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The city has been working on tearing down and rebuilding homes in the northeast Champaign neighborhood since outlining its goals in 2007. Unanimously backed by the Champaign City Council Tuesday, the plan initiates an agreement with suburban-Chicago based AHDVS, a minority-owned contractor. But city council members stipulated that hiring local minorities was key to the plan's continued backing.
The 100th Illinois General Assembly is being sworn in on Wednesday, taking over efforts to resolve the state's 18-month-old financial crisis. The key players in the battle over the state's budget stalemate remain the same: the conservative businessman-turned-governor Bruce Rauner and Michael Madigan, the old-school Democratic House speaker whose decades at the helm has made him a Capitol institution.
On the 21st: We talked with Illinois political reporters Matt Dietrich and Brian Mackey about what the Illinois General Assembly has been voting on this week. Plus, we discussed new guidelines for preventing peanut allergies with early exposure.
Champaign County voters will get a chance to say whether they want to raise their property tax rates to help the financially strapped county nursing home, or allow the county board to sell or otherwise dispose of the facility.
Champaign County Board members approved both questions for the April 4 ballot, during a more than four-hour special meeting on Tuesday night.
Champaign's finance director says finances have improved as he prepared to step down from the job he's held for 31 years. Richard Schnuer touts the city's AAA bond rating from two agencies, as well as investments in infrastructure and downtown development the past few years. "We just don't throw money at developers without knowing the outcome," he says.
