Progress Illinois

Below are our daily picks from the Illinois blogosphere and media at large:

What Happened To The Pride Campus?
Chicago Journal's Jessica Pupovac reports that an October meeting between Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan and 11 evangelical ministers played a key role in shuttering plans for a Chicago-based LGBT-friendly high school. "What is the point of having these hearings," said Andy Thayer of the Gay Liberation Network, "if you can just scuttle the whole process with back door meetings with the mayor's buddies?"

Dumpster Dealing
Before approving Mayor Richard Daley's budget last week, several aldermen bashed a new dumpster fee, saying it amounted to a tax on commercial and large residential buildings. But as The Reader's Mick Dumke reminds us, if the city hadn't rolled out its recycling reform proposals before selling them to skeptical political or business leaders this summer, the whole mess could have been avoided.

Labor Pained
That Obama's Secretary of Labor appointment was not announced as part of his economic team roll-out this week has some questioning organized labor's role in the transition process, according to Politico's Ben Smith. "When it comes down to it," says Jonathan Tasini, executive director of the pro-union Labor Research Association, "they don't have the kind of juice to say, 'This is how we want the economic team to look.'"

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