Race for President Sparks More Discussions on Women’s Rights, Teen Pregnancies
Posted on 10. Sep, 2008 by admin in Uncategorized
Bristol Palin
by Lesley R. Chinn
Teen pregnancy, an issue America has grappled with for decades, and the issue of a woman’s right to an
abortion have gained attention from national and local observers due to new developments in the race for
president.
After Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin announced that her 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant, the media seized on the issue while Palin’s stand on abortion has become even more controversial.
“You’ve had a political convention where teen pregnancy would have never been discussed before this,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “Do you think you would have gotten a 105,000 news stories in the past week had it not been for Bristol Palin?”
In general, Albert said teen pregnancy has been on the decline by about 32 to 38 percent since the 1990’s. On the average, he said, teens are more cautious today about contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. “More teens are delaying sex and using contraception and somehow they are getting the message.” However, he said parents are still key in preventing unwanted pregnancies. “We hope that one of the focuses that parents will take is not to wait until their daughter is pregnant or if their son has caused a pregnancy. Parents should be in the prevention business.”
“From the inside, no family ever seems typical. That’s how it is with us. Our family has the same ups and downs as any other…the same challenges and the same joys,” Palin stated during her acceptance speech last Wednesday during the Republican National Convention held in St. Paul, MN where she commented on the issue of her daughter’s pregnancy.
Delmarie Cobb, a Democratic political strategist and former Hillary Clinton supporter, said while Bristol will most likely have access to more resources that reality does not fit everyday families faced with teen pregnancy who are struggling to make ends meet. “The everyday family that decides to have a baby at 17 oftentimes has to drop out of school, are relegated to low- or nopaying jobs, and a cycle of poverty that repeats itself over and over again. That’s the reality that we have to tell these young girls.”
Meanwhile, news reports revealed that three abortion’s rights groups, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List are planning to spend $10 million each to defeat McCain’s run for president, citing his choice of Palin as a reason.
“This is the most anti-choice ticket in the history of the Republican Party,” NARAL Political Director Beth Shipp stated. “McCain put someone as outside the mainstream as you can on his ticket, which is Sarah Palin,” she said.
EMILY’s List released a new poll on how women voters, including Hillary Clinton supporters, feel about Palin, the McCain-Palin ticket and the Obama-Biden ticket.
Of the 800 likely Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters, the poll found:
*Palin’s background and personal narrative are not particularly appealing to women voters;
*Several of Palin’s positions on issues including abortion, add to the perception that the GOP is out-of-touch with women voters’ views and;
*Women voters conclude that the Obama-Biden ticket is more in tune with the issues and concerns that are
important to women than the McCain-Palin ticket.
“With the most important decision of his candidacy, Senator McCain managed to appear politically expedient, reverse his advantage on experience, damage his potential for growth among independents and
undecided voters, and turn off the women who supported Senator Hillary Clinton.
“If Senator McCain thought that putting Governor Palin on the ticket would be a game changer, he may have been right, but not in the way he intended. Senator McCain has seriously misjudged women voters if he thinks he can win them over simply by putting a woman on the ticket,” said EMILY’s List President Ellen Malcolm.
Closing of Howe Development Center and Reconstruction of Tinley Park Mental Health Center
Posted on 10. Sep, 2008 by admin in Community Focus
by Dwayne T. Ervin
Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) announced the closing of Howe Development Center, 183rd and Harlem in Tinley Park on July 1, 2009 while Tinley Park Mental Health Center, 7400 183rd Street in Tinley Park will be restructured and have privatized services. IDHS mental health and developmental disabilities officials announced the changes for Howe Development Center and Tinley Park
Mental Health Center last Friday. The Division of Mental Health hopes to find new positions for all or most
staff at Tinley Park. Residents of Howe will be moved to community-based homes or other state-operated developmental-centers. The restructuring plan for Tinley Park Mental Health Center will temporarily move all services into one building on the campus. Additionally, a portion of the bed capacity will be moved to other
Chicago land mental health centers and private psychiatric wards.
IDHS recently filed a notice of the intent to close with the Commission on Government Forecasting and
Accountability (CGFA) and the Health Facilities Planning Board. Notice with the CGFA starts a 50-day period during which action to implement closure is on hold, according to a released statement.
According to Grace Hou assistant secretary of Illinois Department of Human Services, the Southland is
growing and plans are in the offing to build a state of the art facility to serve mental health and people with
development disabilities. “We are working with families of the residents of Howe,” she said. “We also plan to provide other employment opportunities for the staff of Howe when it closes.”
Dr. Tanya Anderson, director IDHS Division of Mental Health, stated that this plan has been in the works since 2004. “We will be working closely with the unions and staff throughout this process to move some staff into positions at Chicago Read or Madden Mental Health Centers.”
According to Lilia Teninty director of IDHS Division of Development Disabilities, there are 316 residents and 754 staff at the Howe Development Center. “We care about and value the staff at Howe Development Center and will be working with them and providing support and resources throughout the process,” she said. “We will add jobs to other developmental disability centers. We plan to allocate funding to community based housing,” she added.
According to State Rep. Kathleen A. Ryg (D-59), Illinois ranks at 51st and failing with mentally ill treatment
in the country. There have been reports to the court for the mistreatment of the mentally ill. There has been a lack of revenue for mentally ill and the federal dollars have been denied. “We in the state are taking the first step to fix a broken system,” she said. “There must be dollars reinvested into state facilities.
“We must offer quality care and choice for programs that offer the best service. We must have quality care in state facilities. We must have a change during these difficult situations with the staff. We cannot accept 51st and failing and our voices must be heard. This reinvestment of dollars will go towards improving state-operated centers. Additional resources will build a stronger system, community based programs and services. More funding will mean more jobs and increased wages for the staff,” she stated.
“Good things happened there (at Howe),” Art Dykstra said. Dykstra has worked for 20 years for the State of Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (DMHDD) in several capacities. He has served as superintendent of two state-operated facilities, the regional administrator for developmental disabilities of the nine-county Chicago metropolitan area facilities, and also worked as a program advisor to the MHDD. In 1987, Trinity Services, a Jolietbased school employing 33 people and serving 40 people with developmental disabilities, invited Dykstra to serve as their executive director. Referring again to Howe, he added, “People learned skills there. Many things happened to improve lives at that facility. It was a troubled facility before the Blagojevich administration. People who came from Lincoln and Dixon to Howe had
good things happen to them. We look for the alternatives they have and not the alternatives they do not have. This is about (improving) the quality of lives,” he stated.
The long-range goal is to build a new state-of-the-art, privately managed psychiatric hospital in the south suburbs. Guided by input from stakeholders, IDHS plans to begin a bidding process by January 2009 to award a contract to build and operate a new mental health facility as a public-private partnership. Under the current timetable, a new facility would open in 2010 at a location within the southland region. The number of beds, the size of the new facility and other features will be determined as the state receives input form stakeholders over the coming months.
Local Housing and Business Experts See Bailout as Way to Stabilize Economy
Posted on 10. Sep, 2008 by admin in Community Focus, Global News
by Lesley R. Chinn
While local business and housing experts welcome the recent bailout of two of the nation’s largest finance lenders, some homebuyers should benefit as result of the measure.
In what could be the largest financial bailout in U.S. history, on Sunday, the U.S. government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two quasipublic mortgage companies which own or guarantee almost half of the country’s $12 trillion in outstanding home mortgage debt.
The new developments affected both companies from the top down, as key executives were ousted and shareholders claims were impacted by the process. The two companies, publicly traded, but also serving
a government mission to support housing, were put in a conservatorship, a process which will affect common shareholders, whose will come last.
Mark Ferguson, a spokesman for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Chicago office, said the bailout could be seen as stabilizing the economy and preventing a recession. “The government can step in with
innovative programs to help people who may be facing foreclosure or hard times to keep them in their homes. If that happens and hopefully folks have not been laid off, perhaps they’ll have the dollars to spend with small businesses.”
The U.S. Treasury’s decision removed a huge, dark cloud and had a rippling effect on world markets. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index surged from 3.4 percent to 12,624.46, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index
advanced 4.3 percent to 20,794.27. Seoul’s Kospi rose 5.2 percent. In morning trading in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 3.7 percent, Germany’s DAX climbed 3.4 percent and France’s CAC 40 was up 4.6 percent. The Dow also went up. “The Dow is a strengthening dollar and that means that people are starting to take a different look at this,” Ferguson added.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have reported nearly $14 billion in losses since the housing market bubble burst. In contrast to many other financial institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have never been required
to hold much capital relative to their assets. That has left both companies with a smaller cushion for absorbing losses. A lackof capital also indicates they are unable to buy mortgages from lenders.
The presence of the two companies in a struggling housing market is critical since they help keep mortgage rates low for many consumers. Both companies had been struggling to balance growth through buying loans against rising delinquencies. The companies’ debt instruments, which have a high credit rating, are widely held by banks and institutional investors around the world. A crisis in confidence could not only damage the companies, but also increase the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government.
Michael van Zalingen, director of homeownership services for the Neighborhood Housing Services, explained that this is just a temporary step for homebuyers and homeowners. “This will do nothing for homeowners who are facing foreclosure. It was designed to prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to keep them afloat and a secondary market alive for refinanced and purchase loans,” he explained.
Had Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae gone under, Zalingen said it would have reduced loan options for homebuyers and homeowners. “Everyone would have had to use FHA loans to buy or refinance their properties. It pretty much would have frozen the housing market.”
In the final analysis, taxpayers will foot the bill at a cost estimated in the billions. However, officials suggested it could have been worse. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. stated that it certainly would not be as much as it would have been if these institutions were allowed to fail.
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain said the bailout was necessary. Obama said the plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needs to focus on strengthening the economy and helping struggling
homeowners rather than focusing on “the whims of lobbyists and special interests.”
McCain proposed eventual privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but credit markets must be stable and have the ability for firms to access capital again so they can scale down their portfolio holdings, he said.
CTA Announces Job Cuts in 2009 Budget Proposal
Posted on 10. Sep, 2008 by admin in Community Focus
by Dwayne T. Ervin
CTArecently announced plans to layoff over 100 employees, including 43 workers and 80 others employed in administrative positions. The plan to cut jobs will go into effect before the end of the year. Officials cited free rider programs, soaring fuel prices and a loss of a state subsidy for reduced fare rides as part of the cause for cuts. Projections for CTA’s fuel and energy costs for 2008 will be $37.3 million higher than last year; the loss of reduced fare subsidy will be $16 million and the free ride program will cost at least $20 million this year.
According to Katelyn Thrall CTA spokesperson, the job cuts are expected to save CTA $4.9 million. “CTA is committed to making the senior free rides program work,” said Thrall. “However, the program does pose a challenge to the CTA’s budget,” she said.
“The announcement was about cost cutting measures for 2008 and does not include any cuts that would adversely impact riders,” she continued. “The CTA is currently developing and finalizing its 2009 budget proposal. The 2009 budget is still being developed, so all options are being considered, but the CTAboard has made it clear that given increased rider ship, service cuts should be avoided.”
Employees were notified recently about the layoffs, but some of the positions were currently vacant, Thrall stated. Nine management positions will be cut. The other positions come from realignments in the Technology, Purchasing, and Law departments in order to reduce costs and operate more efficiently, according to a released statement.
Other cost cutting initiatives underway include deferring contract spending for matters not considered critical, changing the labor mix to reduce reliance on overtime, reducing bus maintenance cost through fleet upgrades and more efficient preventative maintenance practices as well as using technology to improve the efficiency of bus supervision. Earlier this year, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation to provide the CTA with additional funding. It enabled the CTA to issue bonds to restore the financial health of the pension and establish a retiree health care trust. It was expected to provide sufficient funding to allow CTA to get its operating budget back on solid financial footing.
Most recently, the reduced fare reimbursement was vetoed, affecting the CTA’s bottom line by $32 million annually. The CTA was counting on this annual funding to help offset a portion of the free ride programs. The lack of a new state capital program has also strained the CTA’s operating budget as resources are diverted to maintain aging equipment and facilities.
CTA and Union Clash Over Part-Time Bus Operators
Posted on 10. Sep, 2008 by admin in Community Focus
by Lesley R. Chinn
While issues about supervision, maintenance, and instruction were among the hot-button items addressed at a regularly scheduled union meeting for CTA bus operators, controversy was brewing over whether the agency was in violation of a union contract between bus operators and the agency. More than 400 part-time CTA bus operators expressed concerns about being overworked and underpaid. The meeting was held on Monday and hosted by the Amalagamated Local Transit Union 241 at its headquarters located on 1340 W. Washington.
Union representatives said the contract allows for part-time CTA bus operators to work up to 30 hours a week. However, those hours are not guaranteed under the terms of the contract. Right now, part-timers are
currently working six days a week, with one day off. The day off is considered a rotating day.
Union President and Business Agent Darrell Jefferson said there are some part-timers in the system who routinely perform over 100 hours each pay period when they are supposed to work only 32 hours weekly, which means they are being treated like full-timers, he explained. With eight CTA garage locations and with employees working those hours, CTA is already being staffed with the 80 part-timers at a reduced cost, he stated. By enforcing the contract, Jefferson said it will compel CTAto treat parttime bus operators as part-time employees and at the same time, allow full-time employees to take advantage of overtime pay.
In addition, right now, Jefferson is calling for the CTA to allow parttime workers to choose their own schedules. “That is on the table and it has been on (the table) for quite some time. We have received no
movement from the other side because that’s not to their advantage,” he said.
Jefferson said that there is an agreement with CTA and the union that will transition part-time workers into full-time positions on an as needed basis. “Right now, we know that there’s at least 170 full-time slots that need to be filled but Ron Huberman (CTA President) has decided to freeze everything and so he’s not transitioning the parttimers.”
“When you transition them to into full-time positions, it’s going to cost the company money and you will
eventually have to pay holiday and sick time, and that’s what (Huberman) is stifling right now. He has a budget problem right now and it’s being self-created by the CTA,” he asserted.
While gas prices have gone up and senior citizens are riding buses for free, Jefferson said CTA has had ample time since January to make a decision to supplement their budgetary needs.
“They also have a lot of pilot programs that are costing the company money, but how much of a hit is that? Freezing part-time transition is just a small part and really doesn’t even sit on the map, and it’s just another excuse to show Springfield and the public that they’re trying to make major steps to having a balanced budget,” he added.
The Citizen also reached out to CTA officials for a response, but calls went unreturned by this newspaper’s
deadline.
