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Rearranging the desks
The citizens panel gathered to find what it called opportunities for economy in the provision of public services in Springfield and Sangamon County.

Changing how we do local government
Illinois has a unique, complex, extensive system of local government, with over 2,000 units more than the next nearest state. In Sangamon County, 2013 property tax revenue was distributed to 173 local districts. This doesn’t include the seemingly endless list of quasi-secret local entities that surface periodically.

Sniffing the ethical rot in Wall Street’s culture
Not too many years ago, any news story about bonus money would’ve been about some 20-year-old baseball player – an upand-coming superstar getting $100,000 or so on top of his salary as an extra incentive to join the Yankees, Giants, Red Sox or whatever team.

LETTERS
I am not sure that raising taxes is the best way to go about this problem. Cities and municipalities around the country have been struggling with the rising cost of road repair and the motor fuel tax (MFT) funds have not been keeping up with the need.

Mike Madigan, media hound
It started after the House passed the gay marriage bill. It wasn’t an easy task by any means and Madigan publicly took the credit for its passage. A few months later, he took the lion’s share of the credit for passing the long-sought pension reform bill.

Does FutureGen have a future?
The federally backed FutureGen 2.0 project aims to capture carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and inject the gas deep underground in a rural area west of Springfield. The FutureGen Alliance signed a labor agreement with the federal government on Monday, and the U.

NEW GENHKIDS LEADER NAMED
Dillman has worked with the group over the past year and was most recently the development director. She has experience in fundraising, program management, event planning and leadership in both volunteer and elected positions..

SAVE THE MONARCHS
There has been a 90 percent decrease in the U.S. population of monarch butterfl ies, Illinois’ state insect, since the mid-1990s, according to a group of natural resource leaders. The group sent a request to the White House April 14 for policy changes, such as habitat protection, that could help boost the butterfl y numbers.

Ready to work
The Faith Coalition for the Common Good and Bridging the Gap, both based in Springfield, are helping women and people of color get the training necessary to be ready when the expected construction boom happens.

Trying to stop revenge porn
Similar legislation, called “revenge porn” bills, are appearing in states as a result of a now defunct but once popular website, IsAnyoneUp.com. The website’s operator, Hunter Moore, would post pornographic images submitted to him and in some cases post the names and locations of those in the images.

Repurposed furniture: A market of old and new
Jodi Cole, owner of Flea Market to Fabulous, located at the corner of Spring Street and Lawrence Avenue in Springfield, has become an expert at taking junk furniture and turning it into eyecatching and vibrant pieces that sometimes even change uses, such as turning a work bench into a kitchen island.

Interior designers bring ideas to life
Tara McVary, owner of Afar Interiors, has been designing for years. Out of her Springfield shop, she offers services for the entire spectrum of designs, from window treatments to carpeting, paints and furniture. A special feature of her shop is the drapery workroom, where McVary and her team create custom drapes at the location.

The latest in landscaping
Keeping up with trends, whether in landscaping or in fashion, makes for better appeal to the consumer. Improving your home’s landscaping offers a win-win for everyone involved – increased home values, increased outdoor activity and enhanced curb appeal that could help attract potential buyers.

Top 10 reasons to garden
1. Garden for safe, healthy food Reports of foodborne illnesses and contamination in foods have been widely publicized. Interest in organic gardening and the availability of organic produce has increased. Consumers are aware of additives and preservatives found in processed foods.

Raised bed checklist
“A checklist can be helpful in putting in a raised-bed garden,” Miller said. “The list below can help you work through all the steps of putting in a raised-bed garden, from selecting a location for your raised bed, all the way through planting your bed.

Turf tips for spring
1. Fertilize at the proper time. Most homeowners only need one application per year, which should be done in early September. This helps the grass prepare for winter dormancy and spring growth. If your grass needs two applications a year, add the second application in early May.

Pansies brighten up a spring garden
As with other bedding plants, most of those are part of a series. The “Majestic Giant” series, for example, has large flowers that are three to four inches across with face markings and comes in many colors. The “Majestic Giants Mix” pansy won the All-America Selections (AAS) flower award in 1966 so it has been around a long time.

Early composting helps soil and plants later
New gardeners often ask, “What is compost and do I need to buy it?” When starting a new garden, it is hard to imagine we should initially spend more time, money and energy on compost than on plants, said a University of Illinois Extension horticulture educator.

Spring salad at your front door
Mesclun is a mixture of assorted small, baby salad leaves also known as a mesclun mix. You can purchase mesclun bagged in cellophane at your grocer. Yet freshly harvested from a few square feet in your patio, garden or front stoop, mesclun is an easy tender treat, said a University of Illinois Extension horticulture educator.

Home & garden events calendar
Land of Lincoln Water Gardening Plant Sale.

The perfect time to plan this year’s fruit tree orchard
“When you shop the fruit tree catalogs or visit with your favorite retail garden center to find out what varieties they will be carrying this spring, consider dwarf apples because, as in most cases, yard space is limited.

Costner saves Day
Draft day has become a sort of late Christmas for NFL teams. Over the past decade, the process has become a media, fanfriendly event that, much like the Super Bowl, often fails to live up to the hype. However, there’s no question that the destiny of the 32 teams involved can be radically impacted by the amateur players they choose to become pros.

Easters past
In 2012 Easter fell on the seventh of April. It was a glorious weekend, undoubtedly our best Easter ever. The most wonderful thing about it was the marriage of our daughter, Ashley.

BAND SPOTLIGHT | Wicked Walls
After eight years of many record releases and live performances, the highly respected and much appreciated, Champaign-Urbana based group, New Ruins, split up back in 2012. From the ashes, co-founder J. Caleb Means slowly began to piece together a musical puzzle by soul searching through songwriting in the summer of 2012.

PUB CRAWL
Love and Theft with Craig Campbell.

Don’t skip national record store day
It’s that time of year again when we celebrate on an international level a great holiday of profound importance to the world. Well, yes, there’s Passover and Easter, too, but I was referring to National Record Store Day, happening in 2014 on April 19.

THE CALENDAR
unfl inching look at “the gifts we receive from people who hurt us.” $14-$10. UIS Studio Theatre, One University Plaza, 217-206-6160..

THEATER | Indian sounds
Enjoy the classic tale The Jungle Book.

MUSIC | American notes
Longtime rural Midwestern singer/songwriter Chris Vallillo headlines the Prairie Grapevine Folklore Society Concert on Tuesday evening, April 22. Known for his skillful guitar playing and singing, Vallillo’s 2008 Abraham Lincoln in Song,.

ENVIRONMENT | Pro-future planet
“Consumerism, Society and our Ecological Future” is the talk, Tuesday, April 22 at UIS Brookens Auditorium, by featured speaker Tim Kasser, professor of psychology at Knox College and author of 50-peer reviewed journal articles on materialism, values and goals, plus four books, including the The High Price of Materialism.