haas
I think Chicago will get the 2016 Olympics, mainly because of money.
First, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley told the Olympic committee the city will accept the financial burden (ouch).
Second, TV, which drives just about everything in sports, would profit more by having an Olympics in the U.S. than it would to schlep announcers, camera people and crew to Rio, the site Senior Editor Chuck Sweeny thinks will get the bid. (Read Chuck’s blog HERE.)
Third, Vegas is betting on Chicago. I don’t know much about these things, but the odds of Chicago winning are -133. Rio’s odds are +300.
Personally, I don’t think President Obama would travel to Copenhagen for the announcement unless someone tipped him off that Chicago was going to win. I think the decision has been made and Obama’s presence is more for show than a last-ditch attempt to get the Games.
Chuck’s right that it’s South America’s turn to host an Olympics. That would be fair, but I don’t see fairness winning this one.
We’ll find out Friday.
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