Keepin' It Kleen

An Exploration of Society, Culture, and Politics

Local Daily Should Shine Light on Downtown Development

Published May 15, 2012 at Rock River Times

In March, the Rock River Times published an article outlining how financial contributors to Mayor Larry Morrissey’s political campaign stand to benefit from plans to turn the city-owned Ingersoll building into a multi-million dollar, publicly-owned sports complex. The Ingersoll building, located along the riverfront at 301-401 S. Madison St. in Rockford, sits just inside the boundary of what NeighborhoodScout.com has called the 14th most dangerous neighborhood in the United States.

Public funding and control over downtown projects has flourished under the Morrissey administration. In 2010, Morrissey oversaw the creation of the Rockford Area Venues and Entertainment (RAVE) Authority to run the city’s increasing portfolio of downtown entertainment assets. That same year, a public/private partnership called Rock River Development Partnership (RRDP) created an outdoor city market on the east bank of the river between State and Jefferson streets. RRDP was cofounded by Larry Morrissey and Peter Provenzano, president of SupplyCore and the registered agent for Madison Street Properties, LLC.

Madison Street Properties, LLC owns a substantial amount of property around the Ingersoll building. Danny Lorden, president of Progressive Development LLC and co-manager of Madison Street Properties, is a former board member of RRDP. In 2010, Progressive Development purchased the Salvation Army’s Millennium Center on Madison Street at nearly half its listed value. The Millennium Center is in eyeshot of the Ingersoll building.

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When Fairness is No Longer Fair

Published November 15, 2012 at Rock River Times

In February 2010, Hannah Workman was a fifth grader and straight-A student in Florida’s Clay County School District. She was denied entrance to her elementary school’s gifted program because she did not score highly enough on the entrance exam. While that is unremarkable in and of itself, her mother later learned that Hannah would have scored highly enough to enter the gifted program if her family earned less.

The standards on the entrance exam, she discovered, were based on income level and English proficiency. Students who qualified for free or reduced lunch or who spoke limited English only had to score in the 90s to qualify, while other children needed to score at least 130.

Though seemingly a minor footnote in the story of America’s public schools, the testing policy of this Florida school district cuts to the core of the philosophical debate over the role of education raging among educators and policy makers. It reveals much about the changing definition of “fairness” and the problem with using publically-funded education to redress social inequality.

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The Mario Effect

Earlier this year, an expanding video game store franchise opened a new location on Perryville Road in Rockford. To help advertise their new business, the store hired a young man named Angel Galvan to dress in a Super Mario costume and dance in the lawn near the road.

One day, in the first week of October, two unidentified men drove up, got out of their vehicle, and attacked Galvan. One of the men punched him repeatedly while the other recorded the assault on his cell phone. The pair then drove off as quickly as they arrived. Police are still looking for suspects.

“We’ve never run into anything like this before,” TNT Video Game Store owner Steve Allen told Channel 23 News. “It’s scary. We’re looking forward to doing business in Rockford, but definitely are apprehensive.”

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