By Steve Rhodes

“Under Metra’s plan for annual fare hikes over the next 10 years, a portion of the additional revenue will be used to pay for a $2.4 billion modernization program that Metra says is critical for maintaining safe and reliable service. The goal of the program is to rebuild and replace the fleet of locomotives and passenger cars,” the Tribune reports.
“The rest of the initial fare increase will be used primarily to cover a $27.3 million deficit in Metra’s 2015 budget, officials said.
“If approved by Metra’s board Nov. 14, the first fare boost of nearly 11 percent would go into effect Feb. 1.”
Gee, that sounds like a lot. But Metra must have done its homework and fairly concluded such a dramatic plan is also the most sensible one.

Chairman Martin Oberman said a ‘top-to-bottom review’ of Metra’s fare system will be done. The last time a detailed analysis of passenger counts occurred was 2006, he said.
“We should look at it from scratch and make sure it makes sense,” Oberman said.

Yes, you should – before you come up with the plan!
Ten years of annual fare hikes!
During which Metra will study . . . the fare structure!
From top-to-bottom!
Including the 10 years of fare hikes?
Marty Oberman, you are Today’s Worst Person In Chicago.

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Posted on October 16, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican challenger Bruce Rauner sharply clashed Tuesday night over who could better improve the lives of African Americans during a South Side debate focused on education, crime, jobs and taxes,” the Tribune reports.
“Rauner is trying to make gains among black voters who historically cast Democratic ballots in large numbers in Illinois. The idea come Nov. 4 is to get one-fifth of the Chicago vote, an essential element for Republican success statewide.

“Gov. Quinn in my opinion is taking the African American vote for granted,” said Rauner, going so far to say that the Democratic governor “could have and should have” made Stephanie Neely, the black city treasurer of Chicago, his running mate but threw her “off his ticket” in favor of former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas.

Well, why didn’t you put Stephanie Neely on your ticket then?

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Posted on October 15, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

On the same day that Karen Lewis’s campaign apparatus announced that she would not be running for mayor, researchers from the University of Minnesota announced their findings that Chicago’s charter-school experiment was a bust.
The Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, at the University of Minnesota Law School, titled its report “Charter Schools in Chicago: No Model for Education Reform.”
It begins like this:
“Charter schools have become the cornerstone of school reform in Chicago and nationally. Arne Duncan, who led Chicago schools and was a strong proponent of charters, became Secretary of Education. As Secretary, Duncan has championed policies to dramatically expand the use of charters throughout the United States.
“Chicago, however, remains one of the nation’s lowest performing school districts. Sadly, the charter schools, which on average score lower that the Chicago public schools, have not improved the Chicago school system, but perhaps made it even weaker.
“Further, charters, which are even more likely to be single race schools than the already hyper-segregated Chicago school system, have not increased interracial contact, an often-stated goal of charter systems.
“Finally, the fact that Chicago charters use expulsion far more often that public schools deserves further study. In the end it is unlikely that the Chicago charter school experience provides a model for improving urban education in other big-city school districts.”

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Posted on October 14, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“The Emanuel administration quietly issued a new, shorter yellow light standard this spring that generated 77,000 red light camera tickets that would not have been allowed before the rule change, the city inspector general announced Friday,” the Tribune reports.
“The administration defended the $100 tickets – and the nearly $8 million in revenue it will collect from them – as valid. But the city agreed to Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s recommendation to end the new practice of issuing citations with yellow light times below 3 seconds.”
Three seconds happens to be the federal safety guideline. Seems like a good place to draw the line. But no.

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Posted on October 13, 2014

* The Beachwood Radio Hour #27: Endorsements Are Bullshit.
How editorial boards invalidate their own newsrooms. Plus: Debates Are Bullshit; Bruce Rauner Hates Homework; The Guns That Didn’t Smoke; Red-Light Rahm’s Yellow Lights; How To Become A Judge In Chicago; Fight The Power Of The Storyline.
* The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #21: The Bears Have Become Drama Queens.
Mercurial and mysterious. Plus: No One In A Shootout’s Got Swagger Like Kane; No One On Bulls’ Got Swagger Like Dougie McBuckets; Theo Epstein’s Latest Under-The-Radar FAIL.
* The College Football Report: The Nerfing of America Continues.
* The Blue & Orange Kool-Aid Report: Team of Misfit Toys.

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Posted on October 11, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

This column is in production! It will appear either today or tomorrow.

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Posted on October 10, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“A Tribune examination of overturned red light tickets revealed evidence that the city of Chicago has quietly cast a wider net to snare drivers since switching camera vendors earlier this year amid a bribery scandal,” the paper reports.
“A before-and-after analysis of photographic evidence and interviews with experts suggests the transition to a new vendor last spring was accompanied by a subtle but significant lowering of the threshold for yellow light times.
“City hearing officers have noticed the trend and are increasingly tossing tickets because the yellow light time stamped on the citation is less than the 3-second minimum required by the city, the Tribune analysis showed.”

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Posted on October 9, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“The Neighborhood Recovery Initiative has been a political liability for Gov. Pat Quinn since a state audit tore apart the grant program in February, but newly released e-mails show top aides to the governor worried about its potential political cost as far back as 2011,” the Sun-Times reports.
Uh-oh.

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Posted on October 8, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“The most easily disprovable falsehood of this year’s gubernatorial campaign also is one that the mainstream media has not bothered to correct, possibly because the purveyors of the tall tale push back so hard when somebody tries to write the facts,” Capitol Fax impresario Rich Miller writes in his weekly column for Crain’s.
“The Associated Press in April uncritically reported a statement by Republican nominee Bruce Rauner, who ‘criticized Quinn for cutting funding to schools by some $600 million – cuts that led to teacher layoffs and larger class sizes.'”
Miller goes on to show that state education spending has actually increased under Quinn; I recommend you click through to read how that’s happened.

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Posted on October 7, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“In 17 years on the board of the Jesse White Tumblers, attorney Robert Kuzas made some powerful allies in Chicago’s black community,” the Sun-Times reports.
“Now, those friends have helped Kuzas – who is white – secure a Cook County judgeship from a district created two decades ago to help get more African Americans elected to the bench from the West Side.”
Well, that was two decades ago. A lot has changed since then. For example, I’m sure Kuzas is a longtime West Side resident who has done a lot of great work in the area and got his shot at the bench fair and square.
“Kuzas leased an apartment on the downtown edge of the district to run for a vacancy created last November with the sudden retirement of Judge LaQuietta J. Hardy-Campbell, who was one of the subcircuit’s 10 judges, nine of them black. The timing of Hardy-Campbell’s retirement left potential candidates just 19 days to collect the signatures of 1,000 registered voters to get on the March primary ballot.”
Oh.

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Posted on October 6, 2014