Story posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Gruen To Face Mulligan
Off The Record | By TODD WESSELL
Thoughts & squawks about people, places and things in and around the Great Northwest Suburbs...
Local businesswoman Wendy Gruen, one of the newest members of the Des Plaines Economic Development Commission (EDC), will run against longtime State Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R-65th) in the November general election.
Gruen, 58, chief financial officer of Des Plaines-based Turner Financial Services, was chosen by the five 65th Legislative District Democratic committeemen at a meeting last week. She and her husband, Paul Turner, will move their offices this week from their current South River Road location to 1400 E. Touhy Ave. due to the planned demolition of 10 buildings on the site where the new Des Plaines casino will be built. Their new location will be within walking distance of their home. Mulligan, a resident of Des Plaines, was recently elected Maine Township Republican committeeman replacing Mark Thompson. She has been a fixture in Springfield since defeating former state rep. Penny Pullen of Park Ridge many years ago...
A tour of the downtown Des Plaines Sims Bowl property by city officials and other local community leaders is being planned by Mike Conlan, the city's director of community & economic development. As of early yesterday (Tuesday), plans had not been finalized.
The tour is in response to a lengthy discussion that took place at last week's city council meeting. Some aldermen have raised the question of whether the Sims building should be demolished and paved over for a parking lot or whether the 55-year-old structure could be renovated and used for some purpose. Critics of the latter point to a recent city study that says that renovating the property could cost as much as $600,000---way too expensive and unnecessary they say. Others, however, say it is foolish for the city to spend more than $800,000 for the property during a time of great economic uncertainty, and then to make it a parking lot.
The tour will provide officials the opportunity to see for themselves the condition of the property to help them decide whether it's worth keeping...
Former Des Plaines alderman Bob Martin, who for years has managed the DuPage Water Commission, has found himself in the midst of a controversy over future control of the agency that is responsible for piping Lake Michigan water to 25 DuPage towns.
According to reports, State Senator Dan Cronin, who won the GOP nomination for DuPage County Board chairman, is sponsoring legislation that would place the commission under the control of the county board. Critics contend Cronin's move is a power play to place control of the agency under him if he wins in November. Supporters of the move say the proposed legislation is meant to rein in the agency after Martin said he recently discovered that a former finance administrator spent nearly all of the commission's reserve funds without informing his boss or the commission's board.
Martin served as 3d ward alderman from 1982-87...
Christopher Stephens, general manager of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, has to be a happy camper as improvement work to the facility's meandering overhead walkway system nears an end. Rosemont Village Board members last week approved $34,000 in electrical work for the walkway project, which Mayor Bradley Stephens said will likely conclude the project. When every cent is counted, approximately $3.1 million will have been spent to vastly improve and modernize the walkway which is used by hundreds of thousands of convention-goers each year as they walk from the village-owned parking garage west of River Road, over the highway to the facility.
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