Chicago a state; who dumps whom?

It is one of those periodic measures that gets introduced before the Illinois General Assembly – one that calls for the rest of Illinois to break away into its own state, or one that calls for Chicago to be separated from Illinois.

EMANUEL: Mayor gets a chuckle over splitting state

Regardless of the details of anyone’s specific proposal, those measures always manage to make me snicker. Largely because the people who are trying to express frustration with Chicago don’t want to admit how much the sentiment is mutual.

HOW ELSE TO interpret the comments Mayor Rahm Emanuel made this week during a meeting with the Chicago Community Trust. Although it should be realized that Emanuel, himself, was joking around.

For the record, the mayor was talking about Supreme Court decisions of recent days that were blatantly politically partisan in ways that go against the city’s interests, when he said, “Right now, after the last 48 hours, I’d like to pull out of this one nation and one state.”

When asked if he was talking about Chicago breaking off into its own independent city-state (a la the Vatican City that many people might mistakenly think is part of Rome), Emanuel quipped, “I’m going with Toronto.”

Which is Canada’s largest city, and one that is just slightly larger than Chicago.

Would these flags … 

OBVIOUSLY, NO ONE is going to seriously try to move forward with an independence drive. The real solution is that we all have to learn to work together, and to realize that each and every faction that comprises our society at-large offers some benefit.

That goes for just about every place in this nation of ours. We already had our “war” over secession in this country, and they lost!

I have similar thoughts when I hear there are officials in California who seriously think “the Golden State” ought to be broken up into three – the northern part of the state that would have San Francisco as its primary city, a southern part that would focus on San Diego and a third being the Los Angeles metro area.

… be at the heart someday … 

As though there are people who can’t appreciate having the nation’s second-largest city as part of their own political boundary.

SOUNDS SIMILAR TO those rural Illinois residents who think the whole world is focused on farms – even though most farms these days are corporate entities and trying to cling to the vision of a family-run farm is a large part of the reason those rural communities are so isolated from the mainstream of our society.

So are we ever going to get a state of Chicago that is separate from Illinois? Not likely, unless our society gets a whole lot more stupid than it already is tumbling down to in this Age of Trump that we’re now in.

Seriously, I think if anybody tried to split the state of Illinois up, they’d have one heck of a time figuring out where the boundary ought to be. Because it sure couldn’t be as simple as the city limits. Are we prepared to fight a “war” over who gets Naperville or Joliet?

I think people eager to think in terms of kicking Chicago “out” would be amazed to realize how much of Illinois would throw its lot in with the city. All those suburbs (more than 100 in Cook County alone, and those in the surrounding collar counties bring the tally to 250-plus) account for about two-thirds of Illinois’ population, and many of those residents merely think of “downstate” as the place where they, or a relative, went to college before coming back to “Sweet home, Chicago.”

THE REST OF Illinois’ population would be about 4 million people – placing the state at about No. 27 – just between Kentucky and Oregon (although bigger than Iowa’s 3.05 million), rather than the state’s current population rank of No. 6.

… of a 'battle' for the right to claim Joliet?

Anyway, this is all fantasy – which is why Emanuel can make jokes about the idea of “Oh Canada” becoming the new national anthem in these parts. Although it would be interesting if a new baseball rivalry were to develop between the White Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays.

The reality is that we are one, and that is our greatest national (and regional) strength. It is why I always have mocked people who try to tout the concept of “state’s rights,” because it seems to think we’re better off separate, and if it were really true, why not “city’s rights” being preeminent in which we work from the bottom up?

The truth is there’s a contribution to be made by everybody, and the only people who think of breaking apart as a serious concept are ones who deserve the label of “knuckleheads.”

  -30-

Immigration detention center project won’t die; just going further south

It seems the powers that be who want to build a jail-like facility for people awaiting hearings on immigration violations (and possible deportation from the United States) are not about to give up.

Will these types of activists express their objections ...

Their plans to build such a facility somewhere in the Chicago metropolitan area to accommodate immigration violators in the Midwestern U.S. are cropping up again.

ONLY NOW, THEY’VE moved not only across the state line to Indiana, but south to Newton County – a place so far south that I’m sure the locals who live there would seriously resent any claim that they’re part of the Chicago area (Wikipedia says they are).

It’s a fairly isolated place with lots of open space, which means it might be possible to build the desired facility in a place where it would have little interaction with the real world – just like more conventional prison facilities.

Perhaps this is what the project’s backers feel is necessary to get away from the objections that have constantly arisen all the other opportunities that this has come up for discussion.

Personally, I remember back when the powers-that-be wanted to build such a facility just outside of Joliet. When locals objected, talks shifted toward building it just south of Crete (which is roughly the southernmost suburb of Chicago) not far from the now-defunct Balmoral Racecourse.

ALL THE HOSTILITY toward the project caused Crete officials to back away, which caused the project’s supporters to shift over the state line into Indiana and there was some consideration to building it in Gary not far from the Gary/Chicago International Airport.

Concerns about the airport’s flight patterns being a potential security risk for a detention facility, along with the outspoken immigration activists who have followed this project everywhere it has gone, caused Gary municipal officials to give up their support for the idea.

... so far distant from Chicago?

Now, it seems the supporters of a detention center have found a place about 65 miles away from Chicago (about as far south as Kankakee) where they hope there will be a lack of opposition to the idea of locking up people who may only be caught up in the immigration bureaucracy because they got pulled over for a traffic violation – and some eager cop was willing to notify immigration to “take ‘em away.”

As the talks proceed toward whether to build such a facility in Newton County -- a place whose total population (just under 14,000) is less than most suburbs. I’ll be curious to see how many of the activist-types will continue to follow this project.

BECAUSE SOME OF the objectors are people with an interest in our nation’s immigration policy, and they have followed it from municipality to municipality.

From Joliet to Crete to Gary, Ind., will they now show up in Kentland (the county seat) to let their objections be known. Or will they figure they’ve pushed this proposed facility far out enough into the “middle of nowhere” that they can live with its existence “somewhere else.”

I’ve heard the arguments on all sides, with the objectors hating the idea of detaining people while the immigration violations are pending. While supporters either aren’t bothered with their incarceration, or they’ll argue that these facilities aren’t really prisons.

Some may even argue that the current status of these violators would improve if they weren’t held in traditional jail conditions (many are sent to the McHenry County Jail in Woodstock, which has a contract with the federal government to detain such people).

PERSONALLY, I’M MOST concerned with the fact that these detention facilities are run by private companies, rather than by a government entity like the federal Bureau of Prisons. Meaning many of the regulations meant to protect the rights of inmates in the federal system do not apply. This particular facility would be built by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla.

I don’t doubt that in this Age of Trump that we’re now in, there are some who aren’t bothered by that thought. But we should be. Our “rights” are only as safe as the most vulnerable in our society.

And it may well be that among the most vulnerable are those people whose immigration status is unclear – particularly since there are those who enjoy being able to harass such individuals to make up for the short-comings in their own lives.

So has this project moved far enough away from Chicago that the locals will be willing to tell its objections to “stuff it!” or will the objectors (a combination of religious folks and Latino activists) continue to push to where it eventually becomes an Indianapolis issue, rather than Chicago?

  -30-

Killing off Illiana, once and for all?

Gov. Bruce Rauner put the kibosh on efforts earlier this year to create a toll road connecting I-65 in Indiana to I-55 south of Joliet, claiming the state’s financial problems are so intense that now is not the time for Illinois to move forward.


Integral part of transportation future? Or environmental disaster?

Yet it seems the people who despise the concept of the Illiana Tollway aren’t willing to accept that as fact.

A LAWSUIT WAS filed this month in U.S. District Court in Chicago, hoping to get a judge to issue an order that would prevent the road from ever being built.

The lawsuit was filed by assorted environmental activist groups. They want to claim that the path for the road from Lowell, Ind., west across the state line, passing right by the proposed site for a new airport near Peotone (another project that has lingered for far too long), and winding up near Wilmington would wreck havoc with the local land – causing particular harm to the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

Which is a slightly different tactic from the usual arguments made against the Illiana – that the land is agricultural in nature and should not be permitted for any other type of use.

It usually comes across as the kind of argument made by a rural crank who is upset that metro Chicago is growing, and that some of that growth is going to be south of places like Crete and Monee, which currently are the southernmost edge of urban Chicago.

SOMETHING IS GOING to wind up filling in that rural space that now is unincorporated Will County (the far eastern part of the county that officials in Joliet and other west Will municipalities often forget is also part of the county).

Which means some sort of road through the area is going to have to be built.

Unless this environmental argument winds up sticking. A prairie could wind up having a more lasting effect than a soybean farm – or any of those people who built homes surrounded by empty land because living out in the middle of nowhere is their fantasy-come-true.

This could be a scenario that brings agricultural interests in line with the Sierra Club or the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

MY OWN VIEW about the Illiana is to realize the day is coming when Kankakee will be the southern edge of the Chicago metropolitan area. There will be growth and development in the area, and these resistance efforts seem so futile.

Besides, I’m also someone who has used I-80 to get from Illinois into the Gary, Ind., metro area and to come back to civilization – which means I know how ridiculous the truck traffic shipping goods to and through the Chicago area can get on that road. Particularly when there’s an auto accident or inclement weather that causes the backup.

I-80 is the current road that connects I-65 (the road from Gary to Indianapolis) and I-55 (Chicago to St. Louis). Which means the I-80 bottleneck is a drag on shipment of goods. Illiana is an alternate route for those many trucks passing through the area that don’t actually have to stop in Chicago.

Those people who argue against Illiana on the grounds that its route doesn’t enter Chicago are missing the point – it could help improve traffic flow in Cook County by reducing the number of trucks that need to come through here.

YET THAT ARGUMENT doesn’t seem to sway the political people. I’m sure Rauner’s own move that put the halt on Illiana development (Indiana officials made a similar move to cut the project right after Rauner took his action) was in large part because of the fact that former Gov. Pat Quinn was such a strong supporter of Illiana.

That could mean a future could reinstate Illiana. Considering how long this project has already dragged on, four more years wouldn’t be that big a deal.

Which means the Illiana opponents may now be placing their faith that a federal judge will put an end to this particular vision of how the southern end of metro Chicago will develop.

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Jackson’s health public, or a secret?

In just under one month, Jesse Jackson, Jr., is going to face sentencing for the criminal charges he pleaded guilty to as they relate to his use of campaign funds for personal expenditures.


JACKSON: Public, or private?

Attorneys for Jackson, the former Congressman from Chicago’s Far South Side and surrounding suburbs, have made it clear they want his health issues (he’s been diagnosed as being bipolar) to be a factor in what a federal judge for the District of Columbia takes into account when imposing a sentence.

BUT THOSE ATTORNEYS this week made it clear there are limits as to how much of his health data ought to be public. They want part of a sentencing memorandum to be sealed to the public.

The parts related to his health; specifically the parts that contain letters written by doctors who provide medical details of just how ill Jackson truly is.

There have been enough people who oppose Jackson for politically partisan reasons who hate the idea that health and physical fitness will be a factor at all. I’m sure they’re prepared to start ranting about how this is some sort of cover-up.

As though they won’t be happy unless they get personal details that they can then use to try to humiliate Jackson further than he already feels.

WHICH MEANS WE have to figure whether we agree with the attorneys, who this week said that releasing those doctor letters would, “disclose unnecessarily the defendant’s and his family member’s medical information, diagnoses and treatment to the public.”

Personally, I’m amazed that the Mayo Clinic (where Jackson went for some treatment prior to his indictment) provided as much detail as they did about bipolar disorder.

Although I’m pretty sure some people (the ones who think that the potential for a five-year prison term that Jackson faces isn’t sufficient) are going to complain no matter how this situation turns out on July 1 – the date that Jackson and spouse Sandi (the former 7^th Ward alderman) are scheduled for sentencing.

What else is notable in the land along Lake Michigan where two mediocre-to-sorry baseball teams prevail?

MOVING ON?:  First Crete. Now Joliet.

... except for detention

The latter city this week said it was no longer interested in being the location for a detention center designed for people who face federal immigration law violations.

Federal officials want to hire Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America to build five privately-run facilities to hold people facing deportation – including one in the Midwest near Chicago.

But every single site considered thus far has aroused the anger of locals who don’t want any such structure built near them. Combined with the people who hate the idea of privately-run facilities for these offenses, it’s a wonder if any place will ever be willing to have a jail-like facility located nearby.

LET THEM COME. HECKLE THEM INSTEAD:  The Gay Pride Parade will be held this year on June 30, and the question is whether any political people will be seen among its participants.

 

They usually are. But there’s a petition drive these days from people who say they want the elected officials kept out – on account of the fact that the Illinois House of Representatives could not be bothered to vote on the measure that would have legitimized marriage for gay couples.

Personally, I think that’s short-sighted. Keep in mind that the Illinois state Senate approved the measure (back on Valentine’s Day). Perhaps any political gesture should be aimed at the Illinois House.

Or better yet, let the political people march in the parade – if they have the nerve. Because I suspect the boos, heckles and taunts they would receive would make for a very uncomfortable environment. Maybe that’s what it will take to make them realize the short-sightedness of their actions last week.

DEFINE ABORTION!:  Rev. Michael Pfleger of the St. Sabina Parish is used to saying things that manage to tick people off. Although I suspect he will upset, and confuse, many interests when it comes to abortion.

FLEGER: Looking out for poor, regardless of who's offended

Pfleger, who spoke Monday night at Governors State University about how he thinks our society these days is doing harmful things to children, used the “A” word. Although he didn’t define it as a medical procedure.

He says that corporate entities, schools and others commit acts all the time that harm the chances of children to grow to adulthood and succeed in life, and he considers those just as bad.

“Whatever harms a child from growing to term, that is an abortion,” he said.

  -30-

Different location; same objections

How much griping and grousing will it take before the powers-that-be who want to build special detention facilities to hold people facing immigration-related violations realize that the idea stinks?

Apparently, some people aren’t listening.

BECAUSE IN READING a Chicago Tribune report about the objections to a proposal to build such a facility near Joliet, I couldn’t help but notice there was nothing new in the debate.

The exact same arguments were made last year when officials were focusing their attention on building a facility near suburban Crete.

No matter where one wants to put this facility, the people are going to object. There’s no way to make this look pretty.

At stake is a series of facilities that Corrections Corp. of America want to build across the country. They envision five facilities – one each in various parts of the United States.

THE FACILITY BEING proposed for near Joliet would be the Chicago-area facility in their plan, and likely would be used to detain people suspected of immigration law violations in the Midwestern U.S.

Last year, the attention focused on a site near Crete – which is a Will County town that is about as far south as one can go and still claim to be in the Chicago-area. The actual site of farmland that would have been turned into the facility is pretty much the edge between urban and rural development in Illinois.

But the locals hated the idea of having any facility that even remotely resembled a jail near their community. When combined with the immigration rights activists who despise the idea of these privately-owned facilities being used to detain people, it was enough to get local officials to back away from the project.

Now, the supporters still want their Chicago-area facility for alleged immigration violators caught in the Midwest. So they’ve merely moved to the other end of Will County.

INSTEAD OF FAR south, it will be far southwest. Although that would put it near some brand-new residential development that is the very reason why Will County is the fastest-growing county in Illinois.

Which means even more people will be disgusted at the thought of a jail-like facility near their brand-new homes!

Personally, I hate the idea of outsourcing this, so to speak, to private entities. If Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials really want to detain these facilities, they ought to operate the facilities themselves.

Contracting out to private companies is more about try to undermine any unions that would be involved in representing employees at a federal facility.

ALTHOUGH I WILL agree the current situation is unacceptable. Federal officials have been turning over the people awaiting deportation hearings to the McHenry County Sheriff’s department – which has been putting them in its county jail.

 

All mixed in with that far northwestern suburb's criminal element. That's abhorrent -- no matter how far to the "right" one is!

As some will say, we’re talking about some people being put in jail indefinitely (the feds have a backlog when it comes to deportation hearings) because they might have been caught running a red light and couldn’t immediately satisfy a local cop about what their immigration status was.

The immigration violations themselves aren’t “criminal” offenses (no matter how much the conservative ideologues want to believe they are!). Jail is a miserable fate for them.

THE REAL SOLUTION to the problem is to get the feds to start moving along at a quicker pace when it comes to addressing immigration cases. Maybe the money that would be paid to Corrections Corp. ought to be put into hiring more hearing officers to reduce the backlog.

Although there also are the occasional incidents where someone gets picked up by immigration, then finds themselves back in a foreign country within days. Our system can move along properly, when it feels properly motivated.

But more often than not, it doesn’t.

Which is why some people think it a smart thing to pay millions to a Nashville, Tenn.-based company to operate jail-like facilities for “foreigners.”

I THINK THOSE ideologues just like the concept so much they’re willing to waste federal dollars on construction, piled on to the millions that has been wasted in recent years to build up a wall along the U.S./Mexico border.

And there’s no place within metro Chicago that’s going to want to be associated with this stinker of an idea!

  -30-

It’s a wonder there aren’t more auto accidents in the construction zones

Technically, I might be confessing to an act that is not quite legal. Although it is one that would have gotten me killed had I not done it.

What I’m talking about was a trip I made Wednesday morning to Joliet (to handle a reporter-type person assignment that paid a few bucks). From where I was early in the day, the route I used was a trip along Interstate 80 west to that city at the far southwest corner of the metropolitan area.

ONCE I CROSSED over the county line into Will County, the road became a mess of construction zones. It was so congested at points that I literally got off the road around New Lenox and used U.S. Route 30 (the Lincoln Highway) to get there.

Of course, a packed interstate highway with fewer-than-usual lanes didn’t mean that people didn’t drive like crazy.

There literally was one point when “80” was narrowed to two lanes with special signs re-setting the speed limit to 45 miles per hour. Yet I was doing 55 just to keep up with the vehicles ahead of me, and I had a mini-van bearing down on me from behind.

I also got to see one moment ahead of me where a car transferred lanes to get just ahead of the van that was ahead of me. The driver of that van immediately shifted lanes, sped ahead of that car, then shifted back ahead of him.

I’M PRETTY SURE I also saw an obscene gesture or two flung about.

Considering that it was raining Wednesday morning in the Chicago metro area – which made the roads slicker than usual – I can’t help but think that this was a particularly silly time for too-fast driving and people getting arrogant.

Particularly since construction work was taking place around us. My car sped along the interstate, at points coming within three feet (my guess) of construction workers.

Now I realize that so long as drivers don’t do anything unexpected, the construction workers are knowledgeable enough to know where they can stand and where they can’t while cars whiz by.

BUT THERE LITERALLY are too many people who seem too anxious to pull the unexpected. Which is why I wasn’t the least bit surprised when, later on Wednesday, I saw a story on the Internet about a fatal auto accident on Interstate 80.

Actually, right where that interstate meets up with Interstate 355 (a point that I passed by earlier in the day and where traffic seemed particularly messy). We probably should be surprised only by the fact that there was only one auto fatality on Wednesday – at least as far as I know.

Although this one was particularly grisly – a car was hit from behind by a semi-truck, causing it to spin out of control into the other lane, where it was then run over by another semi-truck.

Ouch!!! It makes me glad that I took the entirety of the Lincoln Highway from Joliet back into Cook County when I returned home.

I DON’T KNOW who is to blame for this particular incident. I just wonder how many more incidents we’re going to see this summer.

Then again, maybe I’m just being a little overly sensitive on account of the fact I had to do a “traffic safety school” session a few weeks ago to work off a traffic ticket and prevent it from becoming a part of my (drumroll, please) permanent record.

But we’re in that time of year when government entities hire contractors to do serious road repairs, including along the Interstate highways. I wish more motorists would be mindful of that fact.

Not that danger can be avoided by not getting behind the wheel of a car. I also noticed the police beat piece of reporting out of north suburban Evanston, where a cab driver died Wednesday. He had been shot in the head, and his taxi rolled into a parked vehicle earlier this week. A double ouch!!!

  -30-

How will we satisfy our “fix” for pro, if not quite Major League, baseball?

Will this suburban Wrigley replica really sit empty for a season? Will the sheriff be forced to evict a ballclub, leaving their gear out on the streets of Schaumburg? Will the Flyers fly again? For answers to these questions, tune in this spring. Same bat (and ball) time! Same bat (and ball) channel!



It is with bemusement that I have been watching the world of “Independent” baseball this off-season, and I must admit to great confusion about which ballclubs that exist on the fringes of the Chicago metro area are actually going to be in existence this summer.

For the biggest change among professional ballclubs that are not affiliated with the major leagues impacted the Northern League – the eight-team circuit that had ballclubs in Gary, Joliet, Schaumburg and up in Lake County (among others).

FOUR OF THE eight teams in that league announced a few months ago that they were leaving the league to join something called the American Association, which is a conglomeration of several regional independent leagues who think that by sticking together, they can create something substantial.

The Gary Southshore Railcats were among those four teams, which means their on-field fate will be determined in 2011 playing against teams such as the St. Paul Saints and the El Paso Diablos.

Yet the four teams that got left behind – they were given use of the name Northern League, but are so few in number that it would not be worth playing on their own – were the four ballclubs based in Illinois (mostly the Chicago area).

What gives? Do the big-wigs of independent baseball think the Chicago metro area is unworthy of their product?

THOSE TEAMS OFFICIALLY planned to merge with the remnants of the old Golden League in California and the United League to create their own “super-league” of independent ballclubs consisting of ballplayers whom no major league team was interested in having play for any of their own minor league affiliates.

One can literally walk from Joliet Union Station to the ballpark



Fans of the Joliet JackHammers have figured out that is not going to happen for them. The team officially went bankrupt, and a new group is putting together a ballclub (to be called the Slammers) to play in the team’s downtown Joliet stadium to play in the Frontier League – where they will get to be the fierce arch-rivals of the Crestwood-based Windy City Thunderbolts.

The old JackHammers went out of business because of much back rent owed to the city, and many other vendors are looking for their money. Which is the same fate that is befalling the Schaumburg Flyers.

Earlier this week, the Flyers officially were evicted from Alexian Field, the Schaumburg-based stadium located within walking distance of the Metra commuter station where they played their games. They have until the end of next week to get out.

OR MAYBE WE really will be treated to the sight of the Cook County Sheriff’s Police being called in to physically remove the team’s equipment from the ballpark? Would Sheriff Tom Dart have qualms about carrying out that eviction?

Some people speculate that a buyer for the Flyers can be found in the near-enough future that these financial matters can be resolved in time for Opening Day (which for these independent leagues comes in May). Others say there is a chance Schaumburg officials might just prefer to leave their ballpark empty for a year and focus on 2012 and beyond.

To me, the Joliet and Schaumburg franchises (along with any replacement ballclubs that will come in the future) have significant advantages in terms of their potential markets. Schaumburg is in the heart of those northwest suburbs that some think are the only part of the Chicago area that matters, while Joliet is in the heart of the county that (in terms of percentage, nearly 40) had the largest population growth during the past decade and is in the city that is now Illinois’s fourth largest.

They also have stadiums that are elite facilities compared to the buildings that some allegedly professional ballclubs in smaller cities are forced to use.

ALEXIAN FIELD IN Schaumburg is the building whose field dimensions were meant to copy-cat Wrigley Field, while Silver Cross Stadium in Joliet (both are named for area hospitals) is right in the heart of the downtown area – just a block from the county courthouse and Union Station and only a few blocks from the casino/luxury hotel that provides the area with a nightlife.

When those ballclubs were new and professional baseball being played nearby was still a novelty, those teams drew well (by minor league standards) and had potential for being cash cows.

Yet when the economy takes a plunge and people everywhere are cutting back on entertainment expenses (including the number of trips they will take to see a game), these teams still have more significant operating expenses because they’re not playing in places like Shreveport, La., or Wichita, Kan.

It’s also not like the teams themselves use their on-field play as the drawing card. My guess is that most people who would say they like independent baseball like catching a particular atmosphere, and couldn’t tell you how many times the local team won a Northern League championship.

FOR THE RECORD, Gary Southshore won in 2005 and 2007, while neither Joliet nor Schaumburg ever won a league title. It’s not like in smaller cities, where the ballclub is the sporting representative of the city. We may well be spoiled by the competent play of the Chicago White Sox, or the ineptitude of the Cubs that some find endearing (but I find embarrasing to the civic reputation).

Which is why I’ll be watching the situation in Schaumburg to see where, if anywhere, they wind up. And in Joliet, it will be interesting to see if the locals notice anything different about moving to a new league – one that actually has an age limit of 28 in order to preserve the image that the ballplayers are up-and-coming young talent.

Rather than aging geezers hoping desperately to use a few at-bats to stage their “comeback” to Major League Baseball – most likely with the Chicago Cubs. No wonder the North Siders are hopeless.

  -30-

Stateville "fight" helps Will, hurts state

If it turns out to be true, politics got put ahead of public policy in the likely deal that would keep a maximum-security state prison – and roughly 400 jobs – in the Joliet area.

The Herald News of Joliet reported that state officials will announce a deal Monday that will keep the Stateville Correctional Center open in full, even though state officials earlier this year expressed interest in closing the oldest parts of the prison and shifting inmates to the newly-built maximum-security prison in Thomson, Ill.

THAT PRISON HAS its own unique political story. It is new – built in the first few years of the 21st Century and intended to supplement the existing maximum-security prisons located across the state, including Stateville near Joliet.

But it has never opened, because state budgetary constraints prevent the Department of Corrections from having enough money in its budget to hire sufficient guards and other staff for the facility.

As a result, the state has a modern maximum-security prison sitting empty. Meanwhile, Stateville dates back eight decades – and has portions that are old and decrepit. The cost of bringing the facility up to modern corrections industry standards would be excessive. This model of the Stateville "penitentiary" is from the days when the facility near Joliet was a modern prison using the ultimate in technology. Now, it is old and nearing the end of its life as a corrections facility, even if some state officials don't seem to realize that fact. Note Joe Ragen, the long-time warden of Stateville who was known nationally for implementing prison reforms intended toward rehabilitation - rather than punishment - of inmates.

So the idea that the old maximum-security prison should be shuttered and replaced by the new prison is one that makes all too much sense. While the name “Stateville” has a historic connotation (among prisons, it is as legendary a name as “Alcatraz” or “Leavenworth”), this would be a case of a building reaching the end of its useful life.

OF COURSE, THAT logic is way too logical for many political people, who were determined to put their local concerns ahead of those of the state. While the Illinois Department of Corrections viewed the move as a transfer of jobs (the payroll would have remained the same), political people would only view the move as a loss of about 400 jobs for the Joliet-area, many of whom come from Crest Hill – the town that borders up against Joliet and is the actual mailing address of the prison.

“To suggest we could lose 400 jobs out of our area was not something I would want to see,” state Rep. Brent Hassert, R-Romeoville, told the Herald News newspaper.

Of course, the fact that the town of Thomson (population 559) and the nearby “big city” of Mount Carroll (population 1,832) would have gained a windfall of economic benefits from having the state facility located in their region of the state was considered irrelevant to the local politicos.

This is the reality of politics at the state or federal level, as opposed to the world of Chicago City Hall or any other municipal government.

COMPETING REGIONS OFTEN fight it out for the perks that will benefit the state or Midwestern U.S. as a whole. In the big picture, it doesn’t matter where a facility is located, since a region will receive benefits. Getting involved in the actual location of a facility is considered a parochial matter.

It almost compares to the fight that has taken place for nearly three decades now over where to put a new Chicago-area airport. The Federal Aviation Administration has always taken the perspective that Chicago needs a third airport, but doesn’t care where it is put.

The need for a new airport hasn’t lessened throughout the years, but political people who want to be able to control “the jobs” can’t reach agreement amongst themselves. So the aviation needs of the nation are put on hold.

It is the same situation for corrections, where the needs of the state prison system are now made to suffer a bit longer because the political people are more concerned about the site and the jobs.

I FULLY REALIZE that prison guard jobs are not the types that people would move to a new community for (particularly not one as isolated as Thomson). Will County would have taken something of a loss.

But in the big picture, keeping inmates in the aging roundhouses for which Stateville is known (the structures which at one time were considered an innovation in corrections practices are considered “historic” in nature) is ridiculous.

The structures have become old (on a couple of occasions when I was a reporter for United Press International, I got a chance to get a “very structured” tour of the prison by state officials), and portions are downright disgusting.

The time has come for a new maximum-security prison to go along with the Menard Correctional Center near the Southern Illinois town of Chester.

WHILE SOME PEOPLE will argue that one of the prisons should be near the Chicago area, the simple fact is that land acquisition costs are significantly less in the rural communities that have become the home of most of the state’s prisons.

So Thomson makes as much sense as any other northern Illinois location for a new high-security level prison for the state’s most dangerous inmates.

To me, it also is a bad idea to further delay the opening of the Thomson prison because no one was ever talking about completely shuttering Stateville. Only the oldest portions would have been closed, and the prison itself would have continued to house inmates.

THERE STILL WOULD have been some corrections department jobs for Crest Hill and the Greater Joliet area, which also has a lot of other things going for it. Joliet’s image should not be totally reliant on a prison being located nearby.

So come Monday, state legislators from Will County are expected to be joined by Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, to announce the political deal that will keep Stateville fully open for the upcoming state fiscal year.

Will County may have won a “short-term” economic victory (because the prison’s age means its demise is not long in the future). But the “better interests” of the Corrections Department, and the state as a whole, will have taken a hit.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Joliet could keep its status as Illinois’ preeminent prison town (http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/news/929008,JO02_STATEVILLE_WEB.article) once a deal to keep the Stateville Correctional Center is announced.

The 83-year-old state prison designed for 1,506 inmates currently houses 2,773 people who (http://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections/facilities/information.asp?instchoice=sta) are considered among the most dangerous in the Illinois prison system.

Will County officials took seriously the notion that inmates (and jobs for prison guards) would be moved (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/02/joliet-ill.html) to a prison located near the northwestern Illinois town.

For those of you who were curious, there are restrictions on the ability to get married (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_get_married_in_Stateville_Correctional_Center_in_Joliet_Illinois_if_the_person_is_in_reception) to an inmate at the Stateville Correctional Center.

"Joliet, Ill." losing its rep as a prison town

There once was a time when the placement of a “Joliet, Ill.” dateline atop a news story was a sure-fire guarantee of prison violence or some other news related to the activity of a violent criminal.

The small city located at the far southwestern-most corner of what could be considered the Chicago area became internationally known for the facilities located in or near its borders that housed dangerous and violent criminals.

THE NAMES “STATEVILLE” and “Joliet” brought to mind the same dank, depressing images of criminal justice and retribution as do names like “Leavenworth” and “Alcatraz.”

Those days are receding into the past, and Joliet municipal officials are glad. While they enjoyed the tax benefits and jobs provided by having two maximum-security prisons nearby, the fact that their town was known more for its dangerous visiting residents than anything that happened in town had to be depressing.

Joliet’s days as a prison town are declining because the Joliet Correctional Center and the Stateville Correctional Center in neighboring Crest Hill (which many people mistake for the low-income section of Joliet) are old. The Joliet prison dates to the 19th Century, while Stateville is a modern (only by Illinois prison standards) facility that opened in 1925.

Age is the element that brought the Joliet Correctional Center to its demise as a viable maximum-security prison, and its sister Stateville Correctional Center could soon share the same fate. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

Trying to turn those old prisons that were meant to resemble imposing castles that would scare passersby into never wanting to have to spend any time there (while also intimidating the inmates who were there) into modern corrections facilities would be way too expensive.

IT IS EASIER to just build new facilities, which can be constructed up to modern standards of criminal incarceration – which, for those who fear inmates are being “coddled” are still extremely restrictive. No one in their right mind would volunteer to live under such conditions.

The old Joliet Correctional Center already has been shuttered, as far as housing maximum-security inmates. The facility is now a center for people convicted of a crime in northern Illinois. They start their prison term there, spend a few days while being evaluated by state corrections officials, then they are assigned to the prison where they will spend the bulk of their hard time.

That fate is to be shared by Stateville, if Gov. Rod Blagojevich gets his way.

When Blagojevich presented his state budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, it called for closing the oldest parts of Stateville (the ones that are most in violation of modern standards for housing inmates) and using other parts to perform the same functions now carried out on the other side of town at the former Joliet Correctional Center.

STATEVILLE CURRENTLY HAS about 3,500 inmates, and it is estimated that the move would cause about 1,500 of them to be relocated to prisons across the state. That sounds like an ambitious project – trying to shift that many potentially dangerous people around the state.

There’s a very good chance that the bulk of them would wind up in Thomson, Ill., where a modern facility has been sitting empty in the rural northwest Illinois county for nearly a decade. Officials would like to have transfers complete by 2011.

Corrections officials also say that some less-violent inmates could be placed at new prisons in Lawrenceville and Sheridan, although critics of the proposed shift say the three new prisons were meant to supplement existing facilities – not replace them.

The Thomson prison is actually one of the laughable tales of state government ineptitude. The problem is that Illinois Department of Corrections officials were never given adequate funding to maintain the new prison.

THE FACILITY BUILT back in the 1990s was meant to give Illinois a modern maximum-security prison. Its construction was completed in time to theoretically open the facility in 2001.

But the state built itself a new toy that it can’t afford to play with. Large portions of the modern prison have sat empty for six years now, and a recent report by the Illinois auditor general’s office said some parts of the prison are deteriorating due to non-use.

I’ll credit Blagojevich for realizing that it is past due for the state to start using its new prison. I also realize that Stateville is a place whose best days are in the past. I have been inside Stateville on a few occasions (as a reporter, not an inmate), and what always amazed me was seeing the same spots that were used in the late 1948 film “Call Northside 777.” What was once fresh and new had become rather decrepit by the time I saw it 50 years later.

A shift from Stateville is a move that should have taken place some time ago.

THAT, OF COURSE, will not stop political people from trying to get involved. State Sen. Debbie D. Halvorson, D-Crete, says she will oppose any shift of inmates away from Stateville because that also means Corrections Department jobs moving from Will County to Carroll County.

State officials concede that about 400 jobs will be shifted from the Joliet-area if the move takes place.

In the big picture (that of the entire state), the jobs factor is irrelevant – the actual payroll will remain the same. Some might even argue that in the small picture, it is not that important because another Illinois area would suddenly gain a batch of jobs. It all balances out.

But Halvorson is running a campaign to move up to the House of Representatives, and Stateville is in the territory encompassed by the congressional district she wants to represent in Washington.

SHE WANTS TO appear as though she will fight for local jobs, and figures Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., whose Quad Cities-area congressional district would gain from the Illinois Corrections Department change, can fight his own battle to support the shift.

This issue is not an easy one for most Chicagoans to understand because most of us are living here in part because we would never want to live in the kind of isolated community that usually attracts prison facilities.

About the only place in Chicago that has anything resembling a prison atmosphere is the Little Village neighborhood, which abuts the Cook County Jail complex. But that neighborhood’s historic character is one where newly arrived immigrants live for a bit before moving up in life. Even the current Mexican population that lives in “La Villita” will some day move on to better places. Nobody in Chicago stays long-term in a jail atmosphere.

In fact, the reason Joliet got to be the unofficial prison capital of Illinois is because it used to be fairly isolated. Officials a century ago never envisioned the suburban sprawl that would spread itself out from Chicago in all directions and turn Joliet and its surrounding communities into just more suburbs of the Second City.

BUT THERE ARE people who will vehemently fight on both sides of this issue. Joliet area officials, while they would enjoy cleansing their public image of the prison ties, also enjoy the economic benefits of a steady employer like Illinois government.

Most of the people who work at the prisons are not the kind of people who would be able, or willing, to make a sudden move across the state just to keep a job.

Likewise, Carroll County, Ill., is an isolated place. While on the Mississippi River, Carroll County is the rural space that falls between the Quad Cities and Galena, Ill. Getting this prison to finally hire people and open itself is likely the biggest economic opportunity the county of just over 16,000 people (by comparison, the typical ward in Chicago has about three times that many people) will ever see.

For Thomson itself, the prison will put the town of 559 people (it’s the self-proclaimed “Melon Capital of the World”) on the map, just like no one ever paid attention to Tamms, Ill., until they got to be the location of the state’s only “super maximum” security prison.

IN THE BIG picture, Carroll County will gain more than Will County will lose. After all, Joliet still has two of the biggest moneymaking riverboat casinos in Illinois, a racetrack that hosts major auto racing events and an independent league professional baseball team. A lot of Illinois communities (many across the Midwest, to be honest) would love to be in Joliet’s position.

Honestly, the most negative aspect I can think of for Joliet is that officials will have to figure out a way to explain to future generations who watch reruns of “The Blues Brothers” film just why the blues singer character portrayed by John Belushi was nicknamed “Joliet Jake.” After all, the day will come when the nickname no longer makes sense.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Illinois corrections officials have used the Joliet area as the site of two (http://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections/facilities/information.asp?instchoice=sta) of its most intense-security facilities for more than eight decades.

We’ll see how pleased Thomson (http://www.thomsonil.com/) is to have a maximum-security prison after the first incident that takes place within its walls.

Inmates who have spent their time within Stateville’s walls all had their own ways of coping (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951815,00.html) with the mental anguish of being locked up.