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Belleville News-Democrat: SIU president to ‘voluntarily retire’ as leader of university, was embroiled in controversy
Randy Dunn will step down as president of the Southern Illinois University system in what the board is calling a “mutual agreement.”
Dunn’s leadership has been controversial in recent months as a politically split board of trustees wrangled over his support for shifting more of the state’s funding from the Carbondale campus to Edwardsville. Last month, the board voted 4-4 on a motion to suspend Dunn, which meant it did not pass.
Chicago Tribune: Aldermanic privilege run amok
A dust-up over affordable housing on the city’s Far Northwest Side has provoked talk of sacrilege: limiting the cherished City Council entitlement known as aldermanic privilege.
Bowing to the wishes of Ald. Anthony Napolitano, 41st, the council’s Zoning Committee recently rejected a 300-unit residential development that would have included 30 apartments for lower-income renters. But the 7-5 vote was a rare jab at the unwritten rule under which aldermen enjoy near-total control of decisions in their wards: The committee sided with Napolitano — but barely.
Crain's Chicago Business: A shameful reason your Chicago taxes are so high
The violence that racks our city—particularly on the South and West sides—is a tragedy of incalculable costs in terms of families shattered, opportunities thwarted and neighborhoods decimated, if not destroyed. Also difficult to quantify is the damage done to the city’s reputation when politicians—seeking rhetorical shorthand for all that is violent, dysfunctional and hopeless—invoke Chicago’s name, and when the global media refer to the city, however inaccurately, as a murder capital.
Some costs can be tallied, however. As of this writing, 1,494 people have been shot within Chicago city limits so far this year; 237 of them have died.
Also measurable: how much Chicago taxpayers pay when those entrusted to keep the peace do wrong.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago's last Sears to close for good Sunday
Mike Lord remembers treating the Sears at Six Corners as a neighborhood hangout when he was a kid.
When his parents pushed to turn off the TV and get outside, he would sneak over to the store’s TV department to watch Cubs games.
Bloomington Pantagraph: Bloomington voids tax incentive after Kroger misses deadline
Saying Kroger’s plan to build a new store on College Avenue in northeast Bloomington is dead — a claim the grocery store chain denies — city officials have terminated an economic incentive agreement for the project.
“From our standpoint we had an agreement and they did not meet the deadlines for commencement of construction, so in essence the agreement is null and void,” city Community Development Director Bob Mahrt said in response to The Pantagraph’s inquiry Friday about the status of the project.