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THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE CLERK
Everyone knows that Sangamon Circuit Clerk Tony Libri is a humble guy.
But we were underwhelmed by Libri’s reelection campaign yard signs,
which began sprouting all over Springfield last week. Libri’s posters
consist of a white background imprinted with blue lettering bearing the
candidate’s name and the slogan “A Good Circuit Clerk.”
Easy, tiger. Doesn’t the occasion — a tough fight against
popular current Springfield City Clerk and former alderwoman Cecilia Tumulty — call
for the use of a stronger adjective? “A good circuit clerk means
you’re doing a good job — and people are happy when
you’re doing a good job,” Libri tells Cap City. “We
didn’t want to seem boastful. If we had put fantastic on there, the
first thing I’d have is you guys calling asking, ‘Why are you
saying you’re fantastic?'” He probably has a point.
Tumulty’s yard signs, by contrast, are neon green and electric blue
but contain no snappy tagline. Asked how voters will assess her job
performance, she says: “All they have to do is look at the record
I’ve established and look at what I’ve done in the city
clerk’s office. People know that for five years now they’ve
gotten the most current and accurate information available.” To fit
all that, Tumulty may need to get bigger signs.
Not on a dime
Last week U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., stopped by
the University of Illinois-Springfield to talk textbooks. They’re
just too darn expensive, he says, and so evolved the College Textbook
Affordability Act.
In honor of the newly approved federal law requiring
publishers to include pricing information when marketing textbooks to
faculty, Cap City took a tour around the UIS bookstore to see what’s
causing all
the fuss.
A freshman enrolled in entry-level classes —
Rhetoric and College Writing, Beginning Algebra, and Environmental Biology
— can expect to pay $388.45 this semester for brand-new books. That
doesn’t count what they’ll fork over for history, art, or
political science.
There’s another factor, too — a
student’s major governs how much they’ll spend on a bundle. An
upper-level English student taking Dante’s
Inferno pays $162.74for eight books and an upper-level
history student taking History of the Mystery pays $73.34 for 10 books.
But an upper-level business or math major taking
Operations Management or Discrete Mathematics needs just one book and pays
$195.25 or $171, respectively.
No wonder so many students opt for used books or
Internet buys.
SOMETHING TO DWELL ON
Despite U.S. credit markets so stifled that the
federal government wrested control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage
companies this week, the capital city seems to be holding its own in terms
of real estate development.
Although the overall number of construction permits
dipped 4 percent in the first seven months of 2008, the number of dwelling
units, their valuation, and the revenue generated for the city increased.
And while the number of permits for new single-family homes through July
fell to 64 from 93 in the same period in 2007, the number of units in
multiple-family dwellings alone jumped 96 percent.
City building manager John
Sadowski attributes much of that
expansion to the Concordia Village retirement facility on the west side,
which broke ground last fall.
NO CREDIT
When Gov. Rod
Blagojevich uncharacteristically hacked
$1.4 billion out of the state budget, we anticipated a deluge of news
releases lauding the governor for trimming the fat. A month went by, then
another. But not a peep giving Blago props from any organizations that have
called for reigning in state spending over the past six years.
Not even a kind word from Americans for
Prosperity-Illinois, which often criticizes the governor’s fiscal
policies and is currently suing Blagojevich and Senate President Emil Jones
for not providing information on earmarks. Joe
Calomino, director of AFP-Illinois chuckled
when asked if he applauded Blagojevich’s actions. “Was there a
method to the madness?” Calomino asks.
Upon announcing the cuts in July, Blagojevich said he
was forced to make the vetoes because the budget passed by the Illinois
House of Representatives was $2 billion out of balance, which he called
“a dereliction of their Constitutional duty.”
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2008.
