Metropolis Honeywell Plant Update

Even more disturbing given what is going on in Japan. From the Huffington Post:

Remember that uranium enrichment plant that's locking out its workers? How good an idea is that? - HuffPost: "At the Honeywell Specialty Materials plant in Metropolis, Ill., the sole U.S. refinery that processes uranium for use in nuclear power plants, a union lockout has left temporary workers in charge of the facility. The locked-out members of United Steelworkers have erected 42 crosses in front of the Honeywell plant in memory of coworkers who succumbed to cancer in the past decade. Twenty-seven smaller crosses represent colleagues who survived a brush with cancer. When the plant began hiring replacement employees after the June lockout, the NRC found that management coached candidates on how to properly answer questions on a required examination to work there. According to the NRC, the temporary workers were given answers prior to questioning and were helped during the course of the evaluation process if they became confused. "The labor force was locked out and the Honeywell facility was trying to qualify as many operators as they could to make sure the plant could operate," NRC inspector Joe Calle said. "The process got overwhelmed, so to speak." Honeywell is run by big-time Obama backer David Cote.

City Council Forum

6 of the candidates for city council appear at the Civic Center tonight at 7 p.m. The next six appear on Wednesday.

Jane Adams Meet & Greet

Jane Adams is still campaigning strongly. Meet & Greet with her this Friday at Hundley House from 5-7 p.m. Invitation only however, due to the Jackson County Heath Department.

Clean-Up

Since one of the points coming up int eh mayoral primaries is the dirtiness of Carbondale and the need for the city to work on keeping itself clean, I would like to point out that residents of Carbondale are not exactly taking the bull by the horns in cleaning up themselves. While anecdotal rather than empirical, three times this week, I've walked past the same shattered beer bottle on the sidewalk in front of an operating business in the downtown area. The lack of concern by this business (and they are not a bar) is amazing, and I am afraid, not atypical in the downtown. I see too much emphasis on waiting for the city to clean up trash as not enough initiative taken by business in the area.

Granted the business may not have made the mess, but the person who made it is probably not going to come back to clean it up and business should not wait until cited by the city before taking action. Downtown needs more pro-activity and less re-activity.

The Southern on Lowrey

The Southern comes out pretty strongly that Chris Lowrey should be fired but won't because of the severe stress it would put on the university's finances. I don't pay much attention to SIUC sports, except for the amount of money funneled through the Saluki Way tax to the athletic department but $750,000 sure seems a lot of money for a coach at a second tier university.

City Furloughs

Interesting to remember that, in this time of frenzy over SIUC requiring furloughs from employees to cut costs and the concern from the community about it, the city required all non-union employees to take 4 furlough days in late 2009. Granted, they weren't union but there was sure a lot less hoopla about it and I certainly don't recall anyone offering the furloughed city employees a discount as a sign of thanks for their service to the community.

Mayoral Forums

Just got back from the 2nd Carbondale mayoral forum in as many days. This one, sponsored by the League of Women Voters, was not nearly as well attended as yesterday's, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. Of course, yesterday's came with lunch so food was a draw then.

The thing that struck me most about the forums was George Maroney's sense of humor. He didn't show much of one during his interviews or meet & greets earlier in the campaign but it certainly came out during these two events. Fritzler, only the other hand, wasted a good opportunity to differentiate himself from his opponents Wed. night during the "pose a question to your opponent" section of the forum and chose to ask what their favorite pizza topping was.

Overall the candidates acquitted themselves adequately. Suprisingly, I heard little mention of either downtown development or development of the northeast section of the city. Haynes and Goldman were mushc more general in their responses than were Fritzler and Maroney. Fritzler would like to remove moneys generated by the hotel tax from the Convention and Tourism bureau (which has funded a number of Mayor Cole's trips over the years) to the city's General Fund and would reactivate the city's street sweepers which were put into storage to save the city $200,000 per year, despite the fact that the city is still paying on them.

Maroney is also concerned about city cleanliness, though he didn't get as specific as Fritzler, feels that zoning regulations should be loosened and is very concerned about the amusement park completed proposed for Marion, which he feels will hurt Carbondale greatly if it comes to fruition.

Based on what I have seen from these events so far, it looks as if the election is really between Fritzler and Maroney