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Archive for the ‘Crain’s Chicago Business’ Category

CCB_PowerLunch_Nov2023_EmailHeader_v2

Join Crain’s for our final Power event of the year on Monday, November 27 featuring Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. In a sit-down interview with Crain’s Group Publisher and Executive Editor Jim Kirk, they’ll discuss the Governor’s goals for his second term in office, including economic initiatives he has planned to bring new business to our state.

Purchase tickets here.

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Castle Barrington Hills aerial

Credit: Coldwell Banker Realty

When their 4-year-old, Abby, said she wanted to live in a castle, “I made her a castle,” Ryan Gopin says. He added turrets, battlements and even a pair of small balconies where the royals can stand and wave to their subjects.

Thirteen years later, on July 26, the Gopins put the five-bedroom, 7,500-square-foot house on Saville Row in Barrington Hills up for sale. Priced at $1.9 million, the castle is listed with Robbie Morrison of Coldwell Banker Realty.

Abby Gopin, who was not available for comment, “likes it a lot,” even though she’s grown out of her princess phase, Ryan Gopin says.

The family, which includes a son as well, is moving to Florida. Gopin, a general contractor, recently sold his heating and air conditioning business here and is opening a similar one in the Sunshine State.

Inside, the house is mostly more conventional, with neutral-toned formal rooms, marble countertops in the kitchen and contemporary finishes like a thin-rimmed soaking tub beside a wall of stone.

There’s also an indoor pool, where the royal family can swim out of sight of the paparazzi.

Read more from Crain’s here.

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Unions

Crain’s Chicago Business’ editorial board is endorsing a ‘no’ vote on Amendment 1. Two Crain’s columnists did so, also, because of the unchecked power it would grant government unions.

Crain’s Chicago Business is the newest editorial board asking Illinoisans to reject Amendment 1.

Prior to the editorial board’s endorsement, two of their columnists wrote against the amendment as well as The Wall Street JournalChicago TribuneDaily Herald and News-Gazette in Champaign.

In addition to editorial boards, a prominent Democrat, former Chicago 43rd Ward Ald. Michele Smith, endorsed voting “no” on Amendment 1.

Crain’s Editorial Board

Crain’s endorses a no vote because of the effect Amendment 1 would have on Illinois’ business climate. Voters will decide its fate Nov. 8.

“In fact, it’s the very last thing this state needs. Bestowing special constitutional status on unions would give companies one more reason to avoid Illinois.”

This year, businesses such as Tyson, Citadel, Boeing, Caterpillar, FTX and Highland Ventures announced moves out of Illinois. McDonald’s restaurants said its headquarters’ future in Illinois is uncertain.

When Gov. J.B. Pritzker visited the Crain’s editorial board, he discussed impediments to businesses coming to Illinois. The state’s fiscal mess creating tax uncertainty and Chicago crime were on his list, but the editorial board had a third.

“Though Pritzker didn’t list it, there’s a third impediment – one the governor was eager to back away from in our Oct. 12 conversation. It’s the perception that labor runs the show in Illinois, making it costlier to do business here and nearly impossible to solve the biggest budgetary burden we face as a state – namely, the unfunded obligation of about $130 billion that every man, woman and child in this state owes to our public employee pension systems.”

They said passing Amendment 1 would be a major mistake.

Read more here.

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ethics

Last Winter, the Village of Lake Barrington published the following in their seasonal newsletter:

Lake Barrington’s Ethics Commission

Did you know that the Village has an Ethics Commission? The independent commission adds to the overall transparency of our government and serves to investigate complaints alleging violations of the Ethics Chapter of the Village Code. We are proud to report that this 3-member Commission has never once had to meet regarding a violation!”

Their Municipal Code actually devotes a chapter to ethics, and the main page of their website contains a link to, “Report a Concern.”

As previously chronicled in this publication, if one searches our Village Code, keying in the word “ethics,” the result reads, “No Matches Found.”

Our Village needs an Ethics Commission.  How else could parties involved in complaints present their respective cases to determine if ethics violations did, or did not, occur? Listed below are typical practices that might arise in our Village, and in our opinion, may warrant investigation, understanding that there are no implications as to guilt or innocence of any on the list:

  • Should expensive legal battles, possibly precipitated by actions of elected and appointed Village officials, be investigated?
  • Should the hiring and retention of Village paid staff positions by elected family members be investigated?
  • Should contracts with vendors who maintain personal and professional relationships with elected Village officials and their families be investigated?
  • Should the solicitations of funds and hand selection of vendors by family members or close friends of elected Village officials, absent oversight by appointed Village committees, be investigated?

For these and other reasons, our Village needs to appoint an Ethics Commission to act as ombudsmen, when any question of potential maladministration or ethics violations is considered or occurs.

Candidates for this proposed commission could come from existing appointed Village bodies, ones whose objectivity would be unquestioned.

The perfect candidates for this roll are the incumbent members of the Board of Heath.  They are highly qualified, underutilized, and would prove to be an effective force in maintaining ethical governance of the Village of Barrington Hills.

Related:Our predominantly pusillanimous Village Board (Part 1),” “Our predominantly pusillanimous Village Board (Part 2),” “Better Government Association Commends Passage of Chicago Ethics Ordinance–Sees More to Do,” “What happened to ethics reform in Illinois government? Why watchdogs have some hope,” “Meanwhile, One Barrington Hills makes amends, extinguishes website and turns the volume down,” “Learn from your (big) mistake, Laura, Bryan, Dave and Tom,” “Agreed

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Tucked on the outer edges of southern Cook County, suburban Park Forest was built to help answer a housing shortage in the 1940s as GIs flooded home from World War II. Before long, it became a model of suburban living, featuring enviable public schools and an attractive downtown shopping center anchored by a Marshall Field’s.

Today, the legacy department store is long gone. The high school, Rich East, is facing such low enrollment that it is being considered for closure. And, as of 2017, financially strapped homeowners were stuck with the second-highest property-tax rate in Cook County.

Among them is Ryan Dupée, who is being billed more than $3,800 in property taxes for a modest, ranch-style home he and his wife bought under foreclosure four years ago for just $25,000.

“It’s a shocker and it’s disappointing because your money could go to other things,” Dupée said, adding that while they aren’t paying a mortgage the property taxes are difficult for them to handle, especially since he’s between full-time jobs as a quality assurance auditor.

Read the full Better Government Association investigation here and realize what we already knew – it’s not just Barrington Hills. 

This story was co-published with Crain’s Chicago Business, as part of a Crain’s Forum project on affordable housing.

 

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