This Day In History - June 30th

1953

First Corvette Built

On this day in 1953, the first production Corvette is built at the General Motors facility in Flint, Michigan. Tony Kleiber, a worker on the assembly line, is given the privilege of driving the now-historic car off the line.

Harley J. Earl, the man behind the Corvette, got his start in his father’s business, Earl Automobile Works, designing custom auto bodies for Hollywood movie stars such as Fatty Arbuckle. In 1927, General Motors hired Earl to redesign the LaSalle, the mid-range option the company had introduced between the Buick and the Cadillac. Earl’s revamped LaSalle sold some 50,000 units by the end of 1929, before the Great Depression permanently slowed sales and it was discontinued in 1940. By that time, Earl had earned more attention for designing the Buick “Y Job,” recognized as the industry’s first “concept” car. Its relatively long, low body came equipped with innovations such as disappearing headlamps, electric windows and air-cooled brake drums over the wheels like those on an airplane.

After scoring another hit with the 1950 Buick LeSabre, Earl headed into the 1950s–a boom decade for car manufacturers–at the top of his game. In January 1953, he introduced his latest “dream car,” the Corvette, as part of GM’s traveling Motorama display at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The sleek Corvette, the first all-fiberglass-bodied American sports car, was an instant hit. It went into production the following June in Flint; 300 models were built that year. All 1953 Corvettes were white convertibles with red interiors and black canvas tops. Underneath its sleek exterior, however, the Corvette was outfitted with parts standard to other GM automobiles, including a “Blue Flame” six-cylinder engine, two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission and the drum brakes from Chevrolet’s regular car line.

The Corvette’s performance as a sports car was disappointing relative to its European competitors, and early sales were unimpressive. GM kept refining the design, however, and the addition of its first V-8 engine in 1955 greatly improved the car’s performance. By 1961, the Corvette had cemented its reputation as America’s favorite sports car. Today, it continues to rank among the world’s elite sports cars in acceleration time, top speed and overall muscle.

Bloom Seniors Myrtle Beach Show and Trip

This Day In History - June 29th

1972

Supreme Court Strikes Down Death Penalty

In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as “cruel and unusual punishment,” primarily because states employed execution in “arbitrary and capricious ways,” especially in regard to race. It was the first time that the nation’s highest court had ruled against capital punishment. However, because the Supreme Court suggested new legislation that could make death sentences constitutional again, such as the development of standardized guidelines for juries that decide sentences, it was not an outright victory for opponents of the death penalty.

In 1976, with 66 percent of Americans still supporting capital punishment, the Supreme Court acknowledged progress made in jury guidelines and reinstated the death penalty under a “model of guided discretion.” In 1977, Gary Gilmore, a career criminal who had murdered an elderly couple because they would not lend him their car, was the first person to be executed since the end of the ban. Defiantly facing a firing squad in Utah, Gilmore’s last words to his executioners before they shot him through the heart were, “Let’s do it.”

This Day In History - June 28th

1836

Former President James Madison Dies

On this day in 1836, James Madison, drafter of the Constitution, recorder of the Constitutional Convention, author of the “Federalist Papers” and fourth president of the United States, dies on his tobacco plantation in Virginia.

Madison first distinguished himself as a student at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he successfully completed a four-year course of study in two years and, in 1769, helped found the American Whig Society, the second literary and debate society at Princeton (and the world), to rival the previously established Cliosophic Society.

Madison returned to Virginia with intellectual accolades but poor health in 1771. By 1776, he was sufficiently recovered to serve for three years in the legislature of the new state of Virginia, where he came to know and admire Thomas Jefferson. In this capacity, he assisted with the drafting of the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom and the critical decision for Virginia to cede its western claims to the Continental Congress.

Madison is best remembered for his critical role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he presented the Virginia Plan to the assembled delegates in Philadelphia and oversaw the difficult process of negotiation and compromise that led to the drafting of the final Constitution. Madison’s published “Notes on the Convention” are considered the most detailed and accurate account of what occurred in the closed-session debates. (Madison forbade the publishing of his notes until all the participants were deceased.) After the Constitution was submitted to the people for ratification, Madison collaborated with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton on “The Federalist Papers,” a series of pamphlets that argued for the acceptance of the new government. Madison penned the most famous of the pamphlets, “Federalist No. 10,” which made an incisive argument for the ability of a large federation to preserve individual rights.

In 1794, Madison married a young widow, Dolley Payne Todd, who would prove to be Washington, D.C.’s finest hostess during Madison’s years as secretary of state to the widowed Thomas Jefferson and then as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Dolley Madison earned a special place in the nation’s memory for saving a portrait of George Washington before fleeing the burning White House during the War of 1812.

The War of 1812 tested Madison’s presidency. The Federalists staunchly opposed Madison’s declaration of war against the British and threatened to secede from the Union during the Harford Convention. When the new nation managed to muster a tenuous victory, the Federalist Party was destroyed as America’s status as a nation apart from Britain was secured.

After retiring from official political positions, Madison served Thomas Jefferson’s beloved University of Virginia first as a member of the board of visitors and then as rector. In 1938, the State Teachers College at Harrisonburg, Virginia, was renamed in Madison’s honor as Madison College; in 1976, it became James Madison University.

CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY - FREE SENIOR ENRICHMENT SEMINAR SERIES: - July 7, 2016

This Day In History - June 27

1985

Route 66 Decertified

After 59 years, the iconic Route 66 enters the realm of history on this day in 1985, when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials decertifies the road and votes to remove all its highway signs.

Measuring some 2,200 miles in its heyday, Route 66 stretched from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California, passing through eight states. According to a New York Times article about its decertification, most of Route 66 followed a path through the wilderness forged in 1857 by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Edward Beale at the head of a caravan of camels. Over the years, wagon trains and cattlemen eventually made way for trucks and passenger automobiles.

The idea of building a highway along this route surfaced in Oklahoma in the mid-1920s as a way to link the state to cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. Highway Commissioner Cyrus S. Avery touted it as a way of diverting traffic from Kansas City, Missouri and Denver. In 1926, the highway earned its official designation as Route 66. The diagonal course of Route 66 linked hundreds of mostly rural communities to the cities along its route, allowing farmers to more easily transport grain and other types of produce for distribution. The highway was also a lifeline for the long-distance trucking industry, which by 1930 was competing with the railroad for dominance in the shipping market.

Route 66 was the scene of a mass westward migration during the 1930s, when more than 200,000 people traveled from the poverty-stricken Dust Bowl to California. John Steinbeck immortalized the highway, which he called the “Mother Road,” in his classic 1939 novel “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Beginning in the 1950s, the building of a massive system of interstate highways made older roads increasingly obsolete, and by 1970, modern four-lane highways had bypassed nearly all sections of Route 66. In October 1984, Interstate-40 bypassed the last original stretch of Route 66 at Williams, Arizona, and the following year the road was decertified. According to the National Historic Route 66 Federation, drivers can still use 85 percent of the road, and Route 66 has become a destination for tourists from all over the world.

Often called the “Main Street of America,” Route 66 became a pop culture mainstay over the years, inspiring its own song (written in 1947 by Bobby Troup, “Route 66″ was later recorded by artists as varied as Nat “King” Cole, Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones) as well as a 1960s television series. More recently, the historic highway was featured prominently in the hit animated film “Cars” (2006).

This Day In History - June 26th

1945

U.N. Charter Signed

In the Herbst Theater auditorium in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations sign the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The Charter was ratified on October 24, and the first U.N. General Assembly met in London on January 10, 1946.

Despite the failure of the League of Nations in arbitrating the conflicts that led up to World War II, the Allies as early as 1941 proposed establishing a new international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. The idea of the United Nations began to be articulated in August 1941, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which proposed a set of principles for international collaboration in maintaining peace and security. Later that year, Roosevelt coined “United Nations” to describe the nations allied against the Axis powers–Germany, Italy, and Japan. The term was first officially used on January 1, 1942, when representatives of 26 Allied nations met in Washington, D.C., and signed the Declaration by the United Nations, which endorsed the Atlantic Charter and presented the united war aims of the Allies.

In October 1943, the major Allied powers–Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China–met in Moscow and issued the Moscow Declaration, which officially stated the need for an international organization to replace the League of Nations. That goal was reaffirmed at the Allied conference in Tehran in December 1943, and in August 1944 Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China met at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. Over seven weeks, the delegates sketched out the form of the world body but often disagreed over issues of membership and voting. Compromise was reached by the “Big Three”–the United States, Britain, and the USSR–at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and all countries that had adhered to the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations were invited to the United Nations founding conference.

On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization convened in San Francisco with 50 nations represented. Three months later, during which time Germany had surrendered, the final Charter of the United Nations was unanimously adopted by the delegates. On June 26, it was signed. The Charter, which consisted of a preamble and 19 chapters divided into 111 articles, called for the U.N. to maintain international peace and security, promote social progress and better standards of life, strengthen international law, and promote the expansion of human rights. The principal organs of the U.N., as specified in the Charter, were the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council.

On October 24, 1945, the U.N. Charter came into force upon its ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. The first U.N. General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, opened in London on January 10, 1946. On October 24, 1949, exactly four years after the United Nations Charter went into effect, the cornerstone was laid for the present United Nations headquarters, located in New York City. Since 1945, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded more than ten times to the United Nations and its organizations or to individual U.N. officials, most recently to both the organization as a whole and Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001.

This Day In History - June 25th

1876

Battle of Little Bighorn

On this day in 1876, Native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River.

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, leaders of the Sioux tribe on the Great Plains, strongly resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S. government to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored previous treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana. By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River–which they called the Greasy Grass–in defiance of a U.S. War Department order to return to their reservations or risk being attacked.

In mid-June, three columns of U.S. soldiers lined up against the camp and prepared to march. A force of 1,200 Native Americans turned back the first column on June 17. Five days later, General Alfred Terry ordered Custer’s 7th Cavalry to scout ahead for enemy troops. On the morning of June 25, Custer drew near the camp and decided to press on ahead rather than wait for reinforcements.

At mid-day, Custer’s 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley. Among the Native Americans, word quickly spread of the impending attack. The older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors and saw to the safety of the women and children, while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers head on. Despite Custer’s desperate attempts to regroup his men, they were quickly overwhelmed. Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by as many as 3,000 Native Americans; within an hour, Custer and every last one of his soldier were dead.

The Battle of Little Bighorn–also called Custer’s Last Stand–marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The gruesome fate of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty. Meanwhile, the U.S. government increased its efforts to subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations.

This Day In History - June 24th

1966

Senate Passes Landmark Auto Safety Bill

On this day in 1966, the United States Senate votes 76-0 for the passage of what will become the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson the following September, the act created the nation’s first mandatory federal safety standards for motor vehicles.

The origins of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act can be traced directly of the efforts of a young lawyer and consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who in 1965 published the bestselling “Unsafe at Any Speed,” a sweeping critique of the American auto industry and its unsafe products. (Nader singled out the Corvair, produced by General Motors, as a particular object of scorn.) Nader’s book fueled the growing concern of Americans regarding the ever-increasing number of traffic accidents and fatalities on the nation’s roads. On June 24, 1966, Nader was in the Senate gallery as the bill was guided to passage, less than five hours after reaching the floor. Shortly after the Senate vote, President Johnson issued a statement urging the House to pass the bill, which he called “landmark legislation.”

“For the first time in our history,” Johnson declared, “we can mount a truly comprehensive attack on the rising toll of death and destruction on the nation’s highways that last year alone claimed 50,000 lives….We can no longer tolerate such anarchy on wheels.” The Senate also passed an companion bill from the Johnson administration authorizing expenditures of some $465 million over three years for state and city traffic safety programs, including driver education and licensing, auto inspection, highway design, traffic control and enforcement of traffic laws. The House subsequently passed the legislation by another unanimous vote, and Johnson signed it into law on September 9, 1966.

In its final form, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act established an agency under the U.S. secretary of commerce that would set safety standards for all new motor vehicles beginning with the 1968 model year; that agency became the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the Department of Transportation. Among the first safety standards adopted by the agency were seat belts, windshield wipers, glare reduction on interior and exterior surfaces, padded visors and dashboards, recessed control knobs, outside mirrors, impact-absorbing steering columns, dual braking systems and standardized bumper heights.

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Sauk Village Police Department Report - June 14, 2016

Sauk Village Police Department Board Meeting

Report 06/14/2016

By: Police Chief Robert Kowalski

 

-Police Service Case Summary:  During the period of 05/24/2016 thru 06/14/2016 the Sauk Village Police Department had a total of 66 arrests. 

 

    

-CalCom Report: For a period between 05/24/2016 and 06/14/2016 the police department received 900 calls for service.

-Cases of Note:  

On 6/1/2016 the Detective Division conducted a Prostitution Sting Operation.  This operation netted 11 arrests for prostitution, 7 arrests for promoting prostitution (attempt of otherwise), 3 arrest for driving/vehicle offenses, 1 outstanding warrant arrest, 1 drug arrest and 10 towed vehicles.
On 6/8/2016 our Officers, Steger PD and the South Suburban Emergency Response Team (SSERT) executed 2 separate search warrants, one at the 21500 block of Jeffrey Ave and one at 21700 block of Carol Ave. Drugs, drug paraphernalia and cash were recovered and several arrests were made at both locations.  I would like to note we have had numerous complaints at both locations and were able to build cases against individuals at each house. 

On 6/8/2016 Officers were on patrol and observed 3 males in an altercation at St. James Park, 223rd and Torrence Ave. The Officers observed a male on the ground throw a handgun from the area.  The Officers learned that the offender on the ground shot at the other individuals who had tackled the offender to stop him from shooting at anyone else.  The Officers took the offender into custody and found him to be a juvenile.  The detectives were called and they contacted the States Attorney's office for the purpose of filing charges against the offender.  The States Attorney approved attempted murder charges and aggravated discharge of a weapon charge.  The offender was transported to the juvenile detention center and held pending initial appearrance.

-Environment: On 6/13/2016 Mold Solutions, Regional Manager, Ed Maholovich conducted a cursory inspection of the Police Department basement and upper level areas. 

Mr. Maholovich took several air quality samples in different areas of the basement and upper areas of the department.  The samples will be sent to a lab for analysis and the results furnished to us by Wednesday 6/15/2016.

The next logical step would be to hire an environmentalist to conduct an in depth analysis of the police department and recommend remediation to clean whatever mold and asbestos is discovered.   

-Blue Print Plan: We are currently working with ComEd and provided them the address of those individuals who have not paid their water bills.  ComEd will be discontinuing service to those homes who do not have an active account. 

-Gratitude: I received a letter of thanks from the Steger Police Department (see the letter below).

 

 

End Report.

This Day In History - June 23rd

2013

Wallenda Makes Grand Canyon Crossing On High Wire

On this day in 2013, 34-year-old aerialist Nik Wallenda becomes the first person to walk a high wire across the Little Colorado River Gorge near Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Wallenda wasn’t wearing a safety harness as he made the quarter-mile traverse on a 2-inch-thick steel cable some 1,500 feet above the gorge. In June of the previous year, Wallenda, a member of the famous Flying Wallendas family of circus performers, became the first person to walk a tightrope over Niagara Falls.

Born in Sarasota, Florida, in 1979, Wallenda is part of a family that traces its history as circus performers back to the Austro-Hungarian empire in the late 18th century. His great-grandfather, Karl, who was born in Germany in 1905, developed an aerial act with several other performers in Europe in the early 1920s. By the late 1920s, the group, which eventually came to be known as the Flying Wallendas, was performing in America with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In 1947, Karl Wallenda invented the seven-person chair pyramid, a feat performed on a tightrope. After being performed for many years, the pyramid proved fatal in 1962, when two men died and one of Karl’s sons was paralyzed when the trick went wrong. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Karl turned his attention to “sky walks” between buildings and across stadiums on a high wire. In 1978, he fell to his death at age 73 while walking a cable between two structures in Puerto Rico.

Nik Wallenda learned to walk on a wire as a young boy, and made his professional debut as an aerialist at age 13. He went on to set a number of Guinness World Records, including the longest tightrope crossing on a bicycle and the highest eight-person tightrope pyramid. In 2011, Wallenda hung from a high-flying helicopter above Branson, Missouri, by his teeth. That same year, he and his mother successfully completed the high-wire walk in Puerto Rico that had killed Karl Wallenda.

On June 15, 2012, Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk directly over Niagara Falls on a high wire. He crossed an 1,800-foot-long, 7-ton wire from the U.S. side of the falls to the Canadian side at a height of around 200 feet in about 25 minutes. Because the event was televised around the world, broadcast officials required the famous funambulist to wear a safety tether in case he fell.

The following June, Wallenda made his Grand Canyon traverse. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt and holding a 43-pound balancing pole, he prayed out loud as he walked untethered across a 1,400-foot-long, 8.5-ton cable suspended 1,500 feet above the Little Colorado River. It was the highest walk of his career, and he completed it in just less than 23 minutes.

This Day In History - June 22nd

1944

FDR Signs G.I. Bill

On this day in 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the armed services–known as G.I.s–for their efforts in World War II.

As the last of its sweeping New Deal reforms, Roosevelt’s administration created the G.I. Bill–officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944–hoping to avoid a relapse into the Great Depression after the war ended. FDR particularly wanted to prevent a repeat of the Bonus March of 1932, when 20,000 unemployed veterans and their families flocked in protest to Washington. The American Legion, a veteran’s organization, successfully fought for many of the provisions included in the bill, which gave returning servicemen access to unemployment compensation, low-interest home and business loans, and–most importantly–funding for education.

By giving veterans money for tuition, living expenses, books, supplies and equipment, the G.I. Bill effectively transformed higher education in America. Before the war, college had been an option for only 10-15 percent of young Americans, and university campuses had become known as a haven for the most privileged classes. By 1947, in contrast, vets made up half of the nation’s college enrollment; three years later, nearly 500,000 Americans graduated from college, compared with 160,000 in 1939.

As educational institutions opened their doors to this diverse new group of students, overcrowded classrooms and residences prompted widespread improvement and expansion of university facilities and teaching staffs. An array of new vocational courses were developed across the country, including advanced training in education, agriculture, commerce, mining and fishing–skills that had previously been taught only informally.

The G.I. Bill became one of the major forces that drove an economic expansion in America that lasted 30 years after World War II. Only 20 percent of the money set aside for unemployment compensation under the bill was given out, as most veterans found jobs or pursued higher education. Low interest home loans enabled millions of American families to move out of urban centers and buy or build homes outside the city, changing the face of the suburbs. Over 50 years, the impact of the G.I. Bill was enormous, with 20 million veterans and dependents using the education benefits and 14 million home loans guaranteed, for a total federal investment of $67 billion. Among the millions of Americans who have taken advantage of the bill are former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, former Vice President Al Gore and entertainers Johnny Cash, Ed McMahon, Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood.

Sauk Village Administrator / Public Safety Director’s Report - June 14, 2016

Sauk Village Administrator / Public Safety Director’s Report

By: Director JW Fairman

June 14, 2016

URC Reported Crime:

Year to date reported UCR crime is 53% lower than UCR crime reported for the same period a year ago. Burglary and Theft are down 72% for the same reported period a year ago.

 

Vacant Housing:

• The Village’s master vacant list (as of June 1, 2016) shows 412 vacant homes:
  
  
  Vacant                       378 houses
  Vacant/Occupied     34 houses
  
  
  

Scavenger Contract Update:

As I stated at the last Village Board meeting Sauk Village failed to execute the terms of its contractual agreement with its scavenger vender. Its failure to execute those terms (adjustments of annual rate increases and failure to providing accurate housing counts) resulted in non-payment of services to the vender of $218,941.80.

Months ago, when I found out about these deficiencies, I made the necessary corrections. I have also been meeting with the vender in an attempt to bring this matter to a fair and equable solution for both parties. After considerable negotiations, the vender has agreed to forgive the full debt owed by the Village in exchange for a new 10 year agreement that will provide exact language spelling out each party’s obligations.

 

Ordinance/Resolutions/ Amendments:  

• Staff Recommendation for request not to exceed $15,000 to update the “Civic” computer system on all financial components of the Village has been completed by our attorneys and sent to the Finance Committee on 4/12/16. We are asking the Committee for a determination on this matter.
  

 

Miscellaneous:

• Mr. Rao secured a $35,000 Lighting Grant from the IL. Clean Energy Commission.
  


• Staff has completed the necessary paperwork for the County for no cash bid applications on three (3) land parcels in TIF #4. Petitions for tax deeds will be filed by the end of June.
  


• Owens Group has completed the Employees’ Handbook and is in the final stages of completing the Sauk Village personnel manual. A presentation will be ready for the Board in mid-July
  


• Owens Group is assisting me in establishing Department Safety Committees which will meet monthly and be assessed with the Owens Group Quarterly in efforts to control budgetary expenditures.
  


• Staff has made a recommendation to the Mayor’s Office regarding employee insurance coverage. After his review, the Mayor will make his recommendation.
  


• I have conveyed to staff that beginning in August, quarterly budget reviews with Department Heads will begin.
  


• I have been defined as staff’s single point of contact with Cal-Com. The purpose is to assure strict contract compliance. On a positive note; I am pleased to report that as of this date all emergency communications are functional.
  


• I am requesting our Attorney to draft a Resolution for the disposal of Police vehicles and seized property.
  


• Finally, budgeted revenue collections for the period of 1/1 through 6/1 - 2016 vs 2015 are up by 22%.

Sauk Village Homeland Security (ESDA) Report - June 14, 2016

Sauk Village Homeland Security (ESDA) Report

June 14, 2016

Over the past 3 weeks, the ESDA responded to 18 calls. The ESDA department responded to 6 fire alarms, 4 vehicle accidents, 1 brush fire, 1 dumpster fire, 2 school patrol, 3 assist other agency, and 1 transformer fire.

This Day In History - June 21st

1788

U.S. Constitution Ratified

New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land.

By 1786, defects in the post-Revolutionary War Articles of Confederation were apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce. Congress endorsed a plan to draft a new constitution, and on May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention convened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. On September 17, 1787, after three months of debate moderated by convention president George Washington, the new U.S. constitution, which created a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states.

Beginning on December 7, five states–Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New York in July.

On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state.

On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States. Today the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.

This Day In History - June 20th

1863
West Virginia Enters The Union

During the Civil War, West Virginia is admitted into the Union as the 35th U.S. state, or the 24th state if the secession of the 11 Southern states were taken into account. The same day, Arthur Boreman was inaugurated as West Virginia’s first state governor.

Settlement of the western lands of Virginia came gradually in the 18th century as settlers slowly made their way across the natural Allegheny Plateau barrier. The region became increasingly important to the Virginia state government at Richmond in the 19th century, but the prevalence of small farms and absence of slavery began to estrange it from the east. Because slaves were counted in allotting representation, wealthy eastern planters dominated the Virginia legislature, and demands by western Virginians for lower taxes and infrastructure development were not met.

When Virginia voted to secede after the outbreak of the Civil War, the majority of West Virginians opposed the secession. Delegates met at Wheeling, and on June 11, 1861, nullified the Virginian ordinance of secession and proclaimed “The Restored Government of Virginia,” headed by Francis Pierpont. Confederate forces occupied a portion of West Virginia during the war, but West Virginian statehood was nonetheless approved in a referendum and a state constitution drawn up. In April 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the admission of West Virginia into the Union effective June 20, 1863.

Setting The Record Straight

Just one week after a resolution failed to apply for free Federal funding to complete a walking/bike path between 394 to Cottage Grove and from Sauk Trail to Mary Byrne Drive (at no cost to village residents) the village board will meet to discuss tonight SPENDING Village funds to place a fence around a detention pond that has been in place for years and only because Parks & Recs under the direction of Trustee Jones are unable to supervise the children during a summer program.

Tonight's discussion is supposed to be about children's safety however, the majority of the board voted against a path that would have provided a safe route along Sauk Trail not only for the young that must walk to Bloom Trail High School but also for adults that have a job in our industrial areas along Sauk Trail.


I've been asked by many residents about the path that have been misled to think that the village could not afford to upkeep or maintain the path years down the road after it was installed.

That is totally false!

While Sauk Village was the sponsor for this project the larger portion of the path is within the Steger boundaries which, Steger would be responsible for maintaining.

 

In addition, this project was no secret since I updated the board at multiple village board meetings and informed residents during the Meet the Mayor events that the village was in discussions with the State, County, Village of Steger and SSMMA.

Perhaps residents should be asking Trustees if the village does not have the resources to upkeep a free path where will the funds come from to upkeep and maintain a fence around a detention pond and if Parks & Recs are unable to keep the children out of a detention area how will they keep them off a fence.

Lastly, the votes against the resolution last week to apply for free Federal funding was politically motivated and was a vote to prevent the village from moving forward. It should be interesting to see how many use this path in their campaign material within the next twelve months.

Mayor David A. Hanks

Sauk Village Administrative Services Board Meeting Report - June 14, 2016

Sauk Village Administrative Services Board Meeting Report

June 14, 2016 

By: Director Sherry Jasinski

Village Stickers are on Sale they must be displayed by July 1,2016

Cost of Sticker

• $30.00 for a passenger plate


• $30.00 Motorcycles
• $48.00 for Truck
• One senior discount per household of $20.00
• July 1, 2016 Village Stickers fee will be doubled

June 2, 2016 Court Call

• 87 tickets on the court docket


• 3 tickets were found guilty
• 84 were found liable and fines were doubled for failure to appear

Payments received for J-tickets from 05/01/16-6/13/16 =$8,155.00

Liens paid to date =$19,026.62 since filing started in April 2016

Village Hall will be closed July 4, 2016

This concludes my report

This Day In History - June 19th

1938

Montana Flood Causes Train Wreck

On this day in 1938, a flood in Montana kills 46 people and seriously injures more than 60 when it washes out train tracks.

Custer Creek is a small winding river that runs through 25 miles of the Great Plains on its way to the Yellowstone River. Minor streams like Custer Creek are prone to flash floods because their small capacity can quickly and easily be exceeded during heavy rains.

On the evening of June 19, a track walker was sent out to check the rail lines near Custer Creek in Terry, Montana. He reported dry conditions and no problems with the tracks. However, within just a few hours, a sudden downpour overwhelmed Custer Creek. A bridge used by trains was washed out, and when the Olympian Special came through, it went crashing into the raging waters with no warning.

Two sleeper cars were buried in the muddy waters. A pitch-black night on the Great Plains made rescue efforts extremely difficult and 46 people lost their lives. The rear cars stayed above the water, but scores of passengers were seriously injured. They could not be evacuated until the following morning.

This Day In History - June 18th

1983

First American Woman In Space

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, the space shuttle Challenger is launched into space on its second mission. Aboard the shuttle was Dr. Sally Ride, who as a mission specialist became the first American woman to travel into space. During the six-day mission, Ride, an astrophysicist from Stanford University, operated the shuttle’s robot arm, which she had helped design.

Her historic journey was preceded almost 20 years to the day by cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova of the Soviet Union, who on June 16, 1963, became the first woman ever to travel into space. The United States had screened a group of female pilots in 1959 and 1960 for possible astronaut training but later decided to restrict astronaut qualification to men. In 1978, NASA changed its policy and announced that it had approved six women to become the first female astronauts in the U.S. space program.

The new astronauts were chosen out of some 3,000 original applicants. Among the six were Sally Ride and Shannon Lucid, who in 1996 set a new space endurance record for an American and a world endurance record for a woman during her 188-day sojourn on the Russian space station Mir.

Sauk Village Senior Committee Report June 14, 2016

Senior Committee Report June 14, 2016

Fraud Alert!  Now that security at retail stores is bolstered by chip-enabled credit and debit cards, making it hard to counterfeit, criminals are ambushing ATMs.  Illegible card-reading devices are being installed on ATMs, gas pumps and other public-area machines that process debit cards.  Using an ATM at a bank is more secured with their 24/7 camera surveillance.

All seniors age 50 years young are invited to the Senior Committee Open Senior Activity and Friday and every Friday 12:30-3:30 p.m. with coordinators Steve Shymkus and Frank Williams.  There is no meeting, no membership and no dues, just come and join the fun with your peers.  Light refreshments and bottled water served. 

Last Friday, four more seniors joined the ‘Rummikub’ game (similar to the rummy card game) challenge.  The game is very addictive.  There are many other games available plus computer, TV and our library program. 

Several seniors have expressed an interest in having an Open Senior Activity once a month on a Saturday with a potluck meal.  The Senior Committee has approved of the Saturday event, watch for finalized details to be announced.

The Bloom Township annual senior picnic tickets will go on sale Friday, July 1^st for Thursday, August 4^th.

The SV Blue Grass will be closed Independence weekend Sunday, July 3^rd, and for vacation Sundays, July 17^th and 24th.

This Day In History - June 17th

1885

Statue of Liberty Arrives In New York Harbor

On this day in 1885, the dismantled Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America, arrives in New York Harbor after being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 individual pieces packed in more than 200 cases. The copper and iron statue, which was reassembled and dedicated the following year in a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Grover Cleveland, became known around the world as an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy.

Intended to commemorate the American Revolution and a century of friendship between the U.S. and France, the statue was designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi (who modeled it after his own mother), with assistance from engineer Gustave Eiffel, who later developed the iconic tower in Paris bearing his name. The statue was initially scheduled to be finished by 1876, the 100th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence; however, fundraising efforts, which included auctions, a lottery and boxing matches, took longer than anticipated, both in Europe and the U.S., where the statue’s pedestal was to be financed and constructed. The statue alone cost the French an estimated $250,000 (more than $5.5 million in today’s money).

Finally completed in Paris in the summer of 1884, the statue, a robed female figure with an uplifted arm holding a torch, reached its new home on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor (between New York City and Hudson County, New Jersey) on June 17, 1885. After being reassembled, the 450,000-pound statue was officially dedicated on October 28, 1886, by President Cleveland, who said, “We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected.” Standing more than 305 feet from the foundation of its pedestal to the top of its torch, the statue, dubbed “Liberty Enlightening the World” by Bartholdi, was taller than any structure in New York City at the time. The statue was originally copper-colored, but over the years it underwent a natural color-change process called patination that produced its current greenish-blue hue.

In 1892, Ellis Island, located near Bedloe’s Island (which in 1956 was renamed Liberty Island), opened as America’s chief immigration station, and for the next 62 years Lady Liberty, as the statue is nicknamed, stood watch over the more than 12 million immigrants who sailed into New York Harbor. In 1903, a plaque inscribed with a sonnet titled “The New Colossus” by American poet Emma Lazarus, written 20 years earlier for a pedestal fundraiser, was placed on an interior wall of the pedestal. Lazarus’ now-famous words, which include “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” became symbolic of America’s vision of itself as a land of opportunity for immigrants.

Some 60 years after President Calvin Coolidge designated the statue a national monument in 1924, it underwent a multi-million-dollar restoration (which included a new torch and gold leaf-covered flame) and was rededicated by President Ronald Reagan on July 4, 1986, in a lavish celebration. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the statue was closed; its base, pedestal and observation deck re-opened in 2004, while its crown re-opened to the public on July 4, 2009. (For safety reasons, the torch has been closed to visitors since 1916, after an incident called the Black Tom explosions in which munitions-laden barges and railroad cars on the Jersey City, New Jersey, waterfront were blown up by German agents, causing damage to the nearby statue.)

Today, the Statue of Liberty is one of America’s most famous landmarks. Over the years, it has been the site of political rallies and protests (from suffragettes to anti-war activists), has been featured in numerous movies and countless photographs, and has received millions of visitors from around the globe.