An Open Letter to Bob Morgan

 

Bob Morgan

Il State Representative  58th District

Dear Representative Morgan:

A few years ago some well meaning member of the state senate decided to fix something that wasn't broke with  a bill called SB136.  At the time, I was the dedicate home educator of our family home school, and  as the bill  was primarily aimed at home education I rallied against it even writing several posts about it on my blog. At that time I thought I might be done with blogging about misguided bill proposals.  But thanks to you, I get to go at it again.  

 While it may have seemed to you  like a good idea to tie winning records into public funding requests  for sports facilities,  and it certainly  gave you 15 minutes of fame, The question remains why you would set winning records as a requirement for stadiums when it is not requisite for other public funding.  

Public schools, for example, continue to receive public funds even when the students are not showing winning records.  In fact, one can make the argument that we should put funds in schools that are not winning so their winning percentage can increase in years to come.  It's called development. Also ,we spend money on prisons and that money is spent on people who come to have losing records, sometimes in your line of work.  

{{Information |Description={{en|1=Staley Da Bear, the official mascot of the Chicago Bears. }} |Source=http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueyeda73/2988610732/ |Author=[http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueyeda73/ blueyeda73] |Date=10 28, 2008 |Permission=see belo

One of the main  reasons we should be exploring the idea of spending public funding for sports teams like the Bears is to bring more quality opportunities to our area.  If the Bears had a state of the art facilty they woukd be much more likely to be considered for hosting events like the Super Bowl and giving the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago more leverage in winning a future bid for hosting the Olympic games.    Those events would certainly bringg revenue to the owners of the facility but would also bring visitors, jobs and positive notoriety to the area.

If you still insist on making winning records part of government financing of a stadium I'm not sure the requirement of  3 of 5 years winning record your proposal calls for is the best way to go.   According to your plan, a team could win 3 of their last 5 and then have 9 straight losing seasons.  A back end approach seems more feasible. Perhaps after the team that receives financial backing from the state starts playing in their new facility there be a written into the contract that if the team has a combined losing record any 5 consecutive seasons in a 19 year period that they have to pay the state a predetermined amount.  This could either be a percentage of the original financing amount or a percentage of their annual revenue.

If such a plan was in place after government money was used to build what was then called Comiskey Park or Comiskey Park II, there would have only been 1 5 year period of 15 (1995-1999) where the White Sox would have needed to pay a penalty.  During that 19 year period the White Sox went to playoffs 4 times and won the World Series  in 2005.  Those 4 playoff appearances were one more than the 80 seasons played at the original Comiskey. When put that way it seems like it  was money well spent.  

By Tony - Bears vs Chiefs, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

As for calling your act the BEARS act may make sense to you since Lake Forest, I believe is in your district but to name it  for just one team when many may  want to finance a stadium seems again like a cute way to make a name for yourself.  I would suggest a better acronym and a better plan before calling any more audibles.  

60 Years in 60 Days 2016

 As of today there are 60 days left in 2023.  As it turns out, I have lived in 60 years from 1964 to 2023.  I had one of those ideas that generally gives me more stress than it's worth when I try to implement them.  The idea was simply this: Write one thing a day for the next sixty days about one of those years.  

I decided today to write about 2016 to start things off.  While it's true that the Cubs won their World Series that year on this day, that is not why I chose it.  I chose it to write about a friend's father.  My friend's father died 7 years ago on November 2, 2016.  His obituary appears here.  

I never met Dick Ciccone. I have only known his son  Rich since the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year when I spent the fall semester as a  long term sub at the same middle school Rich was starting at.  Besides teaching the same type of classes, we found that we had some things in common like having fathers who went to Notre Dame at the same time. Also, Rich could relate to the struggles I was experiencing helping my parents with difficult health issues as he had been through that already with his parents.  

This year I'm back at the school as a building sub and Rich and I have renewed our friendship.  He requests me to teach his classes  when he has compliance days or IEP meetings and I gladly do it as several of his 8th grade students were in my 7th grade class last year.  He lets me use his classroom as kind of a home base when I am not subbing in other classes and  I enjoy working with him and his students any chance I get.

Last month I watched a movie called Continental Divide.  I hadn't seen it for a while.  It features John Belushi playing a Chicago Newspaper columnist based on Mike Royko.  Mike Royko was one of my heroes growing up.  I started reading his columns in the Chicago Sun Times and then in the Chicago Tribune.  After watching the film I decided to see if I could find a biography about Royko. 

I was at school and the teacher I was subbing for had an off period, so  I was researching Mike Royko biographies.  I soon found out that one of the definitive biographies about Royko had been written by a F. Richard Ciccone who I recognized to be Rich's dad.  I popped into Rich's room and he reminded me that his Dad had been the managing editor of the Tribune when  Royko moved there  from the Sun Times.

I was already reading  a few books so I waited until I finished some of them before requesting  Royko: A  Life In Print by F. Richard Ciccone from my local library. It came yesterday and I told Rich  about how I wad going to pick it up after school while he was preparing me for his classes that I'd be doing for him while he was in an IEP meeting.  He didn't seem as thrilled about it as when we had talked about it last month.  I remember asking him if it was difficult to talk about his dad back in October as I was gushing about Royko and he assured me it was fine, so I really didn't understand his reaction and attributed it to just being distracted by the impending IEP meeting prep.  

I got the book yesterday and it is amazing. In the introduction and the first two chapters, the elder Ciccone immerses us in the world of Royko, also sharing that Mike Royko wasn't the only Tribune employee who could craft mesmerizing prose.  I attempted to tell that to Rich today and I immediately sensed the same expression I had noticed the day before.

That is when Rich told me that today was the 7th anniversary of his father's death.  He shared how difficult it can be as so many people view today with such positive memories.  I remember being at Rosati's around the corner from our old house 7 years ago and going crazy as the Cubs won the World Series. 

This is why I chose 2016. It reminds me that one person's best memories can trigger another person's worst. When I was in college there was a restaurant called The Sports Page and true to their name they had several framed front pages on their walls celebrating great sports achievements of the time.  One such front page celebrated the Bears winning the Super Bowl on January 26, 1986.  In another spot of the   front page there was an article about the upcoming space shuttle flight for teacher Christa McAuliffe.  Two days after the Bears won their Super Bowl The Space Shuttle Challenge exploded less than 90 seconds into its flight.

Every year I have lived so far houses someone's most amazing achievement and someone else's  biggest regret.  This of course is an understatement.  We can certainly say the same thing about each day I have lived. It is difficult to be on the lookout for both, but can so be beneficial. The book of Proverbs reminds  us that,  "A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for a time of adversity." (Proverbs 17:17 NIV). .With this in mind, we should always be on the lookout for opportunities to help our friends rejoice, grieve or even just remember over important moments in their past.