Ellwood House room rental for strategic planning retreat, $150.00

Breakfast and lunch for strategic planning retreat, $202.80

Ellwood House room rental for 5th Ward meeting (mtg was in January), $100.00. This, from Alderman Ron “let’s get back to concentrating on core services” Naylor.

Add yours in comments, if you like.

First, I want to give a shout-out to Misty Haji-Sheikh, who presented the findings of apparently self-initiated research into the likelihood and implications of a rail transfer station on the south side if the landfill expansion is approved. She recommends council anticipate these developments and put ordinances in place to protect us pronto. Thank you!

I strongly encourage listening to the public comments section of last night’s council meeting for her presentation, if you haven’t already. Read the rest of this entry

[Update 3:30 p.m.: "Downtowner" at the Progressive Fox brings it home to Illinois.]

From the NYT‘s Paul Krugman: “The Third Depression”. Krugman’s lately been comparing the US situation with Japan’s “lost decade.”

Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. Read the rest of this entry

Last month CB reported that City of DeKalb’s legal counsel had denied a request under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the names of City Council members who are currently participating in DeKalb’s health insurance plan. I subsequently filed a Request for Review with the Illinois Attorney General, which you may recall is the new procedure for appeal of denials since the first of this year. (Under the old FOIA procedure, the city manager would have reviewed and ruled on the appeal.)

Yesterday a letter arrived that confirmed the AG’s Public Access Counselor has “determined that further inquiry into this matter is warranted.” The letter, dated June 22, appears after the jump. Read the rest of this entry

From today’s Chicago Sun-Times comes population estimates for 2009. Click here to discover how the estimates were calculated, and here to make individual searches of cities, counties and other geographical divisions. The (incorporated) City of DeKalb is estimated thusly:

Census 2000 39,018
July 1, 2000 Estimate 39,196
July 1, 2001 Estimate 40,028
July 1, 2002 Estimate 40,807
July 1, 2003 Estimate 42,045
July 1, 2004 Estimate 42,823
July 1, 2005 Estimate 43,411
July 1, 2006 Estimate 44,392
July 1, 2007 Estimate 45,253
July 1, 2008 Estimate 45,444
July 1, 2009 Estimate 45,734

We’ll see.

A couple weeks ago, a neighbor asked about the status of the DeKalb Sanitary District’s pursuit of city approval for a “biosolids barn,” and I realized I haven’t read San meeting minutes since the DeKalb High School lift station fiasco. Here are few items of possible interest gleaned in the catch-up efforts.

December 8, 2009: This was a special meeting, an executive session to discuss personnel, but was conducted as an open meeting to discuss the requirements and timeline for recruiting a new district manager to replace the retiring Mike Zima.

December 16, 2009: In response to a public inquiry about the biosolids project, San officials state that the District has the project on hold in order to investigate another site for it. Read the rest of this entry

Click here to get to Forbes.com’s interactive migration map. The IRS reports U.S. inter-county migrations of 10 persons or more, and the Forbes map represents its data from 2008.

[H/T J.W.]

In a previous post, I listed perks that theoretically could be cut from the FY2011 budget. Car allowances, magazine subscriptions, dues to professional organizations, lunch reimbursements, and clothing allowances run into hundreds of thousands each year. (Sure, some of them are contractual — but did they even try to talk to the unions about them?)

At any rate, Third Ward Alderman Pam Verbic is against cuts to perks. Verbic says the city “can’t run a professional organization” without them.

That’s nonsense. Read the rest of this entry

Two e-mails were forwarded to me today. The first is an appeal from one of the Fairview homeowners to be excluded from forced annexation. The second is 4th Ward Alderman Brendon Gallagher’s response.

To: [City of DeKalb Council Members]
Subject: Involuntary annexation

11 June 2010

Mr. Gallagher, Council and Mayor;

I am writing to inform you of our opposition to the city’s intent to involuntarily annex the property at 1912 S. Fourth St. I am asking that you consider this property excluded from the annexation. The Lothsons purchased this lot in 1951 and built this home. They still own and live there today.

In 1993 when homes where built on Lucerne there was a meeting between then Mayor Sparrow, Mr. Monas, Mr. Naylor ( Public Works) Mr. Zima from the Sanitary District, my mother Mrs. Lothson, and myself. It was determined at that time that in order for this property to be connected to city water and sewer that a lift station needed to be installed and maintained by us. Read the rest of this entry