The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget projected last week that the current fiscal year’s budget will run a $267 million deficit. The budget office recommended taking “immediate” action to plug the hole. And the problem gets much worse in the future, with a $2.2 billion projected deficit for next fiscal year, which begins July […]
Illinois
Posted inNews
Don Tracy to run for U.S. Senate
Don Tracy, the former chair of the Illinois Republican Party and scion of the family that owns the largest food redistributor in North America, wants to be the next U.S. senator from Illinois. The 75-year-old Springfield lawyer said his background makes him particularly qualified to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield. “I want to […]
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Combating human trafficking
When Gregory L. Fraase described the conditions that women working in his Asian massage parlors endured when they were growing up overseas, his words highlighted the way he and others may have taken advantage of their desperation. “Most of these girls coming over, they don’t even have a shower in their house,” Fraase, 61, told […]
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Amy Rasing slated as new director of OPED
Springfield Mayor Misty Buscher wants to promote the city’s operations coordinator for state and federal grants to head the Office of Planning and Economic Development. Buscher told Illinois Times on Dec. 10 that she will ask the City Council to approve Amy Rasing to succeed the retiring Val Yazell as director of the office. The […]
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Sam McCann sentenced to 42 months
Former Illinois state senator and gubernatorial candidate Sam McCann’s criminal misuse of more than $630,000 in campaign funds justified a 3½-year prison sentence and contradicted his stated dedication to serving the public, a federal judge said July 9. “You knew exactly what you were doing, all the while holding yourself out as a God-fearing man […]
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Lakeisha Purchase violated IDOT policy, report says
Lakeisha Purchase took part in phone calls unrelated to her job at the Illinois Department of Transportation for almost half of the time she was supposed to be working during an 18-month period in 2021 and 2022, a state report says. Purchase, 35, a former Capital Township trustee and the Springfield Ward 5 alderperson since […]
Posted inOpinion
Pots and kettles
The late Mike Royko, Sun-Times columnist Bruce Rauner is trying to divide Downstate from Chicago over school funding. It’s a low tactic that has a long tradition, as I noted in this column from the IT of June 5, 1981. The much longer original will appear on my blog, Second Thoughts. Chicagoan Mike Royko declared […]
Posted inOpinion
If you don’t market it, will they come?
Photo by Alan Solomon/Tribune News Service You wouldn’t think that a town that boasts the burial place and the only adult home of a man famed around the world as not only America’s greatest president but America’s greatest citizen, a town furthermore that is just down the road from the reconstructed village where that man […]
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John Donvan and Caren Zucker accept the Illinois Literary Heritage Award
On March 10-11, the Illinois State Library hosted the second national “Targeting Autism” conference. This year the ISL welcomed John Donvan and Caren Zucker, New York Times bestselling authors of the book In a Different Key: The Story of Autism and former ABC news correspondents to talk about their efforts to generate awareness. At the […]
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Keep the Lights On
The State of Illinois owes Springfield’s municipal utility $12 million. File photo by Patrick Yeagle As the state passes into month nine of the budget impasse, Illinois’ financial backlog is growing. But higher education and human service providers are not the only people waiting for money from the state. The State of Illinois owes City […]
Posted inOpinion
Bruce Rauner, progressive
PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE Daydreaming the other day, I ran through my head some scenes from my imagined movie remake, Mr. Potter Goes to Springfield, in which Capra’s naïve do-gooder Jefferson Smith is replaced by Henry F. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. However, our own Mr. Potter, Bruce Rauner, also brings to mind real […]
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Black behind bars
In 2013, one out of every 266 people in Illinois was in prison. For African-American residents, it was one in every 68 people. That’s just one of the shocking facts illustrating the serious racial disparity in Illinois’ criminal justice system. About 60 percent of the state’s prison population is black, despite African-American people making up […]
