Chicago Sun Times: Emanuel vows to introduce his own privatization ordinance
Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed Thursday to introduce his own ordinance spelling out how much time a City Council rushed into approving the hated parking meter deal would have to consider privatization deals and how the proceeds would be spent.
A similar privatization ordinance championed by the anti-Emanuel Progressive Caucus has been languishing in a City Council committee for years.
During a forum Thursday on ethics reform and good government issues, Better Government Association CEO Andy Shaw pressed the mayor on why he doesn’t support that ordinance.
Chicago Tribune: Tribune study: Chicago red light cameras provide few safety benefits
Chicago’s red light cameras fail to deliver the dramatic safety benefits long claimed by City Hall, according to a first-ever scientific study that found the nation’s largest camera program is responsible for increasing some types of injury crashes while decreasing others.
The state-of-the-art study commissioned by the Tribune concluded the cameras do not reduce injury-related crashes overall — undercutting Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s primary defense of a program beset by mismanagement, malfunction and a $2 million bribery scandal.
Emanuel has credited the cameras for a 47 percent reduction in dangerous right-angle, or “T-bone,” crashes. But the Tribune study, which accounted for declining accident rates in recent years as well as other confounding factors, found cameras reduced right-angle crashes that caused injuries by just 15 percent.
Phys Org: Study finds Illinois is most critical hub in food distribution network
Illinois is the most critical hub in the network of U.S. domestic food transfers, according to a new study by Megan Konar, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Much like the national airport network in which O’Hare International Airport is a major hub, Illinois plays the most central role in distributing food across the U.S. According to the report, the U.S. food network moves more than 400 million tons of food annually. Of that total, more than 70 million tons are transported through Illinois, the most of any state in the nation. That’s enough food to feed every Illinois citizen a healthy diet for five and a half years.
“The state’s geography and infrastructure, coupled with the large volume of commodities produced by Illinois farms each year, means Illinois is a vital player in the network,” said Konar, who is also a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs. Other important hubs include Louisiana (with its ports in New Orleans) and California.
RedEye: The Mass Exodus of 2014: Is Chicago losing its 30-somethings to the cold?
Most Chicagoans can conjure up the name of someone who fled town for good after a fearsome winter.
Saya Hillman can list 42 in the last 14 months. She has nicknamed it the “Mass Exodus of 2014.”
“Forty-two. FORTY-TWO. And I mean leave-leave,” Hillman, 36, wrote on her blog. “Not move to the suburbs, I mean go to where they talk funny. If I included the people who moved to the ‘burbs, that number would be … well, 42 + a lot. I’m also not counting couples where I am friends with both, that’d also increase the number.”
Chicago Sun Times: Emanuel hopeful his pension plan will survive legal challenge
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday he’s hopeful his plan to save the Municipal Employees pension fund will survive a legal challenge where the state’s plan couldn’t and said city retirees will be far better off if he’s right.
Two days after four unions followed through on their threat to challenge the mayor’s plan, citing the same constitutional guarantee at the core of the state case, Emanuel argued that he had no choice but to raise employee contributions by 29 percent and sharply reduce cost-of-living benefits.
“We have to do the tough things, the necessary things so people can know that they’re gonna have a retirement, which they didn’t know before because we weren’t doing and they weren’t doing the tough, necessary things to get the pension systems right,” the mayor said.
Chicago Tribune: Gov. Quinn's last stand (stunt)
Well, he certainly isn’t leaving quietly.
Gov. Pat Quinn, who lost his re-election bid last month, announced Thursday that he’s calling the lame duck General Assembly to Springfield for a special session on Jan. 8, just a few days before a new governor and new legislature will be inaugurated.
Why on earth? Quinn wants lawmakers to pass a bill scheduling an election for comptroller in 2016, the next chance to run candidates for a statewide ballot. The unfortunate and untimely death of Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka before she was sworn in for another term has created a debate — OK, call it a scramble — over the selection of a successor.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago Park District on path for hiring compliance
The Chicago Park District could become the first city agency to comply with a long-standing federal court ban on political hiring without the lengthy and costly process of having an outside monitor.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier recently approved a hiring plan aimed at getting the Park District out from under the so-called Shakman decree by early next summer. Whether the Park District succeeds depends on how well the plan is implemented and whether any alleged Shakman violations emerge.
Daily Herald: College of DuPage votes to keep operating property tax levy flat
College of DuPage trustees voted Thursday to keep their operating property tax levy flat for taxpayers next year.
“The same levy that was filed last year will be filed again this year for the operating levy,” said Tom Glaser, the college’s senior vice president of administration and its treasurer.
Their debt service levy is also set to go slightly down, Glaser said.
Wall Street Journal: Piketty Sticks to Wealth Tax Proposal, Sees Positive Signs
Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century” was a 2014 must-read for anyone interested in economics. But while his claim that income and wealth inequality has risen over recent decades to highs last seen before the start of the First World War was widely accepted, his policy prescriptions were not.
One of Mr. Piketty’s suggestions is that a progressive tax on wealth would help halt and possibly reverse the rise in inequality. Most commentators believed that was simply not politically achievable in developed economies, even if it was the right remedy.
In a visit to London Friday, during which he spoke at the London Business School, Mr. Piketty stuck to that policy recommendation, but also said there is some evidence it is being followed.
Chicago Sun Times: Gov. Quinn appoints longtime aide as Illinois comptroller
Gov. Pat Quinn on Friday appointed a longtime aide, Jerry Stermer, as the new state comptroller to finish out the late Judy Baar Topinka’s term which ends in less than a month.
The announcement comes one day after the governor called back lawmakers for a special session on Jan. 8 to take up legislation that would set a 2016 special election to replace Topinka long term.
“The people should elect a successor to Judy Baar Topinka as soon as possible,” Quinn said at the news conference.