Illinois notes

[kphoger]

I always used to wonder about those gates.  That used to be along a regular bus route of mine:  it was part of the former routing of what was then Pace #747 and is now Pace #301.  I can confirm that the gates were usually closed whenever I would see them, and my trips were inbound on Friday evenings–which is exactly the timeframe ChiMilNet mentioned.

[edwaleni]

That is what I keep hearing . For capital and higher ed. WIU is broke. Chair of trustees resigned for violating open meetings act for covering it up. Downstate complaints but it has to use Illinois terminology has no clout. Why I mention that old road wish list.

SIU-Edwardsville is propping up SIU-Carbondale right now. It used to be the other way around.

So many rural school districts in Illinois are either in arrears or barely treading water, several have merged or are co-op on extracurricular activities.  With football playoffs going on right now, many schools that were eligible have been asking for donations to cover the transportation costs.

One rural district finally threw in the towel when they reached $1 million in arrears, all of it due to delayed reimbursements from the state coffers. 

Not sure about you, but when someone collects your taxes and gives little or nothing back, that has the hallmarks of tyranny.

A few lawmakers say that this is a good thing as they think Illinois has too many taxing entities the state has to work with and that by starving them, it is forcing them to consolidate.

One thing the legislature wants to get rid of is township highway departments in the Illinois counties.  They believe that they duplicate county highway departments now and are obsolete.

I have read about various townships saying they are going to defer their usual tar and chip road work due to lack of funds. Most of these township departments employ 3 maybe 4 people each, but the overhead to process their functions are becoming cumbersome.

Township government structure made sense in the horse and buggy days, but it is being questioned in the here and now.

[3467]

You are right. It's amazing how the townships keep surviving.  Downstaters particularly the rural ones have been fed over and over again that Chicago is somehow taking from them when it is the total reverse. The political shifts look titanic and permanent so rural Illinois may be in for a rude awakening.

[Brandon]

That is what I keep hearing . For capital and higher ed. WIU is broke. Chair of trustees resigned for violating open meetings act for covering it up. Downstate complaints but it has to use Illinois terminology has no clout. Why I mention that old road wish list.

SIU-Edwardsville is propping up SIU-Carbondale right now. It used to be the other way around.

So many rural school districts in Illinois are either in arrears or barely treading water, several have merged or are co-op on extracurricular activities.  With football playoffs going on right now, many schools that were eligible have been asking for donations to cover the transportation costs.

One rural district finally threw in the towel when they reached $1 million in arrears, all of it due to delayed reimbursements from the state coffers. 

Not sure about you, but when someone collects your taxes and gives little or nothing back, that has the hallmarks of tyranny.

A few lawmakers say that this is a good thing as they think Illinois has too many taxing entities the state has to work with and that by starving them, it is forcing them to consolidate.

One thing the legislature wants to get rid of is township highway departments in the Illinois counties.  They believe that they duplicate county highway departments now and are obsolete.

I have read about various townships saying they are going to defer their usual tar and chip road work due to lack of funds. Most of these township departments employ 3 maybe 4 people each, but the overhead to process their functions are becoming cumbersome.

Township government structure made sense in the horse and buggy days, but it is being questioned in the here and now.

The schools districts need some serious consolidation in this state.  I'll use my area as an example.

The Joliet area has seven, yes, seven school districts.  Six K-8 districts and one high school district that all six feed into.  You have the following:
Joliet Public Schools, #86
4 Junior High Schools
16 Elementary Schools (2 of which are elite academies)
And 2 other schools (early childhood & alternate)

Troy Community Consolidated #30C
1 Middle School
1 Intermediate School
5 Elementary Schools

Rockdale #84
1 School, K-8

Union #81
1 School, K-8

Laraway Community Consolidated #70C
1 School, K-8

Elwood Community Consolidated #203
1 School, K-8

Joliet Township High Schools #204
2 High Schools

Why do we, in a relatively urban area, have four flipping one-school school districts!?!

As for the townships, all unincorporated land should be forced into a municipality instead of being allowed to be an unincorporated island.

[3467]

I could name pages of downstate districts but the rural folks have blocked it for ages because they fear dangerous urban areas like Galesburg or Jacksonville or Macomb or Monmouth. This should be snark but it isnt.

[3467]

The rural areas need to bring their kids the few there are to central pickup spots like the urban areas. The waste there is just stunning thought I would bring in another transport issue.

[kphoger]

I could name pages of downstate districts but the rural folks have blocked it for ages because they fear dangerous urban areas like Galesburg or Jacksonville or Macomb or Monmouth. This should be snark but it isnt.

Maybe the most egregious one I'm aware of is Akin USD.  Why it hasn't merged with Thompsonville USD is beyond me.

[3467]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

[kphoger]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

We did in the What Do Locals Call Your Part Of The State??? thread.  Pertinent portion highlighted below.

Similarly, people in Chicago seem to think Champaign is in southern Illinois.

The term is "downstate," which also roughly applies to areas west of the Fox river, as well as south of I-80.

The area I live in is being marketed as the Chicago Southland, which includes the suburbs from Burbank south and from Homer Glen east, and complete excludes anything in Indiana.  However, I've lived here my entire life, and I've never heard anyone call this area the Chicago Southland.

Really, though, people from Chicagoland only recognize two areas in Illinois:  Chicagoland and Downstate.  ANYTHING that isn't Chicagoland is considered Downstate and vice versa.

My brother lives in a region of North Carolina that includes Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen, etc.  From what little I've seen, they seem to refer to the area as the Sand Hills.

[tribar]

That is what I keep hearing . For capital and higher ed. WIU is broke. Chair of trustees resigned for violating open meetings act for covering it up. Downstate complaints but it has to use Illinois terminology has no clout. Why I mention that old road wish list.

SIU-Edwardsville is propping up SIU-Carbondale right now. It used to be the other way around.

So many rural school districts in Illinois are either in arrears or barely treading water, several have merged or are co-op on extracurricular activities.  With football playoffs going on right now, many schools that were eligible have been asking for donations to cover the transportation costs.

One rural district finally threw in the towel when they reached $1 million in arrears, all of it due to delayed reimbursements from the state coffers. 

Not sure about you, but when someone collects your taxes and gives little or nothing back, that has the hallmarks of tyranny.

A few lawmakers say that this is a good thing as they think Illinois has too many taxing entities the state has to work with and that by starving them, it is forcing them to consolidate.

One thing the legislature wants to get rid of is township highway departments in the Illinois counties.  They believe that they duplicate county highway departments now and are obsolete.

I have read about various townships saying they are going to defer their usual tar and chip road work due to lack of funds. Most of these township departments employ 3 maybe 4 people each, but the overhead to process their functions are becoming cumbersome.

Township government structure made sense in the horse and buggy days, but it is being questioned in the here and now.

The schools districts need some serious consolidation in this state.  I'll use my area as an example.

The Joliet area has seven, yes, seven school districts.  Six K-8 districts and one high school district that all six feed into.  You have the following:
Joliet Public Schools, #86
4 Junior High Schools
16 Elementary Schools (2 of which are elite academies)
And 2 other schools (early childhood & alternate)

Troy Community Consolidated #30C
1 Middle School
1 Intermediate School
5 Elementary Schools

Rockdale #84
1 School, K-8

Union #81
1 School, K-8

Laraway Community Consolidated #70C
1 School, K-8

Elwood Community Consolidated #203
1 School, K-8

Joliet Township High Schools #204
2 High Schools

Why do we, in a relatively urban area, have four flipping one-school school districts!?!

As for the townships, all unincorporated land should be forced into a municipality instead of being allowed to be an unincorporated island.

They had a special on the news the other night about this Union #81. The superintendent makes $200,000 a year and believes he has earned every penny of it.

[Rick Powell]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

I do think the line between Sandwich and Plano is accurate, although CMAP has started to get into Sandwich's affairs even though it is mostly located in rural DeKalb County.
When I was at IDOT, Plano was all for encouraging additional development and helped propel an add-lanes project on US 34 that will soon be part of a continuous multi-lane route between there and the city. Many large residential developments such as Lakewood Springs have popped up and thrived there. On the other hand, Sandwich had a similar expansion study done on US 34, and after a few years of study, the townspeople and city government decided they didn't want it and wanted Sandwich to remain the small-town rural outpost that it remains today. Two towns adjacent to each other, but so different.

[abefroman329]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

It's my personal belief that the border is I-80 and that Rockford and DeKalb are not "downstate."

[kphoger]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

I do think the line between Sandwich and Plano is accurate

Having been in a relationship with someone who grew up in Sandwich and spent half her time in Plano, I think it's silly to draw the line between them.  Besides which, I don't see how Joliet could be called "downstate".

[edwaleni]

That is what I keep hearing . For capital and higher ed. WIU is broke. Chair of trustees resigned for violating open meetings act for covering it up. Downstate complaints but it has to use Illinois terminology has no clout. Why I mention that old road wish list.

SIU-Edwardsville is propping up SIU-Carbondale right now. It used to be the other way around.

So many rural school districts in Illinois are either in arrears or barely treading water, several have merged or are co-op on extracurricular activities.  With football playoffs going on right now, many schools that were eligible have been asking for donations to cover the transportation costs.

One rural district finally threw in the towel when they reached $1 million in arrears, all of it due to delayed reimbursements from the state coffers. 

Not sure about you, but when someone collects your taxes and gives little or nothing back, that has the hallmarks of tyranny.

A few lawmakers say that this is a good thing as they think Illinois has too many taxing entities the state has to work with and that by starving them, it is forcing them to consolidate.

One thing the legislature wants to get rid of is township highway departments in the Illinois counties.  They believe that they duplicate county highway departments now and are obsolete.

I have read about various townships saying they are going to defer their usual tar and chip road work due to lack of funds. Most of these township departments employ 3 maybe 4 people each, but the overhead to process their functions are becoming cumbersome.

Township government structure made sense in the horse and buggy days, but it is being questioned in the here and now.

The schools districts need some serious consolidation in this state.  I'll use my area as an example.

The Joliet area has seven, yes, seven school districts.  Six K-8 districts and one high school district that all six feed into.  You have the following:
Joliet Public Schools, #86
4 Junior High Schools
16 Elementary Schools (2 of which are elite academies)
And 2 other schools (early childhood & alternate)

Troy Community Consolidated #30C
1 Middle School
1 Intermediate School
5 Elementary Schools

Rockdale #84
1 School, K-8

Union #81
1 School, K-8

Laraway Community Consolidated #70C
1 School, K-8

Elwood Community Consolidated #203
1 School, K-8

Joliet Township High Schools #204
2 High Schools

Why do we, in a relatively urban area, have four flipping one-school school districts!?!

As for the townships, all unincorporated land should be forced into a municipality instead of being allowed to be an unincorporated island.

They had a special on the news the other night about this Union #81. The superintendent makes $200,000 a year and believes he has earned every penny of it.

Perfect example of rural school districts hanging around into the modern era.  Illinois wants many of these to consolidate into more comprehensive regional districts that encompass K-12.

Since the 1970's, the Chicago Tribune has covered tons of stories of "micro" 1 house school districts holding up larger actions.

Most politicos and media are hung up on reporting contracts and teacher salaries.  They need to focus on district duplication.

This could free up a lot of dough for other state needs.

[ET21]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

Mine was anything south of I-80 before I took my met courses and had to be specific with discussing regions. I switched to using central and southern Illinois as general areas when discussing forecasts for the state.

[mgk920]

That is what I keep hearing . For capital and higher ed. WIU is broke. Chair of trustees resigned for violating open meetings act for covering it up. Downstate complaints but it has to use Illinois terminology has no clout. Why I mention that old road wish list.

SIU-Edwardsville is propping up SIU-Carbondale right now. It used to be the other way around.

So many rural school districts in Illinois are either in arrears or barely treading water, several have merged or are co-op on extracurricular activities.  With football playoffs going on right now, many schools that were eligible have been asking for donations to cover the transportation costs.

One rural district finally threw in the towel when they reached $1 million in arrears, all of it due to delayed reimbursements from the state coffers. 

Not sure about you, but when someone collects your taxes and gives little or nothing back, that has the hallmarks of tyranny.

A few lawmakers say that this is a good thing as they think Illinois has too many taxing entities the state has to work with and that by starving them, it is forcing them to consolidate.

One thing the legislature wants to get rid of is township highway departments in the Illinois counties.  They believe that they duplicate county highway departments now and are obsolete.

I have read about various townships saying they are going to defer their usual tar and chip road work due to lack of funds. Most of these township departments employ 3 maybe 4 people each, but the overhead to process their functions are becoming cumbersome.

Township government structure made sense in the horse and buggy days, but it is being questioned in the here and now.

The schools districts need some serious consolidation in this state.  I'll use my area as an example.

The Joliet area has seven, yes, seven school districts.  Six K-8 districts and one high school district that all six feed into.  You have the following:
Joliet Public Schools, #86
4 Junior High Schools
16 Elementary Schools (2 of which are elite academies)
And 2 other schools (early childhood & alternate)

Troy Community Consolidated #30C
1 Middle School
1 Intermediate School
5 Elementary Schools

Rockdale #84
1 School, K-8

Union #81
1 School, K-8

Laraway Community Consolidated #70C
1 School, K-8

Elwood Community Consolidated #203
1 School, K-8

Joliet Township High Schools #204
2 High Schools

Why do we, in a relatively urban area, have four flipping one-school school districts!?!

As for the townships, all unincorporated land should be forced into a municipality instead of being allowed to be an unincorporated island.

Just like is badly needed here in Wisconsin, I would force-merge ALL of the state's townships with their respective county boards and rationalize all of the state's metro areas, including Chicagoland, seriously cutting down on the number of units of local government with taxing authority.  Bourbonnais/Bradley/Kankakee?  One city.  Quad Cities area?  One city.  Bloomington/Normal?  One city.  Cook/Du Page/Will County suburbs?  City of Chicago.  Rockford area?  One city.  Champaign/Urbana?  One city.  Saint Louis suburbs?  One city.  Eastern Lake County?  One city.  Etc.

Mike

[3467]

It's really an opinion. I didn't know about the broader discussion . I am really pleased to see Rick Powells always informative comments. He was giving some data to my feel. I had not taken highway 34 in more than a decade and back then my feel was more Yorkville.  My feel used to be right around Ottawa on 80 and DeKalb of even Dixon on the tollway. The Tollway just has a Chicago feel to it. Objectively the satellite maps like thy he NYT and EU building maps can really dileneate an area along with nighttime lights. Also the term Chicagoland was created by the Tribune to cover is Midwest circulation area. If we used that Chicagoland is shrinking.

[3467]

I agree with Mike. We also need regional economic development. Illinois will in some way he involved in Foxconn.  These efforts need to be coordinated. Maybe it will be easier with some of the new Governors. 

[Revive 755]

Cook/Du Page/Will County suburbs?  City of Chicago.

Absolutely not.  I do not want to put up with the wonderful Chicago policies - such as all of the speed cameras and leased parking meters - in more of the region.  If anything the county lines ought to be redrawn so either Chicago is in a county by itself, or more of the suburbs near the county lines are moved to the neighboring counties.

Saint Louis suburbs?  One city.  Eastern Lake County?  One city.

Strongly disagree on this one.  While many of the inner suburbs need to be consolidate (particularly on that part of I-170 where it seems there is a new city limit sign every hundred feet), St. Louis County is big enough it warrants more than one city.

[silverback1065]

i'm not a fan of consolidation, it's the worst thing indianapolis ever did. 

[mgk920]

Cook/Du Page/Will County suburbs?  City of Chicago.

Absolutely not.  I do not want to put up with the wonderful Chicago policies - such as all of the speed cameras and leased parking meters - in more of the region.  If anything the county lines ought to be redrawn so either Chicago is in a county by itself, or more of the suburbs near the county lines are moved to the neighboring counties.

The former suburbs would control the mayor's office and city council.

Saint Louis suburbs?  One city.  Eastern Lake County?  One city.

Strongly disagree on this one.  While many of the inner suburbs need to be consolidate (particularly on that part of I-170 where it seems there is a new city limit sign every hundred feet), St. Louis County is big enough it warrants more than one city.

I was referring to the Illinois suburbs.  OTOH, in Missouri, I would merge the City of Saint Louis with all of Saint Louis County.  Especially get rid of all of those micro-suburbs.

Mike

[SSOWorld]

Hey, St Louis is a crap city crime-wise, why make it worse?🙃

[ET21]

Cook/Du Page/Will County suburbs?  City of Chicago.

Absolutely not.  I do not want to put up with the wonderful Chicago policies - such as all of the speed cameras and leased parking meters - in more of the region.  If anything the county lines ought to be redrawn so either Chicago is in a county by itself, or more of the suburbs near the county lines are moved to the neighboring counties.

The former suburbs would control the mayor's office and city council.

No

[Rick Powell]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

It's my personal belief that the border is I-80 and that Rockford and DeKalb are not "downstate."

There are several parts of IL just south of I-80 that are definitely in Chicagoland. All of south Cook County, some of Will County (Frankfort, University Park, New Lenox, Mokena, south Joliet), and I'd argue Minooka and Morris in Grundy.

[SEWIGuy]

Have we ever debated the downstate boarder? Believe it not we had that discussion back in college. We agreed Rockford and Ottawa and DeKalb were. Now I am not as sure. I did find one sharp line take US 34 and cross between Sandwich and Plano.

It's my personal belief that the border is I-80 and that Rockford and DeKalb are not "downstate."

There are several parts of IL just south of I-80 that are definitely in Chicagoland. All of south Cook County, some of Will County (Frankfort, University Park, New Lenox, Mokena, south Joliet), and I'd argue Minooka and Morris in Grundy.

And there are definitely parts of Illinois north of I-80 that feel much more "downstate" even if they aren't geographically downstate.