BLUE ISLAND
School will spend week honoring armed forces
Eisenhower High School hopes to instill a sense of patriotism in students this month with a week of activities dedicated to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as veterans in the community.
Next week, Patriotic Spirit Week, every morning will begin with a student reading over the intercom about military events that have had an impact on the U.S. A school band will play the anthem for the various military branches, and the school’s local cable station, IKE Updates, will run programs on military and historical events.
Each day will focus on a different branch of the military — Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force — and Friday will be “All American Day,” focusing on veterans, MIAs, POWs and reservists.
Gladys Marquez, a bilingual teacher at Eisenhower who came up with the idea for the special week, said she had noticed that “many times our students don’t have an appreciation of how important our servicemen really are and how many servicemen are in our community.”
She added, “They need to understand why it is important to come together as a country.”
Janice Neumann
PALOS HEIGHTS
Remote voting OKd for council meetings
The mayor and aldermen can cast votes electronically, under certain conditions, if they cannot attend a City Council meeting, according to a new city ordinance.
The ordinance, approved by the council this week, stipulates that aldermen and the mayor can cast an electronic vote as long as the individual cannot attend the meeting due to demands from his or her regular job, city business or a family or other emergency and notifies the clerk 72 hours in advance.
The official can use a telephone, video or Internet connection to cast the vote as long as other officials at the council meeting can access the vote with equipment on their end.
Also, there must be a quorum of physically present council members before an electronic vote can be counted.
“If somebody is out of town on business and there’s some kind of important vote coming up, he’d be allowed to vote by speaker phone,” Ald. Art Phillips said.
The state amended the Open Meetings Act on Jan. 1 to change the definition of “meeting” so elected officials can vote electronically. However, the city needed to adopt a local ordinance.
Janice Neumann
