No governor ever gets everything he wants in a budget. But this year's budget agreement reflects what appears to be the greatest expansion of legislative power in decades. Governor Rod Blagojevich had to give up a lot during the two-month overtime session, and he didn't get much in return.
It is expected that Hargreaves Associates' "RiverVision Final Report 2004," which is a collaborative plan for the Mississippi riverfronts of Rock Island and Davenport, will be considered for approval by Rock Island's city council on August 9, and Davenport's council on August 18.
It's been an opportunist playground," a top Republican Party official sighed last week. Every time somebody floats his or her own name for the vacant slot for Republican U.S. Senate candidate and then "withdraws," the media paints it as yet another disaster for the state party, the clearly annoyed official complained.
So Barb Caffrey wants to write for the River Cities' Reader. (See "Keep This Man from Writing Again," River Cities' Reader Issue 486, July 21-27, 2004.) I guess it's the recruiter in me that imagines what that job interview would be like ... "Well, Todd and Kathleen, you should hire me because Jeff Ignatius is incompetent, and the article on rental-property inspections was deplorable and horrible.
I never thought Mike Ditka would actually run for the United States Senate. But I really, really wanted him to. Hey, I know he might not have been a great senator. He's too obnoxious, too impatient, too "either do it my way or I'll grab you by the shirt and shake you up good" for such a deliberative body.
Every year, weather permitting, the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival is held in downtown Davenport's LeClaire Park. The setting is one-of-a-kind, a picturesque complement to our notable location - the only place where the Mississippi River runs east and west.
"Fixing Problem Properties" (written by Jeff Ignatius) is one of the worst cover stories I can remember in the Reader. (See Issue 485, July 14-20, 2004.) The title alone suggests that it would deal with bad-looking properties, perhaps tenant problems, or even a well-balanced approach to the issue of landlords who appear to be blowing off their properties and not fixing them.
The scandal of the year is not about Jack Ryan's sex life. It's about an obscure little state board that appears to have gotten completely out of hand. You've probably never heard of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, at least until recently.
Slowly but surely, the state legislature is being replaced by five guys in a back room. It's old news that the four legislative leaders and the governor have totally hijacked the budget process. For years now, the governor, the House speaker, the Senate president, and the House and Senate minority leaders have met behind closed doors to hammer out the state's spending plans.
It wasn't about the sex. You might think Jack Ryan was forced out of the U.S. Senate race because the media found out that his ex-wife alleged that he had dragged her to kinky sex clubs on two continents.

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