QUOTE OF THE DAY
Chicago Tribune: Too many governments? Downstate has the biggest share
Few places in Illinois vote more reliably Republican than Iroquois County, home to 1,120 square miles of mostly corn and soybean fields, 28,982 residents and, according to state records, 218 distinct units of government — one for every 133 residents.
In Democratic Cook County, population over 5.2 million and often held up as the poster child for government inefficiency, there are 539 governments in operation, one for every 9,723 people, records show.
The Land of Lincoln is also, indisputably, the land of sprawling local governments — a nation-leading 6,968 of them, according to oft-quoted U.S. Census Bureau data that appear to significantly lowball the number. State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, the official scorekeeper of such things for Illinois, puts the current tally of local governments at 8,459.
Daily Herald: Prosecutors: Blagojevich lawyers misread ruling
Prosecutors responded Friday to a new argument in Rod Blagojevich’s appeal, saying the imprisoned ex-governor’s lawyers misrepresented a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a separate campaign-finance case.
The Illinois Democrat is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence for corruption — including for seeking to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat for campaign contributions or a job.
In a filing earlier this week, his lawyers said a high court ruling in McCutcheon v. the Federal Election Commission in April bolstered their view that Blagojevich was engaged in legal, run-of-the-mill political horse trading, not corruption.
Chicago Tribune: Park Grill: Daley raised health issue, should disclose details
Attorneys for a popular Millennium Park restaurant filed a motion Friday stating their case for making former Mayor Richard M. Daley disclose in open court the medical reasons that his lawyers say should prevent him from testifying in the city’s lawsuit against the restaurant’s owners.
The motion notes that “it was Daley himself who raised the issue of his medical condition in this case, and he does so in an effort to obtain affirmative relief from the court — i.e., to be excused from testifying at trial.”
“In this way, Daley is like a personal injury plaintiff who injects his or her medical condition into a case in order to obtain relief from the court, and thereby waives any claims of confidentiality or privilege related to that medical information,” the motion states.
Chicago Tribune: More reasons not to trust the traffic cameras
If you drive in Chicago at all, the Tribune’s investigation (chicagotribune.com/news/local/redlights/) into the city’s wildly unreliable red light cameras ought to make you blow a gasket.
Thousands of drivers have been ticketed in error under highly questionable circumstances that neither the city nor the private vendor that operated the cameras has explained.
Reporters David Kidwell and Alex Richards analyzed more than 4 million tickets issued since 2007. They found a series of dramatic spikes in the number of drivers cited by robotic cameras at intersections all over the city.
Daily Hearld: Metra board to ask, should we raise fares in 2015?
A possible shortfall in Metra’s 2015 budget means fare increases are one possibility the agency’s board could consider in the next few months, although officials stressed it’s still early in the process.
Metra’s 2014 budget was $728 million and estimates for 2015 indicate spending could grow by $49 million or so, officials said Friday at a meeting. Some of those expenses, however, are optional.
One of the big variables in the 2015 budget is whether the agency wants to borrow money to pay for capital needs.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
