Public school construction, renovation and repair in Illinois could get some sorely needed financial help from Uncle Sam if U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.) has her way.
The congresswoman, whose 13th District includes parts of southwest Cook County and northern Will County, has introduced legislation in the U.S. House that would provide interest-free and low-interest federal loans to states and localities to assist them with building new schools, putting additions onto school buildings or renovating school buildings.
Biggert’s bill, called the Building, Renovating, Improving and Constructing Kids’ School Act (BRICKS), would make available $20 billion to pay the interest on school construction bond issues authorized by state and local governments for school construction projects.
Biggert, citing U.S. General Accounting Office figures, noted that schools across the country are in need of $112 billion in repairs. About $11 billion is needed just to get schools in compliance with federal mandates, she added.
“No child should have to try to learn in a dilapidated classroom,” Biggert said. “Even in Illinois, which passed a school construction law in 1997, it’s estimated that schools will still need $7 billion in infrastructure work over the next five years.
“School administrators in my district have made it known that school construction and renovation have failed to keep pace with explosive growth and increased rates of student enrollment,” Biggert added.
A companion bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate by U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
Strange bedfellows: U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) is getting support from an unlikely source for two pieces of legislation he recently sponsored.
Joliet attorney Jim Stevenson, Weller’s Democratic opponent in the coming November general election for the 11th District seat in the southwest suburbs, said he fully supports bills that Weller helped shepherd through the U.S. House calling for the elimination of the earnings cap placed on senior citizens receiving Social Security benefits and the “marriage penalty tax” that working married couples are subjected to when they file their income tax statements jointly.
“Seniors who have worked their entire lives who now want or need to work to maintain a decent standard of living shouldn’t live in fear of earning too much and be taxed to the grave,” Stevenson said.
Meanwhile, the “marriage penalty” in the current tax code has been penalizing working families for too long, Stevenson said, adding that it’s time Congress does something about it instead of continuing to give big business tax breaks.
“Congress needs to put its special-interest pandering aside and give working families the tax break they deserve,” Stevenson said.
Weller probably couldn’t have said it better himself.
Canal diary: They labored under deplorable conditions to dig a 60-foot-wide canal from Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood through what is today the southwest suburbs and out to LaSalle-Peru. They drove the mules that pulled the canal boats loaded with goods. They committed their money to a waterway that would spur the growth of Chicago and open the western half of the continent.
They were the simple pioneers who made the Illinois & Michigan Canal possible, the families who lived and worked in towns along the canal more than 150 years ago. And now their stories, as related and researched by their descendants, are recorded in a new 32-page booklet, complete with historic photos, put together by the Canal Corridor Association, a Chicago-based non-profit organization that seeks to promote the canal’s history and preserve its natural and cultural landscapes.
The booklet, “I&M Canal Pioneers’ Stories,” is available for $6 from the association at 25 E. Washington St., Suite 1650, Chicago, IL 60602.
“One of the exciting aspects of the booklet is that the people depicted in it are not famous people; they’re local, everyday people–the ancestors of our neighbors and co-workers,” said Ron Vasile, an interpretive historian with the association and editor of the publication. “Most of the people mentioned do not appear in any history book.”
Vasile added that to ensure that the stories of the early canal
pioneers remain known for generations to come, all of the information uncovered by the association’s volunteers while doing research for the pamphlet is being housed at Lewis University’s canal and regional history archives in Romeoville.
