·
McCormick Place expansion measure
becomes law. Plans were unveiled in mid-May to construct
a 10,000-seat arena, which could be used as a meeting space or for athletic
contests, adjacent to Chicago’s McCormick Place. The project, which is expected to cost $173
million, will have the De Paul Blue Demons basketball team as its flagship
tenant. The name of the arena, and the
arena’s luxury-box and sponsorship arrangements, have not yet been
revealed. The arena could also be used
for large-group convention events and presentations. The new Chicago arena legislation was
“bundled” into an end-of-session omnibus economic development measure, SB 20,
and was signed into law as P.A. 98-109 on Thursday, July 25. The final House vote on the bill was 81-35-1
(the omnibus bill also contained other controversial measures).
· Six persons killed in Chicago and at least 23 wounded on weekend ending Sunday, July 21. The police blotter counted four deaths on Chicago’s South Side, one homicide in Humboldt Park, and one on the Near North Side in the former Cabrini-Green neighborhood. A six-year-old girl was reported by news wires to be in critical condition as of Monday, July 22. An apparent upsurge in Chicago city violence during the summer of 2013, including homicides, appears to mystify criminologists. Efforts to reduce criminal gang violence by increasing Chicago “gun control” and city police overtime do not appear to have been successful.
Dogs
·
Governor signs law creating criminal
offense of cruel dog tethering. The new Class B
misdemeanor (up to 6 months in county jail) will apply to owners who tether one
or more dogs outdoors, such as in a field or back yard, under conditions that
violate the law. Complex, and in some
cases cross-cutting, mandates are placed upon backyard dog-tethering and the
dog owners. For example, the fixture
must include a tethering lead that is at least 10 feet in length, but the lead
must not weigh more than one-eighth of the dog’s body weight.
P.A. 98-101 (HB 83) was introduced in response to many persons
concerned about seeing dogs tethered on other people’s property under
conditions that appear cruel to the dog.
The bill was controversial, with the House voting 83-34-0 to pass
it. Many House Republicans expressed
concern about the ability of local law enforcement to enforce this new measure
at a time of rising fears of violent crime against humans. The measure was signed into law on Monday,
July 22.
Downstate – Thomson
·
Creation of as many as 1,000 jobs in
northwestern Illinois moves a step closer. The federal Senate Appropriations
Committee approved $166 million in funding on Thursday, July 18 to reopen the
former Thomson Correctional Center as an active federal penitentiary. The prison is capable of housing as many as
2,800 inmates. As many as 1,000 jobs are
expected to be created. This reflects
both the prison guards and other personnel who will be hired and additional,
spin-off jobs created within a multi-county local area from the goods and
services to be purchased by prison personnel.
Final steps to reopen the prison followed successful passage of a
bill to make the transfer possible, SB 30 (Jacobs/Sacia). The lead House sponsor, Rep. Jim Sacia, has
long been a leader in Thomson redevelopment efforts. This measure transferred legal authority
over the prison and prison grounds to the U.S. federal government. Signed on Monday, July 15, as P.A. 98-70, this
transfer was an immediate green light for Congress to begin appropriating the
money to implement the reopening.
Congress has enacted a law directing the current White House not to use
the prison for detainees currently housed in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention
center.
Downstate – Tuscola
·
House Republicans takes lead in new
move to create 150 permanent jobs near Tuscola in east-central Illinois. Legislation containing an incentive package for the proposed
Project Cronus fertilizer plant was signed into law Thursday. Senate Bill 20 (P.A. 98-109) is the State’s
2013 omnibus economic development package that includes incentives for a $1.2
billion fertilizer plant near Tuscola. Construction
of the facility would create approximately 2,000 construction jobs and attract
at least $500 million in investment. Upon
completion, the plant would create 150 full-time, permanent jobs.
State Representative Adam Brown led the effort to pass the
incentive package for Tuscola, which will give Illinois a competitive advantage
in the siting process for Project Cronus. Illinois is competing with Iowa for the plant,
with Iowa offering up to $35 million in tax incentives.
“Project Cronus would be a huge boost to the local economy in
terms of construction jobs and overall investment,” Brown said. “Tuscola is the ideal site for the plant,
given its multiple natural gas lines and railroad connections. I am thrilled that we were able to put this
incentive package together to help make Project Cronus a reality.”
The new law qualifies the Tuscola
development for High Impact Business Incentives in the Enterprise Zone Act
providing: sales tax exemptions; investment tax credits; exemption from state
gas and electric taxes; and a state sales tax exemption on personal property.
It will also provide up to $12 million in property tax abatement for the plant.
Guns
·
Firearms’ rights advocates pursue
lawsuit in attempt to speed up concealed-carry implementation.
Enactment of HB 183, the “concealed carry law”, in June 2013 was only
the start of a complex process (expected to stretch out past year’s end) that
is supposed to conclude with licenses for Illinois residents who seek the right to carry a
concealable firearm in their motor vehicle or on the street. The Illinois State Police were given 180 days
to carry out the process of setting up a license-application procedure; if all
of this time is taken up, gun owners will not have the right to commence their
applications until after January 1, 2014.
Asserting that federal law requires that this right be granted to
law-abiding Illinoisans now, rather than later, citizen advocates led by Mary
Shepard of Anna, Illinois have filed a lawsuit demanding that a federal court
grant them immediate relief and prompt concealed-carry rights. The office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan
opposes the Shepard lawsuit. Shepard, a
Second Amendment advocate, was 69 years old when she was beaten in Anna’s First
Baptist Church by a burglar. The senior
citizen has repeatedly testified to her belief that she could have staved off
the brutal attack had she enjoyed the right to carry a concealed firearm in
self-defense. Shepard’s lawyer filed a
statement with the court on Thursday, July 18.
No hearing date has been set in the case.
·
Few local governments ban “assault
weapons” before pre-emption takes effect. Sixteen of the
approximately 1,300 city, town, and village municipalities of Illinois took
advantage of the “window” granted to them in the concealed carry law of 2013
(HB 183) to enact ordinances banning so-called “assault weapons” within their
municipal limits. While this short list
included the City of Chicago with its 2.7 million residents, few Illinois
suburbs and no rural municipalities joined Chicago. Opponents of this move pointed out the
difficulty in enforcing a law where the alleged offender could be in a moving
vehicle crossing multiple municipal lines within a short period of time. Difficulties
in defining the concept of “assault weapons” were also noted. Attempts to discourage or ban these weapons
have often fallen back on the concept of listing forbidden guns by brand name
and model number, creating the potential requirement upon
assault-weapons-banning municipalities of having to maintain an
ever-lengthening list of forbidden weaponry.
The ordinance “window” closed on Friday, July 19; after this date, local
governments throughout Illinois are pre-empted from enacting such a ban unless
it is already in place.
Health Care
·
Despite unanswered questions, Governor
signs Affordable Care Act implementation measure.
The bill to implement “Obamacare” and add an estimated 342,000 Illinois
residents to the taxpayer-funded Medicaid rolls was signed into law on Monday,
July 22 as P.A. 98-104. The measure,
which had been approved by Democrats in the General Assembly as SB 26,
contained numerous measures to expand health care for lower-income Illinois
households. Households without children
earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line will be eligible for
Medicaid for the first time (these families, if they had children, were already
eligible). After the first three years,
states such as Illinois are scheduled to gradually pick up a “percentage” of
the increased costs to Medicaid that are derived from implementation programs
like this one.
In addition, an estimated 171,000 Illinois residents who are
currently eligible for Medicaid, but who have not yet enrolled themselves in
the program, are expected to emerge from non-enrollment. The Obama administration plans to conduct a
major public-relations campaign, including advertising, to educate the American
people about changes in the American health care system and to encourage all
Americans to enroll in privately-funded health insurance or Medicaid. An analysis by the “Associated Press”
indicates that this federal public relations initiative will spend an estimated
$70 million in Illinois. The medical
care incurred by all of the 171,000 Illinois residents that fall within this
subset will be billed to the State with only partial federal recompense, as is
done with Medicaid billings under current law.
House and Senate Republicans had asked questions in the General
Assembly about the added costs to Illinois taxpayers through implementation of
SB 26, especially in the light of slow progress (in some areas, minimal or no
progress) of the Governor’s office in implementing bipartisan cost-reduction
measures previously approved by the General Assembly to eliminate unnecessary
billings and stamp out Medicaid fraud.
Although the Illinois Medicaid program continues to be a troubled
program with exponentially increasing billings to taxpayers and slow State
payments to medical care providers, the Governor approved SB 26. The House vote was 63-55-0. No House Republicans voted for the
controversial measure.
Suburbs – Third Airport
·
Governor approves law to resume
progress toward construction of “third airport” on far southern edge of greater
Chicago. Language included in the State’s omnibus economic
development package (SB 20) authorizes the Department of Transportation to work
with the private sector to develop a public-private partnership to plan for,
develop, and build the new airport. The
language also provides for the governance of the airport as a publicly-owned,
privately-operated facility. The airport
is likely to be located in southern Will County southeast of Monee, Illinois. Under the provisions of SB 20, the facility
will be built by the private sector; the investors will be granted a long-term
leasehold interest in return for their capital support for the project.
Preliminary plans covering the initial “footprint” of the airport,
as well as the existing Bult Field, indicate that one market niche that the
proposed new airport could fulfill would be that of a “reliever” facility for
air freight and logistics. The airport
will be built adjacent to Interstate 57 and to the Illinois mainline of CN, a
major North American railroad, adding to its attractiveness as a logistics
center. Some of the land for the airport
has already been acquired.
Controversial features of this airport proposal included the
explicit grant of land condemnation authority to airport authorities. SB 20 was approved by the House by a vote of
81-35-1 (the bill contained many provisions, some of them controversial) and
was signed into law as P.A. 98-109.
Suburbs – Metra
·
Metra investigation raises questions
about key Chicago mass transit authority; resolution calls for ouster of board
chairman. Metra, the commuter rail arm of the Regional
Transportation Authority, is run autonomously with its own executive director,
board of directors, and chairman of the board.
The authority operates 11 separate diesel and electric rail lines that
service Chicago and its northern, northwestern, western, and southern
suburbs. More than 300,000 Chicago-area
residents ride Metra on work days. The
board chairman is Brad O’Halloran of Orland Park.
Former executive director/CEO Alex Clifford, hired in April 2011,
was let go in July 2013. Allegations
have swirled concerning the circumstances of his departure, the reasons for a
substantial severance payment to Clifford, and the existence of possible political
pressure against Clifford and other Metra personnel involving the chairman and
members of Metra’s current board of directors.
The Legislative Inspector General has been asked to carry out an ethics
probe. The Chicago Tribune published an editorial
published on Thursday, July 25, which asked the entire board to step down.
House Republicans have taken action to respond to constituent
concerns raised by these allegations. Rep.
David Harris introduced HB 3648 on Friday, July 19. This measure reorganized
the legal structure governing the terms and powers of Metra board members. HB 3648 would create a term limit (of five
years) for members of the Metra board of directors, forbid the reappointment of
current board members, and would empower seven board members to appoint,
retain, or dismiss the Metra executive director/CEO (currently, eight members
are required). Harris also introduced HR
521 on July 19; this measure calls upon Metra board chairman O’Halloran to
resign.
Rep. Mike Tryon, Republican spokesperson on the House Mass Transit
Committee, has transmitted two written requests that the committee (chaired
until July 2013 by Rep. Deborah Mell) meet to discuss the Metra allegations,
hear from key Metra personnel involved in the affair, and fulfill their
oversight responsibilities. After Rep.
Mell was named Chicago’s 33rd ward alderman on Wednesday, July 24,
Tryon sent a renewed request on Thursday, July 25, this time to Speaker Michael
Madigan.
Metra, like other units of the RTA, is indirectly dependent upon
State tax revenues for its continued operations and existence. The agency cannot fund itself through farebox
collections, and survives through the payment of a substantial subsidy from RTA
sales taxes levied in Cook County and the five-county outer Metra service area,
and from additional State money from taxpayers.
The RTA sales tax rate is 1.00 percent in Cook County and 0.75 percent
in all other counties.
Transportation
·
Chicago-St. Louis passenger train
service to be disrupted during third week of August; work continues on speeding
up rail service. With “high-speed rail” work continuing on the
Chicago-St. Louis corridor, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT)
warned train travelers to prepare to ride a bus on August 16 through 23 for
travel north of Bloomington. Temporarily
shutting down the rail right-of-way will allow contractors to tear out and
rebuild several bridges and culverts on the affected strip. $1.45 billion in federal transportation funds
have been awarded to Illinois for a five-year plan to partly reconstruct the
historic Chicago & Alton right-of-way.
IDOT believes that once the track, signal, and other
infrastructure work is completed in the fourth quarter of 2015, passenger
trains will be able to travel up to 110 mph over about two-thirds of the
right-of-way. The importance of proper
railroad signals installation was underlined by a tragic train crash in Spain
on Wednesday, July 24, as a Spanish train entered a slow section of its line and
did not apply the brakes. In Illinois,
slow sections in and around larger cities, such as Chicago, St. Louis and
Springfield, will remain. Future work
will include consolidating the Amtrak line in Springfield onto the Tenth Street
“corridor,” a heritage right-of-way that includes the trackage on which Abraham
Lincoln rode from Springfield toward Washington, D.C. in February 1861.