So FIRST off...
I gotta highly recommend this guy(if you haven't found him already)....
RockfordRhetoric...

We've been somewhat discussing Venita Hervey,5th Ward alderman...I gotta add my observations of her LarryBotic-SchizoBabble I heard last week on WNTA and then her impassioned rantings on Council floor Mon. nite.

See,the City(LarryBoy,'TightSuit'Hayes,etc) TWICE has been spanked by an arbitrator, and the firefighters' contract specifies 4 on a Truck! Well, LarryBoy just CAN'T STAND LOSING, heck he went to SPRINGFIELD crying to state law makers.
So anyway, Venita McCarthy(amazing can't see Larry's lips move when she talks) was
on the radio, she was touting this 'they're not volunteers, they would be unpaid firefighters-in-training'.... explaining the vision she has of CIRCUMVENTING the contractual language.
(God, I can't stand lawyers-turned-politicians)

Well I had to watch her meltdown at council TWICE...and still not able to understand much of anything she said....first she says she's probably the one person there most likely to have a heart attack and she HAD a health scare and drove herself to the hospital and her wards full of crime and blight and there's no way she will back down on the Morgan St. bridge and if we gotta get rid of cops and fire stations that's OK she won't let the ward down with that bridge and those unpaid fiefighters (sounds to me like she's advocating slavery or indentured servitude), well they should be minorities cuz they don't have hope cuz of crime and blight and this bridge is the ONLY future southwest Rockford can even dream of anymore.......sheeeesh

See, FIRST off, I just don't get why it's a fire station or the bridge. WHO EVEN SUGGESTED THAT?? Nowhere I can find anybody suggest that idea....must be a lawyer thought floating around the 7th/8th floor of cityhall.

Secondly, West State and South Main reconstruction ARE priorities...the West Side HAS been neglected for decades, but near as I can tell,despite McHervey and Ann Mortimer Thompson-Snerd blind allegiance to LarryBoy, I think it's STILL going on....and from what I hear that bridge woulda been DONE BY NOW if LarryBoy hadn't had it redesigned into a mini-Golden Gate and I suspect some bunch of insiders needed time to buy up all that crappy surrounding property so they can sell it at top-tax-dollar when demolition gets really underway.


And the final straw in all these baskets is LarryBoy's CIP mantra is all about 'leveraging' city funds against state funds. Ah, HHEEELLLLLOOOOO, McFly,anybody home??? THE STATE IS BROKE!!!

Well, the details changed a bit, but LarryBoy seems hell-bent on sacrificing the safety of west-side residents....

"...Fire Station No. 8, at Auburn and Sherman streets, is targeted for closure July 1. That’s a change in plans from what was announced in May when city officials said Station No. 8 would lose its lone engine company but would still house an ambulance crew.

Chief Derek Bergsten also revealed this week that Station No. 3, at 1520 S. Main St., is targeted for closure on Jan. 1, which also is a change from plans to remove one of two engine companies from Station No. 1, at 528 Woodlawn Ave...."

Meanwhile, City Hall has no problem crowing about cutting cops and crime...
http://www.rrstar.com/news/publicsafety/x696774441/2-stage-armed-robbery-at-East-State-store
http://www.rrstar.com/news/publicsafety/x383299299/Two-at-large-in-Rockford-bank-robbery
http://www.rrstar.com/news/publicsafety/x1501908692/Family-fight-escalates-ends-with-stabbings-in-Rockford

Oh but that cost-over-run 'Streetscape' debacle...THAT'S where idiots want to SPEND MORE!!!
http://blogs.e-rockford.com/sweenyreport/2010/06/19/main-street-streetscape-needs-to-be-finished-pronto/