The state’s public rail and bus systems have so far made it largely unscathed through the difficult budget process, in which Quinn is trying to steer the state out of a $13 billion deficit.

“(Downstate agencies) actually have experienced an increase in operating funding over the last couple of years,” said Laura Calderon, executive director of the Illinois Public Transit Association, adding that the allocations in the draft budget was “about what’s expected.”

Under Quinn’s proposed $27 billion budget, presented last week to a joint session of the Illinois General Assembly, downstate transit agencies are slated to see a 10 percent increase in grant money from the state. For MSW Projects, a small transit agency in Henry, Ill., that means a bump from $252,000 this year to $277,000 in 2011.

The increase is welcome news for the rural agency, which offers senior rides and runs fixed routes through Henry County with minivans and a 15-person van. But MSW faces a bigger problem, Calderon said – reimbursements from the state are being sent months after they are due and apprehensive banks are refusing to dole out loans to ailing agencies.

As a result, MSW Projects recently put all its employees on a four-day work schedule to avoid having to take more drastic measures.

“That is enough to keep them afloat right now,” Calderon said.

The picture is slightly different for transit in the Chicago area. The Regional Transit Authority, which includes the CTA, Metra and Pace, saw its state grants drop slightly in Quinn’s budget proposal, from $292 million this year to $285 million next. And that’s down from $302 million in FY 2009.

But Brian Imus, spokesman for the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy group, said he too is more concerned that the state is late in paying nearly $250 million for transit service in the Chicago area.

“The delay, if it isn’t fixed, could have a disastrous effect on commuters,” Imus wrote in an e-mail. “The governor’s budget proposal this week doesn’t make me any more confident the state is going to be able to address this shortfall.”

Ed Heflin, manager of the Illinois Rural Transit Assistance Center, said that investing in public transit during a recession is wise because it leads to greater economic development. Every $1 spent on public transit brings a $3 return to the area, he said, and in some cases the return is as much as $8.

Public transit may be the least of lawmakers’ worries this week. Education took the brunt of the damage in Quinn’s 475-page draft budget, shouldering $1.3 billion in proposed cuts. Lawmakers now find themselves entrenched in a battle over Quinn’s suggested fix – a temporary 33 percent income tax hike to fund schools. Health, human services and local governments are also facing a loss of about $300 million apiece.

Quinn’s budget must be approved by both houses of the legislature before it can take effect for the fiscal year that begins July 1. But with lawmakers’ concerns over the November election getting in the way, some expect that serious budget reform will not take place until a special legislative session after the election.

“The park will close if sufficient community interest and support does not emerge within the next six months,” said William Rutherford, son of the park’s original founders and president of the family’s Forest Park Foundation, the park’s main provider of funds. “Our finances are severely depleted.”

Although the park is operated by a private foundation, it also relies on funding from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Patty Schuh, spokeswoman for the Senate Republicans Caucus, said the governor proposes to eliminate $790,000 for the park from the 2011 budget’s general revenue funds, although it would still receive approximately $100,000 from other state funds.

“Without the funding, it’s a serious hit on our ability to operate,” said Jeff Rosecrans, executive director of Wildlife Prairie, which attracts 150,000 visitors annually. “It would be a real challenge to stay open.”

Rosecrans said the park costs about $1 million to $1.5 million each year to run. Closing it would be a decision made by him and the board, but “it’s too early in the (budget) process,” he said.

Wildlife Prairie, located about 130 miles southwest of Chicago, is a 2,000-acre zoological park home to more than 150 animals and 50 different species native to Illinois, including wolves, black bears, bobcats, bison, waterfowl, elk, cougar and otters. The park, one of 46 state parks in Illinois, opened in 1978 as the dream of William Rutherford Sr. and his wife, Hazel, who operated it until 2000, when an aging Rutherford deeded it to the state before his death six years later.

His son said the money for the park came from Hazel’s father, W.H. Sommer, who made his fortune owning Keystone Steel in Peoria in the early 20th century. Besides animals, Wildlife Prairie has a fishing hole, walking paths, cabins/cottages, and it even offered skiing in its early years.

Rosecrans said in recent years, state funding has been sketchy. In 2008, the park was given $828,000; in 2009, the park was completely removed from the budget; in 2010, the park was partially funded with $790,000 still owed by the state; and this year, 2011, “We don’t have a clue where we stand,” he said.

The state’s $13 billion deficit is the worst ever seen by longtime political experts, such as Charlie Wheeler, director of the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Wheeler said although he has never seen Illinois in a worse financial crunch, there might be another way for the state to provide park funding.

“My guess is that there is some alternative way to provide money to them,” said Wheeler, who has visited Wildlife Prairie with his family. “I doubt they’ll close it. But I’m not sure where that money might be.”

The state’s Department of Natural Resources has faced both program and employee cuts in recent years. Anders Lindall, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, said at the end of June 2001, the DNR had 1,982 staff members, but as of October, there were 1,422 employees, a loss of 560 positions or 28 percent in the last eight years.

The Illinois Environmental Council is “very much concerned,” about program losses at the DNR, said Charles Jackson, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council.

“We’re on pins and needles,” said Jackson. “We want the government to be able to maintain these important programs for the future of the environment.”

The only state not seeing any cuts environmental-wise is North Dakota, said Steve Brown, executive director of Environmental Council of the States, which unites heads of state environmental agencies. Brown said Georgia saw a 43 percent loss in funding for environmental programs, Pennsylvania 33 percent, and New York and California are in “very bad shape,” he said.

Meanwhile, back in Illinois, Dr. Rutherford is hoping to keep his parent’s legacy, “a fabulous place,” alive. He said he hopes a new park fundraising and management initiative with local politicians will help raise some badly-needed money.

“If that isn’t successful, we’re going to have to close the place down,” Rutherford said.

County sheriffs, assessors, coroners and treasurers throughout Illinois are losing 35 percent of their annual $6,500 state stipends this year; circuit clerks, however, are losing 100 percent. The stipend was created in 1986 by the Illinois General Assembly to cover additional duties circuit clerks perform under state law. The stipend was increased to its current amount in 1999.

The Illinois Supreme Court, which is responsible for the circuit clerks’ budgets, says the cuts are necessary to help cover the probation department’s massive $43 million shortfall. But circuit clerks argue their cuts are disproportionate to other state offices, and under the Circuit Clerks Act, the stipend is mandated.

Part of the circuit clerks’ duties include the collection and distribution of fines and data collection of all circuit courts. Gov. Pat Quinn’s 2011 budget plan, released last week , recommends $245 million to the court’s budget, 14 percent less than the requested $322 million.

The stipend from the state budget is needed to compensate clerks for the great amount of work needed to stay on top on ever-changing legislation and the long hours required, said Becky Jansen, president of the Illinois Association of Circuit Clerks. Jansen said the clerks are being singled out, and there are options, such as grants, the probation department could pursue to cover its deficit.

“We understand there are cuts, but we’ve never asked for an increase,” said Jansen, circuit clerk of Effingham County.  “We want to be treated like the other departments.”

The circuit clerks might pursue legal action to restore their stipend but only as a last resort, Jansen said.

“We don’t want any lawsuit, but we also have to protect ourselves,” she said.

The money needs to be reallocated to prevent the salary cut, Jansen said, and the likelihood of the money coming from other sources, such as local taxes, is slim.

By law, the probation budget needs to be fully funded; in the past year, it saw a 63 percent cut, from $95 million to $36 million, said Joe Tybor, spokesman for the Illinois Supreme Court. The money diverted from the clerks was necessary to help fill the gap, Tybor said, adding that he was unaware whether the clerks’ stipend was mandatory.

“After several months of work, the chief justice pleaded and received $16 million,” he said. “The court views the probation system as being vitally important.”

The cut could affect clerks soon retiring, said Sherri Miller, circuit clerk of Carroll County.

“This cut impacts me personally by eliminating 14 percent of my salary, and it impacts my retirement, which is based on the last four years of income,” Miller said.

While cuts need to be made, they should made applied equally, argued Randy Frese, circuit clerk of Adams County.

“This seems to be a slap in the face to court clerks, Illinois Supreme Court and the Illinois Constitution,” said Frese. “I understand that the state is in a fiscal crisis, and I am willing to negotiate this matter. Let’s start with this — if all wages and expenditures in the state’s budget will be cut by 10 to 20 percent, I will accept a 10 to 20 percent cut gladly.”

Historically, the governor’s budgets have reflected the funds the courts are seeking, said Charles Wheeler, director of the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois-Springfield. But this proposed allocation goes against the trend.

Cuts are  also being proposed in other areas even though they run contrary to the law, Wheeler said. The cuts won’t be illegal, Wheeler said, as long as the law is changed to accommodate these cuts.

The clerks plan to rally March 17 at the state capitol to protest the cuts and demand they be restored.

“We are coming to Springfield so the legislators and governor remember us,” said Jansen. “We’re hoping they’ll listen and do their job.”

Rev. Randall Harris of Chicago's Faith Community Church speaks about the loss of Park National Bank during a meeting at the Oak Park Light of Liberty Church of God and Christ on Saturday. (Andrew A. Nelles / Photo for ChicagoTalks.org)

No matter what the outcome in the Park National Bank seizure, the situation has broken down barriers between the Austin community and Oak Park residents.

It’s the silver lining in the cloud that has hung over those two communities since  October. That’s when the popular neighborhood bank, located in Oak Park, was seized by federal regulators, said Rev. Marshall Hatch, a member of the Coalition to Save Community Banking, a grassroots organization formed in response to the takeover and forced sale.

“There’s much less of a barrier between Austin and Oak Park,” said Hatch, representing the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church in West Garfield Park. “This has brought people together. It’s a grassroots response to what communities all over the country are feeling as they’re gobbled up by bankers who got bailout money.”

Hatch was one of several speakers at a community meeting Saturday held by the coalition. About 100 people attended the at times sermon-like event, held at the Light of Liberty Church of God and Christ in Oak Park, not far from Park National’s former branch at the corner of Austin and Madison.

The purpose of the meeting was to update attendees on a situation that has caused outcry throughout Oak Park and Chicago’s West Side since federal regulators seized Park National Bank and its parent company and turned operations over to U.S. Bank.

Oak Park business owner Beth Harvey speaks about how the loss of Park National Bank has affected her business. (Andrew A. Nelles / Photo for ChicagoTalks.org)

Park National’s community philanthropy made it unique in the banking world, and many in the area worry about whether U.S. Bank will perform those same community functions. That’s one question Beth Harvey, owner of Harvey House Bed & Breakfast in Oak Park, says she already knows the answer to.

Yet when Harvey recently asked U.S. Bank for a loan, “I was turned down,” she said. “They offered me a credit card.”

Praise on Saturday ran high for River Forest resident Kelly, who was known for lending to customers in Austin and West Garfield Park. After the 2007 closing of Austin High School, Kelly 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.

The bank was known for giving zero-percent loans to neighborhood organizations and schools and giving money to community organizations through grants, as well as doing things like cleaning up houses that had been subject to foreclosure.

To ensure that U.S. Bank treats the community the same way, the coalition is trying to negotiate a Community Benefit Agreement with the bank, said Quiwana Reed-Bell, community development director at the Westside Health Authority.

The coalition has several requests for the bank: to honor commitments made by Park National, ensure local hiring and fair lending practices, ensure that foreclosures are not done on a whim and provide grants and funding support, with a community advisory committee directing where monies should go.

Rev. Marshall Hatch speaks to a crowd of about 100 residents Saturday about the October seizure of Park National Bank by federal regulators. (Andrew A. Nelles / Photo for ChicagoTalks.org)

“They’re gonna have a set of standards to live by,” said Reed-Bell. “We’re moving forward with specific expectations.”

“It’s going on three-and-a-half months and we’ve increased in size as well as militancy,’ Redmond said.

The coalition is calling on the bank regulator’s inspector general to investigate the actions against Park National by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates and supervises all national banks.

Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), assistant majority leader of the Illinois Senate, said he wants the appropriate committee to continue an investigation of the seizure.

“This is not done yet,” Harmon said.

Meanwhile, Hatch and the coalition’s “rag-tag band of disciples” are holding two events. The debut of “Too Good To Fail,” a documentary about their trip to Washington, D.C., will play at 7 p.m. March 25 at the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, 4301 W. Washington Blvd. in Chicago. A demonstration at the FDIC and U.S. Bank will be held at 9 a.m. March 31, beginning at the Westside Health Authority, 4800 W. Chicago Ave. in Chicago.

“We lost a lot, and we’re not going to take it sitting down,” said Hatch.

Nicholas Myers contributed to this report.

With so many cases on her docket, a visitor to her courtroom may wonder: Does going through cases this fast even make a dent? “We’re going to wipe out domestic violence,” Walowski explains with a smirk. She is only half joking.

Born in Poland, Walowski came to Chicago at the age of 8. While growing up in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, a freak first-hand run-in with the justice system inspired the young Walowski to pursue the law as a career.

Walowski, then in the eighth grade, was witness to a fatal shooting near the corner of 51^st Street and Ashland Avenue, not far from her childhood home. Walowski testified against her neighbor’s killer and promised herself a career as a prosecuting attorney.

“I think that was when I first realized I wanted to be involved in law somehow,” said Walowski, now 41. “It all just seemed so interesting to me.”

Walowski attended Maria High School on Chicago’s South Side. She was awarded several college scholarships and graduated in only three years from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Walowski then attended IIT’s Kent College of Law and after graduating spent the next 15 years as an Illinois state prosecutor. After nearly two decades of “putting away the bad guys,” Walowski began to consider becoming a judge.

“I eventually decided I wanted to be a judge because I got tired of just putting criminals away,” said Walowski. “I like trying to resolve issues between both sides and coming to a resolution that is fair.”

In 2008, Walowski ran in the 10^th subcircuit and won her first six-year term as a judge. Following a brief stint judging traffic court, Walowski came to Cook County’s Domestic Violence Court, where she has been ever since.

Walowski’s days now consist of a seemingly unending onslaught of case after case. Working in the domestic abuse court means that Walowski often must oversee cases that may seem suspicious to the average person. These, Walowski insists, are among the most frustrating cases in her workload.

“Sometimes I’ll have a situation where a person who has clearly been the victim of abuse will go ahead and drop the charges anyway,” said Walowski. “Those are the cases that can really frustrate you because if the evidence is not there, we have to throw it out and move on.”

Luckily, if the evidence in a case is overwhelming one way or the other, the state can choose to continue to pursue the case even though the accuser does not wish to proceed.

As a prosecutor, Walowski has seen many defendants and witnesses turn their lives around, steering violent gang members away from crime and into college and productive careers.

“They keep in touch with me, and it’s really nice to hear from them,” said Walowski. “That’s the kind of thing that gives me the determination to keep going.”

Walowski now lives in the Lincoln Square area with her 4-month-old son.

Dealing with such unsavory topics as domestic abuse and child endangerment on a daily basis can undoubtedly take its toll. For Walowski, however, it is made bearable by keeping in mind al the good she is doing.

“I see a lot of really negative things, but I see so many positives as well,” said Walowski. “I just hope I am able to help by listening to both sides.”

House Bill 4647, which passed the House 112-1 last month and is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate, would force Chicago Public Schools to start a hotline to collect anonymous tips from people who might otherwise fear reporting crimes to the police. The hotline would be run by the Chicago Police Department, which would investigate each call.

Rep. Chapin Rose (R-Charleston), the only representative to vote against the bill, said this is just another unnecessary expense the state can’t afford.

“We already have this program. It is called 911 and Crime Stoppers,” Rose said. “The state of Illinois is broke. We don’t have enough money to pay our teachers. Our school districts are broke and waiting on back payments. We don’t need this. If there is an immediate threat to someone’s life, we should be dialing 911, not some 1-800 number.”

Davis disagreed. She said students will not call 911; they will not seek out a police officer because they are afraid of the repercussions of being a “snitch.”

“There must be a way for students to call and anonymously report any incidents of violence that they have heard about,” Davis said. “We need to have a way for our children to reach out and report violence without being afraid for their safety.”

Nineteen CPS students have been killed this year, 15 by gunshot, said CPS spokesman Bob Otter.

Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Services, said there is no guarantee that a hotline will work, but said it will be largely dependent on how well the hotline is promoted.

“School hotlines are just another piece of the puzzle. They are an extra tool for school officials and law enforcement,” Trump said.

If passed, Illinois will join 10 other states that have similar violence prevention hotlines within their cities, including Florida, Michigan and Georgia. Rochelle Finzel, program manager at the National Conference of State Legislators, said besides Colorado, there is no state that has passed legislation on a statewide hotline.

Illinois, along with most states, doesn’t necessarily need a hotline, said Elena Calafell, executive director of Illinois Center for Violence Prevention. Instead, the state needs to implement a comprehensive plan that involves all entities working together to curb violence, she said.

“The statistics are clear: Youth do not turn to adults, instead they turn to their peers,” she said. “Having a mechanism or vehicle for the students to report violence anonymously is a great idea, but it is a very small part of the puzzle and one that I don’t think will be utilized a great deal.”

Some supports say an anonymous tip line would help get around a community “code of silence” that often stifles law enforcement efforts.

“There is a fear that young men and women have and they won’t break the code of silence, even if it’s anonymous,” Tio Hardiman, director of Ceasefire Illinois said. “They are always afraid someone is going to find out that they snitched. We have to change those mindsets before these programs will work.”

Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago) didn’t agree. She said if there was concern, the bill wouldn’t have overwhelmingly passed.

“If this is something that the Chicago Police Department and Chicago Public Schools, among other entities, don’t agree with, it would be a surprise to me,” she said. “I would have thought they would have made their concern known to someone. Obviously they didn’t. The vote was 112-1.”

The Chicago Police Department and Chicago Public Schools declined repeated requests for comment.

Trump said ensuring students’ safety needs to become a priority again.

“We have to put our money where our mouth is,” he said. “It is one thing to say that school safety and violence prevention is the top priority, but that has to be reflected in the budget, otherwise it is more rhetoric than priority.”

Ron Holmes, a spokesman for Sen. Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), a co-sponsor for the bill in the Senate, said there has been a lot of support for the bill, and they expect it to see it on the calendar this week.

Kelsey.Duckett@loop.colum.edu

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.”

Listen to the Story Here

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.