Menace in the Park

Years have gone by and friends come and go, but in Washington Park some friends never leave. Like the person who never picks up after their dog which always seems to poop by the old Band Shell.

Local taxes pay for the extra bags and waste handling, and guess what, the people who don't tend to their pets leavings still pay for the services whether they use them or not.

If you're going to pay for it, you might as well use it or complain at the next city council meeting.

Another menace awaits underfoot everywhere. Some will be waiting under the snow for you to step on and roll you off your feet. The price we pay for the rich fall colors of the American Sweetgum tree.

These damn things can be deadly if not cleared from the sidewalks.

I know someone who fell and hit her hand so hard on the concrete that it took two years for her mobility to return to normal, and she plays a lot of tennis, even at age eighty one.

The park can be lovely when you have time to actually look up from watching every step you take, on the grass and the pavement.

I've been getting neck pains lately and I figured out it's from walks in the park.

What Fate Awaits Town and Country Shopping Center?

After being away for four years I noticed that parts of MacArthur Boulevard have been razed and rebuilt, other parts have shuttered and gone to seed with peeling paint and tilting structures.

The last remnants of the previous recession are fading  At first it looked like the end for Town and Country when I leaned of Burlington Coat Factory's future move out to the old K-mart on Wabash, but after a little digging it looks like the shopping center is gentrifying out its current tenants for more lucrative prospects.

The completion of Hy-Vee and what appears to be the resurrection of the outlet mall project down by Scheels at the south end of the boulevard might bring more traffic to those areas, and it looks like the notorious MacArthur Park Apartments are undergoing a similar strategy of gentrification.

There may soon not be much available retail space to lease at Town and Country Shopping Center.

• Town and Country, at 50, is focus of MacArthur Blvd. efforts. (03/27/20110
• Local business notes: Burlington Coat, Outback signed for Kmart space. (11/26/2016)
• Commercial Property search results for Town and Country Shopping Center.
Local business notes: On-and-off outlet mall on again in Springfield.
• Upgrades at MacArthur Park Apartments will bring new name, income guidelines, rent prices.

After School Nightmare Special

This afternoon around 2:30 PM on Wabash a school bus was at a stop light ready to make a left turn on one of the streets heading into Jerome.

There was at least two car lengths between the bus and the car in front of it. The driver took his foot off the brake and the bus lurched forward and the driver pressed hard on the brake again, jolting the bus to a stop.

This happened about five or six times. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on. Maybe the bus has a stuck accelerator?

Then it occurred to me, maybe the bus driver was feeling a little vindictive toward the kids. I imagined their books and whatever else wasn't tied down sliding off the seats.

Affordable Shred Wake Up Service in Leland Grove

"First it was the sound of beeping" she said. Then she described a strange grinding noise to which she awoke at 6:30 AM on 11/15/2016.

The truck was parked in the driveway right under her bedroom window. "He could have gone anywhere else, He could have gone to the park" she said. "They must grind up more than just paper" she said.

I suppose if you want to annoy your neighbors, one way to do this is to call such a service very early in the morning, but operating a commercial noise nuisance just feet from a residence outside of normal business hours makes one complicit.

Springfield Ranks Number Six, or Five maybe.

According to Decatur's Herald & Review, Springfield ranks 6th place behind Danville, (a blank page), Rockford, Harvey and East St. Louis, in the lineup of most dangerous cities in Illinois, .

I don't know about the mystery blank space, maybe it's under contention between two other rivals.

The crime map here at SPFLDNET hasn't been updated for literally 4 years and I apologize for the inconsistent and non-specific record-keeping. I may dump it and start fresh someday soon. I hope Police at SJ-R can keep up the good work.

Congratulations Tammy Duckworth, I guess?

The way things have turned out it might be a long, cold experience for the new Senator from Illinois.

The Republicans won the Senate, but not by a Super Majority, which means things are still going to be the same as they ever were since the House and Senate were taken from Democrats two years after Obama won the white house in 2008.

There was a message sent back then but apparently nobody got it.

The Establishment Democrats were so obsessed with power that they sidled up to big Wall Street donors and threw Bernie Sanders under the bus.

I heard that a friend of someone I know, who is an attorney and a Republican, actually still wrote in Bernie Sanders. Do we know how many people wrote in Bernie Sanders? The corporate media will never let us know.

See the March 8, 2016 prediction by Daily Kos

During the Primary it was clear that Sanders held a wider margin ahead of Trump than Clinton, but the shining gold from the ruling donor class was too blinding for the Neoliberal Democrats. Even Daily Kos was warning us about being too ambitious.

Now it's time to pay the piper.They said Trump would destroy the Republican Party, but it turns out Hillary and the DNC destroyed themselves.

Kirk or Duckworth: A campaign profile

This was inspired by the regretful comment Mark Kirk made at the last debate with Tammy Duckworth. The article can be found at the State Journal-Register.

Please, for all of our sakes, take some time BEFORE YOU VOTE to inform yourself about your choice for United States Senate from the state of Illinois.

• Open Secrets
• Mark Kirk
• Tammy Duckworth
• Ballotpedia
• Mark Kirk
• Tammy Duckworth
• Project Vote Smart
• Mark Kirk
• Tammy Duckworth
• GovTrack
• Mark Kirk
• Tammy Duckworth

The Springfield Improvement App

It's so quiet here in Springfield compared to Seattle, WA. I'm glad to be back. The air here is much cleaner, but the tap water is gross compared to the mountain spring water that comes down from the Cascades into the Puget Sound aquifers.

Now the city of Springfield is launching a city planning application so residents and visitors can submit their ideas to improve Springfield. This is a good idea and I have one based on what I saw in Olympia, Washington.

Parking Kiosks located throughout the downtown area. At these kiosks you purchase parking with a credit card or cash, then the machine prints out a parking slip you place on your car's dashboard. You can then drive around throughout the city and park as often as you like until the time runs out.

No more ugly parking meters.

The Prodigal Son Returns

West Washington State was good for a while, but in mid 2015 the cost of housing, utilities, food, and other staples nearly doubled while wages stagnated.

The city of Seattle is in the process of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, but if the federal minimum wage was pegged to inflation from the mid-1960's it would be well over $20 per hour by now.

Things are just getting too expensive out here. Luckily I have a family that loves and mostly tolerates me back in the midwest so I'm coming home.

I'm going to dust off this old blog and start catching up on what's going on around Springfield, Illinois.

• I wonder what the gangs are like?
• What do the people west of MacArthur call the people east of MacArthur?
• I wonder if the class line has moved from MacArthur to Old Chatham Road? I know it moved from 5th Street to MacArthur when they built Veterans Parkway, it made a nice socioeconomic barrier. Maybe it happened when they developed Falling Brook
• Will anyone send me leaked dirt on local and state politics? Did someone  already start a blog called Springy Leaks? The reports must be worded in such as way that the sources are not exposed.and the subjects are not specifically identified.
• Could I get a regular full time job as a media analyst in Springfield?

I'm preparing to sell all of my stuff here as I prepare to move home so it will take a while, but I'm coming home.