Archive for May, 2009
May 31st, 2009
So I turned on the computer at 11:30 p.m. to see what the Legislature had passed as relates to a budget, and I read this “half a loaf” story.
Well, those guys are loafers, that’s for sure. I assume that state agencies are supposed to spend their “half budget” and then turn out the lights and go home.
More likely, Gov. Quinn will call a special session this summer. Now that June is here, legislation requires a supermajority, meaning Republican votes will be needed to pass a tax increase. I’m thinking that legislators punted on the tax increase because they feared encountering “people with pitchforks” on the county fair circuit this summer.
Taxes will be raised. Just not yet.
May 29th, 2009
It sure was great to see Fred Ford again — on the tarmac of Chicago Rockford International Airport. He resigned as airport director in 1994 and hasn’t been back since. Ford, now an airport consultant, brought some Floridians up here to see what Rockford has done that they can replicate. The folks from Lakeland and Hardee County want to grow their airports and we’re growing an airport, so they took notes during a visit Thursday.
For those of you remember Fred, he looks about the same, just slightly older. He’s still chomping on a cigar, probably not the same one he had when he worked here, though.
It’s not that I hadn’t seen him over the years since he left Rockford in 1994. Fred still cares deeply about RFD’s progress; we have met several times in Chicago at Gene and Georgetti and I can tell you he continued to help RFD.
Without Fred Ford’s vision and courage to take educated risks, we would not have the UPS freight hub. That’s the second largest hub in UPS’s system. It put RFD on the map as a player in the airfield industry. And it made it possible for Bob O’Brien to build on the Ford foundation (pun intended.)
I was glad we had Fred, and I’m glad we have Bob, who also is a visionary and not afraid to take a risk.
It’s the guy in between the two, James Loomis, we could have done without as far as I’m concerned.
Read more about Fred and The Floridians’ visit in my Sunday column here at rrstar.com.
May 29th, 2009
Fearless prediction: The General Assembly will not pass Gov. Quinn’s tax increase. Nor will lawmakers pass a Doomsday budget. They will pass some sort of continuing resolution that keeps the current budget in place until they come back in a special session, when Democrats will attempt to get some Republicans to support a tax increase.
Reasons: It’s summertime. Lawmakers don’t want to get slugged on the county fair circuit by angry taxpayers. They’ll wait to do this until we’re all preoccupied with Christmas shopping.
May 28th, 2009
If you saw my column today on rrstar.com., you know that local contractor Ringland-Johnson is arguing with the city of Rockford over its bid to remove the Main Street portion of the old downtown mall. Ringland-Johnson is low bidder for the job, approximately $1.9 million. Stenstrom Construction bid just $17,000 higher, and so Ringland said it should get the job because it is the low bidder.
The city says R-J isn’t qualified because it doesn’t meet its standard for installing paving bricks. But R-J is adamant that it can do the job properly and should get the bid.
Meanwhile, in Ogle County, R-J is the second lowest bidder for a job to remodel the Ogle County Courthouse in downtown Oregon.
R-J argues in Ogle County that it should get the bid, despite being higher than the low bidder.
Read the story, from oglecountynews.com, here:
May 28th, 2009
Talk about do as I say, not as I do. The Telegraph (UK) has a story on the deepening scandal in Westminster over MP’s expense accounts. I love this one about a radical socialist MP who spent 22,000 pounds redecorating her Lambeth (that’s a working class area of London) flat. The champion of the proletariat certainly likes living a Tory lifestyle. Read it here:
May 22nd, 2009
Attention, attention: this is a missing persons alert. Have you seen these School Board members: Alice Saudargas, Jeanne Westholder, Harmon Mitchell and Lisa Jackson?
Incredibly, the Rockford School Board couldn’t muster a quorum for a hearing on Dr. Patrick Hardy’s Sigma Beta charter school proposal. So, the hearing may have no effect at all on the Sigma Beta charter process. Hardy had done his homework and the gallery at the School Board headquarters was packed with supporters. But because there were only three board members there — President David Kelley, Bob Evans and Jude Makulec — neither the board nor administrators could ask questions.
This is pathetic. I mean, I know board members don’t get paid, but still, they ran because they wanted to serve on the board of the largest and by far most expensive government in Winnebago County.
This simply will not do. Mitchell. Saudargas. Jackson. Westholder. Where were you? What’s your excuse? Were any of you afraid to show up because this charter is perhaps more controversial than others?
May 21st, 2009
So, just when everybody thought House Speaker Mike Madigan would be the hold-up to the capital bill, turns out that it’s Gov. Pat Quinn who may be th hold up man. And Madigan’s willingness to essentially run the same bill Senate passed could mean he’s either getting a lot of heat from the construction trades, or that daughter and AG Lisa Madigan is not running for governor, or both. (The latest scenarios have Ms. Madigan running for Senate. I don’t think she will.)
Quinn, in the tried and true tradition of Illinois’ gotcha politics, says lawmakers should pass a budget before he signs the $29 billion capital bill that’s now on his desk.
Quinn wants the legislature to pass a budget that includes a 50 percent increase in the state income tax, from 3 precent to 4.5 percent. This, combined with modest budget cuts and skipping a pension payment, is supposed to fill in the state’s $11.6 billion budget hole.
But senators and representatives don’t want to raise taxes an then go home this summer to confront angry voters at the county fairs, ethnic fests and air shows.
The best of both short term worlds for them would be to meet their constituents at those fairs and tell them, “We passed a capital plan to bring back our economy, and we didn’t raise taxes.”
Quinn wants to force the issue by holding up that capital bill. He warns of a doomsday budget that the General Assembly may pass, which would reduce funding 25 percent for state departments and contracted services.
Probably it would make sense for Quinn to sign the capital plan, let the clock run out on the budget and call a special session very soon. This would require some Republican votes in the House, which is what Democrats want because they don’t want to be the only ones responsible for raising taxes.
Quinn doesn’t like legalized video poker in corner bars and veterans’ clubs, which is supposed to generate from $200 million to $400 million in state taxes a year, money that would go to capital projects. But there’s already video poker, and everyone who goes to bars knows that those poker machines are played all day long — I don’t think it’s just for the fun of it. Might as well legalize the machines and tax ‘em.
Gambling machines in local bars was something the late Rep. Zeke Giorgi wanted, saying it would help the little guys who owned neighborhood bars.
The pressure’s on Quinn to sign this capital bill, because the longer the state goes without addressing major needs, the worse off we’ll be, because these repair projects don’t get cheaper as the years go by.
May 17th, 2009
Winnebago County’s forest preserve governance bill has cleared the General Assembly by a near-unanimous vote and now awaits Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature.
See my Sunday column on the topic here:
May 16th, 2009
I see the Obama administration is talking about ending the “war on drugs” that’s been so popular with our political class over the past 25 years.
Whether anything actually changes in the short term is open for interpretation, but the hypocrisy all of this among people of “My Generation” is absolutely ridiculous.
People of the Baby boom and Gen X generations love to gather in social settings and recall their younger days. They joke that “if you remember the 1960s (or 1970s) you weren’t there,” meaning, of course, that in their social circles, everyone was high on drugs. They generally agree that they had a wonderful time while floating on a chemical Cloud Nine.
Meanwhile, on the streets of 21st century America, cops and federal agents dragoon young, mostly poor, nonwhite people, and throw them behind bars because they use, sell or deal in drugs. Judges sentence them strictly and they fill up the prisons.
There’s a gigantic disconnect at work here. If “My Generation” did not think drugs were a big deal, why do we — the generation that now runs everything — persist with this War on Drugs? on younger generations?
Sooner or later Americans will legalize marijuana, and perhaps other drugs. We tried prohibition of alcoholic beverages once, and it made most Americans criminals, because they continued to drink. Their supply of booze came from a vast criminal enterprise that made untold billions of dollars.
We finally repealed the 18th amendment in 1934 and legalized booze, then taxed it heavily.
Sooner or later, this country will be forced to begin a serious discussion of the legalization of drugs. Not because we want to, but because it will dawn on us that we can’t afford the war. We can’t keep building bigger and bigger prisons to house the teeming millions involved in the many criminal enterprises associated with illegal drug making, drug sales and use.
May 16th, 2009
The news that Strandquist Chrysler has been yanked from the ranks of Chrysler dealers by the rapidly downsizing Chrysler LLC is a body blow to downtown Rockford, particularly the west side part of it. Strandquist, in business since the 1940s, will no longer be able to sell new Chrysler products. The firm says it will soldier on as a used car dealer, parts and maintenance operation.
Strandquist is the last of the new car dealers on the west side of Rockford. Once, most of them were there. I can remember as a child of 6 when my parents and I went down to Nash Illinois to buy a brand-new red and white 1955 Nash Statesman Custom, with the fancy tire kit on the back, dual carb and a stick shift with overdrive, which, as my father constantly reminded me, (I don’t know why) kicked in at precisely 28 mph.
It wasn’t the first Nash we had — our previous Nash was a 1951 bathtub Hydra-Matic Nash so underpowered that the car went from zero to 60 in about 15 days.
The ‘55 Nash was much faster, and it was the first new car in the family since my dad’s parents bought a Willys-Overland just after World War I in 1919. (In World War II, Willys-Overland had the contract to provide the Army with a General Purpose Vehicle, or GP. It was instantly and forever known as the Jeep.)
Nash Illinois became Rockford Rambler, and we bought six more cars from them throughout the 1960s.
Why’d we buy AMC cars? Simple. My dad knew the owner of the dealership and got good deals. Nash Illinois/Rockford Rambler was located on the block now occupied by the bus garage.)
Other west side downtown dealers I remember were: Blackhawk Pontiac (which later became Rockford Honda) and Bill Hembrough Buick, both on West State Street; Williamson Ford and Manning-Bachrodt Chevrolet, both of which were over behind the post office near where the new federal courthouse is going up. Caster Motors was over by the Chestnut Street Bridge, I think they sold Dodges and DeSotos, I’m not quite sure.
On the east side of downtown, Humphrey Cadillac & Olds was on Jefferson Street a block east of Trinity Lutheran. The lone surviving downtown new car dealer is — Fran Kral Lincoln Mercury. That’s on the site of the old Hess Brothers Department Store. I bought a new Mercury Sable there in 1986.
Another dealer I’m sorry to see lose a franchise is Wolf Chevrolet in Belvidere. Bill Wolf was loyal to the Chevy brand throughout the years and did not add other makes; and this is how the family gets rewarded by the new GM (Government Motors.)
Too bad. I hope they pick up a new franchise. Kia is building a plant in Georgia. That’s my suggestion. They’re good cars.
One thing I heard Scott Bryden say on TV makes sense. Dealers don’t cost car companies money, the Ford dealer said from his Durand showroom. Rather, dealers buy cars and parts from the auto companies. The car companies MAKE money from their dealers. Common sense would indicate that the companies would want more dealers, not fewer.
But what do I know? I’ve never owned a car company. But as a taxpayer, I’m closer than you think.
Here’s a sobering statistic: The nearly 1,900 Chrysler and GM dealerships losing their franchises employ 103,000 people.
Car dealers are local companies. They give money to charities, sponsor youth sports teams, and advertise in newspapers. That advertising helps pay my salary.
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