Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

I just came across this story. Evidentally, the federal government is holding back on giving a 1 million dollar grant to the Illinois DNR. From what i can tell this is being done because the federal government feels that money from license sales has not been spent properly, in other wordsthe moneyhas gone to pay for everything but local DNR needs. This issue seems to have come to a head under Blago. Not surprising.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Something like this almost happened here in New Jersey, but the NJ officals got scared and did the correct thing

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

The "correct thing" is a foreign concept in Illinois in this regard.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Amen brother!

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

A few weeks ago we went to a local Whitetail Classic Show in Illinois and the Game Warden there said that he was limited to a 20 minute call on his cell phone a day,he had to pay to get some used tires put on the company truck,if anyone had any kind of problem with Tresspassers or Poachers to call the Highway Patrol or Sheriff's Dept,anyone there that applied for certain Deer hunting permits/drawings would have to check On-line to see if they were drawn because they (Capital in Springfield) didn't have money for stamps to mail out the results,they were closing down Fort Kaskaski and Fort DeCharter and some other places/Forts in Illinois and "NO" hunting was allowed in any of those certain area's that were always open before.They have cut back on all kinds of Funding as far as any Conservation.It was sad to hear that coming from someone that has to enforce the lawand have limited funds...as most of us know it is "VERY" expensive to hunt anywhere in Illinois if your living Out of State...I think thats where a lot of the mis-use of Funds is going to line someone else's pockets and not back into Conservation to help with Wild Life and local Law Enforcement!

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Do you have a link to this story, I'd love to read it... I heard something similar to this about Blago. being investigated by the FBI, for miss use of funds, like the Habitat stamp money, it'sONLY supposed to be used to purchase other Habitat in IL, but it'sbeing used instead for public schools, park up keep etc. Apparently people have filed a lawsuit under the the "Freedom of information act" to see what it is that the FBI is investigating, of course Blago doesn't want it released in fear on biased info before re-election time...go figure.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Its on the Prairie State Outdoors website. I dont have the link but it should be easy to google.

The whole situation royally pisses me off. It costs me over 50 dollars for the NR license and habitat stamp just to hunt small game on my own land. Would cost me another 400 bucks to deer and turkey hunt, and another 400 bucks if i wanted to bow hunt. Yet, very little of that money would go to where it is needed.

It really doesn't have a major effect in my neck of the woods. It is all private land and you hardly ever see a game warden anyway and there is not much problem with poaching or trespass. But it has to be bad in other areas where the game wardens and access to public land is needed,

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

www.prairiestateoutdoors.com


Story is on the front page. NO ONE should be surprised that our esteemed Governor has been raping the IDNR budget. This guy rarely even leaves Chicago, so to say he is out of touch would be a HUGE understatement. I pray that he ends up in prison, because he is talking about running for a 3rd term in 2010. He is directly to blame for the vast majority of the budgetary woes currently being experienced by the IDNR. All resident hunters in Illinois must be ready to hand him his walking papers after this term if he isn't in prison by then. ;)

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

I'm surprised that he got re-elected. But then i remember the power of the greater Chicago area Democratic vote. hard to fight that when you probably have more registered voters in Cook County than all the hunters in Illinois. [:o]

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

How is it that the money we give to the state government for hunting gets misused so we get screwed one way. Then since we were screwed by the state, the government won't give us money. Seems like no matter what we do the government bends us over in Illinois, I think hunting licenses are the way Blago pays for his private jet.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Well, lets just say that until the state of Illinois gets its head out of its butt in terms of deer permit fees and how the money gets spent, i have no intention of spending money on a permit that will likely get used to pay for fixing potholes on the South side of Chicago. [:@]

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Non-resident fees in Illinois have gotten to the point where they are now because the IDNR has been forced to come up with revenue somewhere.If and whenthings get better from a budgetary stand point for the IDNR, don't expect Non-resident fees to go down. The "Camel's nose is way to far under the tent"for the IDNR to give up this cash cow. Way too many Non-residents are willing to stand in line with their mouth's watering and pay to hunt here for that to happen.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Well you know what, it sucks that the money goes to the wrong place. We can only HOPE that it is going to things like fixing roads, or schools, but I don't think that it is. I would tend to agree that it is more likelly to be buying private jets, and elvis records.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Bryant said DNR has made resolving issues, such as the proposal to close about a dozen state parks, difficult by not allowing its employees to talk to his agency.
“Some DNR employees have told us recently that they are under a gag order and they can’t really talk about this,” he said. “We were informed that we would have to talk to others higher up.
“The information was available. It was just not available from the people we usually talk to.”

Bryant is the guy fron USFWS. He needs the answers that have been being asked for for more than a couple years. But there is a friggin' gag order on the usual people who usually give those answers?

Something stinks here and as usual it's Slob Blowmebeeotch!

He's been in office for all of this mess. Our state parks were shining stars of the midwest - until Slob became Guv and the "robbing" was on. Now, when our parks are reaching all-time highest usage numbers Slob starts the motions of closing the parks?

Again something isn't right here folks as par with activities around GuvBlowmebeeotch. There has already been much trimming of employees of DNR. This idiot can't even come up with maybe charging a usage fee for the parks? Well that might not be a good idea either because he would steal that money raised and use it elsewhere in projects where his butt buddies would get contract awards.

I'd like to spit in one of hislying, crooked, game-playingeyes.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

I agree, at least he won't be the first gov. to go to jail from the great state of Illinois. Dirty, rotten cotton pickin, chicken plucker.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Kid,

Unless I am mistaken, all the money generated by deer permits goes to more of a general state fund. So, cranking up fees does not really serve as a legitimate way to generate funds for the IDNR. If they want to do that, then they should specify that all license and permit funds go directly to the IDNR.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

It use to be that funds generated by permits and licenses went directly to the DNR. However, a gew years ago Blago made some structure changes and the DNR is now no longer it's own department. The DNR falls under the state police, which means these funds no longer go directly to DNR. The DNR does have an alotted budget, but it is the first to get money redircted from and is also the first to be cut. Just check out who pays for ALL of the rails-to-trails program.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Funny that the permit fees have risen in conjunction with the shift in policy toward allottment of the funds.

If i wanted to hunt deer, turkey, and small game with gun and bow, the total NR bill would come to about 1000 bucks.I would like to see just how much money is actually generated by hunting in Illinois in any given year.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Now your catching on! ;)Kickin is exactly right and that is why I'm always railing against Blago and his raping of the IDNR.

RE: Government holding back grant from Illinois DNR
 

Bottom line is Blowgo is a corrupt clown. He can try to dance with words all he wants - he is all about himself. When Rezko drops a dime to save his own butt Blowgo will see that he isn't Old Man Winter afterall and his snowjobs are gonna melt.

In today's day and age we can repeatedly look at people, especially our youth who are just following the examples we set and see the dodging of personal responsibility that is tearing at the moral fobre of our society.

And Blowgo certainly leads the charge.

Let's look at this wonderful little piece from today's Chicago Tribune in addressing his disgusting behavior. It's definately a shot in the 10-ring.

Credit where it's due.........thanks to writer Erik Zorn, writer of the Change of Subject column, who doesn't allow Blowgo's snowjobs to pile p on him.



The grammar of avoidance

In speaking to reporters recently about the corruption scandals swirling around his administration, Gov. Rod Blogojevich said that "lines were crossed".

You remember this from your school days as an example of the passive voice-a grammatical construction that turns the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. (uncle matt calls this talking crap)

And because passive-voice expressions often fail to specify who or what is doing the acting, weasels tend to rely on them.

A classic example, and one that Blagojevich's words brought to mind, is "mistakes were made," a political dodge Ronald Reagan popularized when he used it to explain the Iran-Contra scandal in his 1987 State of the Union.

So last week, a good start was made when Change of Subject readers and I embarked on an effort to tell the Rod Blagojevich story using only the passive voice.

Big promises were offered. State contractor donations were accepted. Fishy appointments were made. Huge gifts for children were accepted. Fights with fellow democrats were picked. Moral superiority and testicular virility was proclaimed. A father-in-law was thrown under the bus. Commutation and pardon chores were neglected. Reporters were dodged. Opportunities were squandered.[/align]