Get the latest news from around Illinois.
News-Gazette: Don't be fooled
When headlines get ugly, our lawmakers hunker down and wait them out.
The public record demonstrates clearly that members of the Illinois House and Senate aren’t particularly keen on serious oversight of their political or legislative activities.
That was true before the recent allegations that some members of the General Assembly sexually harassed female lobbyists, reporters and staff members. It remains true in the aftermath of the explosive charges that have male members of both bodies cowering in fear that, in this poisonous political atmosphere, they’ll suffer the same fate as Chicago Democratic state Sen. Ira Silverstein.
Chicago Sun-Times: Will pop-tax anger unseat Preckwinkle, or fizzle out?
After this month, Cook County won’t get another cent from its penny-an-ounce tax on sweetened beverages.
But could the bitter aftertaste from the pop-tax dispute linger with voters as they decide whether to re-elect County Board President Toni Preckwinkle next year?
Chicago Sun-Times: Vandalism, graffiti remain nagging problems despite CTA’s efforts
In late 2014, the CTA spent about $28,000 to install 20 surveillance cameras at its Linden Avenue rail yard in Wilmette, the northern terminal of the L’s Purple Line.
The cameras were meant to deter crime, including the tagging efforts of graffiti artists and others whose vandalism across the city and suburbs costs the public transit agency hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, according to the CTA’s estimates.
Daily Southtown: Dolton schools paid for board member to get 2-day grant training, hired her for $110K grant-writing job
Dolton Riverdale School District 148 paid for a sitting board member to attend a two-day grant-writing workshop in September and then appointed her to an unadvertised $110,000 grant-writing-focused position the following month, records show.
The district paid for Lisa Davis-Smith, who resigned her seat on Oct. 10 to accept a grant-writing-focused job with the district, to attend a two-day professional grant development workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago in mid-September, according to records the Daily Southtown obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Northwest Herald: Crystal Lake-based School District 155 Board to vote Tuesday on tax levy increase
Members of the Community High School District 155 Board appear ready to vote Tuesday on a tax increase.
Estimated tax payments people can expect to make will be presented to the board, as it gathers for its regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the District 155 Center for Education, 1 S. Virginia Road, Crystal Lake.
State Journal-Register: What comes first: Nice roads or new development? Aldermen to debate
Gene Beenenga, 76, has watched the evolution of the boundaries on the west side of Springfield for more than 45 years. He remembers when Iles Avenue, the road that leads to his house, was gravel. He and his wife bought their house, which has a New Berlin address, where they thought they could get the peaceful quiet of country living.
As the years have gone by, more subdivisions and more people have moved into the area, and Hope Church and the Kerasotes YMCA continue to bring in drivers from all over Springfield.