Today's News-Gazette:

There had been a resolution about confidence, or lack thereof, in Andrew Buffenbarger on Thursday night's agenda, but board Chairman C. Pius Weibel distributed a legal opinion questioning the propriety of such a vote just before the meeting began.

In a four-page opinion, senior Assistant State's Attorney David DeThorne wrote "I am of the legal opinion that the board is not authorized to now claim a right to seek Mr. Buffenbarger's dismissal as the nursing home administrator." Weibel promised the vote will be on the agenda for the Dec. 18 meeting, by which time board members can work their way through the legal opinion.

Why do they seem to keep running into situations like this?  Is the County Board not getting good legal advice, or are they just ignoring it?

Today's News-Gazette:

The Champaign school district is well-positioned to make its case that it has improved the education of its black students, said Robert Peterkin, the court monitor for the consent decree case.

Peterkin – who is based in Boston and has been working with the district on equity issues for 10 years – has been in Champaign the last two days, meeting with district officials and plaintiffs' representatives. He meets quarterly with the district to look at the progress it is making toward the goals outlined in the consent decree.

They aim to eliminate unwarranted disparities between black and white students in achievement, discipline, assignment to special education, inclusion in gifted and honors classes and attendance, among other things. The consent decree is scheduled to end in June 2009.

"We left thinking (Peterkin) felt like things were going real well, and there's hope we may be doing things in a high enough quality that could lead to us being released from the consent decree at its conclusion," said Superintendent Arthur Culver of the quarterly meeting.

While Peterkin said he would not speculate on whether the district will have met all the goals of the consent decree by next June, "I'm optimistic."

"But in the end, the proof will be in our outcomes," he said. "If we're still looking at the same disparities in special education and a gap in graduation rates, I think they will not have demonstrated they can improve the destinies of some of these kids. What I see and what I hear is the intent to get it done as best they can.

That's encouraging.

Friday, November 21, 2008.

Coincidence?   This is very interesting.   All the shady political maneuvering that was done by the city council and there are no recording of the meetings.    It just keeps getting better and better.....

Here's a background on the story.   This is an email message forwarded to me by someone who is working with Julian Gorski:

I just ordered a DVD of (the October 6th meeting), which they said I could pick up this afternoon.  He called back about five minutes later and said that because of a mistake, that meeting didn't get recorded (neither audio nor video nor either), which is why it isn't already online.  He's been here 18 months and this is the first time this has happened.  Very strange, given the sidebar conference, the issue of not announcing a conflict, etc., which could be important.
 
Do you know anyone who might have recorded it, either in the audience or at home?   Does anyone have a recording of this??

It was very disturbing to me that Howard Wakeland settled with the city and did not press the case further.  It does not allow for a legal precedent to prevent the Historic Preservation Commission from their create-their-own-rules-as-they-go-along-crusade to stifle multi-family development.  

Howard Wakeland's case was nothing next to Julian's (from what I'm hearing).   The good news is that Julian Gorski closed on his house with the Urbana Development Corp. and the money is in the bank.   Does anyone know if the city backed the UDC?   What would happen if the UDC got sued, which you have to assume is a serious possibility.  Julian Gorski reportedly communicated to the UDC that he intended to fight them.   Was this disclosed the city when asking for taxpayer backing??   I would not assume their project will go smoothly.  

From the N-G article here is Prussing on Howard Wakeland, "In the future, she said the city would take steps to make sure the historic preservation commission and other city bodies, including the city council, are following proper procedure "so we can avoid these kinds of problems."

Brilliant idea.  I suspect her problems are just beginning.  

That didn't take very long:

The Unit 7 school board unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday to again put the countywide sales tax pro- posal before voters in the April 7, 2009, consolidated election.

The proposal to increase the sales tax rate in Champaign County by 1 percent was defeated in the Nov. 4 election by 262 votes out of 76,820 cast. One board member noted that more than 6,200 people voting in the general election did not even vote on the county tax proposal.

Superintendent Michael Shonk said that at a meeting of county school superintendents earlier this month, all 14 wanted to place the proposal back on the ballot. "I'm pretty positive about the April ballot and that the proposal will fly this time," he said.

I think they're hoping to much lower rural turnout in April, because so many local offices in small towns are uncontested.  I wonder if any opposition will coalesce?

The NG rounds up area school board election news.  For Unit 4:

The Champaign board members whose terms are expiring are board President Dave Tomlinson and members Arlene Blank and Nathaniel Banks.

Tomlinson has picked up a petition, as has community activist Patrick Thompson. But Tomlinson said he has not yet decided if he'll run again, although he is leaning toward doing so. Blank also has not made a decision about running.

Banks could not be reached for comment.

I'd be curious to find out Patrick Thompson's highest priorities for the Unit 4 Board.

Anybody else know of someone planning on running?

Thursday, November 20, 2008.

Today's News-Gazette:

C. Pius Weibel was effectively re-elected to lead the Champaign County Board on Tuesday night, with majority Democrats promising to show unanimity.

The full board, which has a 15-12 Democratic majority, will vote on Dec. 1.

Weibel, who lives in Champaign, has been county board chairman for two years. He was challenged in caucus by Carol Ammons of Urbana, who has only been on the board for a few months but is a vocal presence, and Samuel Smucker of Urbana, a longtime union organizer just elected to the board.

The vote proved suspenseful as the first six (of eight needed) went for Ammons. Weibel got eight votes, and Smucker one.

Discuss.

Sen. Mike Frerichs was prominently featured in today's Capitol Fax (subscriber-only content here and here).  He's supporting Chicago's John Cullerton over East St. Louis' James Clayborne.  Clayborne is the downstate candidate, but is closer to Gov. Blagojevich than Cullerton, so Frerichs is catching some astro-turfed flack from some of Blagojevich's buddies.  WDWS is running stories (no link, of course) on the controversy right now, and Tom Kacich has a bit about it here:

Mike Frerichs, D-Champaign, reaffirmed today that he is supporting Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, for Senate president.

And that could be -- could be -- a problem for him because a group of African-American ministers calling itself the "Ad-hoc Committee of Community Leaders" was in Champaign today to urge Frerichs to vote for Sen. James Clayborne of Belleville for Senate president.

Their main argument for Clayborne was that he is a downstater.

What made this ironic was that the leader of the "Ad-hoc Committee of Community Leaders" is Eddie Read, a community organizer from Chicago. Read has connections with Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

What was unsaid in the news conference is that Clayborne is African-American and Cullerton is white.

Two local African-American ministers -- Rev. Eugene Barnes of Champaign and Pastor Rayenell Crenshaw of Danville -- said they did not intend to threaten Frerichs if he didn't support Clayborne.

"That would be counterproductive," Barbes said.

"I worked really hartd to get Sen. Frerichs in office," Crenshaw said. "As far as voting against him, I wouldn't. I would just encourage him to support someone like Sen. Clayborne who would work harder for our community."

I've said for years that the vote a legislator makes for their caucus leader is the most important vote they will cast, given the ridiculously top-heavy nature of Illinois' legislative process.  Many of the Senate Dem "reformers" are supporting Cullerton in tonight's initial vote.  Hopefully they're doing so because they think he will work to open up the legislative process in the State Senate, which under retiring Senate President Emil Jones had evolved to the point where only Jones' vote really mattered all that much.

UPDATE:  Cullerton won 20 of 36 votes on the first ballot, before winning by acclamation on a later ballot.  Sen. Christine Radogno won the Senate Republican leadership post.  Hopefully, the two new leaders will lead to actual legislative processes in the State Senate.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008.

I had posted on July 6th of this year about Locke High School and Green Dot.  

At Locke High School in LA, they kicked out the teacher union.  It was not easy.

I had submitted a post about this topic on July 6th.  

On July 23rd, the LA Times wrote an article worth reading.   While you're doing that, take a look at their website.  Not bad. 

There hasn't been a fight yet, says Michael McElveen, another senior. Two weeks without a fight is a good sign at Locke, his pals admit, even if it is usually quieter in summer. The students also agree that the uniform has its advantages -- you don't have to waste time and money on the fashions of the day.

Cubias is one of the Locke teachers who originally felt insulted by Green Dot chief Steve Barr's claim that he could do a better job than L.A. Unified. Cubias spoke up about it, telling Barr he and other teachers had made strides despite great challenges.

It is much too early to get excited, but I like everything they are doing.   While we're finding ways to increase taxes, the people of LA may have found a much better solution. 

Here in Champaign we are hearing reports that because of Conscent Decree compliance, certain disruptive students are sent to hallway.   Why?   Because sending them to the principles principal's office would demonstrate that schools are reprimanding certain students a a non-proportionate manner.  

A few weeks ago I talked to a Central High School student who got "shanked" during a fight.  She literally got stabbed by a makeshift weapon by another girl.    I didn't read about that in the newspapers.   Maybe it was just another day in the hallways? 

Rather than make do in the current system, maybe we should drop the system.  

Rather than have all these discussions about how to make do in the current system, maybe we should start talking about scrapping the system. 

It sounds radical, but by the time the suggestion starts to sound reasonable we might have ourselves an example of something that works.   If you can transform an urban LA school district, it would probably work anywhere.   God, I hope it works!  If anyone else has any positive reports on any education progress, can you please share?

If corporations continue to be looked at as nothing but welfare mechanisms, we should not be surpised if they cannot compete.   I find it disturbing that american auto companies cannot be competitive with other auto makers operating in the same country.   (We're not comparing american vs. mexican labor rates).

When "Big Oil" makes a profit they are hailed as evil by people who have never had to look at a P&L or balance sheet.  If you take about 30 seconds to think about it, you can find information like this:

The average net profit margin for the S&P Energy sector, according to figures from Thomson Baseline, is 9.7%. The average for the S&P 500 is 8.5%. So yes, energy companies are more profitable than many others...but not by an inordinate amount.

Google, for example, reported a net profit margin of 25% in its most recent quarter. Should we have an online advertising windfall profit tax?

This is appalling:

Here's what he said.  "The union targeted GM --" now, remember, this was a union contract that featured basically job training, and as the assembly line modernized, it was job training for union workers, but, of course, the modernization eliminated some work, but did not eliminate the jobs.  And the union specifically targeted General Motors to get this aspect of a new contract for all three eventually of the Big Three, and here is what Daniel Brooks said in his analysis, 13 months ago.  "The union targeted GM because they have some cash.  On the other hand, GM also famously spends over $1,600 per vehicle on the healthcare costs of current and retired US workers while Toyota pays about $200 per vehicle. Although GM also pays about another $1,000 per vehicle on holiday pay, work rules, plant-shutdown-pay and line-relief to UAW workers -- expenses Toyota, for example, does not have -- these costs were not as much the focus of these negotiations," because the irony here is that the UAW targeted GM for this new contract because they had the cash.  Do they have the cash now?  We found out that they're going through billions every quarter, six billion, four billion, whatever it was.  

So it's not just that there's $1,600 per GM car for health care, for current and retired auto works.  There's another $1,000 per vehicle for holiday pay, work rules, plant-shutdown-pay and line-relief.  So $2,600 per car coming out of General Motors that Toyota does not have to spend.  So that leads to the figure that we shared with you last Wednesday, the hourly cost of doing business at General Motors is $73 bucks and some change.  At Toyota it's in the forties, or maybe even less than that.  But nobody's even close to General Motors' 70, 71.  Now, you might say, "But, Rush --" and certainly if you're an autoworker, you might say that the company agreed to this.  I mean, they made the deal.  It's up to them to honor it.  Yes, they made the deal.  They're telling us they don't have any money and their balance sheet looks like they don't have any money.  Now, they did make the deal.  Did they have a gun to their heads?  Were they told, "We're going to strike and put you out of business?"  Who knows what goes on behind closed doors at these negotiations.  But if they had the money back then, they had the money, but they don't now.

This could have been addressed.  If you want a great american success story, look no further that our own CAT based in Peoria, IL.   The management made the right choice and decided to run a profitable company.  They have recently announced it was going to invest $1B to upgrade its ILLINOIS operation.    No government bailout needed.  

If we are going to look at corporations as welfare mechanisms and discourage profits, we should get our checkbooks ready.   Just something to think about for when we start hearing about "tax loopholes" and "CEOs" and "windfall taxes", etc. etc. etc. 

How about a compromise?   Let's limit welfare jobs to those provided by the government.   Over there we can keep offering excessive pensions and benefits and pass the buck to the next generation of taxpayers.   At the very least, let our companies make a profit. 

For the record, I blame management at the auto makers.  : )   They should have done what CAT did almost 15 years ago.

The Champaign County Clerk's office has final 2008 election results.

The countywide sales tax ended up failing by 262 votes.

Today's News-Gazette:

When the city's historic preservation commission and then the city council voted last summer to deny developer Howard Wakeland the right to tear down an old rooming house he owned in a historic district on West Main Street, he took the dispute to court.

On Monday night, rather than continue to litigate, the city council voted unanimously to authorize Mayor Laurel Prussing to sign a settlement agreement with Wakeland. It will let him tear down the century-old house at 809 W. Main St. in return for a few concessions about the design and materials used in a new house Wakeland is planning for the same location.

Wakeland didn't attend the meeting, and he wasn't gloating when reached at home by telephone.

"I'm going to keep my mouth shut," he said.

Discuss.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008.

To hear various partisans and the news media talk about it, elections are filled with partisan manipulations and shenanigans.  This is one of the barriers to achieving better elections.  Too many people are looking to score political points off of election problems and not enough looking to solve them. 

In reality, most election problems don't have a partisan angle.  They are just like any other problem you might find in your office, home or where you do business.  Can these problems be fixed?  Absolutely.  But first it's necessary to cut out the partisan wrangling.

Heather Gerken, a lawyer who worked for Obama this year has an excellent post about election adminstration at Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog.  There are a lot of good points in the post, but these particular lines should be a filter for every partisan and media person when looking at election adminstration problems.

Most of the problems I saw from the vantage point of the campaign's boiler room seem to have been caused not by partisan mischief, but by neglect -- too little funding, too few resources devoted to good planning, even something as simple as not enough poll workers showing up. It confirmed my view that we should never attribute to partisanship that which can be adequately explained by inadequate resources.

This is a pretty interesting idea by the NG:  invite people to share their memories of the Champaign's Metropolitan Building, which burned down last week.

Good stuff.

From Friday:

The 45-year-old Urban League of Champaign County closed its doors Friday.

The closure comes on the heels of mounting financial problems, state and federal investigations and a soon-to-be-released audit for fiscal 2006-2007, according to a press release from the organization late Friday night.

Unsurprising.

UPDATE:  Thread title fixed.  Sorry!

Monday, November 17, 2008.