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 to public,” p. 8.) So now we have loyal employees working inside a closed museum, dusting the dioramas we suppose. The Rauner reprieve apparently doesn’t cover the museum’s non-union top administrators, who will lose their jobs through no fault of their own. As museum board president Guerry Suggs says, the situation “makes no sense.”
Several friends have asked why Illinois Times is suing the governor over his appointment calendar, implying that the move seems uncharacteristically rude. In his commentary on p. 10 (“Suing the governor”), Bruce Rushton explains that even though the attorney general has ruled that the governor’s calendar is public information, the Freedom of Information Act has no good enforcement mechanism. So going to court, where “it is better to be a plaintiff than a defendant,” is an attempt to clarify the public’s right to know.
This week Illinois Times welcomes Lisa Ellis to our staff as associate publisher. Lisa, who lives in Chatham, comes to IT with years of advertising and marketing experience in the Springfield market. For 12 years she was at Illinois National Bank, where she was director of marketing. Most recently she operated her own marketing, communications and public relations firm. She replaces James Bengfort, who has been IT’s associate publisher. He leaves this week to take the associate publisher position at Oklahoma City Gazette, where he will be closer to family and his roots. Farewell, James, and thanks for the past three years.
–Fletcher Farrar, editor and publisher
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2015.
