Des Plaines to RedSpeed: Pass

Des Plaines holds off on traffic cams.

“I’m uncomfortable trying to generate revenue from this type of ordinance where the lion’s share is going to the vendor at the expense of taxpayers.”

Read it all here.

Don’t forget to read the comments.

RLC: Schaumburg Pulls Plug on $1 Million Camera

Shoppers going elsewhere to avoid ticket trap?

Hat tip to dgombudsman on this story that broke late last night. 

Reality Starts Sinking In

Sobering thoughts from 99, deafening silence from 58.

I’ve written in the past how 99 seems to have more on the budget ball than 58.  Kudos to 99 Super Mark McDonald for a cold and bold laying out of the facts, and possible ways to blunt the impact of recessionary budgets.

So where is 58 on this very important problem?  Should we blame this inept inactivity on Scott O’Connell, too?

Unequalled Excellence

South Speech Team wins unprecedented sixth straight State Championship; North comes in Fifth

Since 1985 DGS’ Speech team has won or placed second in state except for 1986, 1989 and 2000.  That’s 21 out of the last 24 years they either won, or almost won.  They own six of the seven highest scores ever recorded in state competition.  Through three dedicated coaches (John Hires, Diane Hires, and now Jan Heiteen) they have been superb with a constantly changing roster.  If a sports team had won or was runner up at state with a record like that, imagine the hysteria.  And these students did it not with brute athletic ability, but with brute skill and brute brilliance.

This year, even the Village Council finally woke up to the fact there are competitive non-sports teams fielded by our schools that are strong, and worthy of notice.

From 99’s website:

The District 99 South High School Speech Team captured an unprecedented sixth consecutive State Speech Championship Feb. 21. Also, the North High Speech Team placed Fifth in the state finals.

Declared the “winningest” team in state history with far and away more wins than any other team, South students also placed in the following individual events: Adam Kase won Second Place in Extemporaneous Speaking, Jenni McCarthy with Third Place finishes in both Dramatic Interpretation and Poetry Reading, Chelsey Rice-Davis with Second Place finishes in Impromptu Speaking and Original Oratory, and Tess Moody with a Third Place finish in Special Occasion Speaking and a Fourth Place finish in Prose Reading.

In addition to the team championship, South High won Third Place in the Performance-in-the-Round competition. Congratulations also go to Head Coach Jan Heiteen.

North finished Fifth in the state contest, one of their best seasons in recent history.

I started in on this last year and I’ll say it again-

How about a proclamation, council?! How many years does Heiteen and her team have to rock it like no other team in the history of the IHSA before a tip of the hat!?!

X Chords

Oldest son checks in:

We are proud to announce that we received 1st Place at the ICCA quarterfinal round held at Missouri State University! This advances us to the Midwest Semifinals which will be held Saturday, March 14th at Northwestern University. Additionally, Kellen was awarded Best Arrangement for “Viva La Vida” and Ed was awarded Best Vocal Percussion while Brian recieved Best Soloist both for “Anna Molly”!

We had a great time and had the privilege of watching many talented groups. Also, thanks to all those who attended the concert–it was exciting performing for such a great crowd!

The University of Illinois a capella group The Xtension Chords (known as the X Chords) will compete Saturday march 14th in the midwest ICCA semi finals at Northwestern University. My son Brian is in the group, as is Phil and Paula Vettel’s son Ed. Brian went to DGS, Ed went to DGN; both sides of town are represented by this very talented, funny group. The X Chords are not supported by the U of I, they are mostly not music majors; they just like to sing, are good at it, and enjoy it.

Credit our schools here in DG for instilling a love of fine arts in more than just Ed and Brian.

I Can’t Resist

The American Recovery and-Reinvestment Act of 2009.

At 407 pages, shorter than a Tom Clancy novel, but has just as many twists and turns.  Happy reading…

Bus Rider

Commuter Shuttle Ridership 2008

Click on graph for larger version

Data is from monthly Village Statistical Reports.

2,009 riders took 6,003 rides in 2008, averaging 167 shuttle commuters per month.  In 2007 Council voted 5-2 to give the commuter shuttle four years to prove itself worth keeping, and in 2011 the four years runs out, and council will have the opportunity to vote again whether or not to continue the service.

In the meantime, the business community has started forwarding the idea of “reverse commuting”-getting workers from the train station to their jobs-via the shuttles as a potential benefit to attracting businesses to Downers Grove, in particular the large office complexes at Finley and Butterfield, and at 31st and Highland.

Public Facilities: Show Me The Money

Interesting conversations yesterday following both of my loyal readers sending me emails about the Facilities Tour.  Both boil down to “How are we going to pay for expensive facilities?” and “What happened to ‘Over my dead body’?”

The second questions the easy one: I took the time to find out about the facilities (you can too), and since I’m not a slave to dogma, my position changed.

The first question is where it gets a bit sticky…

Advocate Council Candidate Caucus Audios

DGCA has posted up the audios of the three council candidates who appeared at their meeting.

And Now (Maybe), The Heritage Fest Headliner Band You’ve Been Waiting For…Hold Your BIC’s High for…

…Night Ranger!

Woooooo!  A San Fran 80’s band with some pop tunes that hit the radios, mainly “Don’t Tell Me You love Me”, “Rock in America”, and “Sister Christian”.  I saw these guys with 38 Special in the 80’s, and that concert at Poplar

I had no idea Tully was a Night Ranger fan...

Creek I think is still ringing in my ears: it was the single loudest concert I have ever attended, and it was outdoors.

Sandack at an early 90's Ranger reunion concert.

Don’t be fooled by the pop singles, this is a hard rock band that was  a tad more the pretty boys than Motley Crue, Van Halen, or Ted Nugent, and presaged bands like Bon Jovi and Guns n’ Roses, and out of all six of the bands mentioned here are best suited for the summer festival circuit, and will probably put on a scorching show.

Beckman rarly talks about his days as ZZ Top's drummer. It would be awesome to get ZZ Top next year and talk Bruce back onstage.

Construction Ready Capital Projects List Goes to Springfield

The village has assembled $27 million of ready-to-go projects and sent that information to Springfield to get in line should federal money flow down to municipalities.   Flow down is an apt term, as most of the projects  are stormwater related, along with street work.  That would in turn relieve a bit of budget pressure.

You can view the Construction Ready Capital Projects here.

Downers Grove Unemployment Rate

Knock on wood…

Downers Grove has an unemployment rate of 2.8%, compared the national average of 5.8%. According to Downers Grove Trends data, the number of Downers Grove, Illinois jobs has increased by 14% since June 2007.

Update:

This is what I get for finding a simple graph.  I get forwarded the raw Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) data for 2008.  It’s more accurate, but it’s not a simple graph.  Dang it…

Hey Mark,

I was glancing at your blog today and noted some potential inconsistencies with state data.  I believe the website you are using shows the percentage of “matching jobs” available to perspective employees within DG.  The numbers going down of late is an indication of less jobs available in DG now vs. then, which to me, is a really a sign of contraction and not job growth.

Red Fred

The unemployment rate in DG for 2008 spiked in July at 5.7% and has since declined at the EOY to 4.6%.  The state ended 08′ at 7.6%, the entire US at 7.2%.

Past that, Red seems to have the facts sorted out.  I did like that graph though…

Public Facilities Tour

DG Village Hall circa 1950

This is a necessarily shorter post then I had hoped.  With the low light most of my cell phone camera pics are pretty fuzzy.  The turnout was about 10 residents and we trooped through Village Hall and the Police Station to check out the digs and see how bad it was.

It was pretty bad.

Campaign Websites

Are listed over on the left.  Some are still old, and I couldn’t find a bunch.  Anyone knows of a candidate site lemme know so I can pop it up here.

Downers Grove Community Advocates Village Council Candidate Meeting

DGCA held their caucus Sunday.  About 16 people showed up to hear three of the four candidates answer questions and give a bit of info on themselves.  Jim Norris took a pass.  You may not blame him, as he was an outsider from the word go:

• Marylin Schnell was a protege of Advocate member and former mayor Betty Cheever
• William Waldack was endorsed by the DGCA four years ago and probably gave the best of three good presentations
• Bob Barnett was an Advocate in the past.

Still, there were 16 people there who didn’t know Jim Norris from Adam, and still don’t.  To boot, this year it had been intimated that Advocates would post the audios of all presentations, not just the endorsed candidates.

There’s got to be a better way to do these kinds of things.

Shoving It Under Our Noses

Anyone can watch at any time.

Click on the picture at the left, or click on the link. Mundelein is a relative newbie when it comes to transparency. They keep the last four council meetings on line so people can watch them.  It’s crude, it’s sometimes rude, and it’s convenient as all get out.

DG’s various government entities are so far behind the curve it’s laughable.

Main Street Stimulus

The United States Conference of Mayors makes a list and checks it twice…

This is a list of “shovel ready” projects mayors across the country sent in to the feds, all in hopes of getting some of the stimulus money to start, continue, or complete what are generally infrastructure projects.

Red Light Camera: One Month, One Camera, $709,900 in Fines

$tick ‘em up

Schaumburg sidles up to the money mill.

Red Speed collects a $1,499.00 monthly fee from the Village and $35.94 per ticket. With 7,099 tickets written that comes to an astounding total of $256,637.06 in potential revenue for Red Speed in the first 38 days of operation of the camera.

No word yet if the camera has been effective in reducing traffic accidents.

Don’t hold your breath.  The camera is at Woodfield and Meacham, a huge intersection pretty much inside the Woodfield Mall area, and the fines are mostly rolling right turns.  At peak hours, thousands of cars traverse this intersection every hour.  Here, potential revenue based on volume of traffic was the primary consideration rather than safety.

RLC’s: Caught in The Act

Stick ‘em up!

Houston Manipulated Study to Make Red Light Cameras Appear Safer

Read about it here.

In other news…

Not ten years, not five years, not one year, not six months, not one week, not even one single day… RedSpeed Illinois completed not one, but two exhaustive two hour studies for Westmont and found a dire need for red light cameras at intersections.

Man those guys are in a hurry to abridge our constitutional rights to face one’s accusers and to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law make some money.  Two hours.  How thorough…