Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Group asks Rockford Catholic Diocese to seek victims after child sex abuse suit filed - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

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ROCKFORD — A man who grew up in Aurora claims in a lawsuit filed in Winnebago County Court today that the Rev. John C. Holdren sexually assaulted him in 1972 and 1973.
The 49-year-old man, who lives in Maryland, is identified in court documents as John Doe JP, said his attorney Tim Frieberg of Rockford. The suit alleges that Holdren made unwanted sexual advances and fondled the victim when Holdren was at St. Rita's of Cascia parish in Aurora.
The suit against Holdren, St. Rita and the Diocese of Rockford, seeks damages of more than $50,000.
The suit says the church "knew or should have known of the dangers presented by Fr. Holdren but (failed) to adopt precautionary procedures" and "facilitated and enabled" the priest's crimes.
A news release from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, said Holdren had not been publicly accused previously of abuse.
Penny Wiegert, director of communications for the Diocese of Rockford, said the Diocese had no comment and that it had not received any information on such a lawsuit. She confirmed that Holdren is not active in the church now and that he resigned in the mid-1990s.
An Aug. 17, 1994, Chicago Tribune story said Holdren resigned from St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Johnsburg three weeks after he was injured during a home invasion in Aurora. He told police then that a man demanded money and beat him unconscious when he said he had none. He was found by a friend the next morning and treated for head and facial injuries at Copley Memorial Hospital. His 1991 Olds Cutlass was taken and later recovered.
The SNAP group held a news conference this morning outside the Diocese's headquarters on Colman Center Drive urging anyone who "saw, suspected or suffered" the accused priest's crimes to call police. It also is calling on local Catholic officials to use parish bulletins, the church website and pulpit announcements to seek "victims, witnesses and whistle-blowers." Wiegert would not comment on whether the Diocese might consider the request.
In May 2014, the Vatican said it had defrocked 848 priests who raped or molested children and sanctioned an additional 2,572 with lesser penalties.
Georgette Braun: 815-987-1331; gbraun@rrstar.com; @GeorgetteBraun

Group asks Rockford Catholic Diocese to seek victims after child sex abuse suit filed - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

 

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Priest Attacked In Home Resigns Duties

August 17, 1994

A McHenry County pastor has resigned from his duties, almost three weeks after he was injured during a home invasion in Aurora.

Father John Holdren resigned last week from the position of pastor at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Johnsburg "for reasons of his health," said Diocese of Rockford spokesman Owen Phelps.

Holdren, 49, told Aurora police on July 27 that he had been the victim of a home invasion in the 600 block of Lafayette Street in Aurora.

Holdren said he answered the front door on the night of July 26 and a man demanded money, then beat Holdren unconscious when he said he had no money. Holdren was found by a friend the next morning and taken to Copley Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for head and facial injuries.

Holdren's 1991 Olds Cutlass was taken that night and later recovered in the 100 block of South Lincoln Avenue, police said.

The incident was still under investigation Tuesday evening, Aurora police said.

Rev. Robert Balog was appointed parochial administrator for St. John's and has assumed pastoral duties, Phelps said. Holdren became pastor of the 1,500-family parish in 1983.

Thrill ride at Magic Waters closed after injury complaints - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

  • The Winnebago County Health Department has suspended the license associated with the Splash Blaster water coaster. The Health Department, along with the Illinois Department of Public Health, are responsible for the inspection of public swimming facilities per state and county code.
    "Based on the recent media articles reporting significant injures allegedly related to the Magic Waters Splash Blaster Coaster amusement ride, the Winnebago County Public Health administrator has suspended the license for the Magic Waters Splash Blaster Coaster Pool pursuant to Section 50-362/Emergency Orders," department spokeswoman Sue Fuller said in an email.
    The Register Star reported Aug. 27 that seven lawsuits have been filed since July 2014 against the Rockford Park District, which owns Magic Waters, involving injuries suffered on the Splash Blaster. Six of the claims were filed this year. Two of those suits were filed by people who suffered injuries on the same day. Most of the lawsuits blame under-inflated rafts for not providing proper support on the ride. Several plaintiffs suffered compression fractures to the vertebrae. WGN-TV Chicago reported on the injuries Tuesday.
    "Working in cooperation with the Winnebago County Health Department, the Splash Blaster attraction at Magic Waters Waterpark is currently not in operation for the holiday weekend," Park District spokeswoman Laura Gibbs Green confirmed in an email. "We are offering guests a $5 discount, and we apologize for this inconvenience."
    The Park District has the opportunity to request an administrative hearing to address the closure of the ride but hasn't yet, the Health Department said.
    The Splash Blaster, which opened 15 years ago, begins on a two-person inflatable raft. The raft is carried by a conveyor system 35 feet in the air, takes a quick plunge through a dark tunnel, then is propelled through the rest of the coaster by powerful streams of water. The injuries typically happen after the first steep drop, plaintiffs told the Register Star.
    They also said they wanted to see the ride shut down so no one else gets hurt.
    "They need to shut the ride down completely. My 10-year-old grandson could go on that ride," said Mary Tucknott of Rockford, who was injured on the ride July 12, 2015, and filed suit Aug. 17.
    Tucknott fractured her T10 vertebra — one of 12 that make up the central section of the vertebral column — and damaged her T3 and T4. She underwent kyphoplasty surgery to her spine and is scheduled for an epidural in September. She moves gingerly and walks with the assistance of a cane after the injury.
    "I'd hate to see a little one go through that and ruin the rest of their lives," she said.
    Page 2 of 2 -  
    Attendance at Magic Waters is up compared to 2014 — 178,000 versus 162,000 — with even more people expected to visit during a hot Labor Day weekend. The last day of the park's 2015 season is Monday.
    Kevin Haas: 815-987-1410; khaas@rrstar.com; @KevinMHaas
  • By Kevin Haas
    Rockford Register Star

    Rockford Register Star

    By Kevin Haas
    Rockford Register Star

    Posted Sep. 3, 2015 at 1:58 PM
    Updated Sep 3, 2015 at 7:14 PM

Thrill ride at Magic Waters closed after injury complaints - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Back breaking rides? WGN Investigates water park safety after lawsuits filed over injuries | WGN-TV

 

It is painful to watch Mary Tucknott walk, sit and try to get up from a chair. She says she's in pain every day no matter what she does. Sleeping hurts, standing too long hurts. And it is the same with sitting too long. Everything is painful because she broke her back. She broke it at a place that should have been a thrill a minute for her and her niece. Tucknott and her niece jumped aboard a two person raft on the Splash Blasters ride at Magic Waters waterpark in Rockford.
Tucknott said she noticed the back support cushion on the raft was deflated as they took off.

Right out of the chute, Splash Blasters sends you down the water slide where you then hit a hump before careening into a tunnel. When Tucknott's raft hit that hump, she was tossed into the air and landed hard. Turns out, she'd broken her back.

If you can believe it, right after Tucknott went down and hurt herself, another rider hit the same first hump and also broke her back. Yet, that's not the end of the story. WGN Investigates found out there are at least a half dozen Magic Waters customers who have been injured on the Splash Blasters ride in the last two years. Yet the ride continued to run at Magic Waters.

Ted Wierbowski, a father from Schaumburg, went to the waterpark to have fun with his wife and daughter. A half hour after they arrived, Wierbowski found himself lying flat on the ground at the end of the Splash Blasters ride with a broken back. He too, claims the raft's back support was deflated and he landed exactly on that suspect first hump in the Splash Blasters ride. In fact, his wife went back to the ride a week later and took a photo of one of the rafts clearly showing the deflation.

WGN Investigates took these stories and tried to ask the Rockford Park District, which owns Magic Waters, why they hadn't shut down the Splash Blasters ride with so many suffering injury on it. A total of seven riders have sued claiming they were hurt on the ride. The attorney representing a few of those riders cannot understand why the ride was still open and running. Attorney Thomas Fabiano said it's like playing Russian Roulette every time someone goes on the ride.

As WGN Investigates dug further for answers, we found that the Illinois Department of Public Health and some counties inspect for water quality, but no one in Illinois appears to be looking at the safety records of rides in water parks. Not just Rockford's Magic Waters, but at any water park in the state. The state Health Department approves a ride's design, but often transfers inspection authority to the county.

We found, the department of health in Winnebago County where Magic Waters is located, only has a checklist for things like water quality, temperature, cleanliness, lifeguards and proper paperwork. No one is watching how safe a ride is once it's installed and running. That's the danger gap. With 170,000 visitors expected to Magic Waters in a year, that's a gap where too many people could easily get seriously hurt.

Mary Tucknott and Ted Wierbowski are suing hoping to have the ride where they were hurt, shut down. It took a while but they got their wish. After their injuries, their lawsuits and questions from WGN Investigates, the County suspended the license on Splash Blasters, effectively shutting it down.
Winnebago County has offered the Rockford Park District, which owns the water park, an appeals hearing about the pulled permit. The District hasn't responded to that.

In the meantime, the lawsuits are moving forward because the plaintiffs say they're suffering short term and long term bodily damage from the ride. All one needs to do is watch Tucknott, a once healthy, vibrant woman, now hobble with a cane, to see what the ride down Splash Blasters did to her.

Back breaking rides? WGN Investigates water park safety after lawsuits filed over injuries | WGN-TV

Cheney's Iran lie exposed in dramatic fashion | MSNBC

 

By Steve Benen

 

9/8/15, 9:42 AM ET

 

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was met with protest while delivering an address on the Iran nuclear agreement at an event hosted the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to speak today at a D.C. think tank, delivering remarks intended to condemn the international nuclear agreement with Iran. If an ignominious exchange over the weekend was evidence of his expertise, however, Cheney might want to reschedule, brush up on the details, and rethink his approach.

The underlying challenge for the failed former V.P. is the degree to which his own Iran policy failed spectacularly. Iran didn’t have a meaningful nuclear weapons program until Tehran developed one – during the Bush/Cheney administration. At the time, in response to Iran’s nuclear program, the Bush/Cheney administration did nothing – except, of course, strengthen Iran’s regional power by invading Iraq.

With this in mind, Fox News’ Chris Wallace reminded Cheney over the weekend that Iran “went from zero known [nuclear] centrifuges in operation to more than 5,000.” The Republican’s response was extraordinary.

The Fox News host flashed that data on screen so no one could miss it, and added: “So in fairness, didn’t you leave – the Bush-Cheney administration – leave President Obama with a mess?”

“Well, I don’t think of it that way,” Cheney countered. […] “But the centrifuges went from zero to 5,000,” Wallace pressed.

“Well, they may well have gone but that happened on Obama’s watch, not on our watch,” Cheney replied.

That’s the exact opposite of the truth, as Wallace, to his credit, quickly reminded the former V.P. Iran’s nuclear program blossomed, not under President Obama, but during the Bush/Cheney era.

Cheney wants Americans to blame Obama for a mess Cheney created. Indeed, either Cheney doesn’t know what happened in Iran on his watch, in which case his ignorance effectively disqualifies him from the debate, or Cheney simply doesn’t care about the facts, which renders his misguided opinions meaningless.

I’m afraid there is no third option.

It remains unclear whether Cheney is ignorant or dishonest, but either course leads to an unsettling direction. When it was the far-right former V.P. helping guide the nation’s foreign policy, Iran benefited tremendously. New York’s Jon Chait recently explained:

Bush and Cheney may have rhetorically opposed the Iranian nuclear program. In reality, they allowed it to blossom. As Marc Champion explained several months ago, “at the start of Bush’s presidency, Iran had no operational centrifuge cascades and no stocks of enriched fuel, so it had no means of making a nuclear weapon.” Then things got bad: “By the time Bush left office in January 2009, Iran had just under 4,000 working centrifuges and an additional 1,600 installed. These had, to that point, produced 171 kilos of low-enriched uranium. Oh, and Iran had covertly built a new enrichment facility under a mountain at Qom.”

Measured by results, rather than sound bites, Cheney was the greatest thing that happened to the radical regime in Iran since it took power.

Cheney's Iran lie exposed in dramatic fashion | MSNBC

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h/t Montana AFL CIO

Ted Cruz to Star in Government Shutdown, the Sequel - Yahoo Finance

 

  • Ted Cruz to Star in Government Shutdown, the Sequel

Bloomberg

By Sahil Kapur 4 hours ago

    The sequel to Government Shutdown—the 2013 battle that caused the closing of national parks and museums, cost the U.S. economy $20 billion , and tanked the Republican Party's popularity—is slated for this fall and will feature the same star: Ted Cruz.

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The Texas senator, now a Republican presidential candidate, is rallying the faithful behind the same strategy as led to a two-week hiatus of government services in October 2013, when he led the party in holding up a government funding bill in a quixotic attempt to strip money for Obamacare. This time, Cruz is using the same Sept. 30 funding deadline to push for stripping Planned Parenthood's $500 million in annual federal dollars. The women's health care provider has become the bĂȘte noire of the right after undercover videos surfaced this summer of group officials discussing the cost of aborted fetal tissue.

More from Bloomberg.com: The Summer of Trump Has These Republicans Seeking a September Reset

The resurrected strategy puts Cruz's fellow presidential contenders in a pickle. It is discomfiting to Republican leaders who have been down this road before and fully expect it to end in failure, as it did with the Affordable Care Act, as well as damage the party's image going into an election year where Republicans are defending 24 Senate seats along with their Senate majority.

Cruz, who has made his willingness to defy party leaders one of his political calling cards, is already in attack mode. In an Aug. 25 call, the Texan told a large group of evangelical pastors that Republican leaders want an “empty show vote” that “has no teeth or no consequence” and will ultimately keep funding Planned Parenthood. He urged them to be “preaching from the pulpit” about the value of the unborn.

More from Bloomberg.com: In Iowa, Hillary Clinton Refutes Dick Cheney On Iran

“We can expect President Obama and many of the congressional Democrats to cry loudly that if Congress uses its authority, Congress will be quote 'shutting down the government.' That, of course, is nonsense,” Cruz said, according to the Washington Post . “It is important that [Congress] hear also that a show vote will not suffice. An empty vote with no teeth on it will not suffice. Now is the time for Congress to act and actually end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.”

It's the same argument he made in 2013: if the government shuts down, it won't be his or the GOP's fault. But it didn't work out that way. The Republican Party's approval rating sank to an all-time low during the 2013 shutdown, according to Gallup . History shows that the party controlling Congress, not the White House, takes most of the blame for shutdowns. But even if the 2013 drama wasn't good for his party, it did help Cruz, turning him into a conservative hero. On the campaign trail, he has consistently defended the shutdown on the campaign trail, arguing that it brought millions of Americans into the political debate. Reviving that hero status will come in handy in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.

More from Bloomberg.com: Obama's Labor Day Executive Order: Paid Sick Leave for Government Contractors

Cruz's co-stars in this year's drama will be the other three Republican senators running for president—Florida's Marco Rubio, Kentucky's Rand Paul, and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, all of whom are struggling to gain traction in a primary field dominated by Donald Trump. Cruz and Rubio are battling for top-five positions, while Paul and Graham are sinking. Though reluctant warriors in the 2013 shutdown, the three senators followed Cruz's lead. Now Cruz is again forcing them to make a political choice that could alienate them from the party's conservative base.

'Horrifying practices'

The effort to defund Planned Parenthood is clearly resonating with conservative voters. During a recent swing through New Hampshire, Rubio was repeatedly asked if he's willing to support a shutdown to ensure that the group loses its federal funding. He kept the door open. “Well, I think that's a question for the Democrats. Are they willing to shut down the government to protect one organization that sells fetal tissue?” he said to voters at an Aug. 26 town hall in Londonderry, earning applause for accusing the group of engaging in “horrifying practices that should offend the conscience of every American.”

As far as conservatives are concerned, the undercover videos are proof that Planned Parenthood is illegally selling the body parts of aborted fetuses. The family planning provider dismisses the controversy as a smear campaign, saying that its staffers were only discussing reimbursement for the legal costs of providing tissue for medical research. Democrats are standing by Planned Parenthood, which provides a range of medical care to low-income women, including abortion. (Federal law prohibits it from using taxpayer money for abortion, but conservatives don't want it to receive any money while it provides abortion services.) “My message to Congress is pass a budget, fund the government,” President Barack Obama said during a recent speech in New Orleans. “Nobody gets to hold the American economy hostage over their own ideological demands.”

Meanwhile, other candidates in the 17-member Republican field may have more to gain by egging on the shutdown. The issue promises to loom large in the party's next presidential debate on Sept. 16. Trump is on record supporting a shutdown if Democrats don't agree to strip money from Planned Parenthood (although he has also said they do some good things for women). Paul hasn't gone as far as endorsing the strategy, but he has signaled openness to it.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said early August that “the next president should defund Planned Parenthood,” a tacit acknowledgement that such a move isn't possible under Obama.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, whose poll standings took a nosedive over the summer, has recently taken on a Cruz-like tone in railing against the GOP for not fighting hard enough. “Republican leaders in Washington told us during the campaign last year that we needed a Republican Senate to repeal Obamacare,” he said mid-August in Minnesota. “Well, Republicans have been in charge of both houses of Congress since January and there still isn't a bill on the president’s desk to repeal Obamacare.”

‘We just don't have the votes’

One House Republican aide, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said conservative lawmakers will make cutting off Planned Parenthood in a funding resolution the issue in September, predicting that the House will bring up and pass such a bill but it will stall in the Senate.

Cruz played a key role in drumming up House Republican support for the 2013 shutdown against the wishes of party leaders.

All of this creates a dilemma for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, who is arguing against the shutdown strategy (as he initially did in 2013). “We just don't have the votes to get the outcome that we'd like,” he told Kentucky's WYMT-TV last week, observing that the president needs to sign bills for them to become law. Several Republican senators facing re-election in states Obama won twice are also opposing the effort , including New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte and Wisconsin's Ron Johnson.

Among the presidential candidates, Graham is the only one to say he opposes the shutdown strategy. “I am not going, as Senator Graham, to shut the government down because of this fight,” he said, according to Roll Call .

Graham polls at 0 percent with Republicans in two recent national surveys.

Ted Cruz to Star in Government Shutdown, the Sequel - Yahoo Finance

One of the Republicans' strongest candidates is completely imploding - Yahoo Finance

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It's evident enough that a lot of political observers and even some of his donors are starting to notice he's sounding a lot like the man he's trying to catch at the top of Republican presidential primary polls — Donald Trump.

"Some of the things that he and other candidates are doing to try to associate themselves with positions being taken by Trump or other more 'exciting' candidates are hurting them, though," said veteran Republican strategist Liz Mair, who briefly worked for Walker's campaign. "Why vote for the guy perceived as the copycat or watered-down version of something as opposed to the real deal?"

And according to poll after poll lately, Walker is looking like a watered-down version of his former self — a Republican candidate thought to be among the three most likely challengers to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Walker has seen his national poll numbers tumble, as Trump's — other candidates attracting similar types of voters, like retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — have continued to rise.

A new Public Policy Polling poll released on Tuesday showed Walker with 5% support nationwide. That's a massive drop from the second-place slot Walker nabbed when 17% of Republicans nationwide said that they supported him in last month's PPP poll.

A Monmouth University poll released on Thursday showed Walker plummeting to an eye-popping 3%, down 8% from the previous month.

But perhaps the most ominous batch of poll numbers came on Saturday, when a poll found the governor's support cratering in a state that has long been seen as a linchpin to his White House path: Iowa.

In a May Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll, Walker led the field with 17% of the Republican vote. The same poll taken in August found that his support has been cut in half, with only 8% of likely Republican caucus-goers saying that they still support the governor.

That puts him in a distant third to Trump and Carson, who lead the field in the state with 23% and 18%, respectively. It's a far cry from the months of February through mid-July, when he led every public poll of Iowa except one.

View gallery

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scott walker

(REUTERS/Joshua Lott)
If there's a bright side for Walker, it's that the numbers still give him hope of turning things around. As his supporters and some pollsters will tell you, Walker isn't getting noticeably less popular. He's just not garnering the kind of excitement of anti-establishment Republican rivals like Trump and Carson. 

His image remains popular. In Iowa, 71% of Republican voters view Walker favorably — a number that has actually gone up 5% since May, when the last Bloomberg Politics/DMR poll was conducted.

He's also many voters' second choice. In the PPP national poll, Walker clocked in at 10% when voters asked who would be their second choice for a nominee, trailing only Carson and Trump.

"That increase in visibility has translated into more favorable and unfavorable feelings. Only Ben Carson has a higher favorability score," J Ann Selzer, who conducted the Bloomberg Politics/DMR poll, said in an email. "So, it’s easy to conclude that Walker is not turning voters off as much as they are turned on to other candidates."

For its part, Walker's campaign has sought to downplay the results of the early polls. A campaign spokesperson told Business Insider in a phone conversation on Thursday that the campaign is playing the long game, steadily laying the groundwork for a grassroots campaign and working behind the scenes to garner endorsements.

"We're doing what we need to do on the ground, and we're doing what we need to do to get Republicans engaged and motivated," the Walker spokesperson told Business Insider. "That is work that you don't always see in the news but certainly pays dividends in the end."

The spokesperson also said the campaign is looking to exploit some facts reflected in the polls — that many Republicans still don't know Walker and haven't settled on a candidate yet. Thursday's Monmouth poll, for example, found that 42% of Republicans nationwide had no opinion of Walker, theoretically giving him room to grow as the campaign wears on.

"Governor Walker is very high among Republicans nationally and in the early states, and we see that as an opportunity to introduce him," the spokesperson said.

View gallery

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Scott Walker

(AP)
But Walker has been unable — at least yet — to capture the undivided anti-establishment enthusiasm of Tea Party voters who identify as very conservative.

The latest PPP poll suggests that Walker voters are also very interested in Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. And he continues to lose ground to Trump and Carson.

"Trump has completely passed him by with those groups. Those folks still like him — they’re just for the time being more excited about Trump and increasingly Carson as well," PPP pollster Tom Jensen said in an email.

Some strategists say that Walker could be helped by the fact that Trump's supporters appear to be as unpredictable as the candidate they support, and won't show up when it's actually time to vote. But pollsters note that Trump's support is higher among people who don't usually don't caucus, but that this could work in Trump's favor.

"Trump’s support is stronger among people who don’t have a record of caucusing than people who do," Jensen said. "That might mean those people won’t turn out — but it also might mean he’s just bringing new people into the process. Doing that was certainly a key to Obama doing so well there in 2008."

At the moment, some observers have noted that Republicans' best strategy against Trump is to hope that he somehow implodes when conservative voters realize that he is espousing positions that don't toe the party line.

One of the Republicans' strongest candidates is completely imploding - Yahoo Finance

Our View: Gov. Bruce Rauner should release promised money for airport jobs project - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

By The Editorial Board
Rockford Register Star

Posted Sep. 7, 2015 at 5:20 PM

When Gov. Bruce Rauner campaigned in 2014 for governor, he spoke in Rockford about how important the city and region are to Illinois' future prosperity. "We'll know how well Illinois is doing by how well Rockford is doing," is essentially what he said several times here.
A key part of our state's prosperity is turning around job losses in our state. We're hard at work doing that. Aeorspace firm Woodward, Inc. has opened a new, $250 million factory here. Another example is under construction at Chicago Rockford International Airport, which is building a $40 million project that will vastly expand job opportunities in the Rockford region and be a building block to advance further aerospace sector growth throughout the region, especially at the airport and the adjacent Global Trade Park.
The project is the AAR maintenance, repair and overhaul facility — two, 9.5-story hangars that can house any aircraft that flies. This facility will employ 500 to 1,000 people in well-paying jobs overhauling airplanes for major airlines. The prospect for growth in that field is high. AAR is an Illinois company based in Wood Dale. It's the largest such company in the U.S.
This project, partly supported by the state of Illinois, also has a key education component that will benefit not just Rockford, but all of Illinois. Rock Valley College has opened a new aviation technology campus across from the future AAR hangars. That will allow students from our community college district — all or parts of five counties — to get an affordable education as an aviation mechanic and get a job at AAR or in one of our many aerospace firms.
The governor has said he will evaluate economic development projects based on whether they create jobs, have an educational component and involve a public-private partnership. This project has all three.
Local governments have pitched in to help fund this project. And in 2014 the airport was promised that the state would kick in $16.3 million. So far it has received $1.3 million. It still needs the rest of the money in order to complete this project.
The immediate need is for $9 million by Sept. 30 to make sure the hangars get constructed so that the business can open in 2016. The contracts were all completed before June 30, so they should not be affected by the lack of a new budget.

The buildings have been ordered from a company in Maine and are due to be delivered in sections in September. The foundation is being prepared now. If the state money doesn't flow in September, work will have to stop, leaving construction workers standing around.

Page 2 of 2 - The state's Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is working closely with the airport. DCEO leaders are very positive about AAR's potential to create jobs and opportunities in northern Illinois.
The Editorial Board of the Rockford Register Star urges Gov. Rauner to release funds quickly so that the Rockford region can start creating hundreds of much-needed jobs, train students in aviation tech and help jump-start the Illinois Turnaround.

Our View: Gov. Bruce Rauner should release promised money for airport jobs project - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL