More questions about the Jefferson Crossing project. * The project will require subsidy in the form of $9.2 million in tax increment financing — believed to be the largest single TIF award in Springfield’s history. Is creating buildable land in a floodplain necessary in a city that has thousands of acres of unbuilt or underused […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
Qestions about Jefferson Crossing
The slogan of the Qik-n-EZ gas station chain is, “The two things you cherish most in your life, make it QIK and make it EZ!” The company’s owners have found that redeveloping the old Jefferson Mall property is neither qik nor easy. That property is part of a 44-acre parcel on Winch Lane just off […]
Posted inOpinion
The case for a new open door policy
In “Three strikes and you’re in,” I endorsed the idea that what Springfield needs to make its economy perk is the entrepreneurial energy and enterprise that immigrants supply. Catherine Rampell of the new York Times has more from a 2012 report commissioned by the Small Business Administration. According to Robert W. Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, […]
Posted inOpinion
A little knowledge….No 3 in a series
Bill Gardner, posting on The Incidental Economist, Aaron Carroll’s invaluable health care blog, reported the other day on trends in the prescription of Prilosec, Prevacid and other proton pump inhibitors. These drugs are used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD, and their prescription for use by infants has exploded. The patients are babies who […]
Posted inOpinion
People skills
Back on Sept 29, 2011, I asked in The college game whether college was always the only or the best way to prepare for a career. In Education Isn’t the Same as Skills, Slate columnist Matt Ygesias warns that we shouldn’t be so blithe about identifying formal education with skills, since it is possible for […]
Posted inOpinion
The cantaloupe and I
The French are happy to explain, whether you want to know or not, about terroir, the peculiarities of geography, geology and climate of a certain place that impart to plants such as wine grapes their particular character. The way we spell “terroir” in the Illinois River melon country is s-a-n-d. You can’t grow anything worth […]
Posted inOpinion
Temple of the Law
The words audi alternam partum – roughly, “hear the other side” – are inscribed on the wall of the Illinois Supreme Court chambers in Springfield. As a maxim to guide the administration of a state court system, it doesn’t rank with “liberty and justice for all,” but in Illinois, you don’t want to aim too […]
Posted inOpinion
Buying time
Rich Miller reported on June 11 (Caps off for general if busted in primary) that HB 2418 passed both chambers and is likely to be signed by Mr. Quinn. The bill stipulates (speaking very broadly) that if Bruce Rauner or any other rich guy busts the contribution cap in a primary race and wins the […]
Posted inOpinion
Moonrise in Illinois
Reacting to my “In defense of the politician,” a veteran State of Illinois employee told me that he thought it would be fun to work under a governor like Jerry Brown. Younger readers might be interested to know that Illinois very nearly had its Jerry Brown, in 1982 and 1986, when the 11-year U.S> Senator […]
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Teen heaven
In “White elephant,” I speculated about the fate of White Oaks Mall in a future in which bricks-and-mortar retailing seems doomed by the internet. Jordan Weissman — who looks younger than some of the store displays at WOM – tells us in a recent Atlantic post not to worry. “The investment bankers at Piper Jaffray […]
Posted inOpinion
Certain-kind-of-family guy
When I want to learn what a politician thinks, I read what she writes. When I need only to learn what a politician says he thinks, I listen to him speak. Here’s why. Republican governor wanna-be Kirk Dillard ventured an opinion to a radio reporter last week about what kind of people ought to inhabit […]
Posted inOpinion
Haunted house
Republican Kirk Dillard recently raised the issue of which kind of family ought to be living in the Executive Mansion in Springfield. It is a question we ventilated in in 2009. (“Life in the Big House.) Clearly, it was not a question on the minds of the two most recent occupants of the house. Mr. Blagojevich […]
