Illinois lawmakers are currently pondering two child helmet bills. HB 6114, introduced by Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) at the urging of the American Academy of Pediatrics, would require kids 17 and under to wear helmets while biking on any public road or sidewalk, or their parents would face a $30 fine. Sen. Ira Silverstein (D-Chicago) is leading a similar bill through the Senate, which would apply to kids 15 and younger.

Helmet advocates and doctors argue the law is a common sense way to prevent brain injury. Wearing helmets would prevent up to 45,000 head injuries per year in the U.S., said Scott Allen, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Children ages 5 to 14, the age bracket where bike injuries are most common, would especially benefit, he said.

But not all biking advocates are on board with the bill, and motorcyclists and equestrians – leery that their heads will be lawmakers’ next target – are fighting it too.

Rob Sadowsky, executive director for the Active Transportation Alliance, said his group supports helmet wearing for all ages but has found that helmet laws are not effective. Supporting this is the fact that Chicago has one of the highest rates of helmet wearing in the country, he said, even though it is not required by law.

Bike safety education is a better way to get the message out, Sadowsky said, but neither Hamos’ or Silverstein’s bill comes with money for a public awareness campaign.

“The law alone is not enough to change behavior,” Sadowsky said. “You have to tie it to education.” He likened the helmet legislation to the state’s seatbelt laws, which did not gain traction with motorists until the state poured money into a “Click It or Ticket” campaign.

But opponents’ biggest concern is that a helmet law could open the floodgates to a number of intrusive laws.

“The risks of a head injury while biking is comparable to walking, rollerblading, even showering,” Sadowsky said. “At some point, we have to be very careful. Do we need a helmet for every activity?”

Motorcycle advocates say we don’t, and argue that a helmet law would be a step in the wrong direction toward big government. They successfully lobbied against an earlier bill by Hamos that would have required children to wear helmets while riding on the back of motorcycles.

“The belief is that government is there to protect you from yourself,” said George Tinkham, spokesman for the Illinois motorcyclist advocacy group ABATE. “The situation is not so dire that mommy and daddy have to be pushed aside and big brother has to step in.”

Child helmet laws are already on the books in five Illinois cities – Barrington, Cicero, Inverness, Libertyville and Skokie.

Kathy Phelan, trauma coordinator at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, said she has seen a “significant decrease” in bike-related head traumas in her 29 years at the hospital, largely because of a surge in helmet wearing. She was unsure if the drop was due to the city’s 1997 law mandating helmets for children under 17 or changing public opinion.

“When I was a kid, you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a helmet. You’d be a total dork,” agreed Mike Deering, spokesman for the Barrington hospital. “Now you wouldn’t dare let (your kids) go out without a helmet on.”

Advocate Good Shepherd has held several bike helmet giveaways, Phelan said. The hospital also gives free helmets to bike injury patients when they do not own one or when their helmet has been cracked in an accident.

This code of silence helps to protect criminals, perpetuate retaliation and hinder police in their investigative efforts, Weis said, especially in low-income and tight-knit communities.

Weis focused on student safety in his Feb. 18 address to the small crowd, saying that many student victims tell police, “I’ll handle it myself.” Weis believes this attitude perpetuates a circle of violence, and he hopes the “Silence Kills” campaign can begin to bring an end to the code of silence with its slogan: “Stop the violence, stop the silence, because silence kills.”

The campaign, funded through federal stimulus money, includes ads in television, radio and print intended to show the brutality and lasting damage of gun crimes.

The primary purpose of police board meetings is to allow civilians a venue to air their frustrations and concerns to members of the board. Citizens who spoke at the recent meeting were largely concerned with police misconduct, specifically the case of 11-year-old Timia Williams, who was allegedly assaulted by three police officers in May 2001.

“The code of silence is justified by the fact that these officers are still on the force,” said Larry Marshall, a close family member of Williams, who said there is a serious lack of public confidence and trust in the Chicago Police Department. Marshall questioned why citizens who do not trust police officers would willingly divulge information to them, regardless of the benefits to a specific case.

Marshall’s friend George Smith, 48, spoke out against the “renegade” officers who allegedly assaulted Williams, delivering a loud and agitated speech that ranged in topic from the earthquake in Haiti to alleged police brutality on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The board itself is composed of appointed civilians who earn a salary of $15,000 per year. Board members review case files and vote on action to be taken.

During the meeting, the board announced they had overturned the department’s recommendation to fire three officers accused of conducting illegal searches through the use of illegal warrants.

Chicago Justice Project Executive Director Tracy Siska calls this a disturbing trend.

Siska said there has been a two-thirds reduction in disciplinary action taken against police officers accused of misconduct. He heads the Justice Project in an attempt to make police department activity more accountable to the public.

Siska hopes to create more transparency in the Chicago Police Department in order to better regulate and prosecute misconduct. Civilians will eventually be able to, through the Project, trace a 911 call from answer to dispatch. Citizens will also be able to log onto the Project Web site and follow a case from start to finish, including any reports or complaints filed.

Police board members refused to answer questions from media at the meeting, and no one answered the number listed on their Web site. The answering service had one option: To file a complaint, press one.

In the meantime, lawmakers are struggling to pass a new bill that will stand up to future challenges. Illinois is just one of 30 states to have passed a moment of silence law. In Texas and Virginia, those laws were challenged but upheld. But in Illinois, Judge Robert W. Gettleman found the law promoted prayer in schools and was illegal.

Attorneys on Feb. 10 faced off in a packed courtroom, with the state arguing the law is critical because it helps students focus and critics arguing the law crosses the boundary between church and state.

Assistant Illinois Attorney General Rachel Murphy argued on behalf of all school districts in Illinois. Murphy defended the Illinois Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act, which requires that students begin the school day with a silent prayer or reflection on the upcoming activities of the day.

Students are given choices under the law, and now children who were otherwise afraid to pray can do so, said Murphy.

“The law is mandatory so all students have the opportunity to reflect on whatever they wish,” Murphy said.

Robert Sherman, a former radio talk show host and self-proclaimed atheist, sued in October 2007 once the law became mandatory. Sherman’s daughter, Dawn, was a freshman at Buffalo Grove High School, where the moment of silence was in effect for a month before the court granted an injunction preventing schools from participating.

Sherman said his daughter doesn’t need to waste valuable school time when she’s competing with other students to get into college.

“Dawn’s in honors AP and ranks 15 out of 498 students,” said Sherman. “Dawn is told by the general assembly to stand for a moment of silence; it’s not fair to Dawn.”

Students can pray before or after school and the law puts pressure on children to pray during school, argued Sherman’s attorney, Richard Grossman.

“These are impressionable children of a tender age and tend to find teachers to be authoritative and we have teachers encouraging students to pray,” Grossman said.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued the law discriminates against students. ACLU attorney Adam Schwartz objected to the word “prayer” being mentioned at all.

“As soon as there’s a prayer option, it encourages students to pray,” said Schwartz. “It sorts all religions into winners and losers and some religious traditions can’t be accommodated by a moment of silence. It’s stigmatizing.”

Teachers in Chicago have refrained from instituting the moment of silence and won’t act until the court decides, said Rosemaria Genova, spokeswoman for the Chicago Teachers Union.

Rep. William Davis (D-East Hazel Crest), who co-sponsored the controversial bill, said while he wanted to ensure a moment of silence was mandatory, the law does not require students to pray. He said students participate in other activities to help them focus on their studies and aren’t targeted in the same way.

“I just saw on the news a teacher doing yoga with students after lunch as a way for the students to focus,” said Davis. “Like that teacher, our sole purpose was to calm students down.”

Davis agreed the more expedient way would be to see what other states have done and mirror their language, but he said he will wait to see what the court decides. The great thing about the legislature is there is always another legislative session to change the law, Davis said.

Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago) introduced an amendment in January 2009 that removed the word “prayer” and replaced it with “silent reflection” and “silent meditation.” Although it passed the House, Fritchey’s chief of staff, Dave Kornecki, said it has been sitting on a shelf because it hit a roadblock in the Senate.

“It’s being held hostage in the Senate,” said Kornecki. “There’s full support in the House, and the intent of Rep. Fritchey is still there to get the bill passed.”

State Rep. Deb Mell (D-Chicago) introduced a bill last month that would force chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Potbelly to disclose on their menu boards the number of calories contained in each meal.

“I found my idea from last summer when I took a short trip to New York City. I saw that restaurants have to disclose information,” said Mell.

Mell, a first-term lawmaker and daughter of longtime Chicago Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), said she found the information useful because she was counting calories using an application on her iPhone.

“I am amazed how [many restaurants in Illinois] we have, and we don’t know what the ingredients are [in each entree]. Sure, there are nutritional fact sheets, but nobody will pay attention when ordering,” she said.

Mell said the new measure would not cost a lot of money because chains already calculate the calories, and they would only have to pay for reprinting the menus.

Jeff Cronin, communications director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a national advocacy group for healthier eating, applauded the new bill.

“Labeling on menu boards really helps to control consumers’ weight and health,” Cronin said.

Cronin said his group has been working with New York City officials since that city’s legislation was enforced in 2008. Since that time, there has been a big impact on public perceptions.

According to an online survey reported by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, after consumers learned the calorie count of menu items, 71 percent of the people said they wanted to order lower-calorie options. Also, 51 percent said they would no longer order certain items.

The survey was conducted in early 2009, nearly a year after the law had taken effect, among 755 consumers who live in the five New York City boroughs.

“A new law could be a powerful tool to provide information, but we don’t know if consumers would change their habits,” said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

Blatner said focusing on fast-food restaurants is a good start because two out of every three people in the county are overweight and fast-food restaurants offer food that is high in calories.

Some would like to extend the idea of posting calories counts to more restaurants.

Denise Wilson, a communications officer for Burger King, said the fast-food chain is fully compliant with current local regulations to post calories on restaurant menu boards.

However, Wilson said the company supports the Labeling Education and Nutrition Act (LEAN Act) introduced last year in the U.S. Congress because it would create a standard for the industry in all 50 states.

Besides Illinois, a dozen other states have introduced labeling laws, but only four have signed them into law. California will be the first one to enforce its law in January 2011. Maine, New Jersey and Oregon will follow suit a short time later.

“Currently, there is a growing patchwork of inconsistent state and local laws governing menu labeling. We will roll out consistent nutritional in-restaurant menu labeling once a federal standard is enacted,” said Wilson.

The National Restaurant Association also said the industry needs a national approach.

“Unfortunately, the current legislation is not the right approach for consumers to get the right information,” said spokeswoman Sue Hensley.

She said the association wants to develop a label that could be similar to the nutrition facts that can be found on food packages.

“It’s like somebody sticking a pillow over you and you’re trying to breathe through it,” said Buckley, who lives on the North Side of Chicago. “Treatments at the hospital are the only thing that helps.”

For years, Buckley and other Cook County residents have been breathing some of the worst air in the nation. That could change with a new regulation set last month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency strengthening air quality standards for nitrogen dioxide, a main offender of urban air pollution.

Currently, Cook County is the only county nationwide failing to meet the new regulation. But others could join the county when revised monitoring requirements lead to a greater number of sites being monitored.

“I suspect once the monitors are up and running, there will be more areas than Cook County,” said Doug Aburano, environmental engineer with the U.S. EPA’s downtown office.

Nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, is a pollutant from cars, trucks, and burning coal, oil or natural gas, as well as power plants and boilers. It can trigger asthma and bronchitis attacks, and elevated NO2 levels are associated with increased airway reactivity, worsened asthma and increases in respiratory illnesses and symptoms. The agency says the new rule will protect public health, including those with asthma, children and the elderly.

Aburano said the older standard is not protective of human health for those with and without breathing problems. Yet some clean air advocates say the new standard still is not tight enough.

“U.S. EPA was looking at a range of options for setting the NO2 standard, and unfortunately they picked the absolute weakest option,” said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago.

Chicago is an “asthma epicenter” with an asthma hospitalization rate nearly double the national average, Urbaszewski said. He said some new medical research on NO2 was not considered in the EPA decision, and research published two months ago indicated breathing nitrogen dioxide NO2 diminishes the effectiveness of medicine in asthma inhalers, rendering rescue inhalers less able to counter effects of an asthma attack. Higher NO2 levels were also correlated to more senior citizens developing pneumonia in another recent study.

“Changing the air quality standard is not going to make air pollution better or worse, it’s only changing the yardstick we use to measure whether air pollution levels are unhealthy,” Urbaszewski said. “If it’s set too low, or we fail to measure air pollution where we know it’s highly concentrated—near major roads—then people aren’t going to get accurate information they can use to protect themselves.”

If in violation of the new standards, a state will have to develop a plan to reduce emissions so the level in the environment will be below standards. This means coming up with enough emission reductions so that it no longer exceeds that air pollution number. This can be done by setting up new programs, enacting new industrial rules and requiring new pollution controls on big polluters, Urbaszewski said.

Meanwhile, Buckley said she’ll take a wait-and-see attitude to see if the tighter regulation makes a difference in the way she breathes.

“We’ll see how it works out,” she said. “But it’s definitely a good start.”

Brooks-Rodriguez and Bond both live on Chicago’s South Side, both have raised families and placed their dreams of becoming a teacher on the back burner. That was until they applied for Illinois’ Grow Your Own Teachers, an initiative funded by the state.

“I have been a special education teacher’s assistant for 21 years at Daley Elementary Academy School, and I am ready to be the teacher,” Brooks-Rodriguez said. “This is an awesome opportunity. I have wanted it for so many years, but couldn’t afford it.”

Grow Your Own, which recruits candidates from low-income neighborhoods where schools struggle to retain a qualified staff, provides financial assistance in the form of tuition, books and childcare so each individual can earn a bachelors degree and obtain a teaching license in Illinois.

This program, which to date has graduated and placed 11 teachers, is fighting for survival as the state slashes funding. Rep. Esther Golar (D-Chicago) said education is an area that is being hit the hardest.

Golar, who is an advocate of the program, introduced House Bill 391 on Tuesday. If passed, the bill would pour $4.5 million into the state’s education fund.

“We, in education, cannot withstand any more cuts,” she said. “If Grow Your Own doesn’t get the funding, the program will not survive. The real life and breath of any individual is education and we have to always fund these types of programs in low-income communities that need the programs the most.”

Attending Northeastern Illinois University, with four children at home and one in college, Bonds said Grow Your Own is “like the best scholarship you could ever have. They pay tuition, books and even child care so I can follow my dream.”

“If the funding for this program is cut, my heart will be broken and this great opportunity will be taken away,” she said.

Last year, the state cut the program’s funding by almost 40 percent, but Gov. Pat Quinn kept it alive by funneling $1.2 million to it. Steve Andrews, resource coordinator for Grow Your Own, said the program is not asking for additional money; they are simply asking for flat funding.

But House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) said it would be irresponsible to promise funding to any organization with the current budget shortfall of $12.8 billion.

“We are all concerned about education and we want to continue to produce teachers that live in the neighborhoods where they work so they will know the children and understand the problems of the neighborhood,” Madigan said. “But the general approach for all state programs is to stay afloat. Eventually the economy will come back. If these programs are still online, we will be in a good position to provide them with funding.”

Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Westchester), also an advocate for Grow Your Own, said although the program has been great and should be at the top of the list in the future, it is unlikely the program will find funding next year.

“The budget will recoup itself. It will turn around and when it does, this is the type of program that we need to look at for long-term funding,” Lightford said.

Nearly 90 percent of Grow Your Own candidates are people of color with strong ties to their communities. Golar said it’s these candidates that are in tune with the neighborhoods’ cultures and challenges.

Andrews said it is a disastrous time for the state and every program is in danger.

“They are talking about cutting programs completely or by 50 percent,” he said. “If that happens to Grow Your Own, over 90 percent of our candidates could not continue because they do not have financial capabilities to find their education.”

Brooks-Rodriguez is also attending Northeastern Illinois University, with her three children in college. She said the program has been a gift from God.

“This is an opportunity of a lifetime, but it has been challenging because I work full-time,” she said. “But I am excited for this chance and can’t wait until the day I walk into Daley Elementary Academy with my teaching certificate. It will be one of the greatest days of my life.”

Chicago Public Radio’s City Room reports on the effects of the state budget crisis on the University of Illinois.

Nearly 200 students and faculty members rallied at the University of Illinois-Chicago to demand that the university not “balance the budget on the backs of students, faculty and the community” through tuition increases, mandatory furloughs and layoffs. The protest was organized by United in Campaign Against Budget Cuts, a coalition made up of SEIU Local Union 73, members of the UIC’s Graduate Employee Organization, as well as other student and faculty groups.

Originally an issue well known to California’s universities, higher education budget cuts have spread throughout the country to states such as Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Georgia and New York. In Chicago, the cuts could be accompanied by a 20 percent increase in tuition at UIC.

“I don’t want to see a loss of public education,” said UIC student Katherine Karbarz. “It’s important for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds to get a chance to go to school. I don’t want people who deserve to go to school to not be able to afford it.”

Protesters across the nation have been met with a wide range of reactions, detailed in numerous blogs and message boards. Arrests have been made in California as well as in Milwaukee, where 15 students were arrested after trying to deliver a petition to the chancellor at the University of Wisconsin.

“We’re here to support students and workers here at the UIC,” said Trumaine Reeves of SEIU Local 73. “We have to stand up and let our voices be heard together and we can’t be ignored.”

This sentiment was echoed by other students, workers and faculty members as the rally marched toward the campus administrative building.

“I’m here to show support as a person of the city of Chicago” said one protester identifying himself  simply as Cirrocco.

The rally, held on the UIC quad, was preceded by an open discussion with Howard Bunsis, a professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University and author of a report analyzing the financial condition of the University of Illinois system.

UIC administration declined to take part in the discussion, and did not return phone calls.

“Speaking on behalf of the coalition,” said Joe Iosbaker, chief steward for SEIU Local 73, “we were very disappointed that the administration didn’t join for what turned out to be lively discussion … They would have gotten perspective on the needs of students, faculty and the community.”

University administrators announced in January that because of the state’s failure to provide complete budget funds, it would resort to furlough and budget cuts. The state has provided the university only $17 million of the $436 million it has been owed since July 1, 2009, according to a report by FightBack! News.

Bunsis’ report comes to the conclusion that “the UI system has not been true to the core academic mission, as they have increased administrative costs at a higher rate than pure academic costs.” It further concludes that “furloughs are not necessary.”

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And the fight is not over.

On Saturday, March 13 at 10 a.m., the Coalition to Save Community Banking will meet at the Light of Liberty Church of God and Christ at 2 W. Washington Blvd. in Oak Park. The group will then march to Park National’s former headquarters at the corner of Austin Boulevard and Madison Street where it will stage a protest over the loss of the community bank that had invested heavily on the West Side. The coalition plans to assemble 300 to 500 people for the march.

“We’re gearing up a campaign around a Community Benefits Agreement that targets US Bank to continue the kind of community lending that Park National had,” coalition member and South Austin Coalition organizer Elce Redmond said.

The agreement “is a set of criteria [centered] around local hiring, around lending, around supporting community organizations,” said Redmond. “It’s about a seven- or eight-page document that we’ve had. And we’ve been trying to have negotiations with US Bank on this document.”

E-mails and calls to US Bank have not been returned. A receptionist told a reporter on Feb. 24 that no one could comment as things were still “floating.”

Mike Kelly, chairman of Park National and its parent company, First Bank of Oak Park, was known for lending to customers in Chicago’s impoverished West Side neighborhoods in Austin and West Garfield Park. After the 2007 closing of Austin High School, Park National extended a $22 million, no-interest loan to build Christ the King Jesuit College Preparatory School; students began attending class in the new building Jan. 4.

“This bank epitomized what community banking was; they loaned money to small businesses, community organizations, nonprofits,” said Redmond.

Attorney Kelli Dudley, a professor and program assistant in the Predatory Lending Program at John Marshall Law School, said Park National was well known in the community for giving “zero-percent loans to community organizations and schools, giving money to community organizations through grants” and did “things like cleaning up houses that had been subject to foreclosure and making them nice and livable and resalable and yet absorbing a little bit of that cost each time.”

Redmond also said he heard Kelly, a longtime River Forest resident, was considering filing suit against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. over how it handled the takeover.

“I don’t know what his specific intentions are,” said Dudley, who educates Austin residents on predatory lending and avoiding foreclosures. “There might just be some legal technical issues that would make it hard to sue the FDIC, but it does seem like that the community bank and the people affiliated with it and the people who relied on it should have some kind of legal recourse, because here a big decision takes place under cover of the night and they’re not given any opportunity to have any input into it.”

Kelly recently took legal action against JP Morgan Chase, which sued the FBOP last June over a loan Chase called in and which may have contributed to the worsening financial state and eventual government seizure of Kelly’s company.

“They [Chase] sued him and he filed a motion with that lawsuit,” said Dudley. “JP Morgan Chase, it is alleged, unfairly accelerated and called in a loan, and it was a huge amount percentage-wise of their [Park National's] portfolio, which caused them to look temporarily weak.”

The protest planned for March will come less than two months after dozens of Park National supporters traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend a congressional hearing on last year’s seizure and selling of Park National and its other banks. Kelly testified as members of the Coalition to Save Community Banking looked on.

Redmond, who made the round-trip bus trip with other coalition members, said several congressional members at the Jan. 21 hearing “put the FDIC on the hot seat.”

“The FDIC sort of admitted, ‘Well, it didn’t really need to happen,’” Redmond said, “But how do you reverse it? That becomes the big issue.”

There is also the issue of big bank versus small bank in the government’s eyes, as Dudley said: “There is a difference in the standards that are applied in evaluating whether the FDIC should come in and close down a Park National versus whether they should come in and close down one of the six largest banks in the country, and it’s just frankly not fair at all,” said Dudley.

Camille Lilly, the volunteer executive director for the Austin Chamber of Commerce, said the loss of First National still ripples through the community.

“They [Park National] were community banking,” she said. “We had the leadership, we had the commitment – we had all of that at Park National for the community to develop themselves, and when we remove that opportunity, the community struggles with developing themselves.”

Park National’s community philanthropy made it unique in the banking world, Dudley said. “Rather than making all of their decisions based on what will flow the most money to shareholders and what will flow the most money into the corporation, they made some decisions that were based on doing good in the community.”

Lilly and others worry about whether US Bank will perform some of these same community bank functions. “From what I’ve heard and read, it is not their philosophy to be community banking sensitive. That is not what they built their model on, so it’s a void in our community because we once had it.”

For more information about Saturday’s march, contact the South Austin Coalition at (773) 287-4570.

With Illinois’ unemployment rate at a staggering 11 percent, employers can afford to be more selective in whom they hire. But a new bill could give job seekers with bad credit a fighting chance in landing a position.

Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) has introduced a bill, HB4658, creating the Employee Credit Privacy Act, which would protect applicants who believe they were discriminated against because of their poor credit. Washington and Hawaii have passed similar laws restricting credit checks by employers; a credit check ban approved Monday by the Oregon legislature will go into effect July 1.

While employers say credit information is vital because it is an important part of the screening process, opponents say such information is private and irrelevant to job performance.

Franks said business associations are fighting the bill, but the measure is a necessary step to help job seekers in this failing economy. The need for the bill struck him on a family road trip, he said, when he saw a former growth area littered with foreclosure signs hit hard by the recession.

“I want to protect individuals who through no fault of their own have lost their jobs,” said Franks. “Their credit goes into the tank, and they can’t get another job. It’s a perpetual cycle.”

Franks said that the rights of the business owner should be weighed against the public benefit. As a business owner, Franks said he understands both sides of the issue but doesn’t want to create a permanent underclass.

“Let people have a second chance,” Franks said.

Historically, 28 percent of companies have used credit checks on selected applicants, but over the past year that number has spiked to 47 percent, according to a 2010 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management.

Mike Walters, executive director of the Southwest Illinois Employers Association, said the bill restricts business owners and employers. Employers need to have as much information as they can get in hiring, he said, and the proposed legislation severely limits that ability.

“If an individual contracts someone for a job, they have a right to see if the person they hire has defaulted on payments,” said Walters. “If it’s good for the individual, it should be good for employers.”

Walters questioned how the bill would be enforced and whether employers would take their business out of the state if the bill passed.

“If you have any common business sense, you’d understand this is a bad bill,” said Walters.

University of California-Los Angeles Public Policy Department Chair Michael Stoll said while employers should not discriminate against people with lower credit scores, there are instances when accessing a person’s credit information can be a valuable instrument.

Stoll said employers might try to find ways around the restriction by discriminating against low-income applicants. The bill could have unintended consequences and should be limited in order to be effective, he said.

Mark Denzler, spokesman for the Illinois Manufacturers Association, said he opposes the bill because it restricts the use of an important tool employers use when evaluating job applicants. The law already protects certain individuals who have bad history, said Denzler. Under current law, credit reports can’t disclose bankruptcy cases more than 10 years old, or civil suits and tax liens older than seven years.

Denzler said employers only check a small percentage of applicants because of the credit checks’ cost — $15 per applicant.

“Employers don’t do credit checks on everyone,” Denzler said. “From the time a person applies to a final stage of interviews, there is an opportunity for employees to explain they’ve gone through a rough patch.”

Credit checks serve a more important purpose than simply providing an applicant’s credit history; they verify previous employment and former addresses, Denzler said. Credit checks also protect employers from lawsuits if they fail to properly check an applicant.

“I understand the man or woman who has fallen on hard times, but the employers have a right to vet their applicants,” Denzler said.

Over 12,000 people this winter visited the ice rink, which was located for the first time this winter on the northwest parking lot of Wrigley Field, according to Chicago Park District spokeswoman Monique Lehman.

“Compared to last winter’s 10,623 patrons (who visited) Midway Plaisance Ice Rink on 59th Street and Woodlawn Avenue, the Wrigley ice rink was competitive,” Lehman said.

But, Lehman said, the Wrigley rink did not produce as much money as hoped for the park district, returning only about $72,000 of a $300,000 investment by funders. This leaves organizers unsure whether the rink will return next winter.

If the rink had generated excess revenue , it would be used to fund its reopening. But the rink did not meet that mark, said Max Bever, community outreach director for Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), who is also a funder for the rink.

“The rink was an experiment,” said Bever. “It’s possible that it may open up next year, but its depends on funds.”

Using outside funders is not unusual for the park district; most district projects rely on state funds, aldermen’s menu money and/or private sponsors, Lehman said.

Other rink sponsors included the Ricketts family, the Chicago Cubs, the city of Chicago, Westrec Marinas, the Blackhawks, McDonald’s, Harey Carey’s and the Central Lakeview Merchants Association.

Sponsors and organizers met on Nov. 9 to lay out plans for the rink. Their money, along with funds from the park district, covered the expenses. Westrec Marinas built the rink, which opened Dec. 19.

Kevin Jericho’s family of three visited the rink around five times this winter, but he thought it was pricey.

“I thought it was expensive.” said the Lakeview resident. “So we brought our own skates and season passes.”

Admission to the rink was $10 for adults and $6 for children, plus an additional fee for skate rentals. All proceeds helped offset the city’s costs — about $100,000, said Lehman.

Whether the rink will reopen next winter depends largely on the community’s response and support. To voice your opinion, contact Ald. Tunney’s office at 773-525-6034 or via email at ward44@cityofchicago.org, Bever said.

“The park (district’s) efforts alone wouldn’t make it happen again, ” said Lehman. “It would require community effort.”

Nerds of all kinds (history, literary, academic) are invited to an event called “Comics 301″. Cord Scott,  a PhD. candidate in American History at Loyola University, and has written about comic-related subjects, including, teaching history through comics, portrayals of the concept of eugenics in comics. Scott has written a chapter in “Captain America & the Struggle of the Superhero” as well. He will discuss the role of comics in academe and their historical or literary aspects of and the precursors to the Graphic Novel.

Whether you are nerd or not, you can attend the discussion on Monday, Mar. 22nd from 6:00 pm – 9:00 p.m. at Challengers Comics located at 1845 N Western Ave, Chicago, IL. There is no charge for the event.

Columbia Sportswear and the non-profit Active Transportation Alliance are teaming up to celebrate the opening of Columbia Sportswear’s first Chicago store.

For the store’s Grand Opening weekend, from Friday, March 12 – Sunday, March 14, the Active Transportation Alliance will receive 10 percent of all gross sales at the store. Active Trans members will also get a 20 percent discount through a members-only coupon. There will also be live music and giveaway prizes.

WHAT: Columbia Sportwear Grand Opening

WHEN: Friday, March 12 – Sunday March 14

WHERE: 830 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago

For the past three years, Shivers has spent her nights bouncing from one homeless shelter to the next. On the “really bad nights,” she scrounged up $2.25 for a CTA pass to ride up and down the Red Line.

Shivers is just one of 12,685 students  who have been identified as homeless in Chicago Public Schools. That number has jumped 30 percent in just two years, said CPS spokesman Malon Edwards.

It’s these numbers that pushed the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless to reach out to Rep. Cynthia Soto (D-Chicago) to re-introduce House Bill 4755, which would budget grant money for homeless youth education programs in Illinois.

Soto introduced a similar bill two years ago, but after it passed both the House and Senate, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich vetoed the bill.

“This bill would create a grant for the schools to ensure that we have the funding to identify and care for each of the homeless students in Illinois,” Soto said.

In 2008, for the first time, the state Board of Education allocated $3 million toward educating homeless students. But this year, the board eliminated the funds, saying districts should use federal money instead.

Mary Fergus, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education, said the budget was cut by more than $500 million and the board has had to make some very difficult decisions.

“We hear the outcry of needs from all across the state and each of these needs is compelling and important, but the funding is not there,” she said.

Shivers is a story that is all too familiar to Rene Heybach, director of the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. There has been a huge spike in homeless youth in Illinois and not enough is being done, she said.

“More needs to be done for these kids that are in horrible and traumatic situations. We can’t let them slip through the system,” she said.

Fergus said there is federal money available through the McKinney-Vento law, enacted in 2002, which requires districts to waive all student fees for homeless children and provide transportation.

Shivers, who is attending Prologue Early College High School in West Town and is set to graduate in June, choked up when she recalled the years she spent on the streets.

“It is a real dark, lonely feeling,” she said. “When you ride the train all night, nobody knows what you are doing until you see the person next to you doing the same thing and you realize you are not the only one.”

More than a year ago, a six-month-pregnant Shivers was standing near the Red Line on a cold, rainy night, when a member of the Night Ministry’s Youth Outreach Program approached. The volunteer offered her a bed that night. Shivers said this was the moment that changed her life.

Now the mother of 5-month-old Naveah, Shivers is a part of the Transitional Living Program at the Open Door Shelter in West Town, a two-year program for youth ages 16 to 20.

“I don’t know where I would be today. It actually scares me and my heart dropped when you asked that,” she said.

Shivers said having a constant living situation at the shelter and somewhere to go at the end of the day makes everything, including school, a lot easier. But she said at the end of the day, it is about not giving up.

“You can’t give up, just don’t give up because it’s your life and you only have once chance at living it,” she said. “My goal is to walk across the stage at graduation with my daughter and give her a better life than I had.”

Kelsey.Duckett@loop.colum.edu

Senate Bill 365 – sponsored by Senate President John J. Cullerton (D-Chicago) – would prevent lawmakers from giving legislative scholarships to constituents whose families have donated to their political campaigns in the last five years. Recipients and their families are also prohibited from making contributions to the lawmaker for five years after receiving the award.

In addition, the legislation would require that a scholarship be terminated if the student moves out of the lawmaker’s district; current law already requires that scholarship recipients reside in the legislator’s district.

The bill also would allow lawmakers to forfeit their right to dole out the annual scholarships – something 14 legislators already do on their own.

Current law allows each legislator every year to award up to 16 one-semester or eight two-semester awards at any of the state’s four-year public universities. One hundred and sixty-three of the 177 state legislators participated in the program as of fall 2009, when ChicagoTalks contacted every member of the Illinois General Assembly to learn how they pick scholarship winners.

Last year, nearly1,600 scholarships were awarded at a total cost of $13.5 million to the universities, according to a recently released report. The ChicagoTalks investigation found repeated instances of scholarships being awarded to campaign donors, politically connected families and, in at least one instance, a lawmaker’s relative. The journalists also identified five legislators who require scholarship applicants to register to vote, a practice one constitutional lawyer called illegal.

Before Wednesday’s vote, Cullerton called his proposal to tweak the century-old program  “good reform.” The Senate leader said he would consider creating a task force to study all the tuition waivers the state awards annually to veterans, relatives of university employees, student-athletes and others.

But some lawmakers said the bill didn’t go nearly far enough; they argued the scholarship program should be abolished.

“It’s time to do away with these things, it’s past time,” Sen. John O. Jones (R-Mount Vernon) said earlier Wednesday when a Senate committee discussed the measure. Later on the Senate floor, he added, “These things are out of hand and are costing our constituents a ton of money.”

Sen. Michael W. Frerichs (D-Champaign) pushed his own bill to get rid of the legislative scholarships earlier Wednesday before the same committee that considered Cullerton’s legislation, but he didn’t get enough votes to move the measure to the full Senate. Frerichs represents the University of Illinois’s flagship campus, which has to cover the costs of hundreds of the annual legislative scholarships.

Republican Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) said the proposal was better than nothing but only nibbles on the edges of what needs to be done to restore the public’s confidence in the General Assembly.

“Some of the changes being proposed are decent changes, but they’re wholly inadequate,” said Radogno, who has proposed legislation to do away with the program. Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington) has introduced similar legislation.

Given what dire financial shape the state is in – there’s an estimated $13 billion deficit in Illinois’ budget – this is the time to demonstrate fiscal responsibility, Radogno said.

“While I will support these minor changes, which I think are basically PR and won’t accomplish much, we need to talk about eliminating the program.”

But other lawmakers defended the program, saying it has helped students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend college.

Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago) pointed to one woman sitting in the Senate chambers whom  he met for the first time Wednesday. The woman, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has benefited from the legislative waiver program and is an example of why the program shouldn’t be eliminated, Raoul said.

Sen. Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Westchester) agreed, noting that scholarship winners still have to come up with room and board. “So what we’re doing is helping them get there. We’re giving them an opportunity to get an education higher than high school.”

And Lightford noted that those lawmakers who object to legislative scholarships can simply choose not to participate.

To read ChicagoTalks’ investigation, click here.

Babette Novak and Dirk Matthews, who created the Portage Park Farmers Market along with the Portage Park Neighborhood Association, say having farmers markets in all types of weather and in different seasons brings money into the economy and gets people involved.

“[It’s important to be involved in the neighborhood] because we are residents and homeowners and we want to help whatever way we can,” Novak said. “When we first moved here we thought the area needs a farmers market.”

The work Novak and Matthews do is put on display the last Saturday of each month — this month, on Feb. 27 — when they welcome vendors and residents to the market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

This market is unlike the summer market; it’s a rare occasion that only a handful of Chicago’s residents get to enjoy because not every neighborhood has the funds or the power to have a winter market. But with the help of Friends of Portage Park, a neighborhood association, Novak and Matthews were able to start Portage Park’s first farmers market, which stretches the whole length of Portage Park on Irving Park Road.

The market, which began in October 2008 in conjunction with the annual Pumpkin Festival, differs from most others because it primarily features organic meats, poultry, eggs, cheeses, baked goods and more.

“We have a couple of produce vendors, but they’re greenhouse produce,” Novak said.

Taking care of the community isn’t always easy. Gerard Staniszewski, president of the Portage Park Neighborhood Association and supporter of the Portage Market, has to meet with local business owners and public officials to make sure the neighborhood is being taken care of. “It’s our job to take care of the community and care what happens in it,” said Staniszewski.

Even Staniszewski was surprised with how well the winter market was received.

“The numbers of attendees is good. Not as good as the summer, but you would expect that. And more vendors are taking part,” Staniszewski said. “I think it is great, it gets people out of the house.”

One of the greenhouse produce vendors, Tiny Greens, said winter markets aren’t typical, but they are glad to have people buying their products year-round.

“Most often the produce that I have found comes from cold storage. There are a few that have hot houses or raise produce ‘aquaponically’…We definitely have a niche market,” said Paula Jeremias of Tiny Greens.

“We wanted to start [a farmers market] as soon as we found out that there wasn’t one because we thought it would be great for the community,” Novak said. “When we started going to neighborhood meetings, we found out other people wanted one also.”

The winter market is welcomed by the residents in Portage Park because it gives them an alternative to standard grocery stores.

“We don’t have to buy the regular food from Jewel,” said Lizzy Nowak, a resident for over 18 years. “I like to have the organic meats and the fresh vegetables. It just feels right.”

Mohamed, who lives in a 1920s property in East Rogers Park, hadn’t noticed any unusual symptoms in Zachary, now 8. She soon learned, however, that her apartment was filled with lead paint.

She was told at the time that her son’s lead level could cause a decrease in I.Q. and difficulties with behavior. Today, although Zachary is “doing excellent,” he was slow in learning to read and sometimes has behavioral issues. That could be attributed to the fact that he’s a typical 8-year-old boy.

“But you sort of wonder,” Mohamed said.

Mohamed was happy to hear about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new Renovation, Repair and Painting regulation that takes effect April 22. Philip King, the environmental protection specialist with the U.S. EPA’s Chicago-based Region 5 office, called the rule’s scope “probably the most comprehensive to date because it covers private homes.”

The regulation requires contractors and other paid workers to be EPA-certified when replacing windows or renovating residential houses, apartments and child-occupied facilities built before 1978, when lead-based paint was banned. The rule protects kids from leaded dust resulting from sanding or demolition in old houses.

Exposure to lead is not safe at any age; it can affect how a child’s brain grows and develops, as well as their behavior, cognitive skills, attention problems and I.Q.

The rule will protect 1.4 million children under the age of 6 annually, said Rebecca Morley, executive director of the Maryland-based National Center for Healthy Housing.

“It’s one of the most major regulations the EPA is doing this year,” Morley said.

There are 8.4 million renovation and repair jobs done annually across the U.S., affecting as many as 212,000 firms and 230,000 contractors, Morley said. Under the regulation, every job site in a pre-1978 house will need a certified renovator that has completed a $186, eight-hour course from an accredited training provider. The cost is $300 to become an accredited trainer.

The regulation will be enforced by the U.S. EPA. However, if Illinois becomes authorized by the EPA to conduct the program, it will become the Illinois Department of Public Health’s responsibility, said Sam Churchill, manager of the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Illinois Lead Program. Non-compliers could be fined up to $32,500 per day, he said, depending on various factors.

The number of children in Illinois with lead poisoning appears to be decreasing. In 2000, 23,063 Illinois children were identified with a blood lead level of 10 or greater, which is the number that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends taking action at, Churchill said. In 2007, that number decreased to 5,280, and in 2008, slightly more than 5,000 children had elevated blood lead levels. Yet experts say that no level of lead is safe for children.

“What we hope is that the generation of a lead hazard will be decreased in kids,” said Churchill.

Dr. Helen Binns, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine and director of the Lead Evaluation Clinic at Children’s Memorial Hospital, said a survey of lead homes in the United States shows that nationally, 87 percent of homes built before 1940 have lead paint somewhere inside. That number drops to 69 percent for homes built between 1940 and 1959, and 24 percent for homes built from 1960 to 1977.

“So if you’re in an older house, which is most of the city of Chicago, there is a high likelihood lead is somewhere in your home,” Binns said.

Dean Amici, owner of the Chicago-based Amici Builders, said homeowners should now expect to add at least 10 percent cost-wise to a renovation. Property values and home sales on older properties could also be affected, he said.

“It’s gonna jack up the cost of remodeling for the average person through the ceiling,” Amici said.

Amici said he hasn’t seen any information or advertising regarding training or certification. “I think they’re going to have a (tough) time enforcing it,” he said. “It’ll be a field day for the lawyers.”

The Illinois Department of Public Health Lead Program is holding a series of meetings informing the public about the new rule, although none are scheduled in Chicago. Churchill said when scheduling the events, costs of the venue, parking, traffic, etc. were taken into consideration after speaking with possibly attendees.

Three Chicago-area meetings will be held at the following locations:

* Aurora Meeting
Tuesday, March 23
9 a.m. – noon
(8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast)
Holiday Inn, 2424 W. Sullivan Road

* Gurnee Meeting
Thursday, Feb. 18
9 a.m. – noon
(8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast)
Vista Hotel & Conference Center
6161 W. Grand Avenue

* Lisle Meeting
Wednesday, Feb. 17
9 a.m. – noon
(8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast)
Hyatt – Lisle Ballroom
1400 Corporetum Drive

“I can imagine my grandchildren sitting on my knees one day and asking, ‘Grandpa, did you really print on paper with some stuff called ink?’ ” marveled Tyree, the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times. “Content will be the dominant thing. [Newspaper publishing will be about] how many people read it and respond to it.”

He acknowledged that the publishing company he purchased during 2009 has a long way to go.

“How many out there subscribe to the Sun-Times?” he asked members the capacity crowd, who paid $20 per person for breakfast and the opportunity to listen to him. When only a few hands went up, Tyree concluded, “We’ve got some work to do.”

“The business model has to change,” Tyree explained. “My friends in Japan tell me that we (American media) have a strange way of doing things. We give away up-to-the-minute stuff and then try to charge for what is 24 hours old.”

Tyree and his group of investors were the only bidders when they purchased the newspaper for a reported $5 million last year. The acquisition included the Southtown-Star Newspaper and approximately 50 smaller suburban publications. Key to the transaction was that Tyree and his fellow investors did not have to take on the Sun Times’ $750 million in debt. That was left in bankruptcy court.

Tyree didn’t talk only publishing. As chairman of the board of the international financial services firm Mesirow Financial, Tyree keeps his fingers on the pulse of the economy. He was emphatic as to what got the world into the mess it’s in, why it is not worse, and what the future holds for the economy and the workforce.

“There is one thing I am certain of: We’re going to get out of this s _ _ _ we’re in. We’ve got to, because our economy was driven by the consumer. That’s not going to happen again. The consumer that does not have credit capability is not going to lead. Our new economy has been driven, will be driven, by productivity. To be productive, you have to have skills, and you have to be able to use them 24/7, not just 9 to 5.”

Regarding the problem of preparing a 21st century workforce with a 20th century education, he added: “New skills are vital. The problem with most educators is that what they learned worked for them, so they teach it. Today, students need more. City college enrollment is up 35 percent. I fight to get our city colleges to teach more diversified skills.”

Tyree was far less bullish on real estate than he was on jobs, and he praised the government stimulus. “I don’t see any time soon that real estate comes back. It’s going to be a drag on the economy for a long time. That property you consider buying because it is now worth only 50 percent of what it once was, well, you have to be careful because it may be worth only 40 or 30 percent. Short term, the economy is not going to see a lot of jobs or new employment. Not until 2012. What Bush and Paulsen did and what Barack and Geitner continued were essential.”

Tyree marveled that the politicians can’t fix health care and cited health care costs as the top cause of personal bankruptcies in America. “Insurance is in for some big changes,” he said.

A product of Oak Lawn and the South Side of Chicago, Tyree credited his success to his experiences growing up.

“The South Side never leaves you. Never. Ever. Ever. I was blessed to grow up here, and the values I learned on the South Side play well everywhere. I went from St. Barnabas Grammar School to Marist High School, to Illinois State University, to Mesirow. When I started there, it had about 65 employees,” he said. “Mesirow has succeeded because we’re independent thinking, we’re patient, we’re employee-driven. We are diversified and we are not leveraged.”

The appearance by James Tyree was the first of the 2010 “Breakfast with the Experts” speaker series. It is co-sponsored by The Beverly Area Planning Association and Saint Xavier University.

These are the facts that we read in the news — but how much do we really know about what is happening in Haiti in the aftermath of this crisis? Can we trust the news reports now coming out of this long-forgotten nation? And what does it mean about the state of journalism that we have to ask these questions?

These questions were the topic of a heated debate Thursday evening at the National Association of Black Journalists’ monthly meeting. Mary Mitchell, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, joined state Sen. Kwame Raoul, Evanston Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti,and Patrick Brutus, co-founder of the Haitian-American Professionals Network to discuss media coverage of Haiti in comparison to other disasters.

Mitchell said she was disappointed with the immediate coverage of the earthquake, which she referred to as a disaster “unprecedented in this hemisphere.”

“We were really ill-prepared to tell the story because we had ignored Haiti for so long,” she said. “If you are not familiar with your beat, if you don’t know background, history or culture, you won’t be able to do your job.”

Jean-Baptiste said there was an imbalance in media coverage of Haiti because of who was telling the story.

“Here you have CNN, NBC and big stars like Anderson Cooper telling what they think is Haiti’s story,” he said. “It wasn’t until last week, when the black media arrived, that you got the projection of will and the resilience of the Haitian people. We need to tell our own story.”

Mitchell said the media couldn’t cover the story immediately because Haiti was off the radar for most journalists. She then held up the front page of the Sun-Times from the day after the disaster. On the cover was a story about Ron Huberman, chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools.

It wasn’t until two days after the tragedy that the media started their blitz, but with it came front pages plastered with pictures of death. It’s these horrifying photographs that upset Mitchell, who said showing pictures of “rotting, bloated, dead people is an injustice to journalism.”

“I was disappointed in all media outlets that ran pictures of dead bodies,” she said. “Covers of papers with pictures of rotting bodies, where is the dignity in that? We didn’t do it with Katrina, we don’t do it in a war zone, but in Haiti it seemed alright to show bloated, rotting dead bodies.”

Marielle Sainvilus, spokeswoman for Illinois State Department, said the media has ignored Haiti for so long that readers have been left ignorant and afraid of the unknown.

“Anything that was negative has been put on Haiti,” she said. “As a result, any time that Haiti came up in the media in the past was negative. Therefore Haiti became this pit in the media. As a result, now that this earthquake has happened, it has uncovered this Pandora’s box of complexity of this small island that nobody knew about.”

Mitchell, at the same time she criticized some media coverage, gave journalists credit for “getting up-to-speed so quickly.”

“Haiti is no different than any subject we cover. Someone has to have a heart for Haiti,” she said. “In the newsroom someone has to have a heart for the South Side and the West Side. Someone has to have a heart for Haiti, someone has to want to cover it.”

The panel agreed on one thing: The media hasn’t dug deep enough, and there are far too many stories to tell.

Sainvilus said this is the first time that Haiti is getting the media attention they deserve. She said the media can bring light to the issues and bring attention to the history and the culture and can help Haitians rebuild.

“I appreciate the media overkill that has been given to Haiti,” she said. “It has given Haiti a platform that they have never had in the media before, it has given a platform to Haitians who have never been portrayed in the right light.”

To fight this growing problem, Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) introduced House Bill 4672, which would require teachers, principals, guidance counselors and all personnel who work with students in grades 7 through 12 to be trained in suicide prevention two hours each year.

Harris joined forces with the Jason Foundation, which was founded by Clark Flatt after his son, Jason, committed suicide at 16. Harris said youth suicide is preventable — if teachers and school officials know what to look out for.

“When it comes to our schools, youth organizations and various programs, suicide just isn’t on the radar as something that a 12-year-old could be planning,” Harris said. “Ninety percent of the time, these kids are reaching out. We just don’t know how to recognize it.”

In the case of 10-year-old Aquan Lewis, the Evanston student who hanged himself by his shirt collar on a hook in an Oakton Elementary School restroom stall on Feb. 2, 2009, officials said the fifth-grader had made threats about killing himself.

Dr. Ron Davidson, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, agreed that there are almost always warning signs leading up to a suicide. In the case of Lewis, Davidson said he had serious concerns.

“It seemed this was a situation that could have been avoided. The boy made some kind of statement announcing his plans and how he was feeling, and it either wasn’t listened to or he wasn’t taken seriously,” he said.

Relatives of Lewis have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the school district alleging that Evanston-Skokie School District 65 was negligent. Attorney Todd Smith, who is representing the family, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Oakton Elementary school officials also couldn’t be reached for comment.

If passed, Illinois would be the fifth state to pass legislation requiring in-service training for all school officials. In 2007, Tennessee became the first state to pass the Jason Flatt Act, followed by Louisiana, Mississippi and California. The Jason Foundation has trained 117,000 teachers so far and is currently working with five other states to pass legislation.

“It is not the only thing any state should do, but it is the single most important thing any state should do,” said Clark Flatt, chief executive officer of the Jason Flatt Foundation. “The single most important aspect of suicide prevention is training and specifically training the teachers and school officials to be able to recognize at-risk behavior.”

Davidson said he “whole-heartedly” agrees that the bill should be passed.

“It is absolutely necessary,” he said.

Flatt said the Jason Foundation, along with all organizations involved with suicide prevention, would provide free training to all school personnel.

Mary Kay Dawson, a legislative volunteer for the Jason Foundation who is working with state legislators to get the bill passed, said suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people and “is a real problem.”

“There has been great support in Illinois,” she said. “Everyone agrees with the bill in theory. We are just working on language so when we bring the bill to the table everyone is in agreement. We want this to be a team effort.”

Davidson said he is concerned when he hears any kind of objection to this type of bill.

“Lay the body of a dead child next to the issues people have against this bill, and I am certain the body of a dead child trumps any sort of irresponsible response to not taking immediate action,” he said.

Harris said he hopes there will be vote on the bill next month.

The first phase of the project, which will cost an estimated $100 million, will last four years and involve 11 bridges along Metra’s Union Pacific North Line from Addison Street to Balmoral Avenue. Eleven more bridges will be replaced in a second phase after the first is complete, Gillis said.

Some believe the work is long overdue. Last November, an engineering firm hired by the Regional Transportation Authority, which funds Metra, reported that 70 percent of Metra’s bridges were in need of repair. Those findings were preliminary, said RTA spokeswoman Diane Palmer, and a final study is expected out this summer.

Plans for the project, one-third of which is to be funded by federal stimulus money, also include a new station at the North Line’s run-down Ravenswood stop. The new station will lie on the north side of Lawrence Avenue and will accommodate eight train cars, instead of six.

Amtrak, too, is facing a long list of construction projects that will tap another $55 million in stimulus money in Illinois alone. Jobs include an expansion of maintenance buildings, mechanical repairs and upgrades at Chicago’s Union Station rail hub.

State Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D-Northbrook), chair of the Illinois House Rail Industry Committee, estimated that between the federal stimulus and the state’s own capital money there is $2 billion worth of rail construction in the works in Illinois.

That includes more than $1 billion in funding for high-speed rail lines connecting Chicago to St. Louis and other Midwestern cities, a huge – albeit, smaller than hoped – project announced last month by President Barack Obama.

Spending stimulus money on rail construction is a wise move right now, said Illinois Public Interest Research Group spokesman Brian Imus, because mass transit projects generate more jobs than building highways does. That’s because with transit construction, less money is required for land purchases and other non-job related expenses.

And the completed projects help people more in the long run, Imus said.

“Typically, these are organizations that are in competition against each other for limited state dollars, but instead we are banding together to say there is not enough state money,” said Daniel Schwick, assistant to the president of Lutheran Social Services of Illinois.

The Responsible Budget Coalition, with 40 buses of supporters in tow, went to Springfield Feb. 16, where they held a press conference at the state Capitol, followed by a rally in support of House Bill 174 on Feb. 17.

“It’s hard; people don’t understand that this is really about them,” said John Bouman, leader of the Responsible Budget Coalition and president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. “If we don’t get this done the right way, we will see everything from teacher layoffs to whole institutions closing.”

House Bill 174 would raise the state personal and corporate income tax from 3 to 5 percent and expand the state sales tax to certain consumer services. It would also provide tax relief by raising the personal exemption from $2,000 to $3,000, doubling the state property tax credit and tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit, which targets low-income families.

This increase would fall only on those who can afford it, said Rev. Alexander Sharp, executive director of Protestants for the Common Good, because the bill will include tax credits for those who cannot afford to pay more.

Instead of a progressive income tax that applies a greater share of the burden to wealthier taxpayers, Illinois is currently one of only six states to have a fixed income tax. So the state’s poorest residents pay 3 percent of their income in state tax, as do Illinois’ wealthiest citizens.

The bill was passed through the Senate last May, and is now waiting on an approval from the House.

Sharp said citizens are fighting against tax increases because they aren’t aware of the services they will lose due to a lack of funding.

“I think there is a mentality that is really unwilling to pay for services that we expect to be provided for us. We have to rise above that and realize the needs of our state,” Sharp said.

Kathy Ryg, president of Voices for Illinois Children, said it is crucial the bill is approved before the Nov. 2 general election, which is why the coalition has started the “We Can’t Wait” campaign.

“We feel very strongly that any delay on having a responsible budget will be very costly to the state as far as programs and services and successful initiatives go. They will either be gone, or their funding will be inadequate to meet the needs of the state,” Ryg said.

Ryg said the current deficit for the 2011 budget is $12.8 billion, which includes unpaid bills to social service agencies and state vendors.

Rep. David Miller (D-Dolton), a supporter of HB174, said he hopes now that the Feb. 2 primary election is past, the legislation will move forward.

“We have proved we can pass the bill in the Senate, now we need to see what we can do with it from here,” Miller said.

“Here, anything is good,” said Naama. “It’s a good life—a nice one.”

Naama is one of an estimated 2,400 Iraqi refugees to resettle to Illinois over the last 2 ½ years, one of 18,000 who have resettled nationwide. The resettlement process, experts say, isn’t easy. But for those like Naama who fled a world of chaos, resettlement is the crisp red apple on the tree of freedom.

Naama, who had fled Iraq for Lebanon, arrived in the United States on July 27, 2009. His wife, Bernadette, 28, came with him. The two met in Lebanon where Bernadette Naama, originally from the Philippines, had originally gone to find work. But because she had been working without proper paperwork, her husband had to pay a hefty fine to get her out of the country.

“He insisted to pay because he didn’t want to go to America without me,” she said. “When we were inside the plane, we felt very safe.”

Once in Chicago, workers from the Heartland Alliance Refugee and Immigrant Community Services (RICS) met the couple and helped them get in touch with her aunt, who they lived with for about two months. But the tight living situation caused tension in their relationship. Bernadette said she and her husband were fighting all the time.

She said when her husband first came to the United States, he had a hard time getting used to the idea that he was a free person because he had gone from a dictatorial government to a democracy.

“It was so hard for my husband,” she said.

But now that the couple has their own apartment, Bernadette said things have become much more pleasant. Still, she said there is a lot of hurt hiding behind her husband’s broad smile and jovial laughter.

“He’s just pretending to be happy,” she said.

Sattar Naama left Iraq for Lebanon in 2000 in hopes of finding work. He returned for a visit in May 2008 after finding out his brother, Muhammad, had been killed by terrorists. On May 13, when Naama and his sister were in his car, a white car with four men wearing black masks showing only their eyes pulled alongside them. Naama noticed at least one of the men had a gun. The man pointed the gun at him and questioned him.

“They said, ‘Why did you come to Iraq—because your father died?’” said Naama. His father had died recently as well. Then the man said, “’I kill you now.’”

Tires screeched as Naama pulled away from the men and made a U-turn in the narrow street; one of the masked men pointed a gun at him again. As he started driving off, the pop of a gunshot echoed through the air. When Naama looked over at his sister, she was dead.

“I need to forget it, but I can’t,” said Naama. He said his family is the biggest thing he misses about Iraq now and that he has no plans of ever going back. He also misses the perks of his job in Lebanon as a supervisor of a cleaning company.

“I had money, a car—I had everything,” said Naama. He said he’s happy, though, because he just got a job working six days a week at Little Lady Foods, a frozen food manufacturer in Elk Grove Village, Ill.

The job requires him to make a 2½-hour trip each morning, which means he has to leave his apartment by 3 a.m. to make it there on time. The reddish tint to his dark eyes shows how the traveling has affected him. But he has a job nonetheless.

Sarah Cady, senior program officer of reception and placement at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), said it’s often hard for refugees to find employment once in the country.

“We really want clients to become self-sufficient earlier, and with the economic downturn,” said Cady, “it’s become more of a challenge.”

She said the steps for successful resettlement in the U.S. involve having an adequate amount of culturally competent people on staff to help refugees and the ability for refugees to have access to employment, housing, case management and English language services.

Naama is taking an English class at the Heartland Alliance and though he has progressed a lot, his English still waivers at some points.

“It’s very hard for him to learn English,” said Bernadette Naama. Thankfully, she is relatively fluent in English and helps her husband when she can.

Ed Silverman, bureau chief of Immigrant and Refugee Services at the Illinois Department of Human Services, said learning English is crucial.

“The fact of the matter is, the better your English, the higher your pay is going to be,” said Silverman. “Learning English is a primary survival tool.”

Silverman said refugee resettlement is a long process. He said it takes a minimum of three years before refugee families find economic stability. And in Lebanon, where Naama and his wife had been living prior to coming to the United States, things are very unstable.

“In Lebanon, the situation is challenging,” said Elizabeth Campbell, a senior advocate for Refugees International. She said Lebanon has a history of political instability and division. USCRI estimates there are 50,600 Iraqi asylum seekers and refugees in Lebanon. Those refugees, said Campbell, are “generally viewed with a certain amount of suspicion and fear.”

Bernadette Naama said she and her husband were definitely an oddity to the Lebanese. She said that though the people at first came across as very kind and polite, they would regularly talk about her behind her back.

“The people there are all biting you at the back,” she said.

One afternoon, while Naama was waiting for his wife to come down from getting something in an apartment, a group of about 11 Lebanese men threatened to attack him because he wouldn’t move his car from the side of the road.

They said “’you better move your car or we’re going to kick you.”’ When his answer was no, one of the men came over to Naama and slapped him. What saved him was the screwdriver he had in his glove compartment. He waved the screwdriver around and the group of men disappeared.

Bernadette Naama said she only misses her friends in Lebanon—not the country itself. “If there is worse than hell, we can compare it to that,” she said.

Campbell said the Lebanese government does not recognize any refugees other than those from Palestine. Lebanon, she said, does not regard the 1951 Refugee Convention, which was put in place by the United Nations to protect refugees worldwide. The U.S. is one of the 147 countries the United Nations Refugee Agency lists as compliant to the guidelines set up by the 1951 convention.

Campbell said the U.S. resettles a maximum of 70,000 to 80,000 refugees each year—a number more than all other countries combined. She said Australia and Canada had the next largest numbers, resettling about 15,000 refugees worldwide. European countries, she said, had the smallest numbers, resettling between 30 and 2,500 refugees annually.

Silverman said Iraqi refugees were the most recent to come to the U.S. and that he didn’t expect them to stop coming any time soon. “I expect Iraqi refugees to be coming for the next 20 years,” said Silverman. He mentioned that it took 25 years for Vietnamese and Bosnian refugees to go back to their countries.

What often anchors refugees to the U.S., said Silverman, is having children.

Bernadette Naama said she hopes to have children someday, but right now they are focused on saving enough money to move to a different apartment and escape their noisy neighbors—who are often heard partying through the apartment’s unforgiving thin walls.

Naama said he hopes the move will happen within the next few months. He wants to get a car and move to either Des Plaines or Skokie.

He said coming to America had been his dream ever since he was about 15 years old and saw America for the first time on TV. “I love America,” he said.

Another thing he loves is soccer. Every month or so, Naama and a few other Iraqis play soccer on the street corner. His favorite soccer team is from Barcelona. He rarely misses a game on TV and looks up team scores online.

“That’s his addiction—Barcelona,” said Bernadette Naama, laughing.

“I love Barcelona,” said Naama. “My wife and then Barcelona.”

It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion and initiation. Smith would evolve as a poet and performer and Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It is a fascinating look at New York City in the late ’60s and ’70s and a beautiful portrait of two young artists’ prelude to fame. Cosponsored by Borders Books and Music.

Image by biverson via Flickr

Patti Smith
Sunday, Feb. 21 at 2 p.m.
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
Please note: Seating is very limited and will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. The Library opens at 1 p.m. and the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium doors open at 1:30 p.m.

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“I have a terrible medical history, and smoking cannabis for medical purpose improved my lifestyle by 80 percent,” said the 54-year-old, who did not want to be fully identified for fear of being arrested.

Lisa’s situation could change soon if the Illinois General Assembly passes a measure that would allow for the medical use of marijuana, joining a dozen other states with similar law already on the books.

The bill, called the Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana Pilot Program Act, is sponsored by Sen. William Haine (D-Alton).

The Illinois Senate approved the measure last spring with a close 30-28 vote, and it cleared the House Rules Committee at the end of January. The bill is now on the calendar for a final debate before voting.

Gov. Pat Quinn said earlier this year that he supports the use of medical marijuana.

Under Senate Bill 1381, Illinoisans would be allowed to have six cannabis plants, no more than three of which can be mature, during a 60-day period. The original bill set a limit of seven plants.

It would also establish a patient registry to control cannabis distribution. Patients or caregivers who distribute marijuana to someone who is not allowed to use it for medical purposes could face a $2,000 fine and up to two years in prison.

With the new law, Lisa said she would live in peace of mind and have a better control about the pot she purchases.

“Right now, I have to be really careful because I do not know the quality or where the product I am inhaling came from,” said Lisa. “With the new law, I could make sure to get an organic product and not chemical.”

The Illinois Family Institute, a group that promotes the protection of traditional family values, argues that cannabis should not be legalized for any medical reason.

“We believe that kids and teenagers could think that cannabis is like a pill for relaxing, and Illinois would have a higher rate of young users,” said Kathy Valente, director of operations of the group. She said she based her statement on a study from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

Valente said THC, a substance in marijuana, is already present in many medications, and people should use those instead of an illegal drug.

The Illinois State Medical Society also opposes the bill.

“We are against the use of cannabis for medical purposes because there is no scientific evidence that it could be good for patients,” said the society’s president-elect, Steven Malkin.

Malkin said there are many anecdotes about the use of marijuana, but smoking and inhaling any substance is not healthy and not the right way to administer treatment.

Dan Linn, executive director of the Illinois Cannabis Patients Association, disagrees.

“The patients and the doctors should decide what is  best, and the law should not be influenced by other people,” he said.

Linn said he worked with Sen. Haine to write the bill.

“We made a lot of concessions, and we are now confident that the bill will be adopted,” Linn said. “We are still contacting state lawmakers to make sure they understand the bill, but we should have the 60 votes needed.”

Linn said one major change was that the proposed bill is a pilot project, meaning that lawmakers would have to enact a permanent law in a couple years.

More than 60 demonstrators from around Chicago gathered at Western Avenue and Addison Street in Lakeview on Sunday afternoon to protest the use of red light cameras at Chicago intersections. The demonstrators claim that the red light cameras are designed to entrap drivers and generate revenue for city coffers, not prevent collisions or enhance public safety.

Passing out fliers and waving signs, demonstrators were greeted by a cacophony of blaring car horns from passing motorists expressing their support for banning the red lights cameras in Chicago and in Illinois.

Red light camera protests were staged in 16 cities across the United States this weekend including Chicago, spearheaded by the Liberty Restoration Project, which spread the word about the nationwide demonstration on Facebook.  The Chicago event was attended by four Republican candidates running for state legislative and Cook County offices, including Scott Tucker, the Republican state rep candidate for the 11^th District, who organized the local red light camera protest.

In 2008, the City of Chicago’s red light cameras generated $44 million in fines, mainly by drivers who were unable to come to a complete stop at intersections when traffic signals changed from yellow to red, opponents claim.

“It’s just like leasing the Skyway and the parking meters, and trying to lease the water system,” Tucker said of the city’s alleged ulterior motives for installing red light cameras. “We’re going to put up the red light cameras and shorten the yellow light, and screw you out of a hundred dollars take-home pay.”

Carl Segvich, the elected 11th Ward Republican Committee and the GOP nominee for the Cook County Board’s 11th District seat, stood curbside on Western Avenue holding a sin that read “Stop the Daley Political Mafia.” His business card similarly stated, “Stop the Axelrod, Daley, Obama Communistic Mafia.”

“I don’t like them stealing my money and I don’t like them stealing yours even thought I don’t know you,” Segvich said. “As much as I hate the Daleys, the Clintons and the liberals, it’s really not their fault. It’s really frankly your fault and my fault and the people’s fault because time and time again we keep putting these political mobsters into office.”

The city of Chicago, said to have the highest number of red light cameras in the United States, installed its first ticketing cameras in 2006. The cameras are triggered by cars edging over sensors embedded in the asphalt when traffic signals change from yellow to red, or when vehicles fail to come to a complete stop when making right hand turns on red lights. The cameras do not photographic vehicles already stopped in the middle of intersections waiting to complete left hand turns after the traffic signals change from green to red, nor those that come to a complete stop before making a legal right hand turn on a red light.

Barnet Nagel, a researcher and traffic safety advocate for the National Motorists Association founded in 1982 to represent the interests of North American motorists, claims that the red light cameras create more rear end collisions at signaled intersections than prevent them.

“The cameras are no known safety benefit,” Nagel said. “Show me any statistical evidence that cameras have saved anybody’s life or made things better.”

According to Nagel, the leading causes of collisions at signaled intersections aren’t caused by drivers blatantly blowing red lights from a half block away, but by drug dealers fleeing cops and drunk drivers, first responders such as police, fire and paramedic, and distracted drivers chatting or texting on their cell phones.

He further charges that the City of Chicago has deliberately shortened yellow lights a half-second below the Federal Highway Administration’s mandated minimum of three seconds, according to FHWA guidelines, giving drivers less time to get through intersections.

Nagel said he has video-taped 13 intersections with red light cameras, mainly on Chicago’s North Side, for a NMA video documenting how the city’s yellow-light intervals fall under federally mandated guidelines spelled out in the FWHA’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The maximum yellow-light interval mandated by the FWHA is six seconds.

He supports better traffic engineering at intersections based on speed limits and traffic flow, not red light cameras which he describes as “ATM machines.”

“If you do that according to accepted engineering practices, the intersection will become safer,” Nagel said. “Just because there is a three-second minimum doesn’t mean that intersections wouldn’t require more time for yellow lights … Some have three-street intersections, yet there are only three seconds for yellow lights. That’s not right. It’s a violation of the law of physics.”

A Lakeview woman, who would only give her first name, Susan, because she didn’t want any trouble from her alderman, said that she and her husband did not incur any moving traffic violations in over 20 years, that is, until red light cameras were installed at Addison and Western, and elsewhere through the neighborhood. Unlike other demonstrators who were drawn to the event via Facebook, Susan and her husband heard about the demonstration on the radio.

“We’re both very careful drivers … I find you can start when you have a green light and if the light turns to yellow you might be able to clear the intersection,” Susan said. “We’ve gotten two tickets there and it’s like you don’t have any chance. They (the city) will tell you that the camera says you have the ticket. If you try to fight it, they charge you more. It’s criminal. What can’t they do something about potholes and the school system?”

Republican candidates attending Sunday’s red light camera demonstration also claim that the more cameras are being placed in black neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Sides. Jackie Rivers, a Beverly-area resident said that the red light cameras are placed at two and three block intervals along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Stony Island Avenue.

“I’ve been fortunate and blessed, [the red light cameras] haven’t gotten me yet,” Rivers said. I take precautions when I’m driving. Sometimes I’m able to make an abrupt stop, other times I’m just going through.”

Chicago-area communites also appear to be conflicted on the safety benefits of red light cameras. Schaumburg recently removed all of its red light cameras, but not before racking up more than $1 million in 96 days at a signaled exit near the Woodfield Shopping Mall. A mjority of those violations were by drivers failing to come to a complete stop when making right hand turns on red lights.

On Feb. 22, Bufflao Grove’s Village Council is poised to vote on whether to install red light cameras in the village.

Three bills proposing stricter regulations on the red light cameras are also pending in the Illinois State Senate. The most ambitious of the three, SB2466, sponsored by Sen. Dan Duffy of Barrington’s 26th Senate District, propose an all-out elimination of the red light cameras statewide.

State senators in support of SB 2466, as well as the Republican legislative candidates attending Sunday’s protest, want Sen. John Cullerton to move the bill out of the state senate’s transporation committee to the floor for a vote this week.

“That’s all we’re asking,” said Adam Robinson, the GOP nominee for the Illinois 7th Senate District, “to have this thing come to a vote.”

“It’s safe, it’s effective, it’s recommended by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” said John Peller, director of government relations for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Peller was involved in the drafting of the bill, which took effect Jan. 1.

CDC Statistics from 2008 show Cook County as having the highest number of gonorrhea cases in the country and the second highest number of chlamydia cases.

State Sen. David Koehler (D-Pekin), the bill’s main backer, struggled to include a controversial clause providing access for minors between the ages of 12 and 17, a necessary feature to include, said Peller.

Before the new law took effect, minors in Illinois could seek treatment for sexually transmitted diseases themselves, without parental consent. Now, any patient over 12 years of age who is diagnosed with chlamydia or gonorrhea may be prescribed medication for their partner at the physician’s discretion.

This expedited partner therapy gives access to treatment for individuals unlikely to seek treatment themselves. But some said that giving this medication to minors is a bad idea.

“They’re too immature to be making those kinds of decisions,” said state Sen. Dave Syverson (R-Rockford), one of six Republican state senators who opposed the bill.

Syverson also raised issue in the Senate that giving medication to minors may lead to the perception that their sexual practices are safe. And this may lead to making poor decisions in the future.

Statistics from the CDC show that minors are among an age group that is most likely to be diagnosed with STDs. When drafting the bill, doctors recommended that expedited partner therapy be available to these minors, said Peller.

Part of the law’s success is reaching a population who wouldn’t have had access to treatment before — in part because of the law’s anonymity from having to seek treatment directly, which some teenagers may find embarrassing, said Peller.

“Youth should not suffer the consequences of life-long STD (diagnoses),” he said.

And for diseases like chlamydia — of which the CDC reported 59,169 cases in Illinois, nearly triple the cases of gonorrhea — it is difficult to recognize symptoms in time to stop the spread of the disease.

“Fifty percent of chlamydia (cases) are asymptomatic — meaning no signs — making it one of the most easily spread (STDs),” Peller said.

Illinois is the 22nd state to implement a form of partner therapy as a tool against the spread of STDs. In California, where patient-delivered partner therapy (PDPT) has been legal since 2001, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has had no reports of adverse events, agency spokesman Ron Owens wrote in an e-mail.

In California, partners of those infected by an STD received treatment nearly twice as often when the treatment came via patient-delivered therapy (77 percent), rather than when a doctor simply told the infected person that their partner should come in for treatment (40 percent), Owens wrote.

In Cook County, this could mean that of the 34,257 chlamydia cases reported in 2008, 26,377 partners could have had indirect access to treatment. But because medical specialists recommend that a patient be diagnosed directly by a physician, patient referral is still the most common practice used by doctors.

In a survey of eight California family-planning settings, patient-delivered partner therapy was used 20 percent of the time, while traditional patient referral was used half the time, wrote Owens.

But Illinois’ new law is a step in the right direction for treating high STD numbers.

“It’s really a symptom of the broken health care system. People can’t get access to some of the basic diagnoses and treatment,” said Peller.

For the nearest Illinois STD clinic, click here.

Reporter Patrick Smith has been documenting Drew’s struggle. His story, Artists on the march: Free speech protesters pass out artwork to draw attention to Chicago’s Peddler License, appeared in the Columbia College Chronicle on Feb. 8.

Here is a video of Drew and members of the group, called The Free Speech Artists’ Movement, who are working to defeat Chicago’s licensing laws, which they say violate the First Amendment.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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