Blogs

The forces of reason and common sense have won a rare, if temporary, victory.

A proposed ordinance banning cell phone use while driving might be put off indefinitely by the city council.

Alderman Charlie Smyth, D-Ward 1, who proposed the ban, said the city might instead opt to take some interim steps while gathering information about how often traffic accidents occur due to cell phone use while driving.

In the meantime, the city council will consider enacting a distracted driving ordinance under which a person who gets into a traffic accident while talking on a cell phone or similar activity would be subject to a traffic ticket with a substantial fine of $500 or more, he said.

Yea!

Good article:

This coming fiscal year, Urbana expects to allocate $300,000 toward social service grants. That's an increase of $12,000 compared with the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

That level stands in contrast with Champaign, which this coming fiscal year plans to spend $113,000 on social service grants – but has announced that such grants will be ended, starting July 1, 2009.

Discuss.

From yesterday's News-Gazette:

The Champaign County Nursing Home, which will have to borrow money from the county to stay afloat, could save money by altering its mix of clients to reduce Medicaid patients – which would go against its tradition of serving the poor.

About 60 percent of its residents are on Medicaid, up from 48 percent in 2000, the first year for which Administrator Andrew Buffenbarger has census records.

About 28 percent are private paid and 10 percent Medicare, which has a higher level of reimbursement.

Taking care of the less-well-off has been part of the county's mission since it ran a poor farm on the same site as county offices.

But the rising proportion of Medicaid residents is hard on the nursing home's finances, Buffenbarger said, because "Medicaid reimbursement is considerably lower than the cost of services."

In other words, if Buffenbarger filled every bed in the new $24 million facility with Medicaid patients, the nursing home would lose even more than the up to $100,000 a month it has lost in the last two years. Instead, the home has run with about 80 of 243 beds empty recently.

Additionally, Medicaid reimbursement has not only been cut by $600,000, it's months behind.

Discuss.

UPDATE:  Big E has more thoughts here.

Some apparently expect the home to run on at least a break-even basis. But if that is the case, why is government involved at all? Is there a lack of private nursing home companies out there? Not likely. Why in the world would an impotent county government imagine that it is in a better position than a professional private company to run this operation? If the goal is to minimize expense to taxpayers, sell the damn thing to a professional operator and cut your losses.

It is not a little ironic that the idea of booting impoverished Medicaid recipients is being floated. If the goal of the facility is to provide refuge to those who would otherwise be out in the cold, this step would be absolutely contraindicated.

So what's it going to be, you dummies? A decision to provide heavily-subsidized care, or to make the facility a self-sufficient enterprise? The choices could not be more stark, but resolution will require courage and clear-thinking. I, for one, am not holding my breath.

I stayed away from IP.com this weekend, partly as a test to see how many trolls would show up in my absence to ruin otherwise constructive discussions.

Given what I've seen from over the weekend, and given my schedule over the next few weeks, I am now taking the draconian step of moderating all comments from unregistered users.  Unregistered users are still welcome to comment, but their comments will not appear in a thread until and unless approved by an administrator.  Registered users are free to comment without moderation.

Thank you, and I apologize for taking this step, which I hoped would never be necessary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/us/12illinois.html?th&emc=th

Monday, May 12, 2008.

If you caught last month's County Board meeting you would have heard  Brad Jones suggest that we use the Nursing Home Construction Fund to make this year's Nursing Bond Payment.  It probably confused a good number of people including most Board members.  But it comes down to this.  The County borrowed an extra $4 million for the nursing home to cover the costs of mold and HVAC repairs as well as increased legal fees and various cost overruns. This extra bond payment is being made out of the General Corp fund that had a fund balance last week of $70,000 (that's with receiving a loan from another County fund).  Since there is still about $700,000 unspent from the bond sale, this makes a lot of sense.

At the finance meeting last week, they passed unanimously a resolution to do exactly what Jones suggested.  But he didn't stop there.  In light of the goofy expenditure for the new sign at the Nursing Home, the resolution passed cuts off all expenditures from the fund except for legal fees.  There won't be any way for someone to spend the remaining money (about $400,000) on anything akin to the pricey sign that just went up.  So next year we can make another payment from this fun, although the hope at that time will be that we'll have a nice settlement that will pay off a good portion of the $4 million.

This is on the consent agenda for the County Board meeting later this month.  That means it's likely to pass without discussion.  But it's a good move initiated by Jones and a nice response to the dual problems of a depleted County fund balance and outrageous spending decisions.

My kids love superheroes. They love the flashy costumes, the eye-catching logos, the fantastic powers. They pretend to swing from indestructible spider webs. They imagine they can fly.

But they know Mom is the true holder of all super powers.

What can compare with the ability to heal life-threatening wounds with a single kiss? The power to sooth a ferocious beast with a simple lullaby? What child doesn't believe that Mom can make the sun come out when it raining?

Isn't it true that when Mom isn't happy, no one is? Mom's attitude sets the mood for the entire family. She is the first we imitate as toddlers, and always come back to when we don't know what to do. She’s the real supermodel. At her knee, we learn our core values that stay with us forever and become the foundation for all we go on to do in life.

Moms, don't forget your most important job.

Let none of us forget the one we owe it all to today.

According to the News-Gazette, Brian Chesley received conditional discharge and 100 hours of community service.

A Rantoul teen convicted of resisting and obstructing police in Douglass Park in north Champaign more than a year ago has been sentenced to a year of conditional discharge and 100 hours of public service.

The sentence for Brian Chesley, 19, who also lives part time with a grandmother in Urbana, means he will have a misdemeanor conviction on his record but will not have to report to a probation officer for monitoring. It was the least restrictive sentence that Champaign County Judge John Kennedy could have imposed for the crimes.

What's interesting is that the Very Green candidate for CB 9 started out with a couple of felony charges and ended up with first offender's probation, meaning that he'll have no record if he successfully completes it.  Chesley started out with an offer of diversion and ended up with a couple of misdemeanor convictions.  I wonder if this has anything to do with the former getting Diana Lenik as a defense attorney and the latter getting Kirchner and Wyman?

 "There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again..."

Discuss.

Friday, May 9, 2008.

OMG!!

check out:  "3.  gathered a protective ring of schoolchildren from a passing field trip"

and

"6.  accused is not indicted

7.  indicted is not convicted

8.  convicted means nothing until after an appeal"

http://thecapitolfaxblog.com/2008/05/08/automatic-rod-blagojevich-story-generator/#comments

I was very disappointed to see that the New York Times (whose editorial board have been relentless Clinton campaigners, while the editorial columnists are generally pro-Obama) was the only news outlet I regularly read to comment on this.  Page A27, 5-8-08  (There was also a picture of Clinton at a fundraiser, holding a little girl on her hip and speaking into a mike.  The child was not crying, but she certainly was not smiling, either.)

"...Mrs. Clinton put on her battle face Weds. and confronted what was at times a hostile crowd at a hastily arranged speech here at Shepherd University.

...Mrs. Clinton endured boos when she mentioned her proposal for a gas tax holiday, catcalls when she spoke of ending the Iraq war, and most difficult of all, the heckling of her daughter, Chelsea, who introduced her.

"End the dynasty!", a young man holding an Obama poster shouted when Chelsea Clinton stepped up to the microphone.

All the while, a smile was fixed on Mrs. Clinton's perfectly made-up face -- not a hair was out of place -- and she betrayed only an occasional glimmer of recognition of the exceedingly narrow straits she must now navigate.

...Mrs. Clinton promised that the U.S. would have universal healthcare "if I'm president", a deviation from her customary "when I'm president."   She said she was proud of her 2 point victory in Indiana on Tues., but made no mention of her 14 point loss in N.C.

Her remarks ... were an abridged cut-and-paste job of her standard stump speech.  It was not her most fluid effort.  ...But the modestly sized audience applauded at the appropriate times and, except for an unusually large and at times vocal contingent of Obama supporters in the crowd, the appearance went off without incident.

Mrs. Clinton added the stop at 3a.m. Weds. in an effort to show she remained committed to campaigning in the six remaining contests on the Dem. primary calendar.

...At a brief news conference after her remarks at the college...her upbeat tone never waver(ed)." 

--------

Chelsea Clinton is now in her late 20s.  Why can't she be heckled the same as another politico?

Please, God, can you make it stop soon?  Will you please dry up the money spigot so that she drops out?

Please, I promise I'll be really good and not call my little brothers names for the rest of the week...

From George Will, in tonight's News-Gazette:

"Mere numbers?  Heaven forefend.  That is how people speak when numerical metrics--numbers of popular votes and delegates--are inconvenient."

I'm not sure if I disagree with Mr. Will's spelling, or the News-Gazette's; I usually spell it "forfend".

But I'm still tickled to see it getting some popular use!

This is an interesting attempt at collaborative citizen journalism:

Now! Hampshire is unlike any newspaper you’ve ever read. To begin with it is published entirely online. What is more it is the only newspaper that consists entirely of citizen contributed news. That means you are not only a reader of Now! Hampshire, you are one of our reporters—if you decide to take up the challenge.

Founded by Seacoast entrepreneur Patrick Hynes, Now! Hampshire operates on the premise that there is a lot more interesting news out there than the people on the “news business” would lead us all to believe. And so we ask every citizen in the Granite State to take up their pens and note pads—along with the video and audio recorders—and start a news beat of their own.

Does your company, organization or school have something important to announce? Don’t settle with blasting off a press release—write a story about it and post it on Now! Hampshire.

Does your daughter or son have a game tonight? Record it on video and write up a blurb. We are thrilled to host local sports content.

Attending a county fair? Write a story about it.

Do you know a special, inspirational someone in your community? Show them you appreciate their contribution by interviewing them and posting it here at Now! Hampshire.

And remember: We’re looking for news. No opinion—just the facts.

I've often thought such an effort might be worthwhile in a smaller city like Champaign-Urbana, where local news is done well but very sparsely by legacy media outlets.

Thursday, May 8, 2008.

It would be kinda fun to see Hillary take this thing after all, wouldn't it?

The Township Board (City Council) has granted Supervisor Linda Abernathy's request to put another tax increase for City of Champaign Township on the ballot.

Township Supervisor Linda Abernathy said the increased tax income would allow her to increase benefits to 50 disabled people receiving general assistance/transitional assistance from the current $150 per month to the state-recommended $223 per month. The additional funding would also allow her to create a $42,000 emergency assistance fund whereby extremely poor residents could receive a $225 grant once a year to deal with an economic crisis, effective July 1, 2009.

Abernathy asked voters in November 2006 to approve a 5-cent increase in the district's overall tax rate. But voters rejected that proposal by a 2-1 margin.

She said she proposed a smaller increase this time around because she recognizes that residents are feeling the economic pinch.

"People are feeling the burn, the pinch," she said. "I wanted to do something minimal enough to survive the shortfall, but not so extensive to turn the voters off."

At least she reduced the amount of increase she was requesting this time.

From today's News-Gazette:

The Champaign County Board will look at ways to rescue county finances from deficit-spending on its nursing home Thursday night – including the possibilities of raising taxes or even selling the facility.

The finance committee meeting will take place at 7 p.m. at the Brookens Administration Center, 1776 E. Washington St., U.

The nursing home lost $600,000 in Medicaid funding this spring, faces higher costs for agency nurses because it has had difficulty finding full-time nurses, has already borrowed from the county and expects to borrow more next month.

Finance committee Chairman Brendan McGinty said the committee's discussions would include a possible question on the November ballot to raise taxes to help fund nursing home operations, an idea raised by union members at the nursing home, which had layoffs this week.

On the other extreme, the committee will start the process of looking for a buyer of the $24 million facility, which opened last year.

That process is one "we don't have to execute, if we fix things in the interim," the Urbana Democrat said.

I'm amused, however, to notice media coverage of concern about the massive legal fees owed by the County related to the Nursing Home.  If I remember correctly, someone correctly predicted exactly this problem and was ignored. 

Of course, this isn't the only nursing home-related issue on which Mark has been both prescient and ignored, so we should probably be used to it...