New Year's Resolutions...

Have a Safe and Happy New Year.

List some of your New Years Resolutions...

Holiday !

Merry Christmas !






( damn! Someone lit my tree)

Wild Fire ( Holiday Edition )

Pick your topic.......

...and Happy Holidays !!!

Just To Let You Know...

Fire doesn't Bitch about everything.

Kudos to Central Services for getting thru this ice storm. Quincy streets are looking mighty fine.

Good Job !

$25,000 and counting....

The firefighters have been paid a total of about $25,000 since they were placed on administrative leave in mid-October while city officials investigated alleged violations of policies and misuse of equipment.

Charlie Doan told WGEM News last week that commissioners hoped to arrive at a decision by Christmas.



This Year ?

Do I look Busy?

If it ain’t enough to have 3 public employees on paid retreat pending a post-holiday investigation, now we have a front page story on three more employees tooting their horns acting like they did something..

First, let me define a few words for everyone:

Loophole, in Law, is a weakness or exception that allows the law to be circumvented or otherwise legally avoided by some means. Loopholes are searched for and used in a variety of circumstances, including taxes, politics, and criminal justice.

Law is a system of rules usually enforced through a set of institutions. Law affects everyday life and society in a variety of ways.

Local ordinance is a law usually found in a municipal code. In the United States, these laws are enforced locally in addition to state law and Federal law.

Now on to my point.

For those of you playing at home, the Smoke Free Illinois Code starts on page 222. This was released Oct. 7, 2007.

Where the hell is this “loophole”? It CLEARLY states in there that:

A proprietor may designate an area as an outdoor patio where smoking is

Permitted…..

“"Outdoor patio" means an area that is either: enclosed by a roof or other overhead covering and walls or side coverings on not more than two sides; or has no roof or other overhead coverings regardless of the number of walls, fence or other side coverings. This includes, but is not limited to, beer gardens or other outdoor seating.”

How can something that is undoubtedly spelled out be a “loophole”?

It also states as far as drafting a “local ordinance”:

NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULES

a) Any home rule unit of local government, any non-home rule municipality, or any

non-home rule county within the unincorporated territory of the county may

regulate smoking in public places, but that regulation must be no less restrictive

than the Act and this Part.

Which means: You can add to it and make it stricter but not take away anything defined in the act.

So pretty much what your saying is that your gonna cut & paste from the Smoke Free act, like I have, and make it a local ordinance? In addition, the “new” ordinance would require bar owners to obtain a special "Class H" license to have a beer garden. What make-a-buck-Chuck and his panel failed to disclose is this license will cost each and every beer garden owner $50 a year.

Meanwhile at Baldwin Field sits a 40,000 sq. ft. empty building with a $398,280.14 defaulted loan on it. If you go out to look at it, be careful driving down Broadway and reading the Electronic Message Boards. You might get into a wreck.

Some Insight on Comcast...

Ran across this article while reading about Da' Bears.

Seems like we may not be taking a step up.....

6 Seconds on Broadway

The Quincy Department of Planning and Development believes flashing electronic message boards clustered along city streets could pose a safety risk for motorists.

Really?

"It's simply a matter of addressing what I see as a potential problem down the road," City Planner Chuck Bevelheimer said. "I don't want to wait until it becomes a problem."

With all the future vision this city has for Planning and Development, this makes the front page as your biggest concern?

Apparently no one from the P&D was out on “Black Friday” to see the “smooth” flow of traffic on Broadway. I made the mistake of taking Broadway back from I-72 Friday and was stuck in traffic from approx. from 40^th to 30^th. It took over eight minutes to make it this distance. If they are concerned about flashing message boards here, I could have read War and Peace while waiting for the lights to change. OK, maybe just the ads for Friday.

I guess this must not be a problem.

If I were to dish out $40K for a EMB, the last thing I want to see is the city police stopping by and telling me that my message lasted 6.32 seconds and write me a ticket.

Personally, I don’t think the Plan commission should waste their time with this one. Let the businesses decide what they put on their signs. If the message is too long, I generally don’t read them.

Most of my time on Broadway is watching the cars around me with the people driving, yacking on the cell phone and weaving in the lanes like they are doing a tire cornering test for Goodyear.

Focus on the current problems please.

Day 21...and counting !

Word out of City Hall is.........

Hump Day...

Few thoughts for today:

• Three city employees (all women) released form the city.

• Three Fire dept employees (all men) sitting on the fence pending committees verdict.

Hope the Mayor is correct in saying they have a strong case. If not, the city could be looking at some high $$ court cases.

More thoughts:

• There are 4 legal eagles on the payroll for the city.

• We fly in a hired gun to take care of this personal issue.

Kinda like having 4 snow blowers sitting in your garage and when it snows, pay the neighbor kid to shovel your drive…….

Final Thoughts:

• Employers can be liable for employees' misuse of company e-mail

• Sexual, racial, and other forms of harassment can be done by e-mail

• Too much time wasted surfing the World Wide Web

Monitoring employees' use of company computers, e-mail, and the Internet involve the same basic issues as come into play with general searches at work, telephone monitoring, and video surveillance. Those basic issues revolve around letting employees know that as far as work is concerned, they have no expectation of privacy in their use of company premises, facilities, or resources, and they are subject to monitoring at all times. Naturally, reason and common sense supply some understandable limitations, such as no video cameras in employee restrooms, and no forced searches of someone's clothing or body, but beyond that, almost anything is possible in the areas of searches and monitoring. They have the right to inspect an employee's computer, HD, floppy disks, and other media at any time.

Scary Huh ??

New MNF Low....

Got to be kidding me.


A halftime interview with 2 NASCAR weenies.


ESPN has their head up their tailpipes.

Options......

Day 8

Silence........

City Investigation

Six Quincy city employees have been put on leave pending an investigation. Paid leave I'd bet Several reliable sources have confirmed the investigation to WGEM news. ( are they Anonymous sources? Anon is Weak) The sources tell us three of the suspended staff are on the Quincy Fire Department--that includes an assistant fire chief and two lieutenants. The investigation reportedly involves improper use of city equipment and violations of city policy. ( there's a policy ??) Quincy Mayor John Spring told WGEM News that an investigation is underway into personnel issues regarding city employees, but he had no further comment. The mayor says such matters are handled by the city's human resource department. He told WGEM News he would be the only official source handling the release of personnel policy issues. (Translation: I tell you what I want you to know.)

Wild Fire Weekend !!!

Choose your topic.

New Invention !

I found a new product the other day that would save money on electricity cost.

It called a Photo-eye.

It automatically activates and turns lights on at dusk and turns them off at dawn.

No seasonal adjustments needed.

Not affected by daylight savings time.

Maybe someone from Central Services could swing by the Amtrak station and install one so the lights at the Station and in the Parking lot are not on at noon.

How Many Carrots Does It Take ?

• City financed improvements to the tune of +$600,000

• Real Estate tax abatements for up to 5 years. - ($471,000 X 5 Years= $2,355,000)
  

• Exempt from city and state sales taxes for building materials.

• 50% discount on building permits.

.....for 55 - $300,000 condos ???

BEARS / RAMS= ln( (1+(1+z 2) )/z ) = ????

Ya think someone over at WGEM/FOX/QNI could give the public some indication of what formula is used to which games are going to be on come Sunday ????

I was told last year that the games would alternate when both teams played at the same time.

Two weeks ago BEARS and RAMS played at the same time. FOX/WGEM carried the RAMS on TV. The local radio stations were carrying the CARDS, CUBS, and the RAMS. Closest radio station with BEARS radio was a station out of Iowa.

Last week, BEARS played on Sunday night, so that week should not count.

This week, the BEARS and RAMS both play at noon and WGEM/FOX has the Rams listed on the TV Guide at noon.....

WHAT GIVES ???

Central State Tap

10/09/2007 Order Of Possession filed.

It is ordered that Central State Bank's Motion For Possession is granted, the Court awards immediate posses- sion of the subject property to Central State Bank. Order filed. Cause continued until October 30, 2007 at 1:00 pm for entry of formal order and status.

A rare Apology and Delete....

In the previous post (now deleted) I was simply asking what happened to a local blog that just disappeared from existence.

I had no knowledge of anything happening , was just asking what happened to it. So many Blogs pop up, go like hell, and then usually hang around without adding anything for months, but stay up. ( hint, hint fellow bloggers)

This one just vanished.

I enjoyed reading it and had added it to the links and thats when I found out that it was gone.

After reading some of the comments left here, I can assume something may have happened that I do not care for me or this Blog to be involved in.

I started this Blog for "poops and giggles" and enjoy everyones comments on current posts, but reserve the right to delete posts and comments if it gets personal.

Who Won ??

Looks like a win but article says they lost?



QNDHW make a mistake here?