March 19th, 2009
I made a lot of noise about John Anderson’s proposed West State Street development, which would be in a large tract of land between State and School streets and Pierpont and Springfield avenues. It would feature a health care facility, retail and other businesses. I wrote about it because the city was stalling on the project for over a year. Monday night, the City Council approved an agreement between the City and Spring Creek Partners, and I applaud them for doing that. Now, let’s get started.
Next up is a project to rebuild and expand the Wayne Swanson fire academy at State and Pierpont. For more on that, read my Sunday column.
March 19th, 2009
The word I have is that Gov. Pat “Peotone” Quinn plans to come to Rockford on Monday to tout a Chinese company’s proposed solar energy factory at Chicago Rockford International Airport.
That’s adding insult to injury. This is the governor who has just revived the corpse of Peotone airport, surprising one and all by vowing to build it with all deliberate speed.
We might as well call this “Mid America II,” in honor of the other airport the state built east of Belleville at Scott Air Force Base. The state of the art airport has no airplanes. The airlines aren’t interested.
Meanwhile, if the governor hasn’t noticed, he should be aware of the fact that the U.S. keeps pumping money into Rockford’s airport because the FAA , Sen. Dick Durbin and Congressman Don Manzullo know that our airport, already the 18th largest cargo airport, is becoming a more important Chicagoland resource. We are set to begin nonstop passenger service to New York City via Newark, and the Baltimore-Washington area via BWI.
Durbin this week was successful in directing $5.3 million in economic funds to the airport. Most of the money will be used to rebuild a 30-year old taxiway; about $1 million will be used to expand and improve the international arrival terminal, which is in the portion of the airport headquarters building that used to house a fire station.
The Peotone airport has been a mistake from day one. Airlines don’t want it. We can’t afford it. There’s no need for it, except for politicians who want to dole out contracts and patronage jobs.
Let me remind the governor that this was George Ryan’s pet project, and it was closer to his home town of Kankakee than it was to Chicago. When he was governor, Illinois’ transportation department warned Rockford airport leaders not to push for passenger service here because it would hamper efforts to build Peotone.
Peotone languished during the chaos of the Blago era, and many people thought it would just die a natural death.
Why Quinn brought it up again is beyond me. I’ll ask him about it if he still shows up Monday.,
