Cap City

The only thing more aggravating than using Springfield’s coin-op parking meters – who carries change anymore – is not being able to use them when they’re covered by red “No Parking” bags. Sometimes, there’s a good reason: There’s construction going on. Sometimes, not so much: There will be a good reason tomorrow, when the festival/parade/concert […]

The Department of Children and Family Services is the state’s safety net for children who are being abused or neglected, yet a January 2019 report issued by the Office of the Inspector General indicates it’s a broken system. During fiscal year 2018, there were 98 deaths of Illinois children who were at some point involved […]

Imagine you’re state treasurer. Imagine, further, that you’re doing business in the downtown Myers Building and a place on West Monroe Street that both look, well, perhaps not on par with an office that’s responsible for overseeing monies and investments held by the fifth largest state in the nation. Wouldn’t you want nicer digs, a […]

Ward 7 Ald. Joe “Lone Ranger” McMenamin lost, again, at Tuesday’s city council meeting. The alderman was the lone dissenter on a 9-1 vote aimed at reeling in the city’s unfunded debt for police and firefighter pensions, which now stands at $350 million. McMenamin wants to lower the expected rate of investment return from 7 […]

Parents with children enrolled in the Springfield Park District preschool programs received a disappointing notification on Feb. 19. The Park District will no longer be offering preschool programming after the current session ends May 24. Competition and low enrollment rates that have dipped beyond the “minimum participation levels” were cited as the reason for the […]

Let’s see. What has happened on Feb. 12? The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed. That was in 1909. President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate after being impeached by the House. That was in 1999. Soul On Ice, Eldridge Cleaver’s seminal book on racism, politics and crime was published. […]

A Republican lawmaker has introduced a unique bill that he perceives to be a good way to reduce challenges to Illinoisans’ Second Amendment rights. Neil Anderson, R-Moline, introduced a piece of legislation that, if passed, would prohibit other lawmakers from introducing bills to further regulate firearms and ammunition unless the person has received firearms training […]

After more than three years, Illinois Times is on the verge of prying loose information on settlements to resolve medical malpractice claims involving state inmates. We first requested settlements back in 2015. The state Department of Corrections, however, didn’t have them. Rather, the settlements were made and held by Wexford Health Sources, the company that […]

The recent arrest of Kassie M. Benton, 24, of Mount Zion, a secretary at Eisenhower High School in Decatur, has been an emotional roller coaster for parents with children. Benton told police she made sexual contact with a 17-year-old student who attended the school in February or March of 2018. The now 18-year-old victim confirmed […]

The conservative Illinois Policy Institute has released its own “State of the State” analysis of Illinois’ economic ills, with some proposed solutions. “Since the decade began, Illinois has experienced the greatest population loss of any state in the nation,” writes the organization’s chief economist, Orphe Divounguy. “This period of decline has had detrimental effects on […]

Grover Johnson died in prison in 1996, 25 years into a 40-year sentence for the rape and attempted murder of an elderly woman, Ida White. More than two decades later, Johnson became the first case in Illinois of an individual posthumously exonerated, an action former governor Bruce Rauner took just before leaving office. Paul Echols, […]

City changes courseThe City of Springfield invites the public to attend an informational session for something called a Downtown Traffic Signal Modernization and Operational Modifications project, according to a Jan. 2 press release. That’s fancy lingo for: we want to talk about turning one-way streets back into two-way.  The city announcement states there will be […]