Illinois fish stories

First Mike Collins of Litchfield takes a record size muskie from Otter Lake in Macoupin County on April 15. It's 43 1/4 inches long, 23 1/2 inches in girth and weighs 28 pounds, 12 ounces. Collins was crappy fishing with a yellow 1/2-inch jig.

Then on May 17 Edward M. Rieck of Wilmington, using minnows, pulls in the state's largest ever hybrid striped bass at Heidecke Lake in Grundy County — which is where the state's second largest ever hybrid striped bass also came from. Rieck's bass is 31 1/8 inches in length, 22 1/2 inches in girth and weighs 17 pounds.

On the same day Artemio Fuentes Jr. of Chicago, fishing 12 miles out of Diversey Harbor with a Hot-N-Tot lure catches a record breaking lake trout. It's 37 1/2 inches long, 24 1/4 inches in girth and weighs 27 pounds, 1.6 ounces. And this trout is old enough to go to college. It's carrying a state fishery clip on its left ventricle fin dated 1970.

Source: Department of Conservation.

How to raise $195 million in new financing for economic development in Chicago neighborhoods

1. Raise the 1990 budget of the Chicago Department of Economic Development by $11 million (73 percent).
2. Raise $5 million in new funding from foundations and corporations for community-based organizations.
3. Be sure that $55 million in Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs) and in repayments on Urban Development Action Grants (UDAGs) go for neighborhood economic development. Put the UDAG repayments into a separate program to be disbursed to neighborhoods. And get a double whammy from the CDBG funds by loaning them out as short-term, low-interest construction loans until the money is needed for the long-term projects.
4. Transfer 180 city-owned and 100 tax delinquent commercial/industrial properties to worthwhile neighborhood projects.
5. Create a small business loan program backed by state and municipal pension funds.
6. Pass a $64 million Economic Development Financing Bond for property acquisition and site preparation.
7. Issue $30 million in 1989 general obligation bonds to pay for neighborhood infrastructure improvement for development.
8. Use tax increment financing, when appropriate, for neighborhood development.

Source: A Prospectus for Neighborhood Investment, Chicago Association of Neighborhood Development Organizations (CANDO), Chicago.

How to restructure greater Egypt

Greater Egypt is the five-county region of Franklin, Jackson, Jefferson, Randolph and Williamson counties in southern Illinois. It should:

1. Stop relying on coal.
2. Expand manufacturing and attract new manufacturers.
3. Use the spinoff money from manufacturing to attract professional service providers —especially health services. Nursing homes are needed because of the many elderly people.
4. Market the area's lumber industry consistent with sound environmental and preservation policies.
5. Market its boat manufacturing industry. By the end of this year there will be five manufacturers of small pleasure boats in Franklin and Williamson counties. This could be enough to attract some suppliers.
6. Expand recreational services.

Source: Jim Hanson, Greater Egypt Planning and Development Commission, Carbondale.

How to extract an average of $113 per capita per year from eager Illinois citizens

Get their adrenaline flowing with lottery ads. We're doing pretty well. Illinois is 9th among the top 10 states in per capita lottery sales. That's out of 27 states that had lotteries during fiscal year 1988. Watch out for competition! In 1988 two states started lotteries and four others voted them in.

Jet lag is a small price to pay for safer highways

"Professors Richard McKenzi and John Warner have examined the shift in transportation mode [from driving to flying] under airline deregulation. They estimate the shift to be approximately 4 percent of the traffic. . . . With the commercial aviation death rate at .3 per billion passenger miles and the automobile death rate at 37 per billion vehicle miles, the 4 percent modal shift is projected to have resulted in 1,700 fewer highway fatalities per year, on average, since the 1978 deregulation. The number of lives lost in air carrier accidents during the 1979-1987 period, 1,036, pales in comparison to the estimated 15,300 lives saved by reducing highway fatalities during the same nine year period."

Source: Deregulation, Privatization, and Air Travel Safety, John Semmons and Dianne Kresich. The Heartland Institute, Chicago.

General funds

The general funds end-of-month balance for May was $253.601 million. The average daily available balance was $512.869 million.

Source: Office of the Comptroller.

Unemployment rate up

In May the nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment was 5.2 percent, down from 5.3 percent in April. In Illinois it was 5.7 percent, up from 5.4 percent.

There were 5.899 million people in the state's civilian labor force. Of these, 5.563 million were working and 336,000 people were looking for jobs.

In the state's metro areas the final unemployment statistics for March were:

Aurora-Elgin, 5.2 percent.
Bloomington-Normal, 4.7 percent
Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, 4.4 percent.
Chicago, 5.5 percent.
Davenport, Rock Island, Moline (Illinois sector), 7.3 percent.
Decatur, 7.7 percent.
Joliet, 7.0 percent.
Kankakee, 8.5 percent.
Lake County, 4.0 percent.
Peoria, 6.0 percent.
Rockford, 6.1 percent.
Springfield, 5.1 percent.
St. Louis (Illinois sector), 7.7

Source: Department of Employment Security.

Margaret S. Knoepfle

July 1989 | Illinois Issues | 4