Fletcher Farrar

 In 1986 there were already structural problems with the big new Helmut Jahn-designed state office building in Chicago, opened just a year before. That’s when Adlai Stevenson III, the Democratic candidate for governor, proposed renaming what was then called the State of Illinois Center after his opponent, James R. Thompson, because “it’s big, it’s ugly […]

 Sometimes friends get into financial or legal trouble but they’re still friends, and those troubles don’t wipe out the good that they’ve done. We and hundreds of others are sad to see Gold’s Gym close. Maureen Suhadolnik and her family built a business on the east side of Springfield when others headed west and south, […]

It is a relief that Gov. Bruce Rauner has, at least for now, backed off from his bad decision to lay off the staff of the Illinois State Museum, but it’s crazy that he hasn’t backed off his bad decision to close the museum to the public. (See Patrick Yeagle’s report, “Illinois State Museum closes […]

 Three Springfield-area legislators told their audience at the Better Government Association “Idea Forum” at the Sangamo Club Tuesday they are as frustrated as anyone over the budget impasse. “It’s ridiculous that the leadership and the governor haven’t met since May,” said Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill. “We need to be here,” said Rep. Avery Bourne, […]

It seems almost surreal for Springfield to go on with business as usual when there is so much going wrong. The Illinois State Museum is about to shut down for no good reason, homeless shelters throughout the state are being denied state funding (see “Chopping off the hands that help,” by Patrick Yeagle, p. 9) […]

When Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed Medicaid funding for heroin addiction treatment, he kept Illinois in the dark ages while many other states are seeing the light. Roosevelt University released a study recently showing that Illinois’ addiction treatment capacity fell from 28th in the nation five years ago to third worst. Illinois is one of the […]

Readers, be sure to take a listen to WUIS radio’s Dusty Rhodes’ reporting series “Black and White” on the racially uneven discipline practices in District 186 Springfield Public Schools. The series, which has been airing all this week, is archived at wuis.org. Rhodes, the education desk reporter, has analyzed mountains of data and interviewed experts […]

 The Illinois Department of Natural Resources entry in last week’s State Fair Twilight Parade was a truck pulling a big trailer carrying one person. Nothing could illustrate better that the once-proud agency has been decimated by successive budget cuts over the years, and it’s getting worse. This week the Rauner administration sent out layoff notices […]

Illinoisans have been lulled into thinking that once the current budget stalemate is resolved, social services will be funded. But, as detailed in this week’s cover story by Patrick Yeagle, the social services cuts proposed in Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget threaten to do more long-term damage than the current impasse. Defunding social services will affect […]

“As the butter chills to form the State Fair butter cow, service providers and organizations across the state are melting from the heat of the state budget gridlock.” That’s the way a group of the state’s human services providers described their situation in a press conference this week. Even without a budget, Gov. Bruce Rauner […]

House Speaker Michael Madigan wasn’t being overly dramatic when he told his fellow legislators Tuesday, “We are involved in a historic struggle.” He said the House has passed four separate bills that attempt to meet Gov. Bruce Rauner half way, but he said the governor’s response is always, “I have to have my agenda. As […]

 Voters always complain that political campaigns are too long, but it is in the course of a long campaign that a candidate’s true character, or lack of it, often emerges. Gov. Bruce Rauner’s fight to get his “Turnaround Agenda” approved before he’ll cooperate on a budget deal has been likened to a political campaign, and […]