curious's blog

I found this by clicking on a Google ad on this site:

University of Illinois Admissions Fraud

I don't see it going anywhere, but who knows.  A lot of government entities will settle things like this rather than fight them in court.  Often they end up paying way more to settle than they ever would have to fight it.

In today's News-Gazette article about increased developer fees in Champaign:

Paul Phillips of Bloomington, chairman of the Home Builder's Association of East Central Illinois, contended that Champaign "has become the most expensive community in Champaign County in which to build homes."

"It cost $3,000 to $5,000 per home more in Champaign as in Mahomet, Tolono or Urbana," he said.

Champaign has done a rotten job of keeping their fees up with the times.  This has resulted in what looks like a large fee increase but isn't.  I'd think these developers would be happier.  They were able to build and build and build while some fees went without increases for 30 years.  Now that Champaign just barely starts to consider raising enough revenue to deal with the increased burdens of all this development, the developers freak out.

Discuss.

Here are my election predictions for the races I'm following.  Please note that these are not necessarily my hopes, just what I think the results will be.

Urbana Mayor
Prussing: 47%
Bradfield: 37%
Kruse: 13%
McColley: 3%

Urbana Ward 2
Gehrig: 60%
Mallon: 40%

Urbana Ward 3
Lewis: 90%
Couture: 10%

Urbana Ward 6
Stevenson: 55%
Langendorf: 45%

Urbana Ward 7
Marlin: 55%
Storm: 33%
Johnson: 12%

Urbana Park District
Yes: 52%
No: 48%

Countywide Schools Sales Tax Increase
No: 51%
Yes: 49%

Those are my best guesses.  They're probably worth about $0.00, but maybe as high as $0.02.  Share your own predictions below.

From today's News-Gazette:

Prussing, a former county auditor, brings to her job a solid understanding of financial issues, a long record of working with the public and an enthusiasm for policy-making and the day-to-day operations of government. She works well with the city council, has worked hard to attract tax-revenue generating businesses to Urbana, kept her pledge to hire more police officers to address crime issues and cracked down on landlords whose run-down properties can become a source of municipal problems.

Even the conservative News-Gazette believes that Prussing is the best candidate running and has done a good job.  It is rare that I and they agree, so the occasion seemed worth a blog post.  They of course had their issues with her, but it didn't change the outcome.

Discuss.

In today's News-Gazette, Paul Wood writes about the 2008 countywide school sales tax ballot question:

"The margin of defeat in November was less than half of 1 percent, with 38,428 voting against the sales tax and 38,128 voting for it."

This is a misleading characterization of the vote that has been repeated in nearly every News-Gazette story on the topic.  It suggests that 300 out of 76,000 people decided the election and caused the sales tax proponents to lose.  An accurate characterization would be that 38,428 people decided the election and defeated the sales tax proposal.  In other words, just over 50 percent, not less than half of 1 percent.

Spin like this in news articles is dissapointing.   I expect as much from the editorial page.

I got an Urbana Park District brochure in the mail today.  I looked up what it would cost to use the pool.  From what I can tell, it looks an Urbana resident gets a 15% discount on the annual fee for adults.  For all my property taxes I get a 15% discount?  Shouldn't it be a 100% discount?

Actually, if you look in the front of the brochure, they say that non-residents pay double the fees of residents for programs.  But apparently for facilities, that's not the case.  The daily pool admission is $6 and it is unclear if that is only for residents or if not, what the non-resident daily fee is.

This is the same park district that wants to increase my taxes to pay for a maintenance facility (that they'll build anyway even if the tax increase doesn't pass).  Why am I paying to subsidize the use of UPD's pool for non-residents?  It's not like Champaign residents don't have a pool to use.

The Urbana Park District wants a 21% increase in their tax rate:

"It's not going to be an easy sell," Walker said. "But we need 15 cents or we're going to have to see some pretty significant cuts. If the community wants a good solid park district, that's what it's going to require."

Walker noted that there is no election in November 2009, so bypassing this spring's election would mean giving up on a tax increase for a substantial time.

The district's current property tax rate is 69.6 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. The proposed increase would raise property taxes by $67.50 on a $150,000 owner-occupied house. It would generate an additional $775,000 for the park district.

They state that without the tax increase they'll have to make "deep cuts in park district programs," although it's not clear from the article what those will be.  They list several cuts they've already made (such as reducing hours at a few facilities and mowing less often) so perhaps that's what they're talking about.  They say with the increase they'll build a new maintenance facility, although they also say that they'll build it even if they don't get the increase.  Best I can tell from the article, the money would go to provide for preventative maintenance on the new maintenance building and would provide funds to update current parks.

What about our current economy does our local taxing bodies not understand?  Unemployment is at its highest level since 9/11/2001.  Foreclosures are at record levels.  We're in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.  Essential costs are up for food, medicine, and health care.  Many are getting paltry raises (if they get one at all) that don't even match inflation.  Yet the Park District wants a 21% increase in their tax levy.

I don't know about you, but I've been cutting back on my own needs and desires in this current economy.  I think it makes sense for the park district to do the same.  Mowing the grass less and reducing hours seems appropriate.  Foregoing preventative maintenance on new construction sounds like a no-brainer.  Not building new walking trails is something I can live with for a few years.  But a 21% increase in my taxes?  This I cannot support. 

If you agree with me, I urge you to get the word out.  The News-Gazette article neglected to mention just how large this increase is (in percentage terms).  But if you let your friends and family know that it's a 21% increase they're talking about, that will help put this in perspective.  How many of you got a 21% increase in your salary this year?  How many of your friends and family have foregone preventative maintenance on their own homes?  How many have decided now is not the time to upgrade the bathroom or build on a new kitchen or to take that vacation?  These taxing bodies need to realize that they can't just keep asking for more when the people they're asking are doing more with less.

I found this quite strange.  From today's News-Gazette:

On Tuesday, Champaign County Auditor Tony Fabri, a Democrat, rejected a $41,000 no-bid contract sent over earlier by County Clerk Mark Shelden, a Republican.

Fabri said state law and county policy require competitive bidding above a limit of $25,000, and Shelden's request for a $41,000 voter registration software was over the line.

When the county's purchasing office refused to process their request, Shelden's office broke it up into three separate purchase orders, adding up to $41,000, Fabri said.

Why not just put out the software to bid instead of trying to get around the rules?  Even if the intent was genuine, the method is suspect, and that clouds the whole thing.

Local blogger, former school board candidate, and contributor to IlliniPundit IlliniPundit.com John Bambenek has been named 'Wanker of the Year' by dailykos.com, a highly-trafficked liberal blog.  Apparently Bambenek has filed an FEC complaint against the blog alleging they are a political committee and should be regulated as such.

Not only has this issue already been decided in the courts, but even the conservative blogs find this a troubling, bad idea that threatens the first ammendment of the constitution.

UPDATE:  Edited by IP to clarify that Bambenek doesn't contribute to IlliniPundit (me, the blogger) but rather to IlliniPundit.com (the blog site).  He "contributes" in the same way that curious and Rex Bradfield and Queen and dozens of others "contribute." 

I only make this clarification because I know, at some point, there's going to be a story about "IlliniPundit blogger files FEC complaint against Kos" or some such thing.  And nothing could be further from the truth.  I don't support this complaint, I think it's invalid under current FEC rules, I think the current FEC rules under which this complaint was filed are unconstitutional, I think the FEC should be abolished and I think political speech should be as free and unregulated as possible.

Thanks for your indulgence.

I used to read the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center's website frequently.  I would participate in discussion via their comments, and in fact have even written a few stories that got posted to their front page over the years.  I also donated money to their capital campaign and have paid membership dues in multiple years.  But I just no longer see any point to it.  This is because the debate on ucimc.org is not open (such as the way it is here), but is instead heavily censored.

Case in point.  See the latest story on ucimc.org reporting about someone being held in the jail without seeing an attorney for unpaid debts.  The article, by Brian Dolinar, chronicles the difficulties for a current county jail inmate who has been stuck there for six months due to money owed, and is critical of the State's Attorney for her handling of these types of cases.

I found the article interesting and generally agree that putting debtors in jail isn't a great solution, as you take away their primary method of paying back the debt---working.  That said, when I first read the article, I saw one comment that hadn't yet been hidden, and it said this:

"Trolling" pretty much just means "disagreeing" at this point, right? Is there more to it than that? If so, I'd love to hear you explain it.

This was my first clue to check the 'hidden comments,' as there was nothing visible above this comment that would have led to it.  If you aren't familiar, the IMC software has the ability to hide comments (as does most blog software I presume), and the IMC uses it extensively.  So I checked the hidden comments, which you can also do here.  What did I find?  A couple of comments discussing the article and the merits of putting people in jail for unpaid debt. 

I didn't agree with the comments that were hidden, but I can't see any reason for hiding them.  They are asking real questions and reflect one point of view.  They invite debate of the issues.  That someone doesn't agree with them doesn't make them a 'troll.'  So, having read that comment, then going on to read the hidden comments, I posted my own comment:

I can't disagree with Anonymous 10:36. Click on the 'hidden comments' link below and see what you think of the comments that were already hidden. It seems to me that the IMC site just plain doesn't support the idea of discussion on controversial issues here.

I'm sure you can guess what happened next.  Yes, my comment was also hidden as a 'troll.'  As far as I'm concerned, that's it.  The end of debate.  If one can't discuss the issues on that site, then the site has no purpose other than to be a PR vehicle.  That's ok if it's what the IMC wants, but it's not what I thought they were about. 

If you look at their mission statement, you'll find the following:

We will empower people to "become the media" by providing democratic access to available technologies and information.

Once most every comment by anyone who disagrees with the posted articles are getting hidden as 'trolling,' I no longer see the site as "providing democratic access to available technologies and information." 

As a previous member of the UCIMC, a previous contributor of it's front page stories, and one who has donated many hours of time to the organization over the years, I can no longer support an organization that censors real debate.  Further, I  find it ironic that  one of my best options for sharing my point of view is the right-slanted illinpundit website.  However, on illinipundit I have the option of writing a blog post, others have the option of promoting it to the front page if they like it, and anyone can say whatever they want in the comments.  That, my friends, is 'democratic access to available technologies and information.' 

IThe IMC should turn off commenting altogether if they don't support it, and they should update their mission statement to reflect the change in attitude.