GREAT IDEA
I recently visited Springfield and had an enjoyable time visiting family and touring the impressive Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. I have fond memories of my childhood visits to the Illinois State Fair, so I was very interested to read Karen Witter’s article on the Route 66 Experience at the fairgrounds (“Monarchs and the Mother Road,” Sept. 29). What an inspired idea!
I’m impressed with the vision and consciousness of all those who are bringing this project to life. When I was a child in Illinois, the monarch migration was stunning. I could look up in the trees and see orange everywhere. Hopefully the Monarch flyway will once again bring a sea of orange to Illinois.
Carol Rathe
Denver, Colorado
GREAT FOR CITY
This will be another boon for our city. Great to see so much development, and not only on the west side.
Heather Dykes
Via Facebook.com/illinoistimes
WRONG FOCUS
Nice hit piece on Doris Turner (“Sandy Hamilton and Doris Turner turn to attack ads,” Oct. 6). Way to focus on her husband’s errors 20 years ago as part of the smear while completely ignoring Sandy Hamilton’s support in assaulting working people who aren’t connected. You didn’t challenge her campaign’s gloss-over: “Hamilton campaign manager Matt Butcher said Hamilton isn’t advocating for a reduction in workers’ rights,” and left it at that.
Stahl Scott
Via Facebook.com/illinoistimes
CHOOSE CAREFULLY
There are many classifications of books, and a public library should have a variety of books to offer citizens. Book banning is a damaging action that only serves to destroy a free-thinking society (“Banned books can build bridges,” Sept. 22).
But the process of choosing a textbook for study in a K-12 classroom is a difficult process. Finding the right text for an instructional subject, especially a historically accurate textbook, is no easy task and many questions need to be investigated and answered.
Robert Nika
Via Facebook.com/illinoistimes
AMENDMENT NEEDED
Scott Reeder’s piece on the labor rights amendment now before the voters reads like a debate on the issue, albeit with twice as many voices against the amendment as for it (“Illinois labor amendment on the ballot in November,” Sept. 29). I don’t think that is reflective of the general sentiment, since, as was mentioned, some 70% of people favor unions. That would be enough for the amendment to pass easily.
Illinois Chamber of Commerce president Todd Maisch is worried that scheming labor lawyers would use the amendment to maximize workers’ rights. Yes, just as the Chamber of Commerce legal team presses the business community’s case in court – so what?
Mailee Smith of the Illinois Policy Institute raised objections with no basis in reality. Despite her class-war-based misgivings, this amendment belongs in the state constitution, because workers’ rights to bargain as equal partners in business is as fundamental as voting. “Right to work” intentionally disables unions and consequently consigns workers to a permanent underclass.
If this amendment doesn’t cover private-sector workers, it should. The NLRA is a battered, 85-year-old law routinely disregarded by businesses; it hasn’t saved workers from being fired for even trying to organize. And labor rights need to include those workers heretofore excluded from the NLRA, mainly because most farm and domestic employees at the time of its passage were African American.
So if you work for a living in Illinois, you need this amendment. Vote yes.
Jeffrey Hobbs
Springfield
This article appears in Pipeline protests.
