THE WATCHDOGS: Clout-heavy firm getting millions from state's late bill-paying | Chicago Sun-Times

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….With the state spending so much on late fees to health insurers, technology firms, social service agencies and other vendors, Hynes and Solis Doyle started a company called Vendor Assistance Program, known as VAP, to cash in. They began working with the administration of then-Gov. Pat Quinn five years ago on a first-of-its-kind state initiative with a similar name — the Vendor Payment Program. It allows the state’s vendors to get their overdue money sooner — if they’re willing to give up their late fees to Hynes and Solis Doyle’s company.

If the state doesn’t pay a bill within 90 days, eligible vendors can collect 90 percent of what they’re owed by selling their unpaid bills to the Hynes-Solis Doyle venture. When the VAP collects the full payment from the state, it pays the vendors the remaining 10 percent but keeps all of the late fees. Under the law, the state has to pay 1 percent interest a month on all bills more than 90 days past due.

Since 2011, more than 900 state vendors have signed up with VAP. The company has bought late bills from only 180 of them, according to records it submits to the state.

VAP borrows the money to pay those vendors. Since 2011, the state has paid the company $570 million toward late vendor invoices totaling $585 million, the most recently available state records show. VAP was still waiting for the state to pay the rest of those bills as of the end of July.

The state has paid VAP $22.3 million in late fees.

The Hynes-Solis Doyle company has marketed itself as a lifeline for small businesses that can’t afford to wait for the state to pay their bills. But it has spent 90 percent of its money helping just three companies: two of them health insurance companies for state employees — Health Alliance and Coventry Health Care — and tech giant IBM. Together, the three have accounted for $529.6 million of the $585 million in invoices VAP has taken on.

Since Malcolm Weems, a former top Quinn aide, developed the Vendor Payment Program, four other companies have been given state approval to compete for the business with VAP. Three of them haven’t bought a single unpaid bill. The fourth has bought late state bills totaling less than $100,000. Weems couldn’t be reached for comment.

Read the entire article:  THE WATCHDOGS: Clout-heavy firm getting millions from state's late bill-paying | Chicago Sun-Times

All U-46 School Board Members named as suspects in crime – | Illinois Leaks

The Elgin Police Department was called by us and arrived shortly after the call. There were half a dozen officers there at one time, and eventually a call was made to the Kane County State’s Attorney, who after research, advised the PD to complete a criminal report naming the board members  as suspects, and forwarding it to his office. This process took over 2 hours to complete.

Section 2.06 (g) of the Illinois Open Meetings Act makes public comment a right, at all public meetings (with reasonable rules).

The U-46 School Board held three meetings yesterday, October 19, 2015. The first meeting started at 4 p.m. and consisted of a finance committee meeting with the meeting notice posted, but no posted agenda at the building that we could see. This meeting included public comment time.

The second meeting, called for the purpose of a closed session for student discipline and other things started at 5:15 p.m. There was a notice posted, but no agenda. There was also no public comment session, in violation of law. All closed meetings must be called from an open meeting – and return to open meeting after the closed portion. No exceptions.

The third meeting started at 7 p.m. and had its meeting notice and agenda posted with a public comment session.

All agendas were on the school’s website, but only the 7 p.m. meeting was posted at the school building.

Read the entire article by clicking on the following:  All U-46 School Board Members named as suspects in crime – | Illinois Leaks

College of DuPage Board Fires Robert Breuder | Patch

By Amie Schaenzer (Patch Staff) October 20, 2015

 

 

The College of DuPage Board of Trustees fired its embattled President Robert Breuder at a meeting Tuesday night.

The board voted 4-1 to approve the termination, with Trustee Dianne McGuire of Naperville casting the sole no vote. She said the firing of Breuder was centered around a ”politically driven vendetta that is unworthy of this board.” Two trustees, Erin Birt and Joseph Wozniak, were not present and did not vote.

Other trustees spoke of the many examples of misconduct and mismanagement during Breuder’s term. Deanne Mazzochi, board vice chairman, said improper “electioneering activities” by Breuder helped the college secure a $168 million referendum “that this institution and taxpayers will be paying for for decades.”

The College of DuPage and Breuder have been under fire for months regarding its finances and administrative practices and Breuder has been the subject of public scrutiny regarding a $762,867 severance package the former board of trustees approved, according to the Daily Herald.

An investigation into Breuder began in spring 2015. During the course of the investigation, “the college found evidence of misconduct and mismanagement, which Breuder, participated in, oversaw or failed to prevent,” according to the special board meeting agenda. A full list of the allegations of Breuder can be viewed below in the board agenda.

Here is a brief timelines looking at some of the allegations leveled against Breuder, who has been on paid leave, over the past year:

• In January, school board members voted to send the community college’s president Robert Breuder away with a $762,000 buyout. That was funded by taxpayers.
• Audio tapes of the buyout negotiations between Breuder and the board of trustees revealed that the president initially asked for a $1.5 million severance payment—almost three years’ salary—and other perks. The board refused to accept those terms.
• Then there were the business dealings at the college radio station and a move tocensure a board member.
• Earlier in March, it was revealed that nearly $200,000 was charged in food and liquor costs at the college’s fine dining restaurant, Waterleaf.
• The last week in March, the college allegedly awarded signage contracts to a foundation member without going to bid for the jobs.
• On April 13, the former radio station employee pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces.
• Then on April 20, it was discovered that an additional $160,000 has been spent at the College of DuPage restaurant, Waterleaf, from an account that was previously undiscovered.
• August 2015: College of DuPage trustees vote to close the Waterleaf restaurant.
• September 2015: The Chicago Tribune releases an article about a pricey, private locker room Breuder had built
• October 2015: The Higher Learning Commission said COD did not meet two core components for accreditation. HLC found COD non-compliant in the area of institutional integrity and in the area of effectiveness of administration and governance.

College of DuPage Board Fires Robert Breuder | Patch

Ryan meets with tea-party hard-liners as he moves closer to speaker decision - The Washington Post

 

Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) moved closer to becoming House speaker Tuesday, answering a flurry of calls from fellow Republicans who see him as the best hope to unite his party’s warring factions on Capitol Hill.

“If Paul Ryan can’t unite us, no one can. Who else is out there?” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), a moderate. “That’d be a sign of utter dysfunction, total madness.”

After days of deliberation, Ryan neared a decision on whether he was willing to serve as House speaker, associates said. Three years after Mitt Romney chose him as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, Ryan once again finds himself being urged to lead his party amid mass unrest in its ranks.

Ryan met Tuesday evening with tea party hard-liners and later with the larger group of House Republicans. His allies said they expected him to make clear that he will move to formally seek the speaker’s gavel only if he has the nearly unanimous support of his GOP colleagues, arguing that a speaker who starts with uncertain political capital would face a constant threat of intraparty reprisals.

Ryan, 45, is expected to continue meeting Wednesday with House Republicans to explore his reluctant candidacy for speaker, evaluating whether the groundswell of enthusiasm that has greeted him in recent weeks can be sustained over the long haul.

Here are the top 5 House speaker choices

Fix managing editor Aaron Blake runs down the top five contenders for House Speaker John Boehner's job now and says why they might—or might not - be the one to win. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

At the top of Ryan’s list of demands, his associates said, is a desire to lead the House GOP as its spokesman and agenda setter without the threat of revolt from the right, halting a dynamic that has dominated the tumultuous speakership of John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who announced last month that he would leave Congress at the end of October. Another aim would be to delegate some of the job’s travel and fundraising demands so that Ryan could spend enough time with his wife and school-age children.

“My only caution is that he should go very slow and make sure that the whole conference is coming to him,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R). “Don’t underestimate the degree of getting chewed up. We are not like the Democrats right now. They are relatively cohesive. . . . We are a movement in enormous ferment, with enormous anger and enormous impatience.”

Looming over Ryan’s deliberations is a churning frustration among Republicans nationally about the party’s ability to oppose President Obama and a presidential primary field led by anti-establishment outsiders who have made common cause with the House GOP’s right flank.

Those conservative House members have pushed for a suite of rules changes, ranging from an overhaul of the party’s internal steering committee to a more open process for considering legislation. Ryan, they say, would not be exempt from those demands, which, if adopted, could give the new speaker less control.

Ryan’s allies say his conditions for becoming speaker are likely to include an understanding that he would have a free hand to lead without a constant fear of mutinous reprisals.

Peter Wehner, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, said Ryan wants House conservatives to make clear that they would not seek to “cripple him” from the start.

“He doesn’t have a moral obligation to get Republicans out of the rubble they’ve created for themselves,” Wehner said. “Asking for their goodwill is completely reasonable.”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is being tapped to become the next speaker of the House, even though he doesn't seem to want the job. Who is this guy? (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

Wehner added that Ryan envisions his possible speakership as one that would be buoyed by his own political capital and shaped by an aggressive Republican policy agenda, rather than one consumed by catering to the whims of tea party back-benchers: “He’s got a vision for the party that he can articulate. He knows policy, philosophy, and where the party should go intellectually.”

But Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus who has expressed measured support for Ryan as speaker, said Ryan could not expect to unify Republicans without making some procedural concessions.

“The displeasure with the way the House has been managed since 2011 is pervasive and crosses all sorts of philosophical boundaries within the party,” Mulvaney said. “The appetite for a new way of doing business is real, and whoever wants to be the speaker is going to have to speak to that.”

Most GOP lawmakers have hailed Ryan as the only candidate who could unite a House Republican majority deeply divided over how to best wield its power, but Ryan’s conservative bona fides have also been called into question on conservative talk radio and Web sites and in town-hall meetings.

Among his purported apostasies are support for the Troubled Asset Relief Program during the 2008 economic crisis, brokering a spending deal with Democrats in 2013 and — most crucially — being a leading Republican proponent of immigration reform packages that would give illegal immigrants a path to legal status.

“There are people who have sort of bought the narrative that the speaker’s race is about trying to get someone who is more conservative, and for those folks Paul is not acceptable,” Mulvaney said. “But there are other folks who believe, and this is what I’ve been telling them, that it’s not about people, it’s about process.”

A new poll released Monday by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal showed strong support for Ryan among Republican primary voters, with 63 percent “comfortable and positive” about Ryan taking over the post. Twenty-eight percent said they would feel “skeptical and uncertain” if he became speaker.

Should Ryan decide not to seek the post, it would set off a free-for-all that has already attracted roughly a dozen potential candidates who have expressed interest in running if Ryan does not.

They range from powerful committee chairmen such Homeland Security’s Michael McCaul and Agriculture’s K. Michael Conaway, both of Texas, to Darrell Issa (Calif.), the high-profile former Oversight Committee chairman, to up-and-comers such as Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), who has played a lead role in the GOP’s recent fight against Planned Parenthood.

But many Republicans believe — or at least hope — that melee will be avoided as Ryan has shifted from being averse to being inclined to succeed Boehner. The change is largely a result of a wave of encouragement and lobbying from officials and influential conservatives, as well as a sense of duty to his embattled party.

House Republicans convened Tuesday in the Capitol basement for a conference meeting focused on their “October agenda.” They will meet again Wednesday morning.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a conservative who is backing long-shot speaker candidate Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), sighed Monday when he heard about the previously unscheduled Tuesday session and said it signaled that the leadership was ready to get behind one of their own.

Ryan meets with tea-party hard-liners as he moves closer to speaker decision - The Washington Post

Trudeau wins big as Canada votes resoundingly for a leftward shift (+video) - CSMonitor.com

 

Toronto — For many residents of Canada’s largest city, it was hard to know where to begin celebrating on Monday night.

First came the Toronto Blue Jays’ 11-8 victory over the Kansas City Royals in a must-win Major League Baseball playoff game.

Then came news of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s defeat in the federal election at the hands of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party.

Recommended: How about this Canada quiz, eh?

Mr. Trudeau, a charismatic politician who captivated many voters here with his youth and optimism – not to mention his boxing skills – is set to be Canada's new prime minister after his party won a majority of Parliament's 338 seats in a sweeping, come-from-behind victory.

For many here, the election was foremost a referendum on Mr. Harper and his Conservative Party’s near-decade in power. His secretive and often partisan political style grated with many voters. And in pushing Canada to the right, Mr. Harper supported policies that many viewed as out of sync with the nation, including his refusal to pursue climate change legislation and his push to shrink government and trim spending.

Now, many Canadians are eager to see Trudeau return the country to its left-of-center traditions.

“In this election, the question was how badly did Canadians want to defeat Stephen Harper,” says Zain Velji, a Calgary-based political strategist and host of “The Strategists,” a popular political podcast.  “The answer was, ‘desperately.’ ”

Voters in Toronto flocked to polling stations in Blue Jays baseball caps and jerseys to cast their votes ahead of the game on Monday. Although ballot boxes stayed open until 9:30 p.m., election officials expected turnout to fall to a trickle after the 8:07 first pitch.

It was unclear if the occasional car horns that could be heard later in the night were in celebration of the game, Harper’s defeat, or both.

Having re-energized the Liberal Party since its devastating electoral losses four years ago, Mr. Trudeau rode a wave of anti-conservatism that galvanized voters around his promise of change and helped his party win a resounding 184 seats, or 56 percent.

Trudeau has pledged to raise taxes on the rich and run deficits for three years to increase government spending and boost the economy. He’s promised a more multilateral approach in international affairs – cooperating more, for example, with the UN. He's vowed to repair ties with the United States, which were dogged by Harper's weak personal relationship with President Barack Obama and differences over the Keystone pipeline. Addressing climate change – an area where he shares common cause with Mr. Obama – is high on his agenda.

“Right away, I expect we’ll see a brand new posture from the federal government when Trudeau takes office,” says Christopher Cochrane, a political science professor at the University of Toronto. “It looks like the Liberals are going to have a solid four years to implement their plans.”

Trudeau, a 43-year-old former school teacher and member of Parliament since 2008, will be the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history. He carries with him the immense legacy of his father, the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who took office in 1968 and led Canada for most of the next 16 years. Trudeau has also cited his maternal grandfather, Jimmy Sinclair, who represented a constituency in Vancouver from 1940-58, as an inspiration and role model.

But concerns over his lack of political experience – a common theme in Conservative attack ads during the campaign – are likely to follow the young leader into office.

While critics say Trudeau lacks the political intelligence of his father, many Canadians say they are simply happy to have anyone but Harper as their leader. Harper’s attempt to shift the nation to the right alienated a wide swath of voters, who came to view his policies – such as lowering corporate taxes and taking a more hawkish stance on global affairs – as out antithetical to the Canada they knew.

The election marked a stunning turnaround for the Liberals, who held only 36 seats when Parliament was dissolved in early August. Their victory amounts to the largest seat increase for a party between elections in Canadian history, according to the Globe and Mail.

The Liberals dealt a major blow not only to the Conservatives but also to the New Democratic Party, the furthest left of the big three parties. At the beginning of the 78-day campaign, the longest in Canada since the 19th century, the NDP was considered a frontrunner.

Election results show that Conservatives were reduced to 99 seats. The NDP, which had previously formed the official opposition as the second largest party in Parliament, held onto only 44 seats after suffering major losses to the Liberals in Quebec

Trudeau wins big as Canada votes resoundingly for a leftward shift (+video) - CSMonitor.com

Business thrives in Poplar Grove

By Shelby R. Farrell
Reporter
POPLAR GROVE – The Village of Poplar Grove will soon see one local business expand and a new chain store appear as the village’s economy continues to improve.
The village introduced the plans for an industrial and economic development along Routes 76 and 173 in 2009 hoping to bring in new business to the village, and in May this year, Dollar General was the first to break ground as a part of these plans.
At the Village of Poplar Grove Board of Trustees meeting on Oct. 12, the members approved the final plat, or the map showing the land’s divisions, and they allowed the construction company to finally build some walls for the new store in the Poplar Woods subdivision on Route 76.
“I just saw a bunch of leveled gravel, and I saw the steel outside, so they’re about to pour the footing,” Village Attorney James Stevens said. “In the next three weeks, you’re going to see a building there.”
While bringing in new businesses, such as Dollar General, can help the village reach its economic goals, supporting locally owned businesses is just as important to the village’s growth. Arturo’s Mexican Restaurant at 107 W. Main St. is also expanding.
The owners, Arturo Torres and Zulma Rodriguez, bought the building adjacent to the east, which used to be the village’s old fire station. The old building is being transformed into a second dining area for the restaurant, and the entities were formed into one at the Oct. 12 meeting.
Torres said the second building’s grand opening is scheduled for Nov. 4, and the board congratulated the local, family-owned business on its success.
“I’m just so excited to your guys’ business grow in the community,” Trustee Neeley Erickson said. “It’s wonderful, and you guys go above and beyond. I can’t wait.”
The Village Board of Trustees might get more chances to get excited about booming business this year with the new Enterprise Zone.
“The Illinois Enterprise Zone Program is designed to stimulate economic growth and neighborhood revitalization in economically depressed areas of the state,” according to the Growth Dimensions quarterly magazine from this summer.
The program offers state and local incentives to bring businesses to areas that need revitalization. Some of the incentives include property tax abatements and reductions to building permit fees. The Belvidere-Boone County Enterprise Zone helped create more than 3,400 jobs and retained more than 2,000 jobs since 2005.
However, when the Illinois General Assembly amended the Illinois Enterprise Act, it forced all of the communities who wanted to be a part of a zone to reapply. Boone County, Belvidere, Poplar Grove and Capron partnered to apply as a larger, more defined Enterprise Zone, excluding residential areas and adding more commercial areas. While the state’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity certified the new zone, all official action has been delayed until the budget is complete.

Business thrives in Poplar Grove

Poplar Grove Village Board reaches higher levels of transparency

 

By Shelby R. Farrell
Reporter Belvidere Daily Republican
POPLAR GROVE –The Village of Poplar Grove Board of Trustees showed a new level of transparency while meeting over the results of an Environmental Protection Agency engineering evaluation.
The EPA evaluates the village every three years, but when Village Administrator Diana Dykstra started her report over the results, she said the board had never seen or heard about the engineering evaluation before.
“This has happened for many years, and you’re supposed to as a board review this, and I’ve been told that you guys have never seen these types of things,” she said. “You should have gotten the opportunity to review them at the board level.”
While the board getting to review the evaluation was new this year, Dykstra said the results were “no different.” The results outlines deficiencies that Dykstra said could be considered as non-violations, and it included a list of things the village could do to meet those requirements.
Dykstra broke the list down into four main updates that the village needs to make: updating the Cross Connection Control Ordinance, entering a private water/waste water treatment contract with Midwest Contract Operations, updating the Emergency Management Plan and a new coliform distribution sampling site plan. The village also has plans to continue updating energy meters and “documenting the valve exercises,” according to Dykstra’s plan.
She said the meters are being replaced on a regular basis, but there are still about 1,200 meters in the village that need updated. The village also entered an agreement with Midwest Contract Operations at the Oct. 12 meeting. The company will locate, inspect and record the conditions of all of the sanitary manholes in the village for no more than $5,000. At that meeting, the board also approved the resolution to the Cross-Connection Control Ordinance according to the EPA’s requirements.
“Our workload doesn’t end here,” Dykstra said. “Now we actually have to implement all of these things that we say we’re gonna do.”

Village Board reaches higher levels of transparency

UAW workers more positive about new Fiat Chrysler contract

Alisa Priddle and Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press

A better deal, greater efforts to explain it and negotiations fatigue might be enough to ratify the new tentative agreement between the United Auto Workers union and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Unionized Fiat Chrysler workers will vote Tuesday and Wednesday on whether to ratify a new contract that will govern their working lives for the next four years. The mood heading into the vote suggests ratification is possible, but far from assured.

This is the second round of voting for 40,000 workers. The first agreement, reached Sept. 15, was rejected, as 65% of the membership voting a resounding no in a move that reverberated throughout the union's leadership and across the auto industry.

The mood of workers appears to have shifted from the angry, almost militant, call-to-arms rhetoric that urged members to defeat the first agreement.

Opposition to the new agreement has been noticeably less vocal at information meetings leading up to this week's vote. Nor has there been a series of worker-organized rallies.

After the first agreement was defeated, the UAW  returned to the table with FCA and negotiated a new deal that better addresses the concerns of workers.

“The UAW responded to most of the objections members had with the first version of the tentative agreement,” said Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research.

For example, the second agreement better addresses the desire by entry-level workers to eventually make the same wage as longtime workers, eliminates a proposed health care cooperative that workers did not understand or trust and includes a commitment between the union and the company to revisit work schedules that workers dislike.

And, the union also has taken steps to explain the terms of the new deal and give union members more time to understand them before all locals vote Tuesday and Wednesday.

This UAW's communication efforts include a full court press on its official Facebook pages to explain details of the tentative agreement and posted videos of local leaders promoting the benefits of the deal. The result: the bulk of the discussion is at least occurring on the union's Facebook pages instead of on alternative Facebook sites and other social media forums.

"Great contract! Vote yes," Patrick Land wrote on a UAW Facebook page.

Another worker, Richard Lytle, said, "It's not a perfect contract .....but it's not a bad one either. Choose wisely brothers and sisters!"

The UAW also is using videos to get its message out.

“I believe the no vote actually brought us together as a union. I believe the no vote sent a message to (Fiat Chrysler CEO) Sergio (Marchionne) that we are serious about our livelihood,” Marylyn Bonds, recording secretary of UAW Local 140 which represents Warren Truck Assembly Plant employees, said in a video posted on the UAW’s Facebook page.

A rejection of a second national agreement recommended by the UAW would be unprecedented and would throw the union into uncharted territory as it works to reach new agreements with Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and Ford.

The current Fiat Chrysler agreement was reached just before midnight on Oct. 7, details began leaking out the next day and by Oct. 9 the union had officially released the content of the proposed contract — a full 11 days before voting was scheduled to begin.

Most locals have long voting hours planned Tuesday and Wednesday at union halls to accommodate the shift workers. Union leadership could announce as early as Thursday whether the deal was ratified. If the deal passes, the next step is choosing whether General Motors or Ford is the second company to negotiate a similar deal.

"This time the union is being more open, forthcoming and active," said Ken Mefford, a 53-year-old longtime worker at the Warren truck plant. "It doesn't feel like they are shoving it down our throat."

Matthew Parhum, in contrast, argues that Marchionne should be more thankful for the profits that Chrysler plants are producing in North America.

"H. Ross Perot was right about NAFTA, as the threat presented in this new tentative agreement would send more jobs to Mexico, where labor costs would top out at $5.00 per hour,"  Parhum, a worker at the company's Trenton Engine plant, said in an e-mail to the Free Press. "The intent to move successful product lines with those that are speculative at best is not in the membership's interest."

But in Kokomo, Ind., where Fiat Chrysler has three transmission plants, members of Local 685 barely spoke out against the agreement at a large information meeting last week, according to an attendee not authorized to talk about the meeting.

That’s a big contrast from a few weeks ago when UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell was booed by members of the same local. Jewell did not attend their latest meeting and appears to have stayed away from most of the information meetings this time.

Dziczek said the decision to have local leaders or representatives with local ties explain the agreement sometimes works better than when the UAW's top leaders visit local union halls.

“The members seem to relate well to the leaders that they elected,” she said. “They are the people that live and work in the communities … and if they are leading the information meeting, they may be more effective in restoring trust in the process.”

Attendance was low at UAW Local 1166, which represents workers at another plant in Kokomo, Ind., but, again, there were few negative comments at the casting plant, according to another person, also not authorized to speak about it publicly.

Workers who attended meetings in Toledo also had positive things to say about the new contract, according to interviews in the Toledo Blade. That is in stark contrast to a video that went viral of a Toledo meeting after the first agreement where workers heckled, jeered and applauded suggestions that the union strike and attempt to take down the whole economy.

Many workers feel the new deal is better — there is more money for senior workers and a plan to get entry-level or second-tier workers to the same base wage over eight years. Temporary workers, Mopar and axle workers would make less but the union must sign off on increasing the number of temporary workers.

There are also signing bonuses, a new profit sharing formula, changes to the attendance policy and promises to sit down and re-evaluate the hours for workers on the least popular shift that flits from day to night.

"It is still not the greatest deal in the world but it feels like it has a good chance of passing," Mefford said.

One objector on Facebook is Monty McCulley who urges colleagues to vote no to a deal that takes eight years to reach full pay instead of four, and he lists the concessions workers have made over the last 10 years.

Another dissenter is Brian Keller, 46, of Mt. Clemens who created his own Facebook page in May 2014 to air unfettered opinions.

“I believe we can fight to get all tier two's to tier one wages in four years to eliminate tiers altogether,” said Keller, who works at Fiat Chrysler’s Mopar operations in Center Line. “Any language that continues to utilize a multiple wage structure is not a good contract. Do not fall victim to the threats and get hoodwinked into another attempt to divide us with yet another proposed new agreement that does not eliminate the tier wage structure or (alternate work schedule) within four years.”

There are signs of fatigue leading up to the second vote.

"Everyone just wants it over," Mefford said. "We're all getting tired of it."

And there might be an element of fear for the tens of thousands of new workers who had never faced the prospect of a walkout until the hours leading up to the Oct. 7 strike deadline. Fiat Chrysler workers were not allowed to strike during the 2011 negotiations as a condition of 2009's bankruptcy restructuring.

UAW workers more positive about new Fiat Chrysler contract

My View: Boone County public safety tax raided - Opinion - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

By Cathy Ward

Posted Oct. 19, 2015 at 5:34 PM
Updated Oct 19, 2015 at 5:38 PM

BELVIDERE — Breaking promises dominates the Boone County Board Finance Committee's plan that recommends balancing the budget by transferring $800,000 from the public safety sales tax reserves.

The full board will vote on this transfer when it meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

For the record, when the public safety sales tax was passed in 1999, board members and other supporters promised that the tax would “finance bond payments only. Other costs related to the jail expansion will be financed by country general operating funds and/or grants. The statute allows the county to sunset (end) the tax when the bonds are paid.”

But those promises have apparently ended. Committee members voting unanimously for the transfer were Paul Larson, Sherry Giesecke, Karl Johnson and Jeff Carlisle. Board Chairman Bob Walberg also gave his blessing.

When questioned about the legality or ethics of this transfer, Finance Committee Chairman Karl Johnson said this board is not bound in any way by the promises of past boards.

A couple months ago, the majority of the board also took out the clause that said the tax would end in 2018. This year, according to the ordinance in place, only $125,000 should have been transferred from the sales tax revenues and none next year, as the bond would be paid off and the tax would end.

Now, however, that tax, as these board members voted, will probably never end and taxpayers will not have a chance in a referendum to voice their support or protest.

During the budget talks, several options were listed as possible ways to balance the budget, such as making cuts or transferring from other funds, but most were quickly rejected.

I submit that this proposal is simply a quick fix, a Band-Aid approach to the much bigger problem that the county is simply spending far more than it can afford. Next year, the deficit will be much bigger and the public safety sales tax will not be enough to fill the widening gap.

My associates have given me several options for balancing the budget in addition to making cuts, such as sell the land we own on Illinois 76, support the plan for wind farms that will bring millions to all our taxing bodies, hold a referendum and ask taxpayers for their support or protest, merge departments such as the Belvidere police and the Boone County Sheriff's Department, or outsource work and cut staff and benefits.

Clearly we need a sound business plan that businesses and families have known is essential to staying in business or staying solvent. We have many people in our county who could assist us in doing this. I don't believe their answer would ever be just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Unless a sound plan is made soon, RAISING TAXES WILL BE INEVITABLE.

The county still owes $1.8 million for the jail built in 2000, which cost about $9 million, even though $19 million has been paid by taxpayers. Transfers have been going on for years, but all previous board have said definitely that the tax will end in 2018.

Not this board. All bets and promises are off.

There is a price to be paid, however, a far greater price I believe. Yes, this Band-Aid will work this year but not for long. As a friend told me, he will never again vote for a referendum for the county. He is quite sure promises mean nothing.

That's a terrible price to pay.

Cathy Ward is a member of the Boone County Board.

 

Above is from:  My View: Boone County public safety tax raided - Opinion - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Belvidere Central Middle School student under investigation for making threats - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Ben Stanley

Posted Oct. 19, 2015 at 3:40 PM
Updated Oct 19, 2015 at 8:04 PM

BELVIDERE — A middle school student has been "removed from school" and is being investigated by the Boone County Sheriff’s Department after making threats discovered Friday by school officials.

“They found no weapons and no ability to carry out any threat,” State’s Attorney Michelle Courier said. “There was a search at the home and the school as well. It’s still an open investigation.”

Belvidere School District did not clarify whether the student had been expelled or temporarily suspended. Belvidere Central Middle School officials contacted the Sheriff's Department at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 16.

"School officials had brought some writings that concerned them from a student to our school resource officer, which began an investigation," Sheriff Dave Ernest said. "We take these cases very seriously, that’s why this investigation is ongoing."

Few details about the threats have been made public because the student is a juvenile.

"We are working with the Sheriff’s Department on possible charges," Courier said. "However, there was no evidence that students were in danger."

District spokeswoman Shannon Hansen said parents of kids enrolled at Belvidere Middle School were sent the following message by phone and email Friday night:

"As a parent of a Belvidere Central Middle School student, we want you to be aware of something that occurred. This afternoon we were notified of a possible threat made by a student. The student has been removed from school, at no time were classmates or staff members in danger, and the situation is being investigated by the Boone County Police Department and the State's Attorney's Office. The safety of your child is our first priority, and we encourage parents and students to share information with administrators at any time the safety of an individual could be in jeopardy."

Ben Stanley: 815-987-1369; bstanley@rrstar.com; @ben_j_stanley

Ben Stanley

Jim Webb plans to drop out of Democratic primary race: reports

 

Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb reportedly will drop out of the Democratic presidential primary race Tuesday afternoon.

Webb, a Vietnam veteran and former Navy secretary, is expected to make the announcement during a news conference at 1 p.m. ET in Washington, D.C.

Fox News, which broke the story of Webb’s decision to withdraw his candidacy, reports that he has become disillusioned by how campaign financing, in his view, has pushed both major political parties to extreme positions.

Webb, 69, stood out as noticeably more moderate than his main competition for the party’s nod, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, during the Democratic primary debate on Oct. 13 in Las Vegas.

Citing an op-ed in which Webb called affirmative action “state-sponsored racism,” CNN anchor and debate moderator Anderson Cooper asked Webb if he is out of step with where the Democratic Party is now.

SLIDESHOW – Jim Webb through the years >>>

His debate performance did not make a considerable impact on his poll numbers and many liberal viewers ended the night feeling he came across as simply too conservative to win the party’s nod.

On Monday, Webb’s campaign said that he is considering an independent run.

In early June, when Webb announced his candidacy, he argued that fair debate is often drowned out by the huge sums of money funneled to candidates – both directly and indirectly.

“We need to shake the hold of these shadow elites on our political process,” he said at the time. “Our elected officials need to get back to the basics of good governance and to remember that their principal obligations are to protect our national interests abroad and to ensure a level playing field here at home, especially for those who otherwise have no voice in the corridors of power.”

This electoral ailment, to which Webb apparently hoped to be the antidote, appears to have been death knell to his campaign.

He has had trouble raising enough money to pose a legitimate threat to either Clinton or Sanders. A recent filing, reported by Politico, revealed that he had only raised $696,972.18 and had $316,765.34 cash-on-hand. Contrast that with the $29,921,653.91 raised by Clinton or the $26,216,430.38 raised by Sanders, according to the report.

Jim Webb plans to drop out of Democratic primary race: reports

“Tell Koch brothers: Nevada isn’t for sale”–Senator Harry Reid--Las Vegas Sun News

 

By Harry Reid

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015 | 2 a.m.

 

Nevadans have always been fiercely independent, but the out-of-state oil and tar sand billionaires Charles and David Koch are trying to buy Nevada’s future.

The Koch brothers have promised to spend $900 million to influence the 2016 election cycle and support presidential candidates who have sold their political souls to advance the Koch brothers’ radical agenda. But the Koch brothers aren’t satisfied with simply buying federal government officials. They now want to dictate Nevada’s energy policy, as detailed in a recent article in the Las Vegas Sun (“Conservative think tank attacks NV Energy plan to build new power plant,” Oct. 6).

The Koch brothers’ decision to spend their vast fortune forcing their extreme agenda into local issues should concern every Nevadan. The Silver State should control its own future. The Koch brothers are only interested in policies that make the middle class poorer, damage the environment and shut down investments in clean, renewable energy — and help them make more money with their chemical, tar sands, oil and coal businesses.

This isn’t the first time the Koch brothers have tried to buy Nevada. They’ve used their deep pockets and shadowy organizations to try to upend the state’s open primary process. They tried to dissuade young Nevadans to stay out of the state’s health exchanges. They’ve fought attempts to raise Nevada’s cigarette tax and used the Legislature to undermine labor unions. The Koch brothers are committed to turning the Silver State into a safe haven for their own corporate interests at the expense of all Nevadans.

And Nevada isn’t the only state being targeted. The Koch brothers have dumped filthy oil and tar sands money into local issues throughout the country. In Colorado Springs, Colo., they attacked a Republican mayor for trying to raise the sales tax to fix potholes and improve roads. In Nashville, Tenn., they battled to stop a mass-transit plan. In Ohio, they fought the Columbus Zoo to save one of their nearby plants from paying its fair share of taxes. And that’s not mentioning the list of states where Koch-backed groups have aggressively fought local incentives for renewable energy that compete with the Kochs’ fossil fuel empire.

Nevadans and people throughout the country must see through this shameful attempt to subvert our democratic process. It’s time we let these power-hungry billionaires know that Nevada, the country and the future of our environment are not for sale.

Harry Reid is a U.S. senator representing Nevada.

Tell Koch brothers: Nevada isn’t for sale - Las Vegas Sun News

Half-Century Later, US Promises to Clean Up Spanish Nuke Accident - Yahoo News

 

The U.S. and Spain announced their intention today to work to once-and-for-all “remediate” a coastal region of Spain, just shy of 50 years after the U.S. Air Force accidentally dropped four nuclear bombs there – two of which partially exploded and radiated the countryside.

The “statement of intent,” signed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry while on a visit to Madrid, says the U.S. and Spain “intend to negotiate as soon as possible” a plan to finish the decades-old clean-up job that began with a tragic accident a half century ago.

In mid-January in 1966 an Air Force bomber carrying four nuclear weapons crashed into its refueling tanker over the provincial Spanish beach town of Palomares and broke up, killing seven U.S. airmen and sending the four nuclear bombs screaming towards the earth. The planes had been part of a secret mission called Operation Chrome Dome, designed to keep American nuclear weapons in the air virtually around the clock amid tensions with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

 

One of the bombs landed in the Mediterranean without exploding, sparking a long, intense and unprecedented ocean recovery effort – a Soviet spy ship was reportedly poking around the area as well at the time. Three of the others crashed down on land – one harmlessly into a sand dune on the beach just outside Palomares, and two others in the hillsides closer to town. In each of those two cases, however, the primary charge in the weapons managed to detonate spreading radiation from the bombs over much of the countryside. Luckily, the actual nuclear warhead did not detonate in any of the bombs and no one on the ground was killed in the accident.

The incident prompted one of the most complex search, recovery and clean-up operations in the world, involving hundreds of U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen as well as Spanish troops, local authorities and citizens. A report compiled by the U.S. military in 1975 describes the effort to find the bombs, to test the locals for any health issues related to the radiation and to compensate them for any losses caused by the accident – most prominently suffered by farmers as many of the local crops had to be removed, as well as a significant amount of contaminated soil.

In the months after the crash, truckloads of contaminated soil was dug up, packed into . But thousands of 55-gallon barrels and sent by U.S. Navy ships to a nuclear waste facility in South Carolina the clean-up work was never fully done and Spanish authorities have pushed the U.S. to finish the job ever since.

Today, Kerry and Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding a new effort to finish the clean-up – one that still has to be negotiated. In broad strokes, the new plan would include sending more nuclear waste to the U.S. for storage and to further “remediate” the affected area.

Kerry said today that the new memorandum will “form a new path.”

“And we have to build on today’s signing to take further action to resolve, once and for all, this very important issue,” he said.

lee.h.ferran@abc.com

Half-Century Later, US Promises to Clean Up Spanish Nuke Accident - Yahoo News

Clinton shows big lead over Sanders: Poll | MSNBC

 

Hillary Clinton has increased her lead over Bernie Sanders in the wake of the first Democratic debate, now besting the Vermont senator by at least 20 points among Democratic primary voters, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

With Vice President Joe Biden included in NBC/WSJ poll of Democratic voters, Clinton now gets the backing of 49 percent of respondents, up from 42 percent last month. Sanders has sunk from 35 percent to 29 percent support.

Biden now garners 15 percent backing, down from 17 percent last month. No other Democratic candidate received more than two percent in the poll.

When Biden, who has not yet announced a presidential run, is eliminated from the hypothetical Democratic matchup, Clinton’s lead is 58 percent to Sanders’ 33 percent. In September, without Joe Biden in the race, her lead over Sanders was 53 percent to 38 percent.

Clinton won accolades for her strong performance in the first Democratic debate last week. She faces another major test on Thursday, when she will appear for testimony before the House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks.

This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com

 

Clinton shows big lead over Sanders: Poll | MSNBC

Our View: Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner should cancel draconian child care 'emergency rule' - Opinion - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

By The Editorial Board
Rockford Register Star

Posted Oct. 19, 2015 at 1:09 PM
Updated Oct 19, 2015 at 4:47 PM

On Oct. 13, a group of Rockford-area child care providers banded together to write a letter to Gov. Bruce Rauner to warn him that his "emergency" order to lower subsidies to needy families applying for child care after July 1 is causing damage to the economy and to low-income families.

It will also put many day care providers in Illinois out of business.

Rauner's draconian rule reduced the subsidy for new applicants for day care assistance to the point of ridiculousness. It effectively eliminates aid for more than 90 percent of those who applied after July 1. People will either quit their jobs or leave their children home.

We remind Republican Rauner that day care assistance was a Republican idea designed in 1997 during the welfare-reform era to help parents get off welfare and allow them to get jobs. It has been successful and, until now, bipartisan.

As the day care directors wrote to the governor: "Under your emergency rule, the Child Care Assistance Program no longer allows full-time minimum wage earners to access child care. Have you considered the tax revenue being lost as parents are forced to leave the workforce and our staff lose their jobs because of low enrollments in our centers? Does this make any sense to you?"

And as guest columnist Anita Rumage, director of Circles of Learning Day Care Center, noted in Sunday's paper, before Rauner's cuts took effect July 1, "a family of three could earn $3,098 a month; now, that same family can make no more than $838 a month to qualify for assistance. A full-time minimum wage job earns $1,320 a month. Although emergency rules expire 150 days after enactment (Nov. 28), Gov. Rauner has started the steps to make cuts to (the Child Care Assistance Program) permanent."

Of all the things to cut, child care assistance should not be one of them. It is creating taxpayers, and Illinois desperately needs more of them.

Rumage reminded us that parents receiving state child care assistance in the greater Rockford area pay $5 million in taxes, and local child care centers have more than 363 employees who pay $1.4 million in income and social security taxes. And, she said, child care centers buy their supplies from local stores.

The House can restore the governor's day care cuts Tuesday by passing the House version of Senate Bill 750, a measure that takes 71 votes, a supermajority, to pass. Democrats have exactly 71 votes in the House.

They are not likely to get help from Republicans, who are all afraid of incurring the wrath of Rauner, who is creating his own Republican political organization to elect "friendlies" in 2016. And if you're a Republican, you want to be a "friendly" lest you get surprised by a primary challenger put up by the governor's minions.

Rauner could rescind his emergency order. We hope he does. His "emergency order" is penny foolish and pound foolish

Our View: Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner should cancel draconian child care 'emergency rule' - Opinion - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Munger: Rauner Should Back Off From Union Demands | Progress Illinois

 

Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger believes Gov. Bruce Rauner should drop his proposed "Turnaround Agenda" items aimed at unions in an effort to get a state budget adopted.

"I don't think it's productive, I think we've got to work together, personally," Munger, who was appointed by Rauner, said Friday when asked if the governor should back off from his union proposals.

"I don't think it helps to pit people against one another, to be completely honest," she added, the Quad-Cities Online's Eric Timmons reported. "I believe we need to be all working together to solve the problems in Illinois."

Illinois has been without a state budget since July 1. Rauner, a Republican, is trying to win items on his "Turnaround Agenda" through the budgeting process. Some of those items include workers' compensation reforms, a property tax freeze and limits on collective bargaining.

As for the other agenda items being pushed by Rauner, Munger said she favors tort reform and changes to the workers' compensation system in the state.

Also on Friday, former Illinois Republican Gov. Jim Edgar said Rauner should zero in on getting a state budget adopted and let up on his pro-business, anti-union policy agenda.

"State government's probably in the worst state it's been in the 47 years that I've been around (it)," Edgar said in an interview with The State Journal-Register. "You've got dozens and dozens of programs that aren't being funded, agencies that are having trouble doing their mission, and I just think it's very unfortunate."

"We need a budget," Edgar said. "These other issues, they're important, some of them I think more important than others, but you don't hold the budget hostage to get those. ... It has been very destabilizing for state government. I think a lot of people have suffered."

Munger: Rauner Should Back Off From Union Demands | Progress Illinois