“Misunderstandings Regarding State Debt, Pensions and Retiree Health Costs Create Unnecessary Alarm [Except in Illinois, Where Alarm is Justified”]
Special Audit in Macoupin County
According to SJ-R.com, the Macoupin County Board has voted for a special audit of the county clerk’s office. The audit is aimed at determining if employees who no longer worked for the county have been allowed to stay on the county insurance plan and if the county has paid inaccurate amounts of payroll taxes to…
Bull Moose
One of our national leaders was shot but the injury did not deter his making a long speech. I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul. I believe that the Progressive movement is making life a little easier for all our people; a movement to try to take the burdens off the…
Taxes in Neighboring States
Rich Miller at Capitol Fax.com has put together a post with information about what Illinois’ neighbors pay in taxes and more. It’s fact-checkity goodness.
Naperville City Council Asks Its Public Library to Make Cuts
An alert longtime CB reader took the time to send a link to a Daily Herald story about Naperville’s public library today: The library’s levy request of $12,450,000 for fiscal year 2012 was 3.15 percent, or $400,000 more than the previous year, but city council members asked the board to find and consider as much…
Library Finally Shows Up
DeKalb Public Library (DKPL) showed up for a dog-and-pony show at City Council last night, armed with packets of information that, once again, escaped being received and filed publicly by Council. The only conceivable reason for such a presentation is to rewrite the narrative of its dealings of the past three years into the meeting…
Boone County Watchdog Runs with Bank Post
Check out this local issues blog synergy. Boone County Watchdog took my December 31 post, “Bank Troubles 2010”, spotlighted Castle Bank (which has a presence in Boone County) and put it into the big picture with “Bank Issues which Received Little News Coverage”. Some of it was news to me, so thought I’d share. Thanks…
Municipal Election Petition Hearings
[Update 1/7/2011: I think I’ve been too subtle about my position on the municipal petition challenges and have corrected this in the comments today.] I was able to attend one of the election petition challenge hearings this morning, the one with Corey Kravitz as petitioner and First Ward Alderman Bertrand Simpson as respondent. Mr. Simpson…
Rockford Approves Funds for Legal Second Opinions
Here’s an interesting nugget from a Rockford Register Star report: ROCKFORD — Aldermen have adjusted the 2011 spending plan that they approved last week to give themselves $50,000 to hire attorneys or consultants in the coming year. The idea, which was approved tonight with a vote of 8-5, stems from last summer’s bitter disagreement over…
Re-forming the League of Women Voters Locally
As expressed by many in attendance at the DeKalb Area Women’s Center for the DeKalb County Candidate Debate night, there is interest in re-forming a local League of Women Voters locally. For those who are not already members, please join through: http://www.lwvil.org/ and clicking the Join Us button. There will be a state-wide issues briefing…