Cooperstown on the lake. Museum of Broadcast Communications founder and president Bruce DuMont on its inclusion of the Radio Hall of Fame: “What Cooperstown is to baseball and what Nashville is to country music, Chicago will be to radio.”
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Ever wondered why Des Plaines is lily-white? The Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities found out when it sent four black and four white “testers” to the moderate-rent Colonial Park apartment complex there. According to LCMOC News (Fall), “All the black renters were turned down when they sought apartment leases, while all the white testers were offered leases.” A federal lawsuit is pending.
“Although there were [state] budget cuts, there was a lot more talk about budget cuts than there were actual cuts,” writes Michael D. Klemens in the Budget Watch Reporter (September). “The fiscal year 1992 budget that lawmakers passed and Edgar signed raised spending authority (appropriations) $1.58 billion from fiscal year 1991. Appropriations for the Department of Public Aid increased $1.71 billion, nearly all for health care; appropriations for education increased $86.9 million. Lawmakers declared education the winner and went home.”
From patronage to paralysis. “Older managers, who have [worked for the City of Chicago] for 25 years or longer, remember the days when doorbell-ringing often was the only qualification for a city job and when their jobs as managers were to reward the doorbell ringers. From their vantage point, today’s system is vastly improved. Newer managers no longer reward employees for political work; however, they complain that they cannot reward workers for anything, especially for a job well done” (Excellence in Public Service: Chicago’s Challenge for the ’90s).
