Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 15

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2003 DECATUR, ILLINOIS LOCAL B5 BRIEFS DEEDS tal stay caused by Guillain-Barre syndrome, an acute neurological disorder that struck in October 1983 and left him partially paralyzed. Doctors believe a flu vaccination may have triggered the rare syndrome. Paul said the struggle to recover and the hundreds of hours friends gave to help him inspire many of his efforts today. "He was one of the people instrumental in getting SAIL established," said Emily Dobson, family advocate and disability awareness chairwoman for Soy-land Access to Independent Living, an advocacy group for people with disabilities. "He served on the board for six years and was its president.

He got SAIL moving in the right direction." While no longer a board member, Paul works on increasing disability awareness in the community by giving demonstrations with SAIL's wheelchair obstacle course that is designed to give people a feel for what life is like for a wheelchair user, Dobson said. if the person who is supposed to do that can't," Vissering said. "He has the ability to make a lot of contacts. He also calls and solicits workers from among club members for our projects. "Sertoma stands for Service To Mankind, and Paul is the epitome of that.

He's a person who has been restricted in movement, but he drives all around by himself. He isn't really restricted at all." "We're able to cope with my disability," Paul said. "But we know there are people who can't cope. We got involved in some organizations as a result of that." Part of his role is to encourage others and stand up for their rights, Paul said. He served as an inspector of local businesses when the Americans With Disabilities Act became law, telling owners as nicely as possible what they could do to help people with disabilities, he said.

Ron Ingram can be reached at or 421-7973. "He is detail oriented, and he gets the job done," she said. "He's the kind of guy who won't sit around for hours; he'll get up and do whatever is needed." Verlyn is president of the Holiday HUls Neighborhood Organization, and Paul is its secretary. "They keep our neighborhood organization going," said Judy Newlin, a group member. "If anyone in the neighborhood has any problems, they think (the Rosenbergers) can solve them, which isn't always true.

But they try." Verlyn has organized the neighborhood group's participation in the annual Night Out campaign against crime and a day outing during the winter for seniors who live in the area, Newlin said. Dick Vissering, president of the Decatur Breakfast Sertoma Club where Paul has been an officer for 20 years, said as club secretary Paul does an outstanding job. "He takes minutes for our board meetings and business meetings, is editor of the weekly newsletter and finds a speaker every Friday Continued from B1 Christians, our job is to respond in gratitude with deeds. That's what they do. They advocate for everybody, Paul especially for the disabled and Verlyn for the poor." The time to get involved is there because they are retired, the Rosenbergers say, he from various engineering posts at Caterpillar Inc.

and she as an elementary teacher with the Decatur School District. "A lot of it is God," Verlyn said of their service. "We thank God for the opportunities to serve and the skills and talents he has given us to serve. Over the years, we've benefited from the kindness of other people. We wouldn't do all this if we didn't enjoy it." "People know me because I'm the guy in the wheelchair," Paul said.

"Many of my activities are associated with disabilities." He wound up using the wheelchair after an eight-month hospi DECATUR Tools, equipment taken A number of welding tools, a grinder and other equipment worth more than $1,300 was stolen between 5 and 7 p.m. Friday from a business at 1980 Brush College Road. The north front door was smashed in at SJ Smith Welding according to the Decatur Police Department. The investigation is continuing. If anyone has information, call the police department at 424-2711 or Crime Stoppers at 423-TIPS.

DECATUR Street, road to be closed North Oakland Avenue, from Eldorado to Main streets, will be closed from 8 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2, to 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5.

Macon County Highway 18 (East School Road) at Cemetery and Friends Creek Park roads will be closed from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Dec. 1. EDGAR 1 Vv5 I TV Herald Review file photo Jim and Brenda Edgar attend his last official function as governor, the inauguration of his successor, George H.

Ryan. Bush is as optimistic about the recovery as Gov. Blagojevich seems to be. My sense is that this ad'ministration might have needed to have a few more unhappy moments in its first year. I think it would have saved them some more unhappy moments down the road.

I really think they're going to have some difficulties this next fiscal year because maybe they didn't meet all the problems head-on this time. One of the problems that I think occurred that a lot a people haven't talked about and that made this whole budget crisis even more difficult were the early retirements. To be very truthful, governors and directors don't run everything. A lot of what happens in state government is really determined by the ability and attitude of middle management. When you're facing a tough budget problem, and you're trying to figure out how to make cuts, you've got to have input from those people who've been there for many years, who've seen every idea come and go.

I think one of the things that maybe made this much more difficult than we had in '91 is that they kind of lost that infrastructure. Some people say the system of taxation in Illinois needs an overhaul, with perhaps an increase in the state sales tax. Others, like Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, have suggested changing the income tax to a progressive one that takes more from high earners.

What are your thoughts? I don't think there's any doubt we do have in this state too much reliance on the property tax to fund education. That is an issue that still needs to be addressed. On the state income tax itself, I think the state income tax in Illinois is structured pretty well. It's a flat rate. There are some who would like a graduated tax, and that would take a constitutional amendment.

I think the lieutenant governor got a little carried away on his populist attitude, and I think even he knows that. So far, the governor has stuck to his "no tax increase" campaign pledge. Can you envision a scenario where the General Assembly takes the lead and sends one to his desk anyway? The governor has to lead when it comes to fiscal policy; to make the tough decisions. instead of the former 59 districts with three members each. Its proponents claimed it would save the state money and provide citizens with better representation.

Have those claims been fulfilled? At the time, I had been a member under cumulative voting, and I really thought there would be more accountability if you had single-member districts. I guess the sign of getting old is admitting that you were wrong in your youth. As I look back, I think probably the state was better served with cumulative voting. It did provide more diversity, particularly from the partisan point of view. You were more apt to have both Republican and Democratic representatives in every district.

So I think that resulted in all the regions, regardless of who's in power, having at least somebody to kind of look out for their interests. It played havoc trying to get the party in unity, but I think, as a result, there was less partisanship. You could be a minority member in the House and be very influential. I think that's hard today. Leadership did not have as much control.

It was more individual. Did you find death penalty commutations the hardest part of being governor? It was the part I disliked the most. I loved being governor. Governor of the state of Illinois in the 1990s was a great job, for all the frustrations, because you could really make a difference, and I felt like we did. But the part that I would have to say that I don't think anybody could be prepared for is to play God.

I didn't like dealing with the death penalty, but that was part of the job. I knew it going in. I didn't shrink from that. And I did it. I did it, I think, as well as it can be done.

Also on the death penalty, I think we ought to keep it and make it work or repeal it. This limbo we've been in for several years, I question. If there's a problem with it, reform it. And I think there are reforms going through. But to my understanding, we're still going to keep the moratorium.

To me, it's a bit of an easy way out on this thing. Pat Guinane may be reached at patrick.guinanelee.net or 782-4043. Springfield Bureau Chief Mark Samuels contributed to this report. If the governor, any governor, is not going to lead, if the governor is sending mixed messages to the legislature, they're not going to do it on their own. That's just not the nature of the General Assembly.

That's not the way the system works. The only time I've seen an exception was when Mike Madigan passed the temporary increase in the income tax, I think in 1989, which I've always said is the most remarkable legislative feat I've ever seen. He did it in about three days, both houses. Short of that, I don't know of any time the legislature has ever taken the lead on a tax increase or a budget cut. That's just not their nature.

The governor has to provide that leadership. Since Gov. Blagojevich's inauguration in January, the seat of government seems to have moved to Chicago. Do you see that as presenting a problem for the rest of the state in terms of responsive state government? I don't think there's any doubt that, no matter how much we try, we are creatures of our environment. I think it is very important that a governor overcompensate and spend the time to know and learn the area that he's not from.

When I was governor, I purposely picked a running mate who was from the Chicago metropolitan area, because I'm a downstater. My first chief of staff was Kirk Dil-lard, who was from the suburbs. I had to make sure we brought in people to the inner circle that were from Chicago and the suburbs and who understood some of their issues maybe better than I did. Whenever you have cuts, somebody's going to say, "Well, he cut us because he doesn't care about us." If you've been around and kind of know the problems, that could alleviate some of that. Right or wrong, I think there's this perception out there that this governor doesn't know, doesn't care about downstate.

Now, I'm sure he knows and he ought to cara I won't question whether he cares. But I would have tried to spend even more time downstate just to overcome that. Back in 1982, the so-called Cutback Amendment reduced the size of the Illinois House by one-third. It created 118 single-member districts Born: July 22, 1946, in Oklahoma; grew up in Charleston, III. Currently lives in Seymour, III.

Continued from B1 so it's worth about what they pay for it. Former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon surprised many in the news media and politics when he spoke out recently in favor of Exelon's proposed buyout of Decatur-based Illinois Power. Were you tempted to inject yourself into that discussion? They came and talked with me, too.

I don't see anything wrong with Sen. Simon speaking up if he feels strongly. I think it's a very important issue. The viability of Illinois Power has huge economic implications in downstate. I don't think Sen.

Simon does it on every issue. I think you'd probably lose your effectiveness. It's hard to completely turn it off. I have to tell you, I have opinions on just about everything, just as I did as governor. It's just now I try to keep some of those to myself.

In the summer of 2002, a few months before the statewide election, you were offered the party chairmanship. Last summer, when U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald said he was calling it quits after one term, many Republicans desperately wanted you to throw your hat in the ring. You turned thumbs down to both.

Why? And is there any job out there you would make a run at? To be very truthful, I thought that state chairman was probably a lot of ado about nothing. I think people were grasping a little bit to think anyone who was going to be state chairman was going to have that much of an impact on that gubernatorial race. The university wasn't really excited, and I felt an obligation to the university not to get them in a situation that would be uncomfortable to them. The Senate race was different, because if you won that, you'd have to leave the university. I didn't feel like, at that point, that was something I wanted to do.

Now the chances are they're going to stop asking. I think it would probably be more unlikely than likely that I run for office again you can put it that way. But, again, I'll never say "never." Why do you think you remain so appealing to the party and general public? I don't know. When I left office, I think people people, not so much the press and maybe not some insiders, but the guy on the street were pretty happy. And that, in the end, is the most important thing in this process.

I think they were happy with the job I have done. There is also probably something about being out. People have a tendency to remember the positives and not the negatives. I still have a pretty healthy ego, as any politician does, and you like to be remembered. You like to be in the limelight.

After a few hours, you come to your senses and realize maybe you don't want to be in it all the time. Would you have expected a more harmonious existence between Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the state's other five constitutional officers since all but one (Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka) belong to the same party? What approach did you take to get along with other statewide elected officials? I think up front we made it clear we had a budget problem and we were all going to have to cut back, but everybody is going to have to cut back, we're not going to play favorites among constitution- Political career 1 991 -1 999: Illinois governor 1981-1991: Illinois secretary of state. Appointed in 1981 after Alan Dixon was elected to U.S. Senate.

Subsequently elected to two terms. 1977-79: State representative Edgar graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in history. He went on to serve as a legislative intern and then a legislative aide until 1974, when he made an unsuccessful run for the Illinois House. He worked for the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver before making a successful second run at the House. Edgar was elected student body president while at Eastern.

As secretary of state, he fought to strengthen drunken driving laws and helped make auto insurance mandatory in Illinois. Such efforts boosted his initial gubernatorial campaign in 1990. Edgar was governor in 1 993, during one of the state's worse floods. He was known for fiscal restraint, earning the moniker, "Governor No." Perhaps his most ambitious policy effort, a reform of the state's school funding system, failed in the legislature. Illinois continues to rely heavily on local property taxes to finance public schools.

Pat Guinane ment and then all of a sudden they get a phone call from a staffer saying, "No, we're going to cut more." I'm sure the constitutional officers used to fuss about me, maybe not in public, but I'm sure I wasn't their favorite at times. How would you have approached the current budget mess? It's a very difficult situation, and this governor didn't create it. He inherited it, and I know the feeling. But I think I probably would have been very hesitant about the borrowing. We did some in the fiscal year, but it was for cash-flow problems only.

The $10 billion pension bond program I probably wouldn't have done that. That makes me nervous. Any time you're trying to solve a problem with one-time revenues, I just think that could end up getting you deeper in the hole. Now, we used some onetime revenues, but we also instituted, percentagewise, a lot more cuts in a variety of areas that didn't get cut this time. We also eliminated thousands of jobs.

Not just not filling vacancies; we eliminated jobs, which had never happened. And that was not easy. My sense was that we needed to make the cuts now as opposed to waiting, because if we didn't, the problem was just going to get worse. I think it's very difficult when you take three-quarters of the budget and say you're not going to cut it. I'm probably a little biased, since I get a paycheck from higher education, but I think they went overboard in cutting higher education.

I don't think there's any doubt higher education needed to take a cut, but everybody needed to make some cuts. And I'm not suggesting that elementary and secondary education should take the same cut as maybe higher education or other things. But any time you have areas that are kind of sacred cows and they don't get cut, I think it's a little harder for those others who have to take a cut. I'm also not in favor of 5 percent or 10 percent cuts across the board, because I do think you have to set priorities, and that's tough, but it's part of the job. I also think you have to be very hesitant about using onetime revenue sources because of this economy.

As we knew from '91, Illinois is late to go into recession, and we're late to come out of a recession, so I don't even think President Fx mum Make Any Wall or Ceiling in the House a TV! SONY of course Cineza Projector al officers. And they knew that up front. And everybody was taking cuts. That's one of the things, it seems to me, is a little different this time around, than in '91. We cut everything.

There were no sacred cows. We didn't cut everything the same amount, but elementary and secondary got cut. All the human service agencies got cut. We were just in a position where we didn't see how we could get out of this without making some cuts. That didn't necessarily happen this last session.

So why is Gov. Blagojevich having problems? It struck me that one of the problems that maybe he had with some of the other constitutional officers wasn't that he had to cut. Everybody knew he had to cut. It was, I think, that they felt they had a meeting and had an agree Sony Financing 12 MONTHS SAME AS CASH See dealer for details. TV VinFH PFWTAK IMQTAI I ATinw At the miner of laqrw antral I Decatur II tr ln 1 UOn, 422-3011 i.