Faint as it may be, there is a slight glimmer of hope in the Illinois historic sites situation. The latest problem was that even though the House of Representatives voted to restore funding to the sites, the Senate wasn't going to meet until November 12--long after the sites had been closed.
BUT, just a few minutes ago, Blago called a special meeting of the House and Senate in Springfield this Monday to discuss his ethics bill (hahahaha--an ethics bill written by him? That's funny). So the Senate will be meeting--but will not necessarily vote on the bills that would restore the funding to the state sites: Senate Bill 790, Senate Bill 1103, and House Bill 6350. So we need to cross our fingers and pray that the senate will take time to vote on these bills in addition to discussing the ethics bill, and that these three bills will pass. If these bills are passed before October 15, then it will be like Blago's budget cuts never happened--the sites will stay open, people will keep their jobs, and life will be good. But if the bills aren't passed before October 15, everything will shut down and even if funding is eventually restored, it would take months and months to re-post all of the IHPA jobs, re-hire everybody, and get back on track.
So Monday's special meeting is the LAST AND ONLY HOPE for stopping the historic sites from closing. I have e-mailed all of the Senate leaders asking them to please discuss this issue on Monday and I have sent them links to the online petition. Like I said, now all we can do is cross our fingers and pray for a miracle.
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