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[shashin type=”album” id=”2″ size=”medium” crop=”n” columns=”max” caption=”y” order=”date” position=”left”]Now that the I-57 portion of fiber optic cable construction has been completed, South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association (SSMMA) kicked-off the next construction phase to link the fiber into municipal facilities, colleges, libraries, public safety locations and other buildings at the Monee Village Hall on June 27, 2012. The fiber cable will enable higher capacity data and Internet connections to Monee municipal locations and provide immediate connections for public safety, education and economic development opportunities. Overall, the high capacity fiber optic cabling will enable Southland communities to provide services and applications that will improve communications capabilities for the entire region. “Our community gets an immediate benefit,” said Monee Village President Jay Farquhar. “Our public safety departments will be using fiber-enabled monitoring and operational support applications, and our teachers will no longer being limited by bandwidth, soon having the ability to provide high quality video and educational resources in the classroom.” “Technology capabilities and information sharing will be greatly enhanced at South Suburban College,” added Don Manning, the school’s president. “In addition, much of the region will benefit because we plan to link this infrastructure to area feeder schools and libraries.” Fiber optic cable construction will continue through the summer, linking sites all the way from University Park connecting Governor’s State University, Richton Park, SouthCom Joint Dispatch in Matteson, and continuing on to locations in Dixmoor, Blue Island and the Markham courthouse, reaching over 30 facilities in communities bordering I-57. The project is scheduled to be completed by January 2014. The fiber network constructed by SSMMA will be operated by the Chicago Southland Fiber Network (CSFN), a separate not-for-profit organization. CSFN’s primary mission is to provide state-of-the-art broadband services to educational, governmental, healthcare and other public interest institutions in the south suburban Chicago area. SSMMA, in partnership with the Cook County Bureau of Technology, received a $6.1 million grant from the State of Illinois’ “Jobs First” capital grant funding program to build the fiber network. This project helps many underserved communities that would not have access to this technology if not for the grant. Beginning in February of 2012, the I-57 fiber cable was installed in partnership with the State of Illinois, Central Managed Services. “Fiber cabling is a key investment to improve economic opportunities in the region, improving municipal communications capabilities and lowering the cost of delivering government services,” said SSMMA President and Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun. “Fiber optic connectivity has become the next critical infrastructure for our region, often listed at the same level of importance as good roads, electric distribution, and water and sewer services.” In fact, local investment in high-capacity broadband infrastructure has captured the attention of national publisher Broadband Communities Magazine. They will be hosting a “Revival in America’s Heartland” regional conference at the Tinley Park Convention Center Nov. 5-7 on using advanced communications capabilities to foster economic development and create jobs. For more information please visit http://www.bbpmag.com. Photographer Larry Pyrzybski captured part of the event in this video.

Susan Shea, director of IDOT’s Aeronautics Division, photo by Cindy Wojdyla Cain Private investment in the South Suburban Airport could help decrease the chances of it becoming a “white elephant,” a Will County official said Wednesday. “If private investment is involved, then the project will appear to be viable,” Beecher village manager Bob Barber said. State transportation officials agree. “If they’re going to invest, they’re going to do their due diligence to make sure it’s a good project,” said Roger Driskell, the Illinois Department of Transportation’s expert on public-private partnerships… Please click here to read Cindy Wojdyla Cain’s story in the Southtown Star.

Ten of the poorest south suburbs are stuck with the highest property tax rates in Cook County. Ford Heights ranks No. 1 on the list compiled by Cook County Clerk David Orr, with an astounding composite property tax rate of 31.8 percent. Park Forest and Riverdale rank second and third with tax rates of 28.7 and 24.4 percent, respectively…. …“That’s devastating, just devastating,” said Ed Paesel, executive director of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association when asked about the impact of the property tax rates on the Southland. “Obviously, tax rates alone make it difficult, virtually impossible, to get economic development.” Please click here to read Phil Kadner’s full story in the Southtown Star.

Governor Pat Quinn announced the South Suburbs Housing Investment Tool as one of the winning entries in the pilot competition of the Illinois Open Technology Challenge (ILOpenTech), which called on developers to create digital tools that utilize open government data for the benefit of Illinois residents and their communications. The South Suburbs Housing Investment Tool is an online tool that allows users to analyze, score and rank potential housing development projects according to their location. The tool also superimposes the data on a fully navigable map. “We commend these enterprising developers for applying their skills toward making municipal government more transparent and accessible for Illinoisans,” Governor Quinn said. “This first-of-its-kind initiative clearly demonstrates that Illinois is taking a national leadership role in embracing digital government and promoting open data, which is spurring more innovation and economic development statewide.” Created by Dominic Strezo, Ryan Eckdale-Dudley and Jason Cleaver, the South Suburbs Housing Investment Tool analyzes more than 30 variables for each property that are used to rank redevelopment projects. The Illinois Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to adopt the model and use it as a template for other communities around the state with similar project scoring systems. “Participating in this challenge opened our eyes to new opportunities and the need for additional open data access to improve communities throughout Illinois,” said Eckdale-Dudley. “While our system was created specifically for housing, we believe that it could be applied to other uses, such as prioritizing potential areas for brownfield redevelopment. We look forward to training the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association leadership on how to best use and implement this tool.” The South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association (SSMMA) was able to take advantage of its existing geographic information system, the “South Suburban Atlas” (ssatlas.org), which houses a substantial amount of government data. The SSMMA used ILOpenTech to encourage local communities to release additional data for the Challenge. “We are excited to explore ways that SSMMA and our member communities can apply the South Suburbs Housing Investment Tool to the housing development process,” said Ed Paesel, executive director of the SSMMA. “ILOpenTech has galvanized South Suburban communities to strengthen their commitment to open data and increased government transparency.” The South Suburbs Housing Investment Tool joined winners from Belleville (BellevilleLaw.com), Champaign (CU-There!), as well as an app designed for use statewide (iApplied) – each of which was awarded $15,000. The city of Rockford also participated in the Open Tech Challenge, playing host to a series of developer meet-ups, which will culminate in an open tech app hackathon later this month. ILOpenTech is an initiative of Governor Quinn’s Illinois Innovation Council and is managed by the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC) in partnership with the Smart Chicago Collaborative. The program is focused on making Illinois’ open data platform, Data.Illinois.Gov, available and applicable to communities statewide through trainings, community meet-ups and hackathons, bringing together technology developers with civic leaders and community groups. The challenge was sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust, Comcast, Google, Illinois Innovation Council, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Motorola Mobility Foundation. ILOpenTech is the state’s first sustained, engaged initiative outside the Chicago metro area to work hands-on with local governments and developers on the collection and publication of open data. It has created a strong foundation for starting or accelerating open data projects statewide by helping municipalities understand the nuts and bolts of using open data to drive innovation. In advance of the competition, ILOpenTech worked with 12 government IT professionals in the four pilot communities to compile and publish 138 new sets of data about local government operations to Data.Illinois.Gov: 34 in Champaign, 15 in Rockford, 12 in Belleville and 77 from the 42 communities in the SSMMA. “We are excited to explore ways that SSMMA and our member communities can apply the South Suburbs Housing Investment Tool to the housing development process,” said Ed Paesel, executive director of the SSMMA. “ILOpenTech has galvanized South Suburban communities to strengthen their commitment to open data and increased government transparency.” “Throughout this first phase of ILOpenTech, we’ve seen the tremendous opportunity in gathering and packaging local government data in new ways that are useful to the general public,” said ISTC President and CEO Mark Harris. “By fostering partnerships between municipal governments and the Illinois developer community, we can increase transparency and accessibility, and spark innovation in both government and business.” About the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition The Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC) is a member-driven, nonprofit organization that works to cultivate and attract research and technology-based investment, talent and job growth in the state. Through strategic public-private partnerships, advocacy efforts and project management, ISTC connects government, academia and industry to leverage the state’s world-class resources to enhance Illinois’ position as a global hub for research, innovation and entrepreneurship. For more information, visit www.istcoalition.org About the Smart Chicago Collaborative The Smart Chicago Collaborative is an initiative that helps build the long-term capacity of the city of Chicago and its neighborhoods to realize the transformative potential of information technology. For more information, visit www.smartchicagocollaborative.org

Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki Tinley Park wants Chicago’s North Side baseball team to consider a new home across enemy lines in White Sox country — the south suburbs. In a letter to Chicago Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts, Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki notes the team’s troubled ongoing negotiations with Chicago to redevelop Wrigley Field and offers 250 acres of land in his southwest suburb for a new home. “I understand that other communities may have already reached out to you,” Zabrocki wrote Ricketts, “but I ask that you consider this as a legitimate option and an opportunity to expand the Chicago Cubs horizon to a south side audience as well…. Please click here to read Phil Kadner’s full story in the Southtown Star or here for a related article in the Tribune.

Not long ago, America passed an important statistical barrier, as Emily Badger writes: “Today, more poor people live in the suburbs (16.4 million of them) than in U.S. cities (13.4 million), despite the perception that poverty remains a uniquely urban problem.” I think calling it “uniquely” urban is a bit off—while I might be a bit overinvested in Appalachian history, the problem of rural poverty is, I think, pretty well recognized, going back through the War on Poverty in the 1960s and rural electrification before that. But the focus on suburban poverty is fairly new. It preceded the post-2010-Census statistics, which intensified the focus. But to see why it’s become such an issue of late, and why poverty was so linked with urban centers, it helps to see the movement of the poor people over time. Please click here to read the full story in Chicago Magazine, posted by Whet Moser, or here to view the Urban Institute’s poverty mapping application.

Please don’t miss: South Suburban Airport Meeting for Community Leaders June 26, 2013, 10 a.m. – noon Sherman Music Hall Governor’s State University RSVP to Kirstin DiCenso: Kristin.DiCenso@Illinois.gov or (217) 557-0118 Recent news on the South Suburban Airport Jobs Bill and related project updates: From the IDOT Division of  Aeronautics Summary of South Suburban Airport Jobs Bill Public-Private Partnership Legislation SouthSuburbcinAlrport The South Suburban Airport Public-Private Partnership Legislation is modeled off the Illiana legislation allowing mOT to engage in a Public-Private Partnership (P3). As such, this will provide mOT with the opportunity to enter into a P3 to build and operate SSA. This is a clean slate with a focus to build the airport and the economic development will follow. • SSA P3legislation is based on the Public Private Agreements for the Illiana Expressway Act, P.A. 096-0913. • Authorize lOOT to enter into public-private partnership (P3) agreements for the development, financing, construction, management, operation, and maintenance of the South Suburban Airport (SSA). • Calls for mOT to collaborate with the municipalities, counties, and other stakeholders affected by SSA. • Provides lOOT authority to maintain ownership of the SSA property with the ability to provide lease terms of up to 75 years to enable broad private financing vehicles to fund the development and operation of the SSA. • Selection process (including public hearings) for P3 contractor will be through a competitive RFP governed by the SSA P3 legislation. • Provides requirements that must be included in all P3 agreements to give the State control and oversight over the developer and operator, such as: • Transparency and audit requirements; • Requirements that allow the State to overturn decisions by the contractor; and • Termination rights by DOT. • Requires any contractor that enters into a P3 agreement to enter into a project labor agreement (PLA). • At a minimum,·the request for proposals process will take into account the offeror’s ability to comply with the Business Enterprise for Minorities, Females, and Persons with Disabilities Act and Section 2-105 of the Illinois Human Rights Act, including the ability to meet utilization goals for business enterprises. • Provides lDOT quick take condemnation powers to streamline the acquisition of land for the SSA. • Requires quarterly and monthly lOOT reports and prompt responses to Procurement Policy Board information requests. Requires COGFA and Procurement Policy Board (PPB) review and comment of offerors prior to department final selection. Please click  20130605132037 to download  the report on legislation, economic opportunity and job creation, and airport project status updates.

Friday June 28, 2013 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. SSMMA Offices Conference Room C 1906 W. 174th Street East Hazel Crest, IL 60429 The event is free, but registration is appreciated by clicking here . SSMMA and CSEDC are hosting a special presentation at the CSEDC Board and Investor meeting. We will present how to use the GIS (geographic information system) Atlas to organize information about development opportunities in your municipality. Did you know that by using the GIS Atlas, you can present key information such as TIF zones, zoning maps, enterprise zones and infrastructure, in a format developers will find useful? CSEDC will present examples of displaying information for retail, industrial, and housing sites using the GIS Atlas and web sites. We will also briefly present how the South Suburban Atlas GIS Consortium is providing affordable GIS services for municipalities in our region. Get a grasp on how the system integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. GIS services are an integral tool for your municipality’s various departments from Police and Fire to Public Works. Finally, we will discuss a joint municipal initiative to invite the Chicago region’s retail and housing development community to promote our development opportunity sites at a workshop.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will pitch the project to investors at noon Monday, with backup provided by top officials from each state’s department of transportation. More than 400 investors, contractors and others are expected at the two-day event, according to the Indiana Department of Transportation. Please click here to read  Keith Benman’s story in the Times.

Joe Cahill’s excitement about the inclusion of logistics companies on Crain’s Fast Fifty list is well-deserved. It’s true that transportation, and especially rail, is vital to our regional economy. But rail is valuable only to the extent that it is integrated with good land-use decisions so that it actually serves communities and industrial districts, and that the extended value of rail cargo is captured and kept in the region. That’s why the privately funded rail bypass Mr. Cahill referenced, one that would run along the proposed Illiana Expressway, is not the answer. We should be cautious about building rail at our exurban fringe. Such development may have its place for simply moving products through our region, but when we locate rail and related job centers at these fringe sites, we lose — and even reverse — the potential economic and environmental benefits of rail. To maximize the value of rail, we need to focus our industrial development efforts on rail-served locations, especially around intermodal freight terminals, in existing communities. New information technologies can increase the capacity of these facilities without having to move them to larger greenfield locations, meaning more of our precious landscape and farmlands remain intact and more precious dollars remain in local tax bases. A good example of public action to stimulate this type of cargo-oriented development is the South Suburban Brownfield Redevelopment Zone, created as part of recent state legislation. Please click here to read the rest of  Kathryn Tholin’s opinion in Crain’s.

Press release are from Cook County Board Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy… Cook County Board Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy (6th District) is sponsoring events to help people apply for CountyCare at two resource fairs.  Flyers are available to download and distribute here: CountyCare English flyer or  CountyCare June 26-27 SPANISH – FINA. WHAT: Cook County Board Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy (6th District) is hosting two resource fairs in Palos Hills and Chicago Heights, Ill., where Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS), Access Community Health Network, and Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center and Health Center will provide information and assist people who want to apply for the new no-cost health insurance program called CountyCare. Once a CountyCare member, people are not required to pay for covered services, including routine doctor visits, hospital stays, prescription drugs, laboratory and x-ray services, mammograms, mental health services, public transportation, and other services. Uninsured or underinsured adults between ages of 19 and 64 are encouraged to visit the resource fairs to learn more about CountyCare and fill out an application if eligible. To qualify, you must live in Cook County, be 19-64 years of age without dependents at home, have a Social Security number and be a legal immigrant for at least 5 years or a U.S. citizen. Yearly income must be below $15,282 for an individual or $20,628 per couple. You must not be receiving or eligible for Medicaid, Medicare or CHIP. To apply, please bring one of each of the following items: Proof of Identity: Driver’s license Government issued picture ID U.S. passport Proof of Legal Status (for Non-Citizens only): Form I-94 arrival-departure form Permanent resident card Alien registration card Green card Other immigration document with picture and A-Number Proof of Cook County Address: Utility bill Rent receipt/lease agreement Illinois drivers license or state identification card Other residency proof Proof of Income (last 30 days): Pay stubs Employee statement Unemployment document Social Security, DHS, etc. WHEN: Wednesday, June 26, 2013, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Thursday, June 27, 2013, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. PRICE: Both fairs are free to the public. WHERE: June 26: Moraine Valley Community College, Building M, 9000 W. College Pkwy, Palos Hills, IL 60465 June 27: Prairie State College, Conference Center Room #1315, 202 S. Halsted St., Chicago Heights, IL 60411 BACKGROUND: CountyCare is a new Illinois Medicaid program. Patients choose a primary care site from participating local hospitals and healthcare sites throughout the county, including Cook County Health and Hospitals System locations.The patient is assigned a doctor, nurse, social worker and medical assistant to manage their health care through a new Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model. The CountyCare program was approved under the federal government’s 1115 Medicaid Waiver, which permits CCHHS to early-enroll 115,000 individuals who will be eligible for Medicaid in 2014 through the Affordable Care Act.

Broadband Communities Magazine is assembling an outstanding multi-disciplinary roster of national, regional, and local experts who have extensive experience in using advanced communications capabilities to foster economic development and create jobs. They will examine what is working well, what is not, and what lies ahead, particularly as federal stimulus funding ends. Their speakers will provide attendees with a wealth of economic research, case histories, how-to materials, and other practical information that they can use effectively in their communities. They will address the latest “hot” topics, including Google Fiber, FirstNet, the Connect America Fund, the FCC’s new Health Care Connect Fund, emphasizing their potential to foster economic development and job creation. Click here for more information, or to register. For questions about the conference,  call  281-342-9655, or email: meredith@bbcmag.com Community Fiber Networks Conference – Tinley Park, Illinois  Tuesday, November 05, 2013 – Thursday, November 07, 2013 Hotel Information: Holiday Inn Chicago-Tinley Park-Convention Center 18501 Convention Center Drive Tinley Park, IL 60477 (708) 444-1100 Special rate of $125 / night. Reference the Broadband Communities Tinley Park Conference to receive the rate.