St. Louis Cardinals are like the Fighting Irish in their local fans amongst us

The Illinois secretary of state’s office has come up with what is, in some ways, just another money-making scheme – license plates allowing baseball fans to show their love of the St. Louis Cardinals.

For the set surviving around Effingham

Meaning one can get an official plate for their automobile that includes the famed “birds on bat” logo that the Cardinals have used for nearly a century. I can envision many residents of Southern Illinois choosing to identify their automobiles with such a plate.

PARTIALLY, IT MAY be a further way of identifying one as not being a part of Chicago.

But considering that the secretary of state’s office has offered specialized license plates identifying with colleges and sports teams for decades, it’s kind of shocking that they didn’t sign up with the Cardinals a long time ago.

For the Gateway Arch that is the prominent symbol of downtown St. Louis is visible for miles around into Illinois. Heck, Illinois includes a piece of the St. Louis metropolitan area amongst its residents – even though I don’t doubt that many Missourians wish they could somehow distance themselves from East St. Louis.

And some do think it bizarre that Illinois government would be willing to recognize a Missouri-based sports team.

BUT IF THE Secretary of State’s office has acknowledged both the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs with official license plates and there is a significant chunk of Illinois where the locals don’t pay much attention to either team, then I suppose it’s only common-sensical to include the Cardinals in the sporting mix.

For sensible baseball fans

For what it’s worth, the state uses the money from the $69 fee charged of motorists who can’t just have a generic number identifying their automobile to support a state fund meant to benefit public schools.

Which almost sounds a bit like the rhetoric we’ve heard for so many years about Illinois Lottery money supporting education. We’ll see someday if there are merits to the rhetoric.

Or is this just an ego-boost to sports fans who want to say “shove it” to the fans of other teams.

NOW I KNOW the state is claiming this is the first sports team from out-of-state they’re acknowledging with their own license plate. Although I’d question the accuracy of such an over-statement.

For Fighting Irish faithful

Because the state also has a series of license plates acknowledging assorted public and private colleges. One of the schools included is none-other-than Hoosier-based University of Notre Dame. Where Fighting Irish football rules, regardless of which side of State Line Road one happens to live upon.

Is it really any more unusual for someone in Illinois to root, root, root for the Cardinals any more than the Irish football?

Besides, I personally will get a bit of a kick out of watching Chicago Cubs baseball fans be forced to acknowledge the fallacy of their biggest myth – that the entirety of the world roots for the Cubbies.

JUST THINK OF when Southern Illinois residents feel compelled to make the drive to Wrigley Field to catch a ballgame, and Cubs fans will see just now many people are present to root against them.

There is, however, one gripe I still have about such license plates – mainly that even though it has been a couple of decades since the collegiate plates were created, they still haven’t gotten around to offering up one in the green-and-white colors of my Illinois Wesleyan University alma mater.

For those who are just determined to be different

One can literally show their support for Milliken University in Decatur or the West Side’s Malcolm X College, And now even for the Cardinals.

Yet I’m still waiting for the day I can proclaim Fighting Titan loyalties while driving my car. Even though, to be truthful, I might well turn out to be too cheap to shell out the $69 fee (charged on top of the regular cost of registering a car) to actually buy the plate!

  -30-

EXTRA: Gas prices on the rise. So are the level of complaints we’re hearing

Just a thought as far as people complaining about the price of gasoline going up these days on account of the increase in the state of Illinois’ motor fuel tax.

Remember when gas prices soared this high in Chicago?

Yes, it costs less in surrounding states, which could make for an advantage if one happens to be in a bordering region at the time they need to make a automotive fuel purchase.

SUCH AS MY own circumstance earlier this week when I happened to be in Gary, Ind., and encountered a Mobil gas station charging $2.69 per gallon of gas. Other stations I witnessed in the land of Hoosiers had gas prices ranging from $2.79 to $2.95.

Yet the moment I came back to the land of civilization, the cheapest gas prices I saw were around $3.19 – with motor fuel at name-brand stations costing potentially $3.30 per gallon. With the additional cost that gas usually incurs in Chicago proper, the cost goes up further.

With the gaspricewatch.com website indicating Thursday that gas prices in the city topped at $3.45 per gallon. Much higher than the national average of $2.81 per gallon.

So excuse me (think Steve Martin in the white suit with arrow through his head) if I’m not overly swayed by a story published in the State Journal-Register of Springfield (which the newspaper picked up from the Register-Star newspaper of Rockford) that says prices on the Illinois side of the Illinois-Wisconsin border are now out of control.

An outrage? Not necessarily

THE PAPERS INDICATE gas prices at $2.78 per gallon at stations in Illinois, compared to $2.61 per gallon just north of the state line in Wisconsin.

My point is there are more drastic price differentials than what this paper is trying to pursue as evidence of an outrage. Things are worse elsewhere.

And as far as my own situation, I don’t know I’m willing to make the trip to Gary every time I need to fuel an automobile. It was a circumstance that benefitted me that one day.

Now if it turns out that the gas tax revenue increase does NOT benefit all the road repairs and other projects that the state of Illinois alleges the money will go do, THEN we can rant and rage. Until then, those of us with complaints ought to quit showing that we’re more full of gas than our cars.

  -30-

EXTRA: Gas tax hike kicks in Monday -- Happy Fiscal New Year!!!

I almost feel like I ought to be making a point to fill up the gasoline tank this weekend – what with new Illinois state taxes on the price of a gallon of gas going up as of Monday.

How long until you've seen gas prices this low?

It is part of the capital spending plan the General Assembly and Gov J.B. Pritzker approved earlier this year, meant to raise some $45 billion to pay for improvements needed in state construction projects.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, the motor fuel tax for Illinois will increase from 19 cents per gallon to 38 cents – which is the first such increase since 1990 – literally back at the tail end of Jim Thompson’s time as governor.

On top of that, municipalities in Cook County were given the option of creating their own 3-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline – on top of what the state will charge,

The coming of the new Fiscal Year on Monday means that is when these new rates will take effect. We’ll start noticing the prices on the rise as of that date – with probably many of those people living near the Illinois borders with Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky going out of their way to buy their gasoline elsewhere.

Although Pritzker may have put the need for money into perspective when he said, “it means fewer blown-out tires, fewer car axles thrown out of balance, fewer fender benders and fewer life-threatening car accidents” by having better roads. Although I suspect many people are just too eager to complain about someone regardless of reality.

  -30-

EXTRA: Some things never change

Just in case you're delusional enough to think Monday, or anything anticipated for this week, is at all unusual or historic, just remember!

This is Chicago in wintertime. Mother Nature is making us appreciate just how wonderful this city is during the rest of the year.

AND IN CASE you think this is some ancient phenomenon, realize that many of us were alive and thriving back in 1967 (although I was a mere 2-year-old back then) or 1979 when these storms hit the Windy City and made their argument that the long-time city moniker was not purely motivated by the wind-bags amongst our political people.

So here's a thought that may, or may not, help you keep warm and dry during the next few days -- they may produce some intriguing video that could turn up on the Internet someday. Some 50 years from now, your offspring's offspring could get the cheap thrill of recognizing you in some snippet documenting just how ridiculously absurd the weather will get during the upcoming week.

Enjoy!

  -30-

Did McCarthy single-handedly win, or lose, the mayoral election on Monday?

Chicago woke up Monday morning to the first significant snowfall of the season, which of course got some more trivial-minded broadcast types determined to ask the ultimate political question.

McCARTHY: Cracking down on 'dibs'

Dibs, or no?

AS IN SHOULD people be allowed to stake out a parking spot near their homes and claim it for their own, just because they managed to clear it of snowfall.

Because it also was a day for many of the mayoral aspirants to file their nominating petitions to get on the ballot, it meant candidates got the question put to them – yea or nay?

And no pussyfooting about how it’s a stupid non-issue meant to divert attention away from serious problems confronting Chicago. Which is the way I feel about the issue – a stance that I’m sure will cause some to want to mock me.

For the record, most of the candidates tried to get out of answering the question, but ultimately wound up deciding that people have a right to stake a claim to a parking spot come winter weather.

ALL EXCEPT FOR Garry McCarthy – the one-time law enforcement official from metro New York who came to Chicago to be police superintendent, then got fired by soon-to-be-former Mayor Rahm Emanuel to try to divert criticism from himself over the police shooting death of teenager Laquan McDonald.

McCarthy is likely to be he preferred mayoral candidate of those people eager to express support for law-and-order and police above all others, and who see anything less than such an extreme attitude as being chaos run amok upon our society.

But on this issue, he came out in favor of cracking down on people who think they have a “right” to a particular parking space.

“That’s a bad idea. It causes conflict. Anything that causes conflict, I think, is a bad idea,” McCarthy told reporter-type people.

NOW I’LL BE the first to admit that it’s a total pain in the behind to have to use a shovel to clear one’s car free from heavy snowfall. It takes time, it can be freezing, and one comes off totally soaking wet – then having to get into the car and tend to whatever business they’re doing.

To then come back home to find out someone else took the space for their own automobile? I can comprehend how some people would be p-o’ed.

But it’s one of the realities of urban life. Parking one’s car is always a problem. If you want to have a guarantee of a private spot, then you have to pay for it.

Either that, or go move to a suburban area, or some part of the country where snowfall just isn’t much of an issue. My guess is that if you go out there, you’ll find out just how preferable your life situation is better off here, and your complaints about winter-time parking will come off as downright petty.

BUT THERE ARE those people who want to view it as some sort of inherent right, somewhere along their ability to own a firearm, to have a personal parking spot and stake a claim to it. Almost as though they think they’re 19^th Century prospectors panning for gold in isolated spots.

So I have no doubt that McCarthy’s comments, no matter how trivial they truly are, will instigate some people to vote against him, Heck, I’ve already seen one anonymous commenter label McCarthy a “communist.”

Which I’m sure would grossly offend Sen. Joe of Wisconsin, as though his name were being taken in vain.

But the fact that some voters will make their Feb. 26 decision based off of the early Monday snowfall is the fact that actually grossly offends me – quite possibly more than those who think they have the right to vandalize a car that dared to park in a spot they think is theirs!

  -30-

How long it can take (sometimes never) for municipal projects to become reality

I once wrote a commentary essentially praising Chicago Transit Authority officials for moving forward on a long-discussed project to improve mass transit access to the far South Side by extending the Red Line trains from 95^th Street all the way potentially to within one mile of the city’s southern border.

A Red Line stop of the future. Perhaps some day by 2026. Image provided by city of Chicago

As one who was born in the far southeast corner of Chicago, still has relatives there and thinks of the 10^th Ward as the “old neighborhood,” I was pleased to see that something could happen to make it easier for those people to have access to the rest of Chicago.

SO I SUPPOSE I’m pleased once again to learn the CTA took actions to advance the project a little further. They have picked a specific route for the trains to follow once they get to the current end-of-the-line at 95^th Street and the middle of the Dan Ryan Expressway.

It is one that will take people all the way to 130^th Street (at the Bishop Ford Freeway), giving residents of Altgeld Gardens and the Hegewisch neighborhood some train access. It also will make stops at 103^rd and 111^th streets – adding further access to people who live Far South in Chicago.

Will it ever arrive?

Yet that original commentary I wrote was back in August of 2009. I also have written about various community forums throughout the years in which those of us who regard a Sout’ Side neighborhood such as Bridgeport as just another place up north expressed our support.

Yet here it is, some nine years later, and still no earth has been turned toward the eventual goal of “el” trains connecting places like Hegewisch and Pullman to downtown.

IN FACT, THE Chicago Tribune reported Friday that the soonest actual construction could begin would be some time in 2022, with the actual project taking about four years for completion.

This will NEVER arrive

Meaning that if I’m lucky, I might see this project become reality some time after I hit the age of 60. This project is taking time to complete, and keep in mind that the opposition to this isn’t as intense (some argue that doing anything on the South Side is a waste of time and money, but they’re nitwits) as some other projects have become.

One could easily see the ongoing debate over the need of a third major airport for the Chicago area, where proponents have sort of settled on Peotone, Ill., in Will County, while critics have argued for doing nothing and thus far have been successful.

That project has been under speculation since the early 1970s and had the process narrowed down to four sites by the late 1980s when the opponents really stepped up their hostile talk.

I REMEMBER ONCE hearing then-Peotone village President Richard Benson tell me he had given up even following the airport talk about his municipality. I thought he was being short-sighted and silly.

Heck, that was back in 2000. Some 18 years later, nothing is closer. Perhaps he really WAS wiser than I. In that particular project, it seems that everybody is determined to have nothing happen that a political opponent could take credit for.

Resulting in the lack of activity. Never mind the actual issue of whether Chicago’s aviation needs would benefit from another full-scale airport.

Of course, a Peotone airport theoretically could be revived. Moreso than the one-time Crosstown Expressway – the route that supposedly would vastly improve transit through Chicago.

BACK IN THE 1960s and 1970s, there was serious debate about a highway following 75^th Street to Cicero Avenue, eventually merging into the Kennedy Expressway. There are those who argue it would have significantly reduced the constant jams along the Dan Ryan.

How many would have viewed it as victory if they could have thwarted construction altogether?

But that project never got off the ground, and eventually the federal government withdrew its support in the early 1980s.

Perhaps by that definition, we ought to consider the late 1980s construction of a Chicago White Sox ballpark a success. Talk had been going on in the mid-1980s, and threats in 1988 to move the ballclub to St. Petersburg, Fla., motivated the politicos to act. The ballpark now known as Guaranteed Rate Field is 28 years old.

It's too bad that Hegewisch can't do some political blackmail like the White Sox did to speed up the process toward a Red Line extension. Because I'm sure there are some political people who, if they could have had their way, would still have the ballpark construction argument continuing to this day.

  -30-

Mitsubishi typical of corporate attitude; should we really cater to it too much?

It has been some three decades since I attended college in Bloomington, Ill., and the major local news story during the time I lived there was the arrival of an auto plant in neighboring Normal by Mitsubishi Motors.

A road sign soon to be obsolete

The coming of a U.S.-based auto plant by a Japanese company was a major event for that city – it supposedly put that central Illinois municipality on the international map. Unless you believe that Illinois State University has such a stellar reputation.

SO THE FACT that Mitsubishi officials let it be known recently that they’re closing that plant – and that the whole saga of Mitsubishi in central Illinois lasted all of 30 years tops – is a major blow to that community.

Yet somehow it doesn’t seem all that shocking that such a thing can happen.

Mitsubishi came to this state when it thought it could gain some sort of economic benefit for itself. The fact that it now no longer senses that benefit and thinks it can gain by going elsewhere is, in many ways, the way business operates.

Which is why I think it is ridiculous for government officials of a certain ideological bent to claim they’re being “pro-business” by conducting themselves in ways that are meant to cater to the whims of what corporate interests want.

WE’RE NOT GOING to get companies locating here with any particular loyalty by making these payoffs – which often involve giving assorted tax breaks to the companies to make them feel like the gross income they’re producing is theirs.

Mitsubishi made a fine auto in Illinois for 30 years

The activist-types who complain about this are often derided as being unrealistic, if not outright naïve. It also is argued that any loss of tax revenue by the local governments is made up for by the fact that the company employed people locally and helped boost the local economy.

The money they were paid in salaries got spent at local supermarkets and shopping malls and was used to make mortgage payments on local homes. Would the local community have been better off if those jobs hadn’t existed in the first place?

Now what makes me bring any of this up?

PART OF IT is the fact that I remember the local fanfare when Mitsubishi came to Illinois. One of the first vehicles off that assembly line, I seem to recall, was provided to then-Gov. James R. Thompson.

RAUNER: Will reforms result in more Mitsubishis

Heck, I remember buying a Mitsubishi vehicle (a Galant, to be exact) back during the 1990s stint that I lived in Springfield, Ill. I remember it as one of the best automobiles I ever owned.

But if we’re being totally honest about things, the fact that Mitsubishi is moving on is something that should have been expected. It may well be the “American Way” to look for a better deal elsewhere.

Which is why I find a lot of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s rhetoric about wanting to implement “reforms” to benefit business interests to be a step in the wrong direction.

DO WE REALLY want to give future Mitsubishis an excuse to come to Illinois for a time – only to move on when they come up with someone willing to make them a “better” offer in the future?

I’m more inclined to think that reform is about creating new business – not playing an endless game of getting existing business to move about and play musical chairs with the Great Lakes states. Leaving the workers without the representation that ultimately will look out for their rights when there is business conflict.

The companies we ought to be encouraging are going to be the ones that come here because they see great benefit to being physically located in our state and think they can create something rather unique here.

Otherwise, the Mitsubishi story of a company coming here for a few decades before moving on and leaving us empty shells of what once was will become all-too-common across Illinois; and that would be truly pathetic.

  -30-

No smokes in the car with kiddies?

The Illinois Senate gave its consideration to a measure that I’m sure was bound to infuriate a certain segment of our society – making it a ticketable offense for someone to light up a cigarette in their own automobile if, by chance, they happen to have kids in the car with them.

Personally, I find it to be a noble goal. I can remember as a kid finding it rather disgusting to be around people who smoked tobacco products. It is a large part of the reason why I never took up the habit myself.

BUT I’M NOT sure how such a ban could ever be realistically enforced unless we’re willing to give police unlimited powers to start searching our cars. And it wouldn’t shock me to learn that many of those cops are smokers themselves.

So it shouldn’t be a shock that when the bill in question, sponsored by state Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, came up for a vote, it went down to an ignoble defeat.

A mere 8 state senators were in favor of the idea.

In my mind, I can hear the piercing whistle that some legislators used to make whenever a bill was on its way to defeat. That whistle intending to be a parody of the sound of bombs being dropped on the idea, thereby blowing it to smithereens.

SERIOUSLY, THE WAY a cop would have to enforce this would be to get up so close as to see if not only is someone smoking, but are there little children in the vehicle as well.

What it really means is that police would wind up having to pull over people based on their suspicions, and hope that they wind up catching enough people in the act of smoking-while-in-the-presence-of-children that they can get enough people to file charges against.

Considering that this likely would be a traffic offense of sorts, I doubt the fines would be sufficient enough to make all the time on the part of police officers worthwhile.

Then again, the fact that we’d have to put a certain amount of trust in police officers not to start pulling people over for whatever suspicions they have (then claim they suspected there was smoking taking place).

SHOULD IT REALLY then be a surprise that the state Senate’s black caucus was amongst the opponents?

State Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, made it clear the caucus didn’t trust police enough to limit their searches for smokers with children to reasonable searches. They might wind up pulling over many black motorists, claiming there was a suspicion that tobacco products were somehow being inhaled.

Now I know some people don’t want to believe that anyone could legitimately not trust law enforcement. They’re going to be the ones who will now scream how ridiculous this all is.

But it may well be a sign of how big the gap is amongst certain people in our society in terms of trusting the police.

I REMEMBER ONE now-retired suburban police chief once telling me he seriously believed that the kind of people who went into law enforcement for a living are the elite of our society.

Others are quick to see a batch of thugs using their law enforcement authority to reinforce their own personal hang-ups.

The fact that this issue could even crop up is all the more reason we ought to be thankful that this particular piece of legislation (which likely will become an annual issue for the General Assembly to contemplate) didn’t go very far.

Because what’s the next step – we make it illegal for smokers to raise children?

  -30-

Will Illinois Legislature have nerve to do away with red light cameras?

We have the chance to see a classic political battle this spring in the Illinois General Assembly; will the state Legislature have the nerve to irritate all those communities that are rushing to erect the cameras on their traffic signals to boost their enforcement efforts.

I’m talking about those cameras that can take pictures of offenses as they occur, with the pictures being used as evidence against the motorists who can receive a ticket in the mail shortly thereafter.

I SUPPOSE I should confess that I once received such a ticket – while driving through the suburb of Riverdale a few years ago, I supposedly stopped at a traffic sign and made a right turn without waiting for a long-enough time period before making the turn.

Because I was able to make the charge go away with an appearance in traffic safety school (a four-hour session to remind me of the Rules of the Road), I pleaded “guilty” even though I still think I came to enough of a “stop” before making the turn.

It was irritating, and I know I’m not alone. Way too many people scream out a stream of obscenities when they check their mail and find one of these tickets in their box.

It does come across as an attempt by the local government to extort another fee in the form of a fine to the municipality.

THAT IS WHAT inspired state Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, to sponsor a bill this spring session that would forbid any municipality from having such cameras installed in their community.

He cited a Chicago Tribune report about how such tickets were overbearingly issued within Chicago as evidence of how they shouldn’t be permitted anywhere in Illinois.

Yet I have heard way too many municipal officials across the state talk about these cameras as a financial savior not only because of the fines they attract, but also because they allow their local police departments to reduce the amount of officers on details for traffic enforcement.

I also know at least one former suburban police chief who thinks people have no right to complain about tickets that result from the cameras, on the grounds that signs are installed informing motorists exactly where the cameras are.

MEANING PEOPLE OUGHT to read those signs and use extra caution in the way they drive, unless they’re absolutely determined to get themselves a fine!

Still, I’m sure McSweeney will get himself his share of favorable press – the legislator who’s willing to do away with those cameras that they feel trap people into paying fines for questionable offenses.

Although will that press make up for the many municipal officials who will now deem him, and anyone else who publicly supports this measure, as the enemy who’s threatening their financial bottom lines?

Those fines, after all, do wind up totaling fairly significant sums. I know of some municipalities that really do rely on those fines in order to cover their essential government expenses.

THIS MEASURE COMES at a time when the City Council is considering restrictions on traffic enforcement camera use within Chicago. I’m sure there will be those who argue those restrictions are a sufficient change in public policy.

While others will argue this is one of those “local” issues that a higher form of government ought to “butt out” of – although it usually is state officials whining about the federal government who make that line of logic in their political arguments.

But if the public were to have its way, this probably would be a slam-dunk issue that would demand a 118-0 vote in the Illinois House and a 59-0 vote in the state Senate.

We’d wind up with the masses making a mad rush to their traffic signals to tear down those cameras with the same vehemence that Iraqis once used to rip down statues of Saddam Hussein following his downfall!

  -30-

The latest urban vs. rural spat – how fast can Chicago-area motorists drive?

It has been more than a decade since I regularly rode the interstates between Springfield and Chicago. Yet one of my lasting memories of the three-hour drive each way was that moment when I entered the greater Chicago area.

QUINN: Squabbling over speed

It was the point in Will County when the landscape went from rural to suburban – and the speed limits suddenly dropped (if driving toward Chicago) from 65 miles an hour down to 55.

IT WAS JUST a given that when the state of Illinois increased the speed limits from the traditional 55 mph (and telephone calls used to cost a dime) to 65, the higher limit only applied to the portions of interstate highways that were in rural parts of the state.

The areas where there wasn’t as much traffic – or what traffic there was merely passed through the area without making stops – were allowed to drive at the faster rate.

It also meant that someone could literally go from doing the speed limit to exceeding it by 10 miles an hour – and could get a ticket for speeding if an Illinois state trooper just happened to be in the area.

If anything, the fact that troopers liked to hang out in the area to bolster their traffic citations issued was the sudden warning that one had to slow down their vehicles to accommodate the slower speed limit meant for urban areas.

BUT THINGS COULD change. Or maybe not. We’re going to see in coming weeks what will become of our interstate speed limits.

For Gov. Pat Quinn this week signed into law a measure that boosts the speed limit to 70 miles an hour – although only on the rural portions of interstate highways. To listen to Quinn, the speed limit remains 55 on urban and suburban-area highways.

Although in what has become the latest urban/rural political spat, we have the state legislator who crafted the increase (state Sen. James Oberweis, R-Sugar Grove) claiming he meant for the change in law to be truly statewide.

OBERWEIS: Statewide attention?

A sudden surge from 55 to 70 – once the new law takes effect Jan. 1.

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES reported that the new law may bolster the speed limit on all parts of the interstates in Illinois. But it also cited an “opt-out” provision that allows officials in the urban-area counties (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will) to exclude themselves from a 70 mile-an-hour speed limit.

Although there are those officials who think that that counties don’t have jurisdiction over interstates, no matter what any opt-out provision says. There also seems to be confusion amongst county officials as to just what the law says.

Nobody seems to know what the new law says. Which could make the whole concept so confusing that it can’t even stand up in court. Who knows what will happen?

Although the idea that drivers need to slow up their vehicles once they get into the Chicago area is such an entrenched concept in Illinois that the Quinn interpretation of the law is the one that is consistent with the way things are done in Lincoln’s land.

UNLESS THE TRUE intent of this new law was a desire to force some rural standard down the collective throat of the state’s urban majority. In which case, it is nothing more than a politically partisan stunt.

There is, of course, the bottom line that makes the idea of legally whizzing through Chicago at 70 miles an hour nothing more than a fantasy.

With the way Chicago roads are perpetually under construction and repair, there’s just no way anyone is going to seriously get their cars going anywhere near 70. If anything, their cars will creep along at 20 miles an hour while he drivers see the speed limit signs and dream about getting up to 55 – let alone 70.

  -30-

EXTRA: Don’t let vehicle stickers accumulate; you can get a ticket for having too many on your car

I don’t know if this is the most trivial, or the most practical, thing I have ever seen on the Internet.

Soon to be history, unless you didn't buy it ever

The Expired Meter, a website devoted to people who persist in driving automobiles around Chicago, gave us a video recently about how to remove those vehicle stickers from your car’s windshield.

AND THEY HAD none other than City Clerk Susana Mendoza give us a personal demonstration – Windex and razor blade in hand – as she got one of those stickers off fairly cleanly.

Because depending on where you live (in Chicago, it’s July 15), the deadline for making that purchase (I made mine about a month ago) to your municipality so they can have money in their road repair funds is likely coming up. June 30 seems to be a popular deadline for many local governments.

Unless you happen to live in a place that doesn’t think to charge such a fee and require you to mar your windshield.

I once lived in such a place (Springfield, Ill.) for a few years, and I still remember the blank look I got from their city clerk’s staff when I actually inquired about when their deadline was.

YOU’D HAVE THOUGHT I suggested Communist propaganda by wondering when I’d have to buy a sticker.

Of course, there are other places where the local police scour their municipalities for cars without stickers so intensely that they wind up ticketing car owners from places that don’t require their residents to make such a purchase. Which means those motorists have to go to court to prove they did nothing wrong!

Springfield also makes up for it by charging a city tax (1 percent, on top of all the other taxes and fees) on all its residents when they purchase automobiles – even if they buy them outside of the capital city.

I did just that when I lived down there, then found myself being sued by the city a couple of months later. Fortunately for me, they were eager to drop the lawsuit once I paid up!

  -30-

EXTRA: Scouring for Sunday parking?

I'm almost nostalgic for this sight

A part of me is twisted enough to want to take my hunk-of-junk automobile out for a ride across as much of Chicago as I can cover come Sunday.

Because I’d want to see just how much of a difference it makes now that people will no longer have to feed those new digital pay boxes (we can’t really say we’re “feeding the meter” any longer) in order to avoid a parking ticket.

OF COURSE, THAT would be more of a waste of gasoline than I’d want to encounter. Somehow, I suspect that would cost more than I’d save by not having to pay for parking on the one day of the week that God supposedly told us to rest.

Besides, in my case, I’m going to be with family out in the Beverly neighborhood on Sunday – a massive barbecue being done on behalf of Father’s Day. It will be interesting to see mi padre, even though if I’m comprehending the change in parking policy approved earlier this month by the City Council, that particular area is among those where people still have to pay.

It’s only a dozen of the 50 wards where the new no-paying-on-Sunday policy takes effect on Father’s Day. The rest of the city is going to have to wait until July 1 – which could make Independence Day the learning period for the bulk of the city (particularly those parts up North).

Which means I’m likely to have to resort to my usual methods of scouring for a not-blatantly-illegal place to park my automobile when I make my trip.

IT’S ALSO GOING to mean that Chicago residents and people visiting the city are going to have to keep it straight in their minds where they can, and cannot, leave their automobiles without paying up.

It will be worse when the council later this year is expected to approve enough exceptions for business districts across the city where you will still have to pay on Sunday.

The bottom line seems to be that city officials want to receive credit for doing something to eliminate parking fees – a contentious issue ever since former Mayor Richard M. Daley a few years ago sold off control of parking meters to a private company.

A parking meter alternative? Image by railroadpictures.net

But that doesn’t mean government officials want to lose the money being pumped into those machines. They just want us to quit despising and blaming them so much for having to pay up!

JUST THINKING ABOUT this confusion of where one can park without hassle is headache inducing. It makes me wonder if I need to start carrying aspirin with my when I drive into the city.

Or better yet, just revert back to my habit of using mass transit in the city whenever possible. That’s the easiest way to avoid parking tickets by a cop too eager to fulfill his quota.

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If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a transportation-related conspiracy

As expected, the Chicago Transit Authority gave its approval this week to the implementation of a new system by which people would pay their fares for bus and elevated train rides.

Too costly a place to ride to, or park near?

One that would encourage people to pay larger sums of money up-front to purchase contactless cards. The way to persuade people to quit thinking in terms of paying for individual rides is to raise the fare – from the current $2.25 to $3 – for those customers.

OF COURSE, THOSE people catching an el train at O’Hare International Airport would get hit with a $5 fee for that single ride – all part of the rhetoric that says the only people who will really wind up paying the higher fare are those out-of-town tourists who decide to use the “el” during their Chicago visit.

As I wrote earlier this week, I sympathize with those activists who object to this new system, believing that people who rely on mass transit but don’t have the kind of cash to put up front into purchasing a card will get hit with the bulk of the higher fares.

I wasn’t shocked with the CTA approval. I would have been amazed if they could have been swayed.

But now I learn about how city officials also are considering changes in the fees that people pay when they use a downtown parking garage or lot.

AS IF THOSE fees weren’t already enough.

I know that the last two times I was in a situation where I had to drive an automobile into downtown Chicago and park it, I got hit with $34 fees – for leaving my car in a garage for not more than two hours each time.

CTA officials defended their own changes, in part, by saying that the new fare schedule will be complex – and that it is overly simplistic to portray anyone as having to pay an increased fare.

But after reading about the proposal made this week by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I’m wondering if he’s determined to out-complicate the CTA.

FOR WHAT THE city has in mind, according to the Chicago Tribune, is to alter the taxes on parking fees from an escalating fee to a percentage-based system.

The people who literally are using the garages to park their cars for just a few minutes (or maybe up to 1 hour) could wind up paying less.

Like I wrote, my recent parking experiences in the downtown garages weren’t all that long – yet I still got whacked with what I consider to be a ridiculous fare. A fare that likely will be even higher when/if I get stuck paying it again.

All I know is that it truly discourages me from wanting to have my automobile with me when I have business to take care of in downtown Chicago.

YET THE THOUGHT of using mass transit to go downtown is something that could also become an expensive proposition.

I find Chicago’s downtown district too intriguing a place to want to avoid altogether (and I pity those people who claim they never set foot in or near the Loop). But it almost seems like certain people are determined to put financial obstacles to our ability to go downtown and stay there long enough to enjoy it!

You’d think these people with an interest in propagating the image of the city so as to bolster its economic potential to the max would be interested in avoiding moves such as these that wind up discouraging some people from wanting to come here.

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Beginning to look like winter

When I got into my car and began driving Friday morning, I had an "experience" I hadn't felt in quite a while.

I tried making a left turn, only to find that I was out of control of my vehicle. I was slipping and sliding on the snow.

I'D LIKE TO think my driver education teacher of some three decades ago would have been pleased to see my reaction -- I took my foot off the gas pedal and kept my hands firmly on the steering wheel.

All the while trying to turn against the direction the car was sliding in, until I was finally able to straighten myself out. The whole thing took a few seconds, I didn't hit anything (or anyone) and I felt like I was in control of my car even though -- technically speaking -- I wasn't.

My point in reciting this moment from my life isn't that I'm one of these people who thinks the whole world ought to be obsessed with my life's every minute happening.

It's just that I can't remember the last time I slid on snow. Which means it was actually snowing.

ALL OF THOSE snowplows were out, public works crews of every sort were busy. Those stockpiles of salt were put to work.

Because early Friday, for the first time in 335 days, we got a measurable amount of snow -- 1.1 inches, according to the National Weather Service types based at O'Hare International Airport.

Heck, even the lovely ladies of The Weather Channel were astounded Friday morning to see actual snow in Chicago. We haven't had a measureable amount of the white, fluffy stuff since last February.

We definitely didn't have a "white" Christmas. All we've had are light traces that barely lasted a few hours, let alone the entire cycle of a day.

A PART OF me has been feeling paranoid because of the lack of snow this winter. This is the Great Midwest. It's supposed to snow.

WGN-TV's renowned meteorologist Tom Skilling told the Chicago Tribune that we'd have 18 inches of the fluffy (or sometimes slushy) stuff by this point in winter.

It all makes me wonder if we're going to get whalloped with a monster storm later this winter season that will do massive devastation to Chicago.

Maybe something along the lines of that Feb. 2, 2011 storm that dumped a foot of snow on us in a 24-hour period. Or perhaps worse, something that would make the story seem like gentle kisses on a cool, spring day.

I'D LIKE TO think the fact that we got hit with a noticeable snowstorm somehow lessens the chance we're going to suffer come February or early March.

I can handle my car sliding about a bit now. It's the way things are supposed to be this time of year. What we have experienced in recent weeks has been downright unnatural.

Heck, I haven't even minded the sub-freezing temperatures of recent days just because I realize if I had to have a mild winter, I'd give serious thought to relocating myself to Florida.

Where at least I could be on hand for the March ritual of baseball spring training -- which will be combined this year with the playing of the World Baseball Classic tournament.

COME EARLY MARCH, I likely will be intrigued by the performances of potential powerhouse teams from Cuba and the Dominican Republic, wondering how Mexico's national team will fare, seeing if the United States can finally prevail in the game invented here -- and wondering above all if anyone can defeat Japan (winners of the tournament the two times it has been played).

The last thing I'm going to want is to wish I were in Puerto Rico or Arizona -- all on account of being snowed in here in Chicago.

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