Way to go Cook County Board. And to think we are going to get Berrios as assessor. Ugh. I’d love to have Claypool instead, but that is a pipe dream.

Dear Congresswoman Schakowsky,

I am a constituent of yours who is very concerned about health care reform in this country. I work for myself and as such need to buy my own health insurance. As you are well aware, the options in Illinois are not particularly diverse. I am in my mid 30s and active and healthy, and yet am still unable to obtain health care. I can go with Blue Cross and pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for insurance that will not cover me should I ever need it. However I opted for Unicare for $100 a month and prayer.

This is not the way insurance is supposed to work. I feel guilty that I am not contributing to the general insurance pool while I am young and healthy, but there is only one financially responsible choice, and now they have left the state.

There are many problems with the bill as it currently stands. There is not enough in the way of cost control. There are too many special interest items included. The healthcare bill being promoted by the president also does not go far enough in terms of providing universal health care. However, it is the only chance I have of being able to continue to run my own business. Please vote yes for this step in the right direction, as I fear if it fails I will have to wait another decade before we get another chance at reform.

Sincerely,

Moonglum

One very useful tool for this election is the sample ballot generator that the trib has made available. You can read about each candidate and pick the one you want, then print it out. Very handy.

Enough with the preaching, on with the elections.

State/National Positions

Senate: Hoffman and Giannoulias are the front runners in this race. The links are to the Trib profiles and I have to say that I pretty much agree with them. Hoffman is someone who I think would be a good anti corruption candidate, and I worry about Giannoulias not only in terms of his experience, but also in terms of skeletons that might be hiding in his closet. The union and the 49th also endorse Hoffman. Plus I have to hand it to anyone who can survive as the IG as well as Hoffman did.

Governor: Hynes and Quinn are the front runners. The trib didn’t even make an endorsement, but the Sun Times and the 49th have called for Quinn. I’m not sure I can agree with that assessment, however there were a few good steps forward that Quinn made that Hynes fought against as comptroller. In general I like Hynes as comptroller because he was an advocate for reigning in spending which this state sorely needs, but this action stands out against that record. In the end I’m siding with the union and going with Hynes on the “throw out the old guard” ticket. I’ll be heppy either way though.

Lt. Governor: Heh, I couldn’t find anything about any of the candidates here, but the trib endorses Art Turner with a single sentence. I don’t think the Sun Times even has that much. I got a polling phone call about all the different candidates yesterday, but nothing from any of them. The 49th endorses Boland and the Union doesn’t endorse anyone. In the end I’m going with the Trib on this one. (Update: the Sun Times endorses Turner now as well.

Secretary of State, Attorney General, our US congress rep and state rep are all running uncontested in the primary.

Comptroller: Reading Krishnamoorthi’s responses to the Trib’s questionnaire is like a breath of fresh air. I don’t know if he’ll be able to win a statewide office, but it would be exciting if he could. Both the Trib and Sun Times seem happy with the other candidates as well, but both and the 49th endorse him. The union endorses Miller.

Treasurer: Neither one stands out to me, but Kelly is endorsed by both the Trib and the Sun Times, as well as the 49th ward democrats. The union makes no recommendation.

Cook County Positions

President: This is the one we have all been waiting for. I swear, if Stroger is still on the ballot after this primary I will cry myself asleep at night with a bottle of gin. In that vein I am going with Preckwinkle. I think she is by far the mostly likely to be able to beat Stroger, and thus she gets my vote. This is why you are going to go vote in this election. GO VOTE! And if you are really thinking of voting for Stroger, remember he is going to thank himself if he wins. This man is insane. (All three cook county endorsers endorse Preckwinkle.)

MWRD: Spyropolous, Connor & Steele. Everyone agrees on this.

Assessor: Unfortunately Houlihan dropped out of this race. He has done an amazing job making the process more transparent, as well as acting to help the general, non connected, population. I really believe that Berrios will roll back many of those changes. The problem is neither of the other two candidates running for the position seem to be the clear heir for continuing Houlihan’s work. The Shaw family is a little too well connected for my tastes though and I have to go with Figueroa. Plus he says all the right things. All three county endorsing parties agree with me, with the Sun Times making a particularly strong plea. I really am sorry to see Houlihan go though, and am somewhat scared to be a homeowner in Cook County without him in charge of assessments.

Board Member: I’ve liked Suffredin in the past, and at other times he’s made me so mad I could spit. I’m really sad I missed the debate in Evanston, because it sounded really good, and all my knowledge about it is second hand. But given what I have heard, and given that I always prefer the challenger, I have to go with Keefe over Suffredin. Obviously the 49th is going to disagree with me, the sun times argues for him as well, oh man and the trib endorses him now as well. This is a tough one, do I still hold the tax hike and his name was on that letter backing Stroger in the last general election against him? Will it actually matter? There is no way on God’s green earth that Keefe is going to win, but I really like what he has to say, and this vote will be cathartic for me. When Suffredin goes on to win, I can go back to liking him as my rep on the county board.

Sheriff: I can’t find anything at all about Baker, so I’m going to need to go with Dart. Everyone endorses him anyway.

Judges:

I know the 49th ward has some recommendations coming out stemming from a meet and greet that they recently held, however I can’t wait for that so I am left with the green guide (large pdf). The Trib also has some recommendations from the sample ballot as well. I know some of you have direct contact with these people, if you have strong thoughts about some of them, let me know! Rather than repeat what you can read for yourself in those places, I simply offer up my choices: (ed to add: now I have the 49th ward endorsements and have updated appropriately.)

Appellate Court

McNulty Vacancy – Epstein
O’Malley Vacancy – Hogan
South Vacancy – Rochford

Circuit Court

Berland Vacancy – Hooks
Bronstein Vacancy – MacCarthy
Dolan Vacancy – Pauel
Hayes Vacancy – Mitchell
Kelley Vacancy – Callahan
(McCarthy and O’Malley Vacancies only have one candidate in the primary.)
Riley Vacancy – Stokes

9th Sub Circuit

Otaka Vacancy – Kull
9A Vacancy – Bender

As a citizen of the state of Illinois, home to Abraham Lincoln, I would be proud to accept any and all prisoners from our current conflicts in Illinois prisons. For too long our country has operated outside the rule of law with respect to those who have wronged us. We have laws in place with which to punish them, and if we ever hope to regain the trust of the world we must use them. The first step is to find a place within the bounds of the US to house our most dangerous criminals, and we have at our disposal an empty maximum security prison. The citizens of that town seem happy to help out. Once in place we can bring them to trial and finally have justice done. This country has waited for too long, and the rest of the world begins to doubt our sincerity.

Thank you for your attention in this matter,

Moonglum

p.s. Ignore Mark Kirk, he seems to prefer keeping one prison empty while the rest are overcrowded, when opening this one, while providing local jobs could also relieve some of the overcrowding in the rest of the prisons in Illinois. How this reduces our safety I have no idea.

Eliminate TIFs now, and return the monies to the general fund. Then putting effort into this sort of thing might be worth while.

So actual attendees were vastly outnumbered by organizers and hangers on. But the alderman was there and the ideas were shared. And it is a reasonably neat idea. Basically the alderman is giving up authority over his capital improvements fund for the ward, and allowing this community based process to drive it. The other neat thing is that the vote when the final budget meeting (open to the entire ward) is actually binding.

The main problem with this is how limited it is. The aldermanic “menu”, the money for capital projects in the ward, is such a small part of the over all city budget, that it is unclear to me how much light this will shed on where the money is really going. Also, there is a difference between saying “we want money spent on X” and actually getting that money spent efficiently. I bet that the breakdown of capital project that we actually get will be very very close to what we would have had under the old system. And finally, even if we did do this on a city wide basis, we would still have the TIF districts. The alderman does a reasonably good job at capital projects and there is pretty good accountability there already. It is the off budget items like TIF spending that really wreck this city.

So, all in all the meeting didn’t really do it for me, but it is an interesting idea. I will certainly be watching this going forward, and if it takes off for more of the city’s budgeting bodies it could actually make a difference.

Oh, and I did get an awesome Joe Moore quote, “I’ve been acting like a benign dictator, if you will.” said in reference to what he is trying to change by switching from the “aldermanic menu” to this “participatory budgeting” system. Hah! You only wish, Joe. There is only one dictator in this town, and it is not you.

We are getting a new overlay area code in the 773 (and surrounding) areas. This means that starting November 9th, we all need to dial 1 + area code + phone number for ALL phone calls, even if they are still in the same area code that your number is.

Exciting times.

Edited to add: If Fitzgerald is looking for ideas of what to do now, I’d say Stroger should be next on your list.