M.A. Kleen

By Michael Kleen ~ Published August 21, 2013 at the Rock River Times

On the third anniversary of the Wanxiang solar panel factory opening south of the Rockford airport, Channel 23 News began its story with a sobering fact. “It’s been nearly three years since a solar panel manufacturer opened its doors in the Forest City, a facility that was supposed to bring hundreds of jobs.” In reality, they reported, the plant has only 13 employees. After the segment, newscaster Tina Stein turned to her partner and remarked, “Quite a difference from what was originally promised.”

In exchange for receiving at least $1.2 million dollars in tax increment financing (TIF) funds, $4 million in state grants, 10 acres of land (worth $650,000), and guaranteed government contracts, Wanxiang was supposed to employ 60 people in its first phase alone. “This is the perfect example of how the city and county came together to create jobs,” Winnebago County Chairman Scott Christiansen said in August 2010. Today, the solar panel manufacturing center is barely operational.

Wanxiang Group is China’s second-largest privately held company, with revenues in the billions of dollars annually. Its founder, Lu Guanqiu, is the 33rd richest person in China, with a net worth of more than $1.87 billion. Did Wanxiang really need a few million dollars in public funds to open a factory in Winnebago County?

Continue reading “Big Business Payoffs Bring Few Results”

By Michael Kleen ~ Published August 7, 2013 at the Rock River Times

Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in order to use Federal funds to stimulate the US economy, which had tumbled into severe recession. That February, the US unemployment rate hit 8.3 percent. The unemployment rate in Rockford was 14.1 percent in January 2009 and peaked at 20.3 percent in January 2010.

The Federal stimulus package provided $1 billion to the Community Services Black Grant Program for two years, ending on September 30, 2010. The stated purpose of this fund was to reduce poverty, revitalize low-income communities, and help low-income Americans. This would be done by providing services addressing employment education, better use of available income, housing, nutrition, and health.

The State of Illinois awarded Rockford’s Human Services Department $1,062,800 out of this fund. The Office of Inspector General of the US Health and Human Services Department later conducted an audit of how 56 percent (roughly $599,000) of that amount was spent in Rockford and determined that a hair more than one third of the audited funds were unallowable under the Recovery Act. A further $141,796 was deemed “potentially unallowable.” So the audit determined that fully 58 percent of the funds they examined were either unallowable or potentially unallowable.

The unallowable costs included $123,530 that was inadequately documented, $72,669 charged outside the award period, and $9,097 in entertainment expenses. The entertainment expenses included $8,717 for movie theater rental and $380 for paintballing. When the State of Illinois reviewed Rockford’s Recovery Act legers, it found that $6,615 in unused movie tickets was returned to the fund and therefore should have been allowable, but that information did not cause the Inspector General’s office to revise its findings.

Continue reading “Federal Audit Exposes Stimulus Fund Abuse”

By Michael Kleen ~ Published July 10, 2013 at the Rock River Times

Soon after the election in April, Register Star reporter Isaac Guerrero asked in his blog, “When will Rockford Latinos exercise political power?” After all, he reasoned, the number of Latinos/Hispanics in Rockford grew nearly 58 percent between 2000 and 2010, while in the same period the non-Hispanic white population declined 9 percent. There are no less than two Spanish language newspapers in Rockford, and Hispanics are opening new businesses at an encouraging rate.

In all fairness, there has been some political activity among Latinos in Rockford and Winnebago County in recent years, and not all on the Democratic side of the aisle. Of the four current officeholders of Hispanic decent who live in Winnebago County (Julio Salgado, John Guevara, John Cabello, and Arnie Cabello) three were elected as Republicans.

Still, many local Hispanic candidates have found it difficult to obtain the financial and political support they need to get elected to public office. While many see Rockford’s Hispanics and Latinos as a minority group, I prefer to think of them as part of a silent majority that is largely shut out of the political process. It is a process in which candidates are frequently asked to step aside by their party or are passed over by big contributors because they are not in the correct social circles, live in the right neighborhoods, or work for the right companies.

Continue reading “Latinos’ Increasing Role in Local Politics Good for the Community”