New temporary license plates provide more information

•November 18, 2020•
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White announced that his office has upgraded temporary license plates (also known as TRPs or temporary registration permits), making them more durable and providing more information to law enforcement in an effort to continue to combat fraud and criminal activity.
“This newly designed temporary license plate continues to give law enforcement the tools to quickly and accurately identify the owner of a vehicle,” said White. “Illinois was the first state in the nation to connect temporary license plates with LEADS (Law Enforcement Agency Data System), and we continue to make upgrades to our program and to the temporary license plate itself.” Read More

25 Years Ago This Week

About $18,000 worth of damage was sustained at the Bethany home of Richard Kenneller. The fire was attributed to a malfunction in an attic furnace, Bethany Fire Chief Jerry Ward said.
Increased assessed valuation on local property will boost the Lovington school district’s tax levy to more than 105 percent, school board members learned in last week’s meeting. That means that a truth-in-taxation hearing must be held on the tax levy for taxes payable in 1996. Dianne Reedy, board secretary canvassed the election results and declared the following elected to the new Board of Education: Jan Harner, Larry Traxler and Cindy VanWinkle who were incumbents and Tina Bolsen, who was running for the seat being vacated by Dean Creviston. Read More

November is Winter Weather Preparedness Month in Illinois

•November 18, 2020•
While the official start of winter is not for several weeks, those in Illinois know that winter weather is inevitable. Knowing what to do before a winter storm strikes can provide peace of mind and ultimately impact how well we respond and recover from any winter storm. To help Illinois residents be prepared for winter weather, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA) and National Weather Service (NWS) developed a Winter Weather Preparedness Guide to help families prepare for extreme cold, snow and ice.
“Being unprepared for winter weather is not only inconvenient, but it can be dangerous,” said IEMA Director Alicia Tate-Nadeau. “We are encouraging all Illinoisans to take a few minutes to put together your home and vehicle emergency supply kits and review the steps you should take to stay safe during hazardous winter weather.” Read More

•November 18, 2020•
By Jim Baumann
NP Guest Writer

While wearing one of my other columnist hats recently, I wrote about our policy for handling election mug shots in the newspaper.
It wasn’t the idea that we run them with an eye toward fairness — ensuring that the candidates for a given race have similar, suitable expressions or that we always run them the same size — that got reader Stan Zegel’s goat.
Zegel expressed what I now surmise (from our follow-up conversation) was feigned outrage over the ORDER in which we run them.
Remember the name of the guy who lodged the complaint, folks.
“The Daily Herald’s institutional alphabetist bias is revealed in an admission in today’s issue confessing that the newspaper sequences opposing candidates in the same story by the spelling of their surnames. Read More

Pritzker to seek federal aid, possible business tax increases

•November 18, 2020•
By Peter Hancock
Capitol News Illinois
phancock @ capitolnewsillinois.com

A new report from the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget shows that without significant new revenue, spending cuts or a combination of both, the state will face a budget deficit of $3.9 billion in the current fiscal year and continuing deficits of $4 billion or more in each of the next five fiscal years.
It also projects that the state’s backlog of unpaid bills could grow to as much as $33 billion by fiscal year 2026, up from the current backlog total of about $7.8 billion, if lawmakers do not make structural changes.
“Sizeable deficits in the general funds budget are projected for fiscal years 2022 through 2026, ranging from $4.8 billion in fiscal year 2022 and falling to $4.2 billion by fiscal year 2026,” the report stated.
The report does not actually predict that those deficits will occur. Instead, it is intended to show what would happen under the state’s current revenue structure and spending obligations. Read More