Chicago Sun Times: Emanuel halts private parking on city lots near United Center
For nearly 20 years, three politically connected companies have been using city-owned property, without paying rent or property taxes on the land, to park cars in the shadows of the United Center.
The lots draw fans of the Blackhawks and Bulls and concert-goers willing to walk a little farther to pay a couple of bucks less than it costs to park at the United Center.
But some of these outlying lots where Red Top Parking, Peoples Stadium Parking and Joseph Feldman have United Center patrons park their cars contain parcels that aren’t owned or leased by them, records show. They’re owned by City Hall.
Chicago Sun Times: CPS move may have cost more than estimated
At the Chicago Board of Education’s first meeting in new Chicago Public School facilities at State and Madison, where smells of fresh paint lingered, board President David Vitale opened the proceedings with a welcome and a reminder:
“After 20-plus years at 125 S. Clark, our new home here definitely has a new look and feel,” Vitale told the crowd in smaller new board chambers. “Just to remind you that the move to this new space, not only by this board but also by CPS and administration, will save the district $70 million over the next 15 years, savings which is achieved by reducing our downtown office footprint as well as the sale of our former office space.”
But everyone previously housed at 125 S. Clark didn’t fit into the five floors CPS leased at the new address, so the district had to spend about $23 million more outfitting two additional facilitites to house all of its central employees — including several million in spending that Vitale and four of his colleagues on the board approved unanimously after Wednesday’s meeting.
Times Union: Chicago couple convicted of stealing state grants
A Chicago businessman and his wife were convicted Wednesday on more than a dozen counts of stealing $3.4 million in state taxpayer money as part of a rampant fraud scheme involving Illinois Department of Public Health grants.
A federal jury deliberated for just over five hours before dealing a clean sweep for the government in finding Leon Dingle Jr., 77, andKarin Dingle, 75, guilty on 17 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering. The Dingles could face dozens of years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures when they are sentenced April 9.
The Dingles and their co-defendants, who earlier pleaded guilty, stole what amounted to $2 of every $5 they received in grant funds form IDPH from 2004 to 2010, prosecutors said. The scheme involved $11 million of mostly no-bid, upfront-funded grants ostensibly doled out for AIDS- and cancer-awareness campaigns in minority and under-served communities.
Crain's: Single-family home rentals rise 14 percent
The local single-family home rental market keeps growing as more investors snap up houses, fix them up and rent them out.
The number of single-family homes rented out in the seven-county Chicago area totaled 11,433 through Dec. 16, up 13.7 percent from all of 2013, according to the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors, based on data from Midwest Real Estate Data. That’s nearly triple the 4,184 single-family homes that were rented out in 2007, as the housing crash was gaining momentum.
Once the domain of local real estate entrepreneurs or a short-term fix for homeowners forced to relocate for jobs, the single-family home rental market has been transformed by the housing crisis. As prices plunged, the landlord ranks grew more crowded with large investment firms seeking to capitalize on the crisis and with homeowners who opted to rent their homes out and move rather than sell at fire-sale prices.
U.S. News: Applications for US unemployment aid slip to 289,000, lowest level in 6 weeks
Fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, a sign of solid job security and growing confidence among employers.
The Labor Department says weekly unemployment benefits applications dropped 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 289,000. That is the lowest level since late October.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, declined 750 to 298,750.
The Economist; America’s Greece?
BRUCE RAUNER, a Republican, liked to talk tough about unions and public-sector pensions when he was campaigning for governor in Illinois. “The system is full of fraud and self-dealing and abuses, such as folks who have a pay rise in the last years of their career [so their pension is higher] or folks who moved in and out of certain jobs, so they could get a pension,” he said in August 2013. With two or three pensions, some are making as much as half a million dollars in retirement pay, he claimed. This, he thundered, is a rip-off of taxpayers and other workers.
But as soon as Mr Rauner was elected last month, the self-made millionaire toned down the rhetoric. The size and complexity of the public-pension mess suddenly hit him, and, aware that he had to bring together Democrats, unions and creditors, he began to backtrack. He declares now that it is most important to “protect what is done—don’t change history. Don’t modify or reduce anybody’s pension who has retired, or has paid into a system and they’ve accrued benefits.”
Think Progress: How Congress Could Finally Change The Nonsensical Way We Fund Schools
On the day President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) into law to help fund low-income schools, he reflected on how education had helped him achieve the American dream: “As a son of a tenant farmer, I know that education is the only valid passport from poverty.”
The law that Johnson signed doesn’t do nearly enough to help all kids get the money that they need to succeed. First passed in 1965, ESEA was designed to rectify a distortion inherent in our education system: because it is primarily funded through local property taxes, it is difficult for low-income communities to levy the resources they need to adequately fund schools. To address this problem, Congress passed a law providing federal support for the education of poor students.
Daily Herald: Naperville debating future of north downtown
The future of a few blocks immediately north of downtown Naperville won’t be decided in a day.
But discussions have begun about whether the area should remain residential or take on a more commercial feel.
Daily Herald: Elgin trash fees to stay flat in 2015
Elgin residents won’t see increases in refuse rates starting Jan. 1, contrary to what city officials had anticipated.
The Elgin City Council adopted its $290.5 million budget for 2015 on Wednesday night after about two months of discussion and staff presentations.
The refuse rate freeze, approved unanimously, was proposed by Councilman Terry Gavin. The city has a contract with Waste Management, whose costs it passes on directly to residents. Monthly rates will stay at $13.85 for single-family homes and $10.07 for condos, instead of increasing to $14.89 for single-family homes and $10.83 for condos.
Daily Herald: Barrington 220 nearing $2.35 million land acquisition deal
Barrington Area Unit School District 220 will have until the end of the year to finalize the $2.35 million purchase of about 21 acres of land next to Barrington High School after school board members voted this week to extend a review period by an additional 15 days.
The proposed deal covers about 7.7 usable acres and 13.8 acres of the Flint Creek Conservation Area west of Hart Road. It is part of a parcel called Flint Creek Crossing, which is in the jurisdiction of both the villages of Barrington and Barrington Hills.