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Crain's Chicago Business: Madigan moves to pull plug on Preckwinkle's soda tax
In an usual split between two powerful Chicago politicians who are normally allied, signs are rapidly growing that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is trying to kill off Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s penny-an-ounce tax on soda pop and other sweetened beverages.
Knowledgeable sources in both Chicago and Springfield say Madigan fears that the highly controversial tax, combined with city property tax hikes and a boost in the state income tax and other levies, has created a toxic brew that threatens Democratic House members representing suburban Cook County.
Chicago Tribune: Cook County’s ‘health’ lie, in black and white
Let Michael Bloomberg spend his millions to defend Cook County’s hated sweetened beverage tax. Opponents don’t need to pay a dime for advertising. That’s because taxpayers get a written reminder of this brazen cash grab every time they make a purchase.
County Board members who are on the fence about next month’s vote to repeal the tax should keep that in mind.
Chicago Tribune: In Illinois, beware of pork disguised as 'capital'
The last few times Illinois state officials agreed on major borrowing for bricks-and-mortar projects, millions of scarce taxpayer dollars went toward pork projects: baseball fields, ice rinks, an Irish marching band, an Italian-American hall of fame, a Jack Benny statue, stained-glass windows in a Naperville parking garage.
Museums, theaters, snowmobile trails and decorative fountains also benefited from so-called capital investments. And don’t forget the $670,000 copper doors and $350,000 chandeliers purchased for the Capitol at a time when the state was facing $100 billion in pension liabilities and could not make full payments to schools.
NBC 5 Chicago: Oak Brook Looking to Land Amazon Headquarters Project
Restaurant giant McDonald’s is moving out of its Oak Brook headquarters and into Chicago, but could the campus lure another massive company to the suburb?
That headquarters is one of the rumored landing spots for the much-sought after second headquarters for Amazon, which is holding a nationwide competition as it looks for a location to house a massive facility that could create 50,000 jobs and billions in economic benefit to the area lucky enough to land it.
News-Gazette: New forfeiture rules welcome
This country has a long history of limiting the authority of government to push people around. It’s about time the state’s forfeiture law recognized that important ingredient in maintaining liberty.
It ought not be a matter of special citation — let alone praise — when Democrats and Republicans put their heads together and do the right thing for the right reason on the legislative front.
But the knuckleheads in Springfield do it so rarely that it’s worthy of note — like when a pig heads out on an airport runway, fires up its afterburners and goes screeching up toward the heavens.
Chicago Sun-Times: Claypool part of ‘apparent whitewash’ of CPS lawyer’s conduct, IG says
The Chicago Public Schools’ internal watchdog is alleging the school system’s top lawyer violated its ethics code — and that schools CEO Forrest Claypool was involved in an “apparent whitewash attempt” of the violation, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
In a confidential report given to Chicago Board of Education members in June, Inspector General Nicholas Schuler wrote that CPS general counsel Ronald Marmer shouldn’t have supervised $182,000 in work that his former law firm did for CPS while the firm simultaneously was paying Marmer a seven-figure severance package.
Chicago Tribune: IDOT approves red light cameras for already safe intersections
As rejection letters go, the Illinois Department of Transportation’s message last year seemed pretty clear.
Oakbrook Terrace wanted to put red light cameras at a busy but relatively safe intersection. IDOT must approve cameras on state routes in the suburbs, and it said no: Cameras are for boosting safety, and the intersection’s “low crash rates” did not support a need for cameras.
Rockford Register-Star: Layoffs pending for Winnebago County public safety employees
After two failed budget amendments and two hours of discussion, the Winnebago County Board failed to come up with an alternative to cutting $4.3 million from the sheriff’s budget in an attempt to erase a $6.8 million deficit.
Reserve deputies and 911 dispatchers, all of whom stand to lose their jobs, were part of a large contingent of spectators who packed the County Board room today. Before the meeting, Sheriff Gary Caruana made it known he has informed his staff of 64 reserve deputies and 23 dispatchers that they will be laid off if he is forced to make a $4.3 million budget cut.
Belleville News-Democrat: Automatic rate increases, permanent tax hikes shelter politicians from voters
O’Fallon City Council members just did residents a solid. They agreed to freeze water and sewer rates for a year, meaning the $560,000 that would have automatically been added to their rates this year will stay in their pockets. Jane and Joe Average will keep about $50 as a result.
O’Fallon, since 2009, automatically added water and sewer rate increases to match the Consumer Price Index, which this year would have been a 3.5 percent hike in each fund. Because the inflation index does not always match reality, the city built up reserves that grew from less than $6 million in 2009 to more than $14 million today.