Archive for April, 2010

Comments on 4/12 Meeting

Author: yinn

Apr 13

I jumped in about 7:30 last night, in the midst of citizens’ comments so the proclamations must have taken a long time! Here’s my assessment of what I saw.

The Bad

The saddest part, of course, was Council’s approval of almost all of ReNew DeKalb’s wish list. With that they closed the door on the possibility of using TIF funding for the badly-needed police station expansion for the next 10 years; an option that, in light of our poor financial position, we should have held onto.

Also, the city left out something important in its repayment calculations. It’s all well and good to ask whether we can repay the $12 million if EAV within the TIF drops another 5% or 10%, but nobody mentioned what the threshold is for real trouble. Why is a 10% drop the arbitrary worst-case scenario? Is it because we’d hit trouble at 11%? 15%? Holy cow, I can’t believe nobody asked. This is a failure of imagination that could really end up biting us.

The Good Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: Council/City Watch, Payment Due?, TIF | Tagged as: , , , ,

Township Meetings on Tuesday

Author: yinn

Apr 12

Township annual meetings will be on Tuesday. There are 1,432 townships in Illinois.

DeKalb Township annual meeting is 7 p.m. at the Township offices on South Fourth Street.

Click here to read about the powers that township electors can exercise.

The Rockford Register Star has an article about some of the agendas this year.

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Filed under: Calendar

Park District Prez Owes Us

Author: yinn

Apr 11

I have had a very high opinion of Matt Volk for a long time. He is one of the good guys: a cheerful, caring, can-do type person who gives hundreds of volunteer hours of service to his community, year after year.

But as president of the DeKalb Park District board, Volk owes his public an explanation of his guilty plea on a theft charge, or his resignation from the position, or maybe both. The one thing he should not do is to pretend nothing has happened.

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Filed under: Council/City Watch | Tagged as:

More Empathy

Author: yinn

Apr 10

Well, this is weird (pdf p. 74).

Ald. Gallagher stated that given the current economic conditions, the City needs a positive outlook. He implored all to stop “sniping” at one another, and encouraged people instead to get involved. He also suggested that citizens can contact the Mayor to serve on a committee.

Alderman Gallagher used to be the one alderman you could count on to use the Reports & Communications portions of the meetings for actual ward reports. Now, he’s using the time to implore people to stop picking on him, or something. Hmm. Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: Council/City Watch

Fried Dandelions

Author: yinn

Apr 9

dandelions Lots of the “weeds” found in yards have culinary and/or medicinal uses. If you visit mine, you’ll find burdock, chicory, garlic mustard and of course the ubiquitous dandelion.

Now is the best time for a salad or spring tonic made of fresh, young dandelion greens that haven’t become embittered, but one of my fave uses is deep-fried dandelion blossoms. I found it several years ago in a church cookbook and was skeptical of the author’s assertion that they taste just like the battered, fried mushrooms. They do! In fact the texture is better than ‘shrooms’ because there’s no “slime factor” and the blossom doesn’t separate from the batter like the ‘shroom does.

When you take your pan to the meadow, be sure to pick the brightest, youngest full blooms. The stem of the flower is quite bitter so take care to remove all of it. Wash the flowers in several rinses of lukewarm water and blot them, spin them and/or allow them to air-dry before battering. Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: Garden Blog

Voluntary Separation Clarification

Author: yinn

Apr 8

Some are under the impression that the City of DeKalb’s Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) for Public Works and management employees allows for early retirement under Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF) rules. That is not the case.

IMRF does have an Early Retirement Incentive (ERI) and it’s a pretty good deal — so good, in fact, that municipalities can adopt the program only once every 10 years, according to Assistant City Manager Rudy Espiritu in response to an e-mail inquiry. DeKalb adopted the program in 2003 so is not now eligible, Espiritu says. Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: Council/City Watch, Payment Due?

Grassroots? Please.

Author: yinn

Apr 8

The National Coffee Party has arrived in DeKalb, and if you missed the first meeting, do not despair. Visit the website where you can sign a pledge that you will not call other people bad names, and put together a “Sphere” toy in time for the next meet-up.

We are 100% grassroots. No lobbyists here. No pundits. And no hyper-partisan strategists calling the shots in this movement. We are a spontaneous and collective expression of our desire to forge a culture of civic engagement that is solution-oriented, not blame-oriented.

Solving the world’s problems in a sit-down with one’s neighbors is a worthy use of time and we should do it more often, particularly if it leads at least occasionally to action. However, I don’t believe a “movement” based on trying to act superior to Tea Party people is sustainable, and more generally I’m tired of national organizations generating gimmicks and trying to call themselves “the grassroots.” They’re not. It’s all top-down (and akin to ReNew DeKalb’s talking City Council into a skating rink and then hoping — or pretending — there was community-wide support for it just because they said so).

Why does it matter? It matters because these “grassroots movements” allow the illusion of home-grown activism without the risks. Tolerating such a charade is unacceptable when you know people who have paid a genuine price for trying to change the system — and who maybe wouldn’t have had to, if more grassroots were participating for real in the first place. Read the rest of this entry

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Filed under: General Happenings

Verbic Does Work for Barb City Manor

Author: yinn

Apr 7

Third Ward Alderman Pam Verbic did finally return my e-mail inquiry regarding her employment at Barb City Manor, confirming that she has worked there part-time for the past three years.

You will recall that such a connection will require her abstention from votes on BCM and TIF 2.

Thanks to others who made the same inquiry, the cumulative effect of which may have helped influence the decision to respond.

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Filed under: Council/City Watch, TIF | Tagged as: ,

I Got My Water Bill Today

Author: yinn

Apr 6

Dear City of DeKalb,

I would be OK with your raising my water bill $80 this year if it were going toward something water-related like paying Water Division personnel, replacing water mains or painting towers. Instead, I know much (if not all) of the increase is going — as $500,000 from Water already goes annually — to the General Fund for nonessential stuff you still insist on giving yourselves, such as magazine subscriptions, car allowances, and reimbursed “business” lunches in Opportunity/Innovation Central.

Blood. Turnip. Just sayin’. The borscht train is about to run off the track.

(Yeah, I know: mixed veggies. Long day. I’ll try to do better with the property tax bill.)

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Filed under: Council/City Watch, Payment Due? | Tagged as: , , ,

Voluntary Separation

Author: yinn

Apr 1

The agenda packet for Monday’s special City Council meeting to discuss the Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) is missing a few things:

1) An analysis of how much this program could cost us. Surely the city must know how many of its employees are eligible, since only those with 20 or more full years of continuous service qualify. There must be a memo or some other backup material to show why this is such a good plan. To withhold it is either careless or naughty.

2) Some mention of where the money for the VSP would come from.

3) A provision for how long a separated employee must remain separated from the city. Otherwise, we could end up with some pretty interesting scenarios, and I mean “interesting” in the sense that we wouldn’t care for them.

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Filed under: Council/City Watch, Payment Due? | Tagged as: , , ,
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