Friday, May 18, 2012
Life as we know it may be disrupted a bit while the eyes of the world are on Chicago for three days.
For the first time the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will conduct a summit in an American city other than Washington, D.C. In addition to global leaders, more than 2,000 journalists and countless demonstrators and activists are expected to inundate the Chicago area. Some protests have already begun. Security measures are in place for the days before the summit and the actual meeting days, Sunday, May 20 and Monday, May 21, when more than 60 heads of state and government will come together to discuss security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. Although you are not a NATO delegate, some of the plans may affect your life during this time. Here is a rundown of the security plans as they now stand. Check websites listed …
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Evanston Congresswoman calls Dold’s recent proposal on women’s health a political ploy. He accuses her of partisanship.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) accused Rep. Robert Dold (R-Kenilworth) Tuesday of introducing legislation merely to cast himself as a political moderate, while Dold replied Schakowsky is unwilling to act in a bipartisan fashion. Schakowsky made her remarks during a telephone news conference Tuesday with Deerfield management consultant Brad Schneider, Dold’s Democratic opponent in the Nov. 6 general election, to explain why Dold’s record on women’s issues is unsatisfactory. Earlier: Dold Proposal Would Help Women’s Health Schakowsky was particularly critical of a bill Dold introduced last week prohibiting discrimination against health care providers participating in certain government programs from excluding services like contraception …
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Contractor says he ran out of money.
A Deerfield builder was accused of consumer fraud in a civil lawsuit filed Monday by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez for “bilking a senior citizen couple,” according to a news release from the State’s Attorney’s Office. Upscale Design Corporation, Value Built Construction, with offices in Deerfield and Lincolnwood, and their owner, George Zachery of Deerfield, were sued for agreeing to demolish a Chicago south side roof for an elderly couple, beginning the job and failing to complete it. “I started the job but I ran out of money,” Zachery told Patch Monday. His discussion with Patch was the first he knew of the pending litigation. “I did not commit fraud. The state’s attorney wanted me to make restitution. I wanted to work …
Monday, May 14, 2012
Voice your opinion in the latest Patch Poll. Could the closed theaters at the rear of the Deerbrook Mall become an art center?
If the embryonic plans to redevelop the Deerbrook Mall come to fruition, the four theaters which have been closed for years will be demolished. Could there be a different plan for those structures? When the ownership of the former Multiplex was no longer able to operate the facility that was the pre Berto Center training facility of the Chicago Bulls, it became the Sachs Recreation Center operated by the Deerfield Park District. Could some form of public-private partnership be possible to turn those theaters into an art center? When Patch first wrote about the plans of people affiliated with the shopping center’s redevelopment last month, reader Tony Horwitz raised the possibility. “(We could have) small to medium live music/local theater/…
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Readers have no lack of opinion about how to develop the property.
Patch’s two most popular stories this week were about the efforts of the group trying to redevelop the Deerbrook Mall and the Village to breathe new life into the more than 40-year old shopping center. After the Village Board of Trustees unanimously approved hiring a financial advisor at its Monday meeting to help with a potential sales tax rebate program, Patch was able to talk to people affiliated with the redevelopment effort. A few readers chimed in on the Village’s efforts when the story was published Tuesday, but a lot of readers offered their thoughts Wednesday when Patch reported which stores would be moving where and which might be changing locations. The idea of T.J. Maxx becoming more prominent was criticized by a number of …
President Barack Obama said that he supported gay marriage this week, while Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Gay marriage came to the forefront of the 2012 presidential campaign this week. President Barack Obama said on ABC's Good Morning America that he personally supported gay marriage. "You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently," Obama said in the interview with ABC. Obama's support for gay marriage came one day after North Carolina passed an amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, the Huffington Post Reported. Republican …
Friday, May 11, 2012
Village may argue about language, but mayor and trustees all agree it must be paid.
Though some Village Board members debated semantics over the meaning of taxes and fees, the trustees unanimously agreed to charge .05 percent of all development and demolition in the Village to help defray the cost of potential damage done to Deerfield’s infrastructure. “The money (from the fee) will go into infrastructure improvements,” Andrew Lichterman said. “This is an exercise of the Village’s taxing authority. It is a tax on those conducting construction in the Village.” Lichterman, who helped develop the proposal, is an assistant to Village Manager Kent Street. Earlier: Village Moves to Boost Deerbrook Trustee Barbara Struthers made it clear the damage done by 80,000-pound tractor trailer trucks is extensive giving the same wear …
Chicago is the Number One city in the country in terms of heroin traffic.
Heroin deaths have been at an all time high in Lake County in recent years. They are so high, that some experts consider the area to have a heroin epidemic. “You have a significant heroin problem here in Lake County,” said Kane County Undersheriff Dave Wagner, a regional expert and speaker on drug prevention at Parents You Matter, a workshop held recently at Lake Zurich High School. Wagner said heroin deaths in Lake County are out of control. Wagner said that, when it comes to heroin, Chicago is not the second city – it is the first, the worst. “Chicago is a major hub for heroin that comes from southeast Asia and South America,” he said. Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran said he finds the heroin problem in Lake County frightening, in an …
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Northbrook has received at least a dozen inquiries from developers interested in buying the foreclosed 14-acre site at the northwest corner of Skokie Boulevard and Dundee Road.
A buyer could emerge this summer for a 14-acre foreclosed property at the Dundee Road and Skokie Boulevard, once planned as the site of a mixed-use development whose partners were charged with federal mortgage fraud. At least 12 developers have contacted the village about the property in the past few months, according to Tom Poupard, director of development and planning services. “We actually decided we were getting so many calls that we put something on the [village] web site just to try and give everybody the same information,” Poupard said. The site fell into foreclosure in 2008 when developers couldn’t come up with the money for debts on a planned 517,000-square-foot mixed-use development called the Center of the North Shore. Last …
Chicagoland news to talk about: Some North shore suburbs top list of most fashionable towns in America.
A report released last week by the Illinois Policy Institute includes findings that seem to support Gov. Pat Quinn's suggestions that schools should be responsible for funding teacher pensions. As part of a larger effort to ease the state's already overextended budget, Quinn has been targeting state payouts to Illinois schools to cover teacher pensions, proposing initiatives that would cut costs and delay retirement or pass the bill along to schools. A recent study by the Illinois Policy Institute supports the latter measure. "State education dollars will continue to work at cross-purposes until the state stops paying the employer's share of the normal cost of teachers' pensions," the report concludes. Analysis found that in 2011, the …
Richard Schulte
5:21 pm on Saturday, May 19, 2012
Let me guess, Sandra Sims doesn't agree with me, so my posts become diatribes. Sandra Sims, RB and others want to be able to post anything they want to without being challenged. Sorry Ms. Sims, that's not how this country is supposed to work. We had to listen to your incessant caterwauling for 8 years while President Bush was in office, now you get to see how it sounds. I realize that Crook … more ›