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Thursday, January 24, 2008

Public Affairs: Rep Julie Hamos

State Rep. Julie Hamos was responsible for House Bill 565 that allowed for a sales tax increase of a quarter of a percent in the City of Chicago and the collar counties that would be used to fund public transportation in the region. Indeed this is the bill that the governor tacked on his free rides for senior citizens at the last minute. This bill is law now though and most of you in Chicago have no worries about how the system is going to work as a result of slashed services and fare increases.

Let's go backwards in time here. I just saw this watching some Illinois Channel on their streaming video feed (it's on the home page). Julie Hamos was on Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz on September 6, 2007. The two doomsday dates before January 20th hadn't come to pass yet. And the budget has just recently passed and I do believe the General Assembly was debate some of the governor's line item vetoes.

It's basically a good policy discussion, but I want to focus on the last part of the program. Berkowitz brought up the idea of auctioning off a garage and having a private company providing transit services. I don't particularly have a problem with this idea and who's to say that we won't find ourselves going in that direction in the future.

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