Tag: Gov. Rauner

Coffee at Gordono’s after mass: drug store, coffee shop, deli all-in-one

Gordono’s at Clark & Catalpa, NE corner this a.m. after mass at nearby St. Gregory’s. Friendly Omar makes the salads there. He took my $5 for paper, coffee, and (glazed) doughnut, returned a few coins change in a no-look (at what I’d bought) transaction that took a half minute preceded by warm chat with lady of the establishment, who had intro’d Omar as salad chef.

It’s an amazing place. Says pharmacy out front in top of window signs on Catalpa and Clark sides, but just below eye level on Clark there’s “Jewish deli.” What’s that? Deli cum drug store? Yes, that and more: a full-scale restaurant and coffee shop, with sturdy high tables and stools along both windows and coffee dispenser a step away for initial cup and refill, plus restaurant-style tables in adjoining room.

In rear of the corner room is the pharmacy with big signs, aspirin etc. along one short wall, band-aids etc. along the other and a booth area for the pharmacist to take and fill scrips. Everything about it is tightly wound in sense of nothing flimsy, no space wasted — a triumph of interior design with no sense of being crowded, much of being fascinated by the variety of the place.

The matzoh-ball soup is made on the spot, the lady told me, she the apparent owner or at least manager, 30-something, bright of eye and black of hair, plump, attractive, friendly and businesslike at same time.

At my Trib when once settled with coffee and doughnut, I read of the governor mixing it with legislators, feinting, dodging, in the game, in sharp contrast to the somewhat aloof, self-absorbed predecessor who offered no solution at at any time, just stopgap measures to save our state, which is in a state of alarm or should be.

Cruel governor, irresponsible Democrats

Two views of autism program budget cuts:

To Democrats, it was the “Good Friday Massacre;” a double-cross by the Republican governor after securing their votes on emergency budget bills. They voted for those bills at Rauner’s behest because, they believed, they contained assurances that programs like The Autism Project would be protected.

To Republicans, it was a painful yet necessary act by an administration that, for the first time in 12 years, will not play numbers games or push this year’s expenses into next year. It was the Democrats’ fault for passing a budget last year knowing that it did not have enough money to get the state through the year. Filling the $1.6 billion hole they created meant hard choices.

The second makes more sense. That phony budget of last year, very bad. Why do they do us like they do, do, do?

Rauner vs. the skilled trades. Maybe a problem here.

Pat Hickey fires a shot of warning about Rauner:

Bruce Rauner wants the skilled trades to open up their books to him. Governor Carhartt wants to see how many minorities and veterans are in skilled trades apprenticeship programs.

The Skilled Trades should tell Bruce Rauner to go pound sand.  Governor Rauner wants to measure data, in order to control. Each skilled trade got to where it is today on its own.  Yes, they did build their own success.

The minority-representation thing is worrisome, to be sure.

Rauner focuses on hiring transparency in executive order

Big deal here, way to flush out the hacks, such as the Sec Trans whom  Sen. Don Harmon paraded before an Oak Park audience in the fall of 2013 so as to give Oak Parkers the skinny on Dept. of Trans. plans for Eisenhower X-way and CTA”s Blue Line.

She was shown the door a few months later when discovered to be hiring relatives. Yay Harmon.

Rauner said his order is rooted in the Illinois Department of Transportation hiring scandal during the Quinn administration. An investigation found that IDOT had become a safe haven for many politically hired state employees seeking to quietly slip into jobs protected from politically motivated firings.

Nothing like transparency, which is often claimed, rarely demonstrated.

Rauner’s appointments coming up, “major structural reforms”?

​This weekend?

​”We have a structural problem decades in the making. Illinois government must undergo major structural reforms and implement honest budget practices that together address the long-term problems of the state,” Nuding said.​

​His operating officers. Bound to make a big difference, if only (we hope) they are neither hacks nor major campaign donors, the bane of good government everywhere.​

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