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Champaign News-Gazette: Now you see it, now you don't
That was some rhetorical assault that didn’t happen Tuesday in Springfield.
Illinois legislators occupy a make-believe world, one where money grows on trees and chickens never come home to roost.
But the delusions under which our solons labor aren’t limited merely to financial malpractice. They extend well beyond, even to the point of pretending that things that happened on the Illinois House floor didn’t happen.
Chicago Tribune: Daley's commuter tax would drive jobs from Chicago
Know what one high-profile candidate for Chicago mayor said he would consider if elected? Sure you do, because you live in Illinois and you’re poorer for doing so: He said he’d consider creating a new tax.
Specifically, Bill Daley said Wednesday that a commuter tax on suburbanites who work in Chicago is potentially part of his solution to the city’s public employee pension funds crisis. Presumably, it would mean that people who live outside the city would get dinged by an extra withholding from each paycheck, with the money sent to City Hall.
Chicago Tribune: Salesforce to add 1,000 jobs in new Chicago riverfront skyscraper
Salesforce on Friday will announce plans to anchor a new riverfront skyscraper and add at least 1,000 jobs to its Chicago workforce in the next five years.
The San Francisco-based software firm has leased about 500,000 square feet in the planned third and final tower in the Wolf Point development, said Elizabeth Pinkham, executive vice president of global real estate at Salesforce. The company also plans to put a Salesforce sign near the top of the 60-story building, which will rise on the north side of the Chicago River near Merchandise Mart. The 1,000-square-foot exterior sign, a key aspect of the deal, required a new city ordinance.
Crain's Chicago Business: Emanuel gets his TIF bill
Mayor Rahm Emanuel scored a victory on the development front, and a truce was called in a battle over how to regulate car-sharing firms in separate developments late yesterday in the General Assembly’s fall veto session.
In the first action, the Senate followed the lead of the House and voted to authorize the City Council to extend by 13 years the life of four city tax-increment financing districts, most notably the Goose Island TIF adjacent to the proposed River North development.
WBEZ: Chicago Throws Out 23,000 Duplicate Tickets Issued Since 1992 To Motorists Who Didn’t Have Vehicle Stickers
The city of Chicago said Thursday it has dismissed some 23,000 outstanding duplicate vehicle sticker tickets and will refund motorists who have already paid for an additional 12,000 duplicates dating to the early 1990s.
The decision was made Wednesday, city officials said, five months after a ProPublica Illinois and WBEZ investigation revealed that, on nearly 20,000 occasions since 2007, motorists had been been cited more than once on the same day, in apparent violation of the municipal code.
Northwest Herald: McSweeney's township consolidation bill headed to governor's office for consideration
A proposed bill that would give McHenry County residents the power to abolish townships with a majority vote at the polls is on its way to the desk of the Illinois governor.
On Tuesday, the Senate passed the bill, 33-16, with an amendment that would make the bill effective June 1. The House on Thursday voted, 78-23, to concur with that amendment.
Daily Herald: Tollway reform rollout takes back seat to political firing brouhaha
Controversy erupted at the Illinois tollway Thursday as Executive Director Liz Gorman pushed back against allegations of politically motivated “firings” and said one administrator’s exit was a cause of celebration.
The blowup coincided with the agency’s rollout of new ethics procedures prepared in response to concerns about potential favoritism regarding contracts and hiring.
Chicago Tribune: Cost of keeping Asian carp from Great Lakes nearly triples to $778 million
Fortifying an Illinois waterway to prevent invasive carp from using it as a path to Lake Michigan could cost nearly three times as much as federal planners previously thought, according to an updated report.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week released a final strategy plan for upgrading the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois, which experts consider a good location to block upstream movement of Asian carp that have infested the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.
Northwest Herald: Records show where Woodstock has spent its tax increment financing district funds
As the deadline to decide on Woodstock’s new tax increment financing district approaches, city officials are looking back at projects accomplished by the existing TIF funds.
Much of the income generated by the district has gone toward paying off bond debt, maintaining public streets and sidewalks and making repairs to the Old Courthouse, reports filed with the Illinois Comptroller’s Office show.
Northwest Herald: Crystal Lake Park District to vote on levy increase next month
The Crystal Lake Park District Board of Commissioners will vote on an increased tax levy next month.
The board will discuss and vote on the $7,580,113 proposed levy Dec. 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the Crystal Lake Park District Administrative Office, 1 E. Crystal Lake Avenue, Crystal Lake.
Daily Herald: District 211 teachers union states case to community
A town hall meeting on the stalled contract negotiations between Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 teachers and the board of education Thursday night proved both quicker and quieter than anticipated.
Though all members of the community were invited by the union to come and ask questions after hearing a 25-minute presentation, the only question that was in any way critical expressed skepticism that the list of other school districts to which the teachers were comparing their pay had been agreed to by both sides as comparable.
Daily Herald: Balanced? Kane County's 2019 budget still has big unanswered questions
When the Kane County Board approved a 2019 budget this month, it seemed to close the gap on what was at one point a $5.2 million deficit heading into the new year. But pending salary negotiations and a lack of spending detail provided by some officials are creating a murkier budgetary forecast than the county’s CFO would like.
The 2019 budget contains no money for pay raises — purposely, county officials said, so there are not set figures to work with as several union contracts are being negotiated. Raises, though, are a virtual certainty if history is an indicator.
Peoria Journal-Star: Peoria City Council to send TIF gifts to taxing bodies
When the Peoria City Council officially closes out the Northside Riverfront TIF at the end of the year, taxing bodies will find a little something extra in their holiday stockings.
With tax-increment financing districts, property taxes that go to various levy-assessing bodies are frozen. Subsequent increases in those taxes are diverted into a fund that gets used for infrastructure improvements.
The Southern: Another former Alexander County Housing director reaches settlement with HUD after mismanaging federal funds
Court documents show that Martha Franklin, who previously served as executive director for the Alexander County Housing Authority, has reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after HUD filed a fraud complaint against her last year.
In addition to her executive director’s role, Franklin also served at a separate time as the finance director. She worked closely with disgraced former ACHA executive director and former Cairo mayor James Wilson — the two were cited last year for defrauding HUD of hundreds of thousands of dollars and making more than 100 false claims.