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Champaign News-Gazette: Busting the myth of downstate disparity
Downstate Illinoisans aren’t subsidizing residents of the Chicago area, new research shows. In fact, it’s the other way around.
It’s been a longstanding fable in Illinois politics, perpetuated by politicians, that downstate residents are the victims of virtual theft by Chicagoans and suburbanites. Not only are downstaters’ votes overwhelmed by the upstaters — such as the 2010 gubernatorial election, when Bloomington Republican Bill Brady won 99 of 102 counties but lost by 32,000 votes — but they’re also subsidizing the spendthrifts in the Chicago area, too.
That’s the mythology, anyway.
Chicago Tribune: Rauner signs bill easing private takeover of water utilities, stirring outcry
Gov. Bruce Rauner on Friday signed an amendment to a state water bill that makes it easier for private water companies to buy large water systems, a move critics say will lead to higher water bills for consumers.
Originally signed into law in 2013, the Illinois Water Systems Viability Act allows private water companies to buy out water utilities and spread the costs across its existing ratepayers. The bill renews the act’s amendments for another 10 years and removes a limit on the size of water systems that private companies can buy.
Crain's Chicago Business: Ride-hailing wars break out again at Chicago City Hall
Word leaked out over the weekend that two aldermen who long have been critics of Lyft’s and Uber’s effects on conventional cab companies—Ed Burke, 14th, and Anthony Beale, 9th—are drafting legislation that would cap the number of ride-hail licenses in the city and impose a minimum wage.
Chicago Tribune: Airbnb hosts scramble after Chicago sends notices to 2,400, rejecting registrations for short-term rentals
Airbnb hosts throughout Chicago are concerned and confused after receiving notices from the city last week informing them they could face potential fines if they don’t remove their units from the home-sharing platform within seven days.
The notices, sent to more than 2,400 people via email, rejected Airbnb hosts’ applications to register under the city’s short-term rental ordinance. The applications contained incomplete or unrecognizable information, said the notices, which instructed hosts to contact Airbnb to correct the errors.
Chicago Tribune: ICC commissioners should revoke Lincoln Towing’s license
The Day of Reckoning looms for Chicago’s Lincoln Towing. The North Side relocation towing firm made infamous by Steve Goodman’s “Lincoln Park Pirates” has for decades amassed mounds of complaints from motorists who claimed their cars were wrongly towed. Now, at the end of a two-year process to determine whether Lincoln keeps its license, the firm’s fate rests in the hands of the Illinois Commerce Commission’s five members. The Lincoln Towing case is on the commission’s meeting agenda Wednesday.
Will the ICC yank Lincoln’s license? If commission members agree with the recommendation from ICC Administrative Law Judge Latrice Kirkland-Montaque, the answer is no. Kirkland-Montaque has presided over Lincoln’s fitness hearing, and after weighing evidence and arguments from ICC staff and Lincoln, the judge ruled earlier this month that the towing firm should keep its license. Lincoln is “fit, willing and able to provide relocation towing service,” Kirkland-Montaque concluded. The commission has the final say.
Crain's Chicago Business: As fiscal storm clouds gather, Chicago seeks a questionable shelter
When Chicago issued half a billion dollars in new bonds late last year, some investors balked, though the offering was designed to protect them by guaranteeing that they would be paid with tax revenues that Illinois sends to its biggest city. “It’s an untested model,” the research head at Gurtin, a municipal bond firm, said of the offering—Chicago’s first under a new state law. Ominously, he worried that if Chicago defaults, it was unclear how much protection holders of the new debt would really get.
Daily Herald: Vernon Hills High expansion could cost nearly $26 million, officials reveal
A proposed Vernon Hills High School expansion could cost about $25.5 million, officials revealed Monday.
Libertyville-Vernon Hills Area High School District 128 Superintendent Prentiss Lea disclosed the projected price tag during the school board’s facilities and finance committee meeting Monday night.
Daily Herald: Elgin teachers to work under expired contract until new deal is signed
Elgin-area school officials Monday released a joint statement with the teachers union about ongoing contract negotiations.
Officials said the terms of the previous contract, which expired Friday, remain in effect until a successor agreement is signed by both parties.
Peoria Journal-Star: Peoria teachers get raises as PPS board approves contract
Just in time for the start of the school year, the Peoria Public Schools board members approved a new teacher contract Monday night that will see the district’s educators receive a raise for the second contract in a row.
Teachers will receive a 3 percent pay increase each year of the two-year contract, according to the teachers union president Jeff Adkins-Dutro. The district’s teachers also got a 2 percent raise in each year of their last contract after a decade of not seeing a significant pay raise.