Friday, November 6, 2009 10:34 PM CST
COLUMN: A senator's comment, favorable state rank and thanks to soldiers
By BILL LAIR, Managing Editor
blair@jg-tc.com
Nobody asked me, but the paragraph belonged in “Top This,” not at the end of a straight news story.
Politicians sometimes provide some pretty funny quotes, even when they don’t intend to.
Last week’s story by Kurt Erickson, the Springfield bureau chief for the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier and other Lee Enterprises newspapers, had a doozy.
The comment may not have been as outrageous as Bud Albright’s “Disneyland in a swamp” comment about FutureGen a couple years ago but it still is hilarious.
Erickson’s story was about FutureGen CEO Mike Mudd’s meeting at the Capitol on Wednesday in an effort to convince Illinois officials to purchase electricity from the near-zero emissions power plant scheduled to be built in Mattoon.
Erickson’s story indicated that Illinois might have to pay more for Futuregen-generated electricity than it currently pays (although FutureGen officials dispute that).
Some legislators, understandably, want to know what the FutureGen plant’s electricity will cost them and Mudd couldn’t be definite because they are asking him to predict the price of power four or five years out.
So here are the last two paragraphs of Erickson’s story:
“But, it was clear Wednesday more work needs to be done to convince legislators to support the proposal.
“‘Next time you come back, it’s not going to be so nice,’ said state Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline. ‘I would just caution the company to get your act together.’”
Is that the proverbial pot calling the kettle black!?
A state senator — with the state some $9 billion to $11 billion in the red and officials have done nothing visible to solve the problem — advises FutureGen officials to “get your act together.”
Amazing!
However, something is going right in Illinois. Site Selection magazine this month released its annual business climate rankings. And the magazine ranks Illinois 14th out of the 50 states.
Considering all the monkey business in Springfield in recent years, that was a pleasant surprise to me.
North Carolina and Texas rank 1-2 among the Top 25 states. The magazine stopped ranking at No. 25.
I thought Illinois might rank a lot lower in any “business climate” list.
Illinois ranked 19th in a survey of business executives, seventh in “New Plant Rank,” third in “2006-08 New Plant Rank,” 20th in “New Plant Rank per Million Population” and fifth in “2009 New Plant Rank.”
Those individual ratings gave Illinois an overall 14th-place spot.
Among Midwest states that Illinois generally competes with for business, the rankings are Ohio 4th, Indiana 9th, Kentucky 10th, Michigan 12th, Iowa 15th, Missouri 19th and Minnesota tied for 22nd.
Wisconsin was not in the Top 25.
Texas topped the list in a survey of business executives as the best state in which to do business. That is the category in which Illinois placed 19th.
Site Selection magazine, published by Conway Data Inc., delivers expansion planning information to 44,000 business executives.
While National Guard units in Mattoon and Sullivan returned home on Sept. 11, the Illinois Army National Guard reported last week that all members of the 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team have returned home from Afghanistan.
Almost 3,000 National Guard men and women deployed in fall 2008. It was the largest deployment of Illinois national Guard soldiers since World War II.
The first group of soldiers returned June 1 and the last welcome-home ceremony was Sept. 30.
The soldiers were charged with training Afghan army and police.
In addition, the Illinois Army national Guard public affairs office said, the soldiers:
- Helped reduced poppy seed production. They discovered and burned 11.2 tons of poppy seeds used in making opium.
- Assisted with 19 road projects
- Helped dig 135 wells
- Helped build 12 medical clinics and 15 schools
-Helped repair 14 civic and cultural centers
- Provided 200 emergency tents for flood victims
-Distributed 2.7 million pounds of humanitarian items.
During deployment, Illinois National Guard soldiers were awarded 66 Purple Hearts, 606 Bronze Stars, eight Bronze Stars with valor, 909 Meritorius Service Medals, 765 Combat Action badges and 576 Combat Infantry Badges.
Eighteen soldiers from the 33rd IBCT died during deployment and more than 90 others were wounded.
Among the 18 killed were several from our area:
- Staff Sgt. Jason E. Burkholder, 27, of Champaign and Marshall, who died Feb. 8 in Kabul.
n 1st Lt. Jared W. Southworth, 26, of Oakland, who died Feb. 8 in Kabul.
- Sgt. Scott B. Stream, 39, of Mattoon, who died Feb. 24 in Kandahar.
-Sgt. Gerrick D. Smith, 19, of Sullivan, who died July 29 in Herat.
I certainly appreciate the service all the National Guard soldiers gave during this massive deployment.
They left their classes, their jobs and their families to serve in harm’s way for a year.
We all should be proud of what they accomplished in Afghanistan.
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