Friday could be historic deadline for Lege – or then again, maybe not

Friday will be an intriguing day for those of us following the General Assembly, which ought to be all of us living across Illinois.

PRITZKER: Will he have anything to sign into law?

There’s a good chance that Illinois will move extremely close to enacting new laws doing away with the notion that people using marijuana ought to be regarded as criminals, degenerates and an all-around scourge on our society.

WE MAY ALSO get changes in the law meant to allow for people to legally gamble on sports events other than horse racing.

This on top of the notion of implementing a graduated income tax over the current flat-tax system – a move that would require an amendment to the Illinois Constitution to be enacted. Which the Illinois House of Representatives gave its approval to Monday afternoon.

It’s possible that the General Assembly will finish up the spring 2019 legislative session by approving a constitutional amendment that could be put up for a vote in 2020. In addition to the gambling and marijuana measures.

This spring – whose session comes to an end Friday – could turn out to be one of the most significant legislative sessions of all time.

OR MAYBE NOT!

Because there’s always the chance that our state Legislature could turn out to be cowardly, spineless and all-around gutless.

There’s the chance that legislators may decide that marijuana and gambling are just too big a step for them to want to take. They may well decide to wait for another time before taking on these issues.

This may be a big week in Springfield, … 

Think I’m kidding? Just realize how many decades the issue of building a new Chicago-area airport near Peotone has been contemplated by the Illinois Legislature.

THE BOTTOM LINE is that I honestly don’t know what to expect from our state’s Legislature this year, or any time for the next few years.

Theoretically, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has the potential to run roughshod over his political opposition. He has, in theory, Democratic majorities in both the Illinois House and state Senate so large that they would overrule the Republican caucuses that would be inclined to oppose him.

But it’s also possibly that our legislators have the backbone of the cowardly lion. They may not want to have history record that they legitimized marijuana or made it legal to place a bet on a ballgame (provided that the ballclubs get a share of the gambling proceeds).

Or if they do, they’d rather have the final vote turn out to have Republican support along with Democrats. So that neither side can take total blame for the issue for those people eager to impose their sets of morals on everybody else.

THEY MAY THINK that taking on all these issues could be too much to take on at one time. Or maybe they just don’t have enough ambition to want to do significant things – fearing that too much change will be held against them.

All these things that the Illinois General Assembly spent the spring contemplating? It makes me think our legislators have the ambition level of way too many people (and myself, sometimes, to be totally honest) that I knew in college.

We did enough to make sure we’d get passing grades, and wound up waiting until the last minute before going on a work binge to ensure all our papers were written for our course loads.

… but activity returns next wk. to Thompson Center

Which is why the General Assembly likely will work its way to a hectic pace at week’s end – and may well have a final day of legislative action that pushes dangerously close to a midnight deadline.

BUT WHO’S KIDDING whom?

It’s the equivalent of collegiate “cramming.” Whether anything of significance will change in Illinois? It could turn out that, years from now, we’ll wonder how we could ever have thought the Legislature would accomplish anything this spring!

  -30-

Third Airport talk resurrected, but are we any closer to it actually being built

In the three-plus decades that I’ve covered news events in and around Chicago, there’s one story that seems to have lingered on beyond belief – a “third airport” for the metropolitan area.

Will this site ever become an airport?

It was a concept that was going through the process being planned and someday built, with the idea being that the first flights would be departing the new airport just prior to the beginning of 21^st Century – and would be expanded to full capacity probably about a decade ago.

THE LAST TIME I was out in the cornfields of Will County just south of Peotone, there was nothing resembling any of this having occurred. In fact, we’re really no closer now than we were back in the early 1990s to having another airport to relieve the congestion that exists at O’Hare International and Midway airports.

Which is why I find it humorous to learn that Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., signed off on a letter, along with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and several Congressmen, state legislators and mayors/village presidents from across the southern part of the Chicago area.

All of those political people are asking Gov. J.B. Pritzker to put $150 million in the next state budget to pay for improvements that would need to be made to the rural Will County site that has oft been considered for an airport.

Kelly tries to resurrect project … 

As in road repairs and utility connections leading to the site, along with an interchange on Interstate 57 that would make it possible for people to access the site – rather than whiz on by as they drive south to Kankakee or (a little further) Champaign-Urbana.

ALL OF WHICH is stuff that should have been decades ago if our officials were the least bit serious about developing a new airport for the Chicago area.

Instead, this is a project that has been perennially bogged down in partisan politics – with some people thinking that building any sort of project that would encourage economic development at the far south end of the Chicago area being a complete waste of time.

There’s nothing there, they argue. Why try to develop anything there?

… that Rauner tried to kill off for good

Of course, part of the problem is that supporters look at an airport project solely in terms of what can they gain from it. Not from any aviation perspective or whether it makes any sense to do an airport there.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE they’re following the logic of “Field of Dreams.” Remember? “It you build it, he will come.”

Although instead of the ghost of one-time White Sox superstar Joe Jackson, it would be jobs. And possibly the development of nearby towns such as Peotone, Beecher or Monee (with a combined population of 13,000) into municipalities of significance -- rather than rural burgs on the fringe of Chicago.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

Some think this site will be as under-utilized … 

For we went through four years of Bruce Rauner as governor, who always made it clear he didn’t want to be bothered with this project. Meaning that all the work former Gov. Pat Quinn tried to accomplish on the project was laid to waste.

NOT ALL THAT different from the ways that President Donald Trump has tried to undo anything and everything that had predecessor Barack Obama’s name attached to it. Would throwing money at the airport project enable it to return to life? Or has it lingered too long to survive?

The issue I wonder about is whether the need for a third airport for the Chicago area still exists the way it did back in the 1980s. As Kelly points out in her letter, United and American airlines coped with the crowded conditions of Chicago airports by moving their domestic hubs from O’Hare to airports in Denver and Dallas.

While O’Hare has dropped from the 12st busiest cargo airport to number 21. Maybe we could have kept these previous rankings if we had acted a few decades ago – instead of letting our partisan politicking take over.

… as the airport near Mascoutah

It may be too late, and we could be in danger of developing something along the lines of the MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Ill. – which for many years sat unused and got tabbed as the “Gateway to Nowhere.” I’m sure some are eager to tag similar label to any Peotone-related project.

  -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-

Rauner makes appeal to Hegewisch-ites to prolong the state budget battle

It’s not every day political people pay any attention to Hegewisch – as in the neighborhood at Chicago’s far southeastern corner where Indiana is a daily reality.

Pate won his political fight in Hegewisch

I remember then-Senate Minority Leader James “Pate” Philip back in 1990 making the trek from his suburb near O’Hare International Airport to visit Hegewisch to reassure the residents that he would oppose all efforts to pave over their streets and homes to develop a new Chicago-area airport.

PATE WON THAT political fight. But the reason the event sticks in my mind is that it is among the few bits of attention paid to Hegewisch by anyone with political influence.

Will Rauner be less successful in his brawl?

Political people making the trek out to Hegewisch do it so infrequently that it is still considered a big deal locally that the final public appearance Richard J. Daley made as mayor was to Mann Park out on 131^st Street – where he shot a basketball through a hoop. He died later the same day in December 1976 while visiting his doctor at a Michigan Avenue office.

That is why it is unique Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner felt compelled to make the trip to Hegewisch on Wednesday, where he hoped to encounter a sympathetic audience of people as part of his last-ditch effort to urge the General Assembly to go along with his rejection of a state budget -- thereby keeping the political battle alive.

Specifically, he went to one of the few places in Chicago where the eastern boundary isn’t the Lake Michigan shoreline, but is State Line Road – with the Hoosier State of Indiana lying just across the street.

130th Street/Torrence Avenue one of the few entrance points to Hegewisch

IT IS A place that in recent weeks has been getting appeals from Indiana-based supermarket chains telling them that they can avoid paying the proposed sales tax hike on pop and other sweetened drinks if they cross over the state line and buy their goods.

Just like they can get gasoline for their cars for anywhere from 20 to 30 cents per gallon less in Indiana.

Hegewisch is the land by the landfills where Chicago used to dump its trash

And now, Rauner wants us to think he’s sympathetic to Hegewisch-ites (or is it Hegewischians?) who live so close to the border that they will feel the direct impact of having to cope with a higher income tax rate.

Rauner might as well be doing the work of Chamber of Commerce groups throughout Indiana in letting people know how miserable a place he thinks Illinois will become. What with him dragging out business-types from the Hegewisch neighborhood who were willing to say they’d be willing to “pick up and drive two minutes to Indiana.”

ALTHOUGH I DON’T think the governor is really that concerned. He’s trying to minimize the damage to his political reputation since it appears that the winner of the partisan battles of the past two years will turn out to be Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.

He’s going to be able to claim he and his allies on Thursday finally got a budget passed – with no help from Rauner or his people.

Of course, Rauner will claim over and over (actually, he’s already started) that Madigan’s plan is a tax hike of some 32 percent. Actually, it’s a 1.25 percent boost in the rate, meant to produce some 32 percent more revenue, but facts and details rarely matter to the people spewing partisan nonsense.

DALEY: It all came to an end in Hegewisch

Personally, I think it is sad it took two years to reach this point. This particular increase could have been done during the spring of 2015 and we never would have known the misery of the past two years watching our politicos stumble about like rubes.

WHICH IS WHY there really isn’t a winner. There’s merely a stage set for the partisan nonsense we’re going to be subjected to between now and the general elections of November 2018.

Voters will get their chance at that time to show which of the two political leaders they are most disgusted with – both are convinced that it has to be “the other guy.”

Madigan has made statements about “working with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to begin healing the wounds of the last several years.” Although the interesting point will be to see which wounds develop on the GOP side.

I’m sure those Republican legislators who wound up switching sides against Rauner’s budget rejection will lose out on the financial help the governor would have provided to their re-election bids. How much more spiteful Rauner can be remains to be seen.

  -30-

Illiana lingers in limbo?

Who’s to say anymore what the fate of the proposed Illiana Tollway is.

RAUNER: What's his Illiana point?!?

Gov. Bruce Rauner gave the project a kiss-off long desired by environmental activists and rural residents who resent the idea of the Chicago area growing further and further into areas once considered solidly rural.

BUT THEN, JUST a few weeks after issuing an order saying state spending for the Illiana was done, Rauner gave his approval to a bill that provides – amongst other things – $5.49 million to be used for the Illiana.

Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Rauner justifies the expense as being needed to cover any legal costs associated with killing off the Illiana. After all, you don’t just suddenly stop a project that has been ongoing for years.

Or else you wind up violating commitments that were previously made, and wind up getting sued by the entities that were counting on the project being built someday.

For all we know, this money will pay for the legal fees to defend Illinois government from those very lawsuits.

YET THE ACTIVISTS who long saw no need for a highway connecting Interstate 65 near Lowell, Ind., to Interstate 55 near Wilmington, Ill., are upset. Crain’s reported the Environmental Law & Policy Center literally wants no more spending on Illinois to mean no more spending.

Nada! Nothing!

Now some might wonder why there hasn’t been more of an outcry in recent weeks to Rauner acting to end the Illiana – which is a project that south suburban Cook County has long considered to be a priority to spur economic development.

That, and the long-proposed airport in rural Will County near Peotone. Which Rauner also gave a serious blow to a month ago.

THEN AGAIN, THE south suburbs of Chicago were a part of the state that gave its overwhelming support in last year’s election cycle to Gov. Pat Quinn. It also is a part of the state that will more than eagerly be willing to believe that it’s Rauner’s fault the state lingers in a financial mess due to the inability of officials to put a budget together for the current fiscal year.

So is it believable that Rauner wouldn’t care much what the south suburbs think about this particular issue – or any other? Of course.

The routes that may be resurrected as a political power play

But the rumor mill also has speculation that this is a power play – keeping the Illiana alive in some form so that it can be resurrected in full. IF local officials learn to play ball.

Could it wind up being that those African-American legislators from the south suburbs (the dominant group amongst the local population for the past two decades) defect from the Madigan bloc on this issue?

COULD THEY WIND up supporting at least some of the ideological measures Rauner is touting to benefit his business buddies – in return for the Illiana project coming back to life?

Anything is possible. I have no doubt that those officials, who always talk about Illiana and a new airport in terms of job creation rather than any transportation benefits they would provide to the Chicago metro area, could be easily swayed.

Because what Rauner needs is to create fractures within the Democratic caucuses of the Illinois House and state Senate, which otherwise have such large Democratic-leaning composition that Dems will override any effort by Rauner to use his veto power. I’m sure for the long run, he’s focusing on getting more Republican members come the 2016 election cycle so he won’t have to make any political concessions.

But for now, Rauner wants political relevance – which only the Chicago Tribune seems to want to think he has. In which case, Illiana still serves a purpose.

  -30-

Illiana demise ought not be a surprise. Will Will County airport be next?

I fully expect that anything former Gov. Pat Quinn publicly supported, current Gov. Bruce Rauner is going to oppose. They’re like a pair of temperamental 8-year-olds.

So I wasn’t shocked to learn that Rauner’s first actions included putting a halt to any planning for interstate construction. That includes the proposed Illiana Expressway that Quinn always touted any time he was on the South Side or surrounding suburbs.

BECAUSE THERE, LOCAL officials perceive construction of an interstate highway stretching from Interstate 65 near Lowell, Ind., to Interstate 55 near Wilmington (which is just south of Joliet) as being a source of jobs and a way to spur future economic development south of the city.

Bringing up Illiana, along with construction of a new airport in the farm fields of rural Will County north of Peotone, was always a way for Quinn to get cheers and applause – along with votes.

If all of Illinois had voted like the South Side and south suburbs, Quinn would have kicked Rauner’s behind back on Election Day last year.

But they didn’t, and Quinn didn’t. We have “Gov. Rauner” now, and he said during the campaign he doesn’t think much of the Illiana project (and the third airport, either).

SO NOW, ILLINOIS is doing a financial review. Rauner aides say it’s about fiscal responsibility and making sure money is not being wasted during construction.

Although I suspect it’s also about not expending too much state effort on parts of the state that weren’t all that supportive of the Rauner campaign during the election cycle. Seriously, some of those suburbs in Thornton and Bloom townships gave up to 90 percent of their voter support to Quinn.

So this is a political move all too similar to the way past politicos have operated. Not exactly conduct becoming of someone who claims to be the “nobody” that “nobody sent.”

Although since Rauner was clear during the campaign cycle that he didn’t support Illiana, I don’t think we have much of a right to be shocked and appalled that he would make its demise one of his first actions.

EVEN THOUGH THAT demise now leaves unanswered a very serious question – what will be done to alleviate the congested mess that occurs all too frequently on Interstate 80 just south of Chicago proper?

That road is heavily used by truckers shipping goods from other parts of the country into Chicago. Anyone who has ever driven on the interstate near the Illinois/Indiana border knows how nerve-wracking it can be to get caught up in a truck-laced traffic jam.

One of the purposes of the Illiana proposal is to give those freight trucks that are merely passing through metro Chicago (and not specifically stopping here) an alternate route to alleviate the Interstate 80 traffic.

Now that Rauner is moving in ways to obliterate the Illiana (although Indiana state officials say they’re prepared to build their portion of the road regardless of Illinois’ problems with the project), it will be interesting to see how the new governor addresses the traffic congestion problem.

BECAUSE THE ISSUE is not going away. It is a serious one. It is not something Rauner can ignore. If he does, he will be messing with the transportation of goods into and out of the Chicago area, which impacts the state’s economic bottom line!

 I’d like to think Rauner knows better. Although the idea of a politician causing problems inadvertently because of their desire to oppose something or someone (Quinn??!?) else is nothing new in Illinois.

It is likely the third airport concept could meet a similar fate, although that is a Federal Aviation Administration project and the federal government has final say over whether it proceeds.

But federal officials have said before they want local support for the airport project, which means Rauner apathy could cause them to lose good will – and the southern part of metro Chicago could wind up losing its two major projects meant to bolster the local economy.

  -30-

There are times when far southern side can’t seem to catch development break

When political people talk about possible improvement to the city’s far South Side and its surrounding suburbs, there are a trio of projects they bring up.

Port known more for out-of-date sign than its assets

A new airport to be built in the farm fields north of Peotone, development of a new toll highway connecting Indiana to Illinois further south than the existing I-80/94 connection, and the improvement of the Port of Chicago down near Lake Calumet.

BUT JUST WHERE are those projects actually headed?

The airport has been a decades-long battle that should have been resolved some 20 years ago. Whether it can ever achieve its potential may well have been undermined by the endless delays – many of which are caused by rural interests that want to pen in the spread of metro Chicago further south.

The tollway (known as the Illiana Expressway) is meant to connect Lowell, Ind., to Wilmington, Ill. It is meant to make it easier for people to cross over the state line by an interstate highway WITHOUT having to travel all the way north to Gary before turning west.

But the same people who can't stand the idea of the Chicago-area spreading far southeast into Will County combined with the ones who view the Illinois/Indiana border as a barricade – which is what led the Chicago Metropolitan Area Planning entity to officially exclude Illiana from its long-term plans.

AND NOW, WE’RE getting the reports about the one city-based project on this southern Chicago wish-list – the Port of Chicago had potential to be turned over to a private company that supposedly could have revitalized all the shipping of goods that involves the area around Lake Calumet.

Will any of these Illiana routes, ...

Except that the Colorado-based company is now saying it is ending negotiations without reaching a deal. Which means the money that would have been spent to upgrade the port to make the improvements necessary isn’t going to be spent.

The port (which those of you who ever venture far enough south to travel on the Bishop Ford Freeway probably drive right past without ever noticing it, except for the fact that it took them years before they removed Rod Blagojevich’s name as governor from their sign) likely will languish in its current state.

... or this airport, ever become reality?

Which is to say a port that gets underutilized, even though it is the port that connects Chicago to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico through the rivers that lead to the Illinois River, which flows to the Mississippi River.

IT IS PART of the network of assets that make Chicago a national transportation hub – and is the reason why Chicago gets compared to New York or Los Angeles, rather than Milwaukee, St. Louis or Indianapolis.

Yet perhaps it is the fact that all these potential assets (from airport to expressway to sea port) are located south (in most cases as far south as one can go and still think they’re in the Chicago area) that causes them to get the shaft – so to speak. It reminds me of a moment some 25 years ago when I was told by a developer-type person that planning a new airport to the south was a waste of time and resources, because the only people and growth that mattered was taking place to the north of Chicago.

At least in the case of the airport, Illinois state government is in the process of purchasing land – which causes the airport opponents to send out pictures of homes to be destroyed, with caustic messages about what a waste it is to eliminate housing for something they don’t want to see built!

It creates a perception of wondering how many more decades will have to pass before something can be built – and will the aviation landscape change so dramatically that a new Chicago-area airport won’t be as essential?

MEANWHILE, THE SOUTHERN Chicago economy that is counting so heavily on these projects for a jolt not only of jobs but the perception that something of significance is located there continues to lag.

Which ought to be something our government officials ought to be concerned about – except that they’re more worked up over partisan maneuvers that they think can be used to ding their opponents.

The mouth of Lake Calumet gives the Port its ultimate access to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

 

There are times I wonder if the endless delays over resolving the funding mechanisms for government-overseen pension programs is because someone wants their opponent to get the blame? All of these failures has me wondering how the list of projects (airport, expressway, port) will have to be amended whenever political people talk about the potential for southern Chicago.

It might be government’s ultimate indictment if nothing on that list of potential achievements becomes reality!

  -30-

EXTRA: A present for everybody! Or, Christmas comes to Ill. 5 months early

To Gov. Pat Quinn, his big accomplishment was in giving approval to a measure that will allow Illinois government to move forward in developing the long-discussed new airport near rural Peotone.

The Statehouse? Or Santa's workshop?

Which is true enough.

BUT I’M SURE there are others who are going to want to ignore the airport process.

They’re going to view it as the day the state kicked in some money for construction of a new arena near the McCormick Place convention center – the arena that is meant to be the new distant-from-campus home of the DePaul Blue Demons basketball programs.

Others will want to view Thursdays’ action as the permitting of fertilizer plants in Tuscola (not far from Champaign) to be eligible for job-creation incentives. And some will prefer to see this as the bill that helps develop the Mississippi River’s Port of East St. Louis.

For the bill that Quinn signed into law during morning ceremonies at Governors State University was the ultimate in “Christmas tree” bills – so-named by Springpatch denizens because they provide a little something for everybody.

IT WAS A bill that got its final approval from the General Assembly on the final day of the legislative session back in May. Back when everybody else was preoccupied by the passage of a concealed carry measure – and the failure of the Illinois House to do anything with legitimizing gay marriage.

It was a bill that most people managed to miss in the last-minute swath of legislation that did get voted on!

Christmas comes 5 months early

And it is a bill that will now have the potential to irritate so many different interests – from the people who hate the idea of a new Chicago-area airport being built on farmland to those who think it’s a dumpy idea to build a new basketball arena on the Sout’ Side when the school that would play there is up north.

Although at least this particular bill has issues that all sort of relate to construction or economic development – even if you believe that development is a mere fantasy.

IT’S NOWHERE NEAR as much of a mish-mash as a measure the Legislature approved in the mid-1990s to alter the state’s Leaking Underground Storage Tank fund AND implement measures for registering people convicted of sex crimes.

Legislators argued that both measures related to “public safety.” Although the tacky jokes about sex offenders and the “LUST Fund” being combined into one bill did nothing except create tacky puns that still make me groan some two decades later!

  -30-

A new airport? It’s about time!

I’m at the point where I won’t believe there will be a new airport in rural Will County just north of Peotone until I actually see a flight take off from its runways.

Because I have been a reporter-type person long enough to know that this proposed third major airport for the Chicago metro area was supposed to have been built a long time ago – and should have been fully built and up and running by now.

INSTEAD, ALL WE have in that area of eastern Will County (the portion that the political people in Joliet don’t like to acknowledge) is farm fields and dirt roads – with the occasional sign showing nothing more than a black airplane silhouette with a red slash across it.

This is an issue that has dragged on for so long that it is pathetic. It is something that our political people ought to be ashamed of.

Literally, I can remember the late 1980s when the Bi-State Commission of Illinois and Indiana officials was reviewing four airport sites (including Peotone) and the general timeline was approval of a site by about 1991, construction beginning a year or two afterward and taking place in earnest through the mid-1990s.

The first flight from the first stages of the airport would have been in 1999, with serious numbers of flights taking place by 2002 or 2003. And by about 2010, the final stages of the airport would have been complete.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE this timeline was put together by a collection of Chicago Cubs fans who seriously think that ball club is on the verge of becoming the 21^st Century’s dominant force in baseball – instead of extending their mediocrity well into the new century.

Because our political people in Illinois are of the mentality that there’s no point in rushing into anything!

I bring all of this up because of the fact that a bill actually slipped through the General Assembly at the end of last week. It now goes to Gov. Pat Quinn – who has made it clear he will sign it into law.

Depending on where one comes from, this is the bill that provides state funding for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s pipe dream of a sports arena near McCormick Place, or for a new fertilizer plant near Tuscola.

OR, AS THE governor thinks of it, the bill that lets the Illinois Department of Transportation create the government entity that will manage a new airport that will (in theory) go along with O’Hare International and Midway airports to handle Chicago’s aviation needs.

Much of the stink that has kept the idea of a new airport on hold for the past couple of decades has been a brawl over who should actually run any such facility. If it were really just a matter of rural residents in the area not liking an airport on their land, government officials would have had no qualms about squashing their fears.

Will County officials have always wanted to think that any new airport was THEIRS, while city officials have always wanted to ensure that any new airport was under their domain! State control probably makes just as much sense – although it likely bothers everybody else.

For Quinn, in praising the Legislature on Friday, made reference to 11,000 construction jobs and 14,000 people employed at a future airport. Everybody wants to have a say in determining how those jobs get distributed.

WE’RE STILL QUITE some time away from actually seeing construction start – although the state has purchased much of the land in the area for airport development.

What may be reality in a couple of decades, and what should have been reality by now. Map provided by Illinois Department of Transportation/FAA

 

But my hope is that we’ll have a real-live airport in that area sometime around 2030 – which is around the time I should be thinking in terms of retirement (unless business interests and somebody’s desire to improve their financial bottom line tries to put me out to pasture some time prior to then).

It will only be a couple of decades too late!

  -30-

EXTRA: Who sez Chgo runs Ill.?

This century-old gloomy mood is being felt by much of the Statehouse scene

·        No new law permitting for legitimate marriage between gay couples.

·        No measure providing for reform of the way the state covers the cost of public pensions – even though both Democratic leaders from Chicago wanted it.

·        No casino for Chicago, or for south suburban Cook County either.

·        No new law banning ammunition magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds at a time – despite the fact that Gov. Pat Quinn shamelessly brought in the families of children killed in Newtown, Conn., last year to try to appeal to public sentiment.

·        The state IS going to provide some funding for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s desire to build a sports arena near McCormick Place – but ONLY because it got tied into a bill along with the long-proposed airport in the farmland lying between Monee, Beecher and Peotone, along with a project near rural Tuscola (where the locals think the “Big City” is Champaign and Urbana).

  -0- 

In fact, what the Illinois General Assembly’s now-completed Spring '13 session is going to be remembered for is the fact that Illinois got pressured into adopting a “concealed carry” measure – although the rural interests that were demanding their viewpoint on firearms prevail across all of Illinois fell short.

So the "urban" victory is that the concept of “home rule” prevailed – and we’re likely to have a mish-mash of policies where firearms owners ARE going to have to pay attention to where they are when they go out in public with that pistol tucked in a waistband or shoulder holster.

SO MUCH FOR the idea that this veto-proof Democratic majority in both the Illinois House and state Senate was going to result in Chicago running amok over everybody in Illinois. There hasn't been any legislative roughshod-running since 1995-96 -- back in the days when the Republicans dominated everything!

Although Quinn made a point Friday night of issuing a statement on “marriage equality” saying, “This is not over. The fight goes on.” We’ll have to wait and see.

  -30-

Quinn just can’t catch a break

A lot of it depends on the political spin one wants to buy into – were those Chicago Teachers Union members picketing Gov. Pat Quinn?

QUINN: Does anybody like him?

Or a memorial tribute to the events that occurred 11 years ago Tuesday?

EITHER WAY, QUINN’S attempt to partake in an event paying tribute to the people who perished on Sept. 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon got sideswiped by striking schoolteachers who wanted to ensure someone would pay attention to them.

Personally, I suspect that was their true motive. It’s not like Quinn has been hostile toward the teachers during the months leading up to walking off the job beginning Monday.

Then again, he hasn’t exactly done anything to try to put a muzzle on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to get him to negotiate with the teachers in a more rational manner. So maybe they’re peeved with the governor for not being supportive enough?

But Quinn, as he tried to show himself sympathetic to the military, wound up getting caught up in the middle of the labor dispute that is the reason why the whole world IS watching Chicago these days.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, Quinn decided to make his public appearance at a Sept. 11-type event in the Archer Heights neighborhood. The city’s Southwest Side. It might have played over well.

Except for the fact that the memorial he attended was just a couple of blocks from the Curie Metro High School (for what it’s worth, I had a couple of cousins who attended that school a few decades ago).

The teachers picketing there decided to take their signs and their shouts and move them over to be within earshot of Quinn.

Although the reports from the Associated Press indicate that the teachers tried to temper their behavior while at a Sept. 11 tribute. Some even made sure to have U.S. flags to wave about.

BUT QUINN STILL gets dumped on and dragged into something I’m sure he would have preferred to stay far away from – since a local school district is pretty far well removed from the jurisdiction of state government.

It’s not like anyone should expect him to get involved in the negotiations. If he were to try to, then we’d have a legitimate gripe and an excuse to go picket the Thompson Center state government building and chant, “Mind your own (expletive deleted) business!”

Besides, there are enough people complaining about the governor on issues that are his business.

Take the meeting held Monday in suburban South Holland by the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission – the entity affiliated with Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., to promote (and someday operate) a new Chicago-area airport in rural Will County.

THAT MEETING DEVOLVED into a gripe session about why no airport has been built despite more than two decades of talk. And everybody blamed Quinn – claiming that his talk is cheap and his actions don’t come close to backing it up.

Which strikes me as odd because I have always felt that among state government officials, Quinn may be one of the few who actually cares about the issue. Learning that some African-American pastors (who want an airport because they want their parishioners to get jobs there, or at businesses nearby) are talking in terms of dumping Quinn in 2014 for this issue alone borders on ludicrous!

Then again, Quinn has become the punching bag for our local political scene; no matter what the issue. Other government officials have enough muscle that people fear taking them on.

Take Emanuel, whom a new poll says most people think has bungled the teacher contract negotiations. How many people have yet gotten into his face about it? Challenging Quinn seems so much easier. He doesn’t bite!

  -30-