Ken Pirok, Champaign City Council member for District 5 (south and southwest Champaign) has posted on his blog that he will not run for re-election in 2009:

Today, I am announcing that I will not seek a third term on the Champaign City Council.

I am virtually certain to move during the next four and a half years (probably in the near future).  The last thing I want to see is someone appointed to fill my spot in either this term or the next.

Good luck to Mr. Pirok, and many thanks for his service. 

There is at least one other candidate (Dave Johnson) already running in District 5.

WDWS has podcasts from both incumbent Auditor Tony Fabri (last week) and GOP challenger Brad Jones (this week).  For such an important race, this has gotten precious little coverage.

I've said, since Fabri appointed himself, that it's unwise for a County to have the Democratic Party Chairman as the Auditor, responsible for oversight of the very people for whom he is campaigning.  The only response to that concern I've ever gotten is, "Trust him," or "His oversight responsiblities are handled by staff," neither of which is very reassuring.

Lately, given the media (and politicians') hyperventilating about the "failure" of the financial markets, a number of commenters on here have declared that the era of Ronald Reagan had passed, and that the ideas of limited government held little or no attraction for the larger American population.

I disagree:

In his first inaugural address, President Ronald Reagan delivered a line succinctly capturing the sentiment that elected him: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

A generation later, that attitude still resonates with a solid majority of Americans. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 59% of voters agree with Reagan, and just 28% disagree.

Support is found across a wide range of political and demographic groups. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of men agree with Reagan, as do 52% of women. A majority of voters in all age and income groups agree.

The only demographic group to disagree with Reagan’s statement are those who identify themselves as politically liberal. Just 35% of liberals agree that government is the problem, but 46% disagree.

Yes, this poll was taken after the financial "crisis," which was loudly proclaimed to be the death knell for the idea of limited government.

Unsurprising:

Founders of the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government Fund and UI officials announced Monday they would terminate an agreement that created the academy fund and that would have provided money for teaching and research on capitalism and limited government.

"Despite the good intentions of the donors and the university, there were structural incompatibilities between the fund's operational mode and that of the university," said Chancellor Richard Herman in a statement released Monday morning.

The fund instead will become a non-profit foundation separate from the university. It will still offer grants to support programs and research.

"This academy will be an independent, off-campus corporation which will undertake its grant activities in the same fashion as the numerous other foundations which already provide support to the University of Illinois," according to a statement released by the group's advisory board.

Interesting:

Following a contentious meeting Tuesday with about 20 local developers and builders, city officials sent an e-mail Thursday to those developers saying that "we are deferring action on this item until we have more internal consideration of the issues and options."

Craig Rost, the city's deputy city manager for development, said the increases, expected to generate $168,000 annually, had been scheduled to be on Tuesday's city council agenda. Now it has been "deferred indefinitely," he said.

"The timing was not good (with the economy) and they asked some questions we need to answer," Rost said.

One question raised by John North, a shareholder with Riley Homes in Urbana, was why the city was proposing to increase fees now, when it has hired a consultant to look at city fees in general to see if they are covering the actual cost of providing services. That study, being done by Navigant Consultants, is expected to be finished in several months.

That was exactly the question I asked last week.  Of course, this still begs the question of why the consultant was hired in the first place, since the staff has apparently already concluded that a fee increase is necessary.

This series on single mothers started in the NG over the weekend, but I'm just catching up:

Did you realize that nearly half the babies born in East Central Illinois are to single women?

We asked the three largest hospitals in the area to keep track of their births in March, for instance, and found that 47 percent of the women who gave birth in Champaign and Vermilion counties were unmarried. Most were white, aged 15 to 39. Public aid paid for most of the births to unwed moms.

Also:

•  
• More moms are unmarried - and for many, it's a choice
• Being single and a mom - one woman's story
• Black mothers more likely to be unmarried

Monday, October 6, 2008.

Friday, October 3, 2008.

This is one of, if not the THE most disturbing developments of this bailout debacle and it coming from the republican side.  Why would anyone encourage a value other than market value be put on a financial statement?   If so, who would get to determine it?   Just like you should not setup a system that encourages high-risk loans to high-risk borrowers, you should not setup a system to hide fair market value to fool investors.   I'm going to have trouble voting for anyone who supports such a concept. In fairness, I have not seen where McCain is blatantly supporting this...but I am disappointed with him for even suggesting this idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_to_market

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290736164696507.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Accounting firms and investors groups put up a united front Wednesday in opposition to the changes. "Suspending fair value accounting during these challenging economic times would deprive investors of critical financial information when it is needed most," said the Council of Institutional Investors, Center for Audit Quality and CFA Institute in a joint statement. "It would not help solve our economic difficulties."

Some members of Congress say easing the mark-to-market rules could help taxpayers avoid billions of dollars in potential costs by allowing banks to avoid booking losses on securities that might have value after the credit-market crisis has passed.

"Onerous mark-to-market rules for certain financial assets that have no market value have worsened the credit crisis, and changing them has been a priority for House Republicans," House Republican leader Rep. John Boehner said in a statement.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, in a statement, praised the SEC clarification, saying, "There is serious concern that these accounting rules are worsening the credit crunch, making it difficult for small businesses to stay afloat and squeezing family budgets."

In March -- the month the industry began to lobby for the change -- Sen. McCain called for a meeting of accounting professionals to study whether the accounting method was "magnifying problems in the financial markets."

In my humble opinion, we need to be magnifying them and not hiding them and pretending they do not exist.

There's now a campaign committee pushing the sales tax.

The committee, Citizens Looking at Supporting Schools, with between 15 and 18 members, has been meeting for about two months, said Lin Warfel, who co-chairs the committee with Susan Abbott. The members come from all the school districts in the county.

The committee worked with two Springfield consultants on how to structure the campaign to promote the tax increase, Warfel said.

I've only seen one anti-sales-tax sign, and it was homemade, and no pro-sales-tax signs or materials.

Also, Unit 4 announces more of its intentions if the sales tax passes:

The Champaign school district plans to build a new elementary school in Savoy using the money from the countywide school facilities sales tax if the proposal passes in November.

The district would close Carrie Busey Elementary School and move the staff and students to the new school in Savoy in 2011. It would also extensively renovate six other elementary schools.

Discuss.

UPDATE:  From the comments:

The volunteer group promoting the sales tax increase is called CLASS (Citizens Looking At Supporting Schools).
Their new website is here: http://www.champaigncountyclass.cc/

Thanks!

The candidates are starting to line up, but the two profiled by the NG have been writing on IP.com about running for a while:

Lynne Barnes, a Democrat from Ward 7, says she doesn't intend to seek a second term on the council and a Republican newcomer, Robert Dunn, says he'll be seeking Barnes' seat. Aside from Barnes, all six other aldermen say they will be running again.

Rex Bradfield, 62, a Republican, said this week he intends to challenge Prussing for mayor.

If nothing else, this is going to be entertaining.

Thursday, October 2, 2008.

I've written a couple times on the biased and untrue language of the Constitutional Convention question.  Today, a Circuit Court Judge in Cook County ruled that the language on the ballot is unconstitutional.  What is not yet clear to me is how this ruling impacts Champaign County.  You can read it here.

I think that generally, a Circuit Court's ruling would be binding only in that Circuit.  This would have been much clearer had he ordered Jesse White or the SBE to do something to implement this ruling as they could be said to have some authority in this matter as regards our office.  We'll continue to send out ballots here in Champaign County and await the language to be handed down on Friday while our own attorneys here sort this out.

Rich Miller:

I’ve heard reports that Gov. Blagojevich was booed at yesterday’s Cub rally, but this, albeit edited video from the Tribune sure seems to prove the theory that Cub fans will blindly cheer anything that has their litle logo on it, including this hugely unpopular governor.

Ouch.

The Constitutional Convention question that appears on the ballot this November is the subject of a court challenge.  I blogged about the circumstances and issues at my County Clerk blog.

What I find striking is that "everyone" who knows anything seems to be against this but for some reason the powers that be (especially the General Assembly) have had to stretch so many legal and ethical limits to try to stack the deck against the Con Con.  Hopefully we'll have a straight up and down vote on this issue, at some point, without the monkey business given to us by the various characters in this process.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008.

The Champaign City Council is getting closer to voting on staff-recommended fee increases for developers and builders:

But the city's finance director, Richard Schnuer, said the development-fee increases would be the first in a decade, while inflation has risen 31 percent during that time. He said the proposed increases are only to cover the cost of inflation.

"We're providing the service, administering regulations," said Schnuer. "We have the costs. The question is not if somebody pays, but who is paying? Should it be the developers, or the taxpayers? That's a policy question for the city council."

The noon meeting between city officials and local developers and builders will take place at the main city fire station, 307 S. Randolph St., C.

A draft city memo on the issue said the increased fees would generate an additional $168,000 annually for the city.

A city chart shows that the building-permit fee for a single-family home with more than 2,500 square feet would increase about 25 percent, from $350 to $435, under the proposal. Total fee increases for a single-family residence would increase by about $140.