PeoriaStory

The great pension ripoff and the politics of resentment

PEORIA -- As the Democratic Party-controlled Illinois state government is poised to gut pensions and benefits for state workers, the politicians should read this: How Business Elites Looted Private-Sector Pensions.

The author writes that corporate elites discovered they could loot private sector pensions without penalties, and that fact is being used now to gut public sector pensions. 

So now we have the politics of resentment: " I lost mine so you should lose yours. I can't afford to pay taxes for you."

That's shortsighted, since government pay and benefits can set a standard that corporations must reach to attract qualified employees. But that requires connecting the dots a bit -- a challenge for many people.

How sad, and how stupid the Democrats have become, to fall into the Republican austerity trap. They will be blamed for gutting public pensions, alienating their base of support! 

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

Why tax strip clubs? Here's why

PEORIA -- After reading a Peoria Journal Star column by Phil Luciano about the tax on strip clubs, in which Phil criticized the pay of state administrators overseeing rape crisis centers, Peoria author Burt Raabe penned an answer. It's based on his own experience, and worth reading:

 

"I am a fan of Nicholas Kristof, who writes for the New York Times. Many of his columns deal with sexual abuse and exploitation.

I worked for the Center for Prevention of Abuse (in Peoria) for 12 years and my wife contracted as a counselor there for several years. Neither of us worked in the sexual abuse  field which is very specialized and highly skilled.  The CFPA cannot exist on state funding for the services it provides. They must get grants, conduct a duck race and hope that other money will come in. As far as the ICASA is concerned, a salary of $69,000 plus $10,000 for some expenses is not that much for a director of a state agency. People in those positions are generally highly qualified with years of experience and are dedicated to their work.

My field was working with domestic violence offenders. I learned and passed on that treating women as objects is at the root of violence against women.

One of the prime examples of this behavior is Big Al's strip club. He takes vulnerable, often sexually abused, often drug addicted young women and exploits them for money. Simple as that. And that is supported and applauded by our city fathers as an example of a "business."

The casinos had to agree to contribute some of their income to the treatment of gambling addiction. They recognized that they would be creating a cost to the community as they exploited people in it. I think it should also apply to strip clubs that they help with the effects of their activities. Also, I do not accept that Al Zucharini is qualified to read a research study and make a judgement about it. (He claimed domestic violence and strip clubs are not linked.)

I think that emulating Kristof would serve the community better than taking dictation from Al Zucharini.

I am retired now and none of my opinions should be taken as representing the Center For Prevention of Abuse."

 -- Burt Raabe

 

Stop chem poisons!

PEORIA -- From a news release: 

 

 An Endocrine Disruptors Meeting is set for Tuesday, June 12th at 6:00pm at Lakeview Library in Peoria.  

 

We encourage you to read these materials and bring your ideas for what impact for change that we can pursue.

 

 

 

Information

There are more than 86,000 chemicals on the market today, and only 1 to 2 percent has been tested for health effects. Many of these chemicals in use today are toxins and endocrine disruptors linked to cancer, infertility, diabetes, autism, Alzheimer’s Disease, ADHD, asthma, diabetes, obesity and Parkinson’s disease.

 

Dr. Suzanne Fenton, a toxicologist with the National Institutes of Health, said every health education teacher, family physician, midwife, obstetrician and pediatrician should be discussing endocrine disruptors and how to avoid them. But if we don’t know what endocrine disruptors are and how we’re exposed to them, it’s hard to formulate a plan to avoid them.

 

Here are a few routes of exposure:

 

·        Atrazine, a pesticide used widely on corn, is an endocrine disruptor. The EPA allows an average of 3 ppb of atrazine to be present in drinking water, but spikes occur in spring when atrazine is applied to fields. Exposure can be reduced by drinking only filtered water.

·        Bisphenol A is a plastic hardener used in the lining of food and beverage cans and on thermal cash register receipts. Exposure can be reduced by avoiding canned foods unless the cans are BPA-free. Minimize handling of cash register receipts and wash hands thoroughly afterward.

·        Many lawn chemicals are endocrine disruptors. Avoid them by converting to an organic lawn and urge your neighborhood association to hold educational programs on lawn chemicals. Find out if your child’s school uses lawn chemicals. States, municipalities and school districts across the country are implementing bans on lawn chemicals. 

·        Many personal care products include ingredients that are endocrine disruptors. Check the safety of the products you use at the Environmental Working Group’s site (http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/). 

·        Chemical residue remains on food. Switch to organic. If price is a concern, follow the Environmental Working Group’s guidelines for the Dirty Dozen, Clean 15 (http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/foodnews/pdf/2011EWGPesticideGuide.pdf).

 

Please join our discussion to learn more about what we can do in central Illinois! 

 

Here are some links to information about pesticide drift, endocrine disruptors and organic lawn care.

 

Clare Howard wrote this four-part series on pesticide drift and endocrine disruptors. Central Illinois is in the heart of this problem: 

http://100r.org/?s=Clare+Howard

 

 

 Dr. Shanna Swan is interviewed about the health effects of endocrine disruptors that can end up in food via pesticides and plastics:

http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/us-scientist-routes-exposure-endocrine-disruptors-interview-512402

 

 

Dr. Warren Porter lectures in this video about subtle biological effects of pesticides and other environmental chemicals:

http://www4.uwsp.edu/media/CNR/LMarkham/PesticideEffects.aspx

 

Over the past decade, more than 150 municipalities and several Canadian provinces have banned "cosmetic" lawn pesticides. In the United States, Connecticut and New York have banned or limited pesticide use, as has Cuyahoga County, Cape Cod and more than 30 communities in New Jersey:

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=7370

Lathan fights back but doesn't answer the questions

PEORIA -- Peoria School District 150 Superintendent Grenita Lathan launched a counterattack at her critics, in prepared remarks at the May 29 School Board meeting.

But her political-style speech didn't answer the questions critics raised during the public comments. The comments including Lathan's speech are posted here.  

Dist150 May 29

 

The most interesting comment:  Activists Sharon Crews and Terry Knapp alleged that District 150 has offered to change bad evaluations given some tenured teachers to good ones, and pay them $7,000 if they will resign."That's lying," Knapp said. 

"Is it true that evaluations are now for sale?" Crews asked.

Her interesting list of questions will be posted below.

Knapp said tenure used to be granted after two years, then four years. "Now you want to do away with tenure so you can hire relatives and friends."

Tenured teachers given bad evaluations are supposed to be given remediation, but that's not occurring, he said. "It's bullying." He predicted lawsuits will occur.

Before the meeting more than 450 teachers and supporters marched outside with signs against bullying and asking for respect and not intimidation.  They declined to enter the meeting, however.

Lathan apparently recruited three supporters to speak during the public comments, including two prominent members of the African American community, Joyce Banks and Rev.Tony Pierce. They praised her for bringing change to the district.

Lathan's remarks included an attack on "decades of educational malpractice" in District 150, with half the schools "low performing."

Ignoring decades of academic research into low test scores for minorities, Lathan said the failure "is not related to the low income level of parents," but instead she blamed the teachers. "We allowed it to happen.  We did not demand excellence. Poor teachers were passed along from building to building." 

Change is hard, she said but it's being done for -- what else? -- the sake of the children.  She offered no data to back up her assertions. "All children can succeed. They are not limited by their circumstances," she said. 

Today, she said, "a vocal few are intent on remaining on the same path." 

She did not address any of the questions raised by Crews and Knapp.

Afterward, critics leaving the meeting scoffed at her talk.

My take:  everyone wants the students to succeed, but as any experienced teacher or parent knows, some will not be reached by any known technique, and may not thrive until years after they leave school. Shifting teachers and principals and intimidating them isn't likely to improve student learning. 

The district now has almost 75 percent poor and low income, as measured by the school lunch eligibility standards.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Here are the remarks from Sharon Crews:

Tonight I have a few questions.

Is it true that next year most academic high school courses will be one-year, not one-semester, courses?    Why is this a good idea?  For instance, if a student is ill or expelled for a semester, will the student from then on be behind for a whole year instead of a semester?  Or will the standards be so low that a student can miss one, two, three months of school but still pass a year course? 

Is it true that evaluations are now for sale?  I heard that some of the fired tenured teachers have since been offered a deal.  Were they told that their unsatisfactory evaluations would be changed to satisfactory and that they would receive $7000 if they agreed to resign?  I know it sounds absurd and unethical to me—so surely there is no truth to it, right?

Is it true that a new directive states that all visual aids must be removed from walls so as not to distract students?  Does that change last year’s directive that all the Thinking Map posters must be displayed in all classrooms?

Is it true that Irving will close during the spring of 2013?  Where will the Irving principal, and all the teachers and students go second semester?  Sounds like a nightmare to me.

Is it true that recently substitutes were assigned so that middle school teachers could attend professional development at the board rooms?   Is it true that teachers learned when they arrived at the board rooms that the meeting had been cancelled—but notification of the cancellation wasn’t on GroupWise until 9 a.m. that day?  Who is responsible for wasting money on subs that weren’t needed?

Who was responsible recently when students were bused to Woodruff for some purpose but then had to be returned to their home schools because of an error in scheduling?

I guess it’s bonus time.

 

Who Pays to Remove Weed Killer from Your Drinking Water?

PEORIA --  Here's a post, special to PeoriaStory.com, by the award-winning journalist Clare Howard:

According to a $105 million settlement agreement filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, residents of Peoria and nearly 2,000 other communities in 45 states will no longer be forced to pay the cost of removing the herbicide atrazine from their drinking water. The cost will be paid by Syngenta, the manufacturer of atrazine.

The agreement comes after eight years of litigation in a class-action lawsuit filed by attorney Stephen Tillery on behalf of public water systems  against Swiss-based agrichemical giant Syngenta. If approved by U.S. District Judge J. Phil Gilbert, the agreement will affect 52 million Americans.

“The scope of this historic settlement is enormous and its protection of the health of millions of Americans across the country is a huge benefit to the public, the environment and the taxpayers,” Tillery said in a prepared statement.

The agreement does not address mounting research linking atrazine, an endocrine disruptor, to birth defects, learning disabilities and low sperm count. Central Illinois has one of the highest rates of atrazine use in the nation. The herbicide is used widely on corn throughout the Midwest. It runs off fields into water supplies. It also volatilizes and returns to Earth in rain. One study measured rain in Iowa and found atrazine at 154 parts per billion, significantly higher than the 3 ppb considered safe in drinking water by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  

Atrazine has been banned in the European Union for nearly a decade, but a study released in January still found atrazine in the urine of pregnant women in France.

If the agreement is accepted, attorneys representing the water systems will share about $35 million in fees.

The EPA is still reviewing the safety of atrazine to determine if it will continue to re-authorize use in this country. The herbicide has been sold in the United States since 1959.

Syngenta released a statement saying the settlement was a business decision and will end the uncertainty and expense of almost eight years of litigation. It does not acknowledge any liability and indicated that almost 7,000 studies over the past 50 years have affirmed the safety of atrazine.

“No one ever has or ever could be exposed to enough atrazine in water to affect their health,” the company stated.

Karen Cotton, spokeswoman for Illinois American Water Co., issued a statement confirming American Water Co. subsidiaries in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and Iowa participated in the suit. Cotton said no information would be released at this time about the amount of reimbursement the company expects.

Michael Wolff, former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court and now a law professor at St. Louis University, said the settlement will have far-reaching impact on the safety and quality of the public drinking water across the country, as well as on the environment and on environmental law.

Asked about ramifications of the decision on other agrichemical manufacturers and the pesticide drift caused by their products, Wolff said, “There are very few lawyers with the resources to go the distance” in prosecuting these cases.

 Wolff said the settlement shows regulation in the United States is less rigorous than it is in the EU. As a result, Americans are forced to rely more on expensive, time-consuming lawsuits. Companies are legally bound to clean up their drift, he said, but compliance depends on enforcement.

Andrew Wetzler, a director with the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote on his blog that while the settlement agreement brings some financial relief to help cleanup water, it fails to address “numerous epidemiological studies strongly correlating atrazine exposure with birth defects and reproductive problems . . . . “

For more information on the agreement, go to http://www.atrazinesettlement.com/ and click on case documents for the complete settlement agreement and for the joint motion for preliminary approval of settlement.

Click here to see a map of atrazine in the US environment.