* Cook County Veterans Court offers helping hand

Now he meets daily with a social worker and attends classes on drug addiction and behavior modification, all mandated by Cook County Veterans Court, a newly formed court geared to military veterans charged with non-violent crimes, mostly drug offenses.

The court links them with representatives from state and federal veterans affairs departments and social and legal aid agencies who offer many services and help cut through red tape that stymies many veterans.

“There’s no extra cost because what this really does is place people into services that are already out there,” said Circuit Judge John Kirby, who started the court this spring.

* BGA sues Stroger for cell phone records on Tony Cole scandal

Following the Stroger administration’s refusal to comply with repeated requests to release cell phone records pertaining to the Tony Cole fiasco, the Better Government Association has filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court to obtain the records under the state’s Freedom of Information law.

BGA Executive Director Andy Shaw will be available to discuss the lawsuit at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 15, in the west lobby of the Daley Center at Clark and Randolph.

“The cornerstone of good government is transparency,” Shaw says, “because it allows us to see clearly if public officials are adhering to the other key principles - accountability and fairness - or whether they’re being wasteful, inefficient and crooked, in which case we end up paying a ‘corruption tax.’”

* Todd Stroger’s ex-hire sees domestic-violence charges dropped

A Cook County judge dropped domestic-violence charges against an ex-steakhouse busboy in a patronage scandal with County Board President Todd Stroger but allowed a contempt-of-court case to proceed against him. Assistant state’s attorneys said they planned to prosecute Tony Cole for failing to comply with his court-ordered home confinement after his release on bail from Cook County Jail last month.

* Gang member: Teen killed for walking

What mattered to the gang members who had gathered on Birchwood Avenue was that Rem was wearing a black hoodie and walking down the street — their street. That was plenty justification to kill a 17-year-old who had no apparent gang ties.

The former head of an Aurora gang testified Monday that Rem was shot by Juan “Ugly Face” Verdugo, 27, of Aurora because Rem wandered into the wrong neighborhood.

“They thought the guy was creeping on us to do something,” Roman Lucio said during the first day of Verdugo’s murder trial in Kane County Court.

* Some hope hot dog stand is a washout

A half-block north on Ashland there’s a tidy carwash owned by a businessman eager to open a hot dog stand. To him, it’s a no-brainer: The walk-up food shop would boost business at the carwash and allow him to keep the place open, and it would bring revenue and a few jobs to a neighborhood in dire need of both.

A group of residents, aided by the Target Area Development Corp., have campaigned — thus far successfully — to keep Bernstein from opening the stand.

Their concern is that it will attract gang members and neighborhood thugs, joining an array of nearby fast-food restaurants that have devolved into hot spots for violence.

“We, as regular citizens, would not be able to go to that hot dog stand,” said Jeannie Wainwright, who lives nearby and has stood with dozens of others in opposition to the business. “It would just be another hangout, another place for narcotics exchanges. Any place where they can loiter, they just seem to take over.”

* ‘Outrageous’ state race gap in math

Newly analyzed results from a 2007 national test show Illinois is one of only four states in which the black-white math performance gap is larger than the nation’s at both fourth- and eighth-grade levels.

“In this land of Lincoln, we are really creating a stratified system,'’ said Max McGee, president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy and former Illinois superintendent of schools. “These results are outrageous and ought to be an immediate call to action.”…

In fourth-grade math in 2007, white Illinois students scored 32 points higher than their African-American counterparts on the 500-point national test. The national gap was only 26 points.

By eighth grade, white Illinois kids scored 38 points higher than black peers. Nationally, white eighth-graders outpaced blacks by 31 points.

* Summit to bolster Illinois’ preparedness efforts

* Interfaith Coalition Mobilizes Around Foreclosure Prevention

Neighbors on Chicago’s Southwest Side are dialoguing again today with Bank of America. The interracial, interfaith coalition wants to prevent more foreclosures in their community. It says all banks need to speed up their loan modification efforts. So far, at least one bank is listening.

* Credit cards switched to variable rates

Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase are among lenders switching fixed-rate credit-card holders to variable rates ahead of recently passed legislation designed to protect consumers from unfair rate hikes. More credit card issuers may follow suit.

The new law, which takes effect in February, requires credit-card companies to give cardholders 45 days’ notice of a rate increase, but only if the card has a fixed rate. It also requires that rates stay the same for one year after a new fixed-rate account is open.

* Gas prices down after record high a year ago

* Illinois gets $12M for energy rebate program

Illinois is getting as much as $12 million in federal stimulus money to encourage consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances.

The money is for a state-run rebate program for Energy Star home appliances.

* Stimulus funds sought to battle water problems near Joliet

* Daley’s chief procurement officer abruptly resigns

Mayor Daley’s $169,020 chief procurement officer abruptly resigned Tuesday, spinning the revolving door in a department that has struggled to boost black contracting and weed out minority fronts…

Gayles banned Duff from doing business with the city for just three years, even though Duff pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $100 million in janitorial contracts earmarked for minorities and women.

When Daley and African-American aldermen raised the roof, Gayles switched the punishment to a lifetime ban. Shortly before his about-face, Gayles had defended the three-year penalty, telling the Chicago Sun-Times, “I don’t know the Duffs from the Diffs.”

Daley made no effort to conceal his anger and kept Gayles in the doghouse for months. Nevertheless, Gayles remained on the job for 16 months before resigning. City Hall insisted that he was not forced out.

* AFSCME Still Open to Negotiating

The deadline has passed for two unions to come to an agreement with the city of Chicago. Mayor Richard Daley wanted unions to take unpaid days off among other cost-cutting measures to help close a budget gap.

LINDALL: There are alternative approaches to saving the same money as the layoffs, but without throwing anybody out of work and without reducing city services as layoffs would do.

Lindall says the union is still open to talks.

Almost 300 of AFSCME’s members could face layoffs Wednesday.

* City letting Streets & San slackers off the hook

Laborers Union Local 1001 agreed to cost-cutting concessions that avert the need for 323 layoffs after persuading newly appointed Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne to make a giant concession of his own — by implementing a disciplinary amnesty for Streets and San employees.

For decades, City Hall has employed a policy of progressive discipline. The more offenses you have, the more severe the punishment.

Byrne’s decision to wipe the slate clean in a department at the center of the Hired Truck and city hiring scandals would turn that time-honored policy on its ear…

“You’re talking about a department with a lot of bad actors — guys who have been around for 30 years and probably should have been fired a long time ago,” said a source familiar with the change.

* Boots kick 3,493 drivers

Scrounging for cash to erase a threatened $300 million year-end shortfall, Chicago is going after motorists with two unpaid tickets older than one year with a vengeance — by mailing 183,293 seizure notices and booting 3,493 vehicles.

The City Council’s controversial decision to drop the threshold for applying the Denver boot for the first time in seven years — from three-unpaid tickets to two — has touched off a booting blitz.

On April 22, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that 65,318 seizure notices had been mailed and 415 vehicles had been booted.

In the three months since that first progress report, the two-ticket booting has increased nearly eight-fold — to 3,493 vehicles. And the number of seizure notices has nearly tripled — to 183,293.

* Chicago accepting grant requests from arts groups

* County tries to cut expected deficit

Because there’s less money coming in and more going out, officials expect a $15 million deficit in 2010. So the county board’s executive committee is asking County Executive Larry Walsh and Finance Director Paul Rafac to propose a series of cuts, and they’ll make the formal request during the county board meeting at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

* County departments asked to slash budgets 10 to 12 percent

Some county departments will be asked to reduce budget expenses between 10 percent and 12 percent next year because a voluntary employee separation package likely will not be enough to fill the multi-million dollar gap in revenue shortfalls.

The weak economy has Peoria County facing a revenue shortfall of $3.3 million to $3.7 million and a corresponding budget deficit between $3.9 and $4 million. The second half of 2009 will show slight improvements, but Chief Financial Officer Erik Bush said, “I would charitably call it anemic.”

* Kane OKs affordable housing bond plan

* A monster garbage plant for the suburbs?

Mayor Don Peloquin wants to build a monster of a plant to dispose of garbage and generate electricity in Blue Island.

* Loop remains state’s ‘biggest college town’

The number of college students at 25 higher education institutions in the Loop/South Loop grew from 52,230 to 65,524 during the last five years, the study found.

“This is encouraging news for Chicago,” said Ty Tabing, executive director of the Chicago Loop Alliance, the downtown advocacy group that sponsored the study. “At a time when most economic sectors are shrinking, the education sector continues to grow.”