STATE

Voter registration available online

Illinois residents 18 and older who are not registered to vote still have time to register in order to vote in November.

The Illinois State Board of Elections enables online voter registration at ova.elections.il.gov. Deadline is Oct. 21.

Seventeen-year-olds can register if they will turn 18 before Election Day.

The Nov. 6 election is for governor and lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, comptroller, treasurer and some seats in the state House and Senate and in Congress.

State to collect tax on online sales

Online purchases now include state sales tax. Since Oct. 1, most online purchases in Illinois are subject to automatic collection of the state’s 6.25 percent use tax. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. is projected to increase revenue to the Illinois state budget by $140 million for the remainder of this year, and perhaps $200 million in future years.

Technically, Illinoisans were already required to pay the use tax – an alternative to the sales tax paid on transactions at brick-and-mortar retailers – on online transactions. However, many did not.

The new tax could be in jeopardy. A bill in Congress would delay implementation until Jan. 1, 2019, and would also restrict the businesses subject to collection requirements to those that generate more than $10 million in annual U.S. e-commerce sales. Both changes would likely reduce the amount of revenue Illinois could raise this year.

Dr. Richard Pearl

CENTRAL ILLINOIS

Children’s hospital longtime surgeon-in-chief retires

Following 20 years of dedicated service to OSF HealthCare Children’s Hospital of Illinois, and patients throughout central Illinois, Dr. Richard Pearl retired Oct. 1.

Dr. Pearl will continue in his part-time role as the director of surgical simulation at Jump Simulation where he organizes surgical simulation projects, coordinates American College of Surgeons accreditation and will oversee an ACS Simulation Fellowship.

Over the years, Dr. Pearl’s drive to improve care for children has led to many initiatives including: 

• Establishment of the Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center.
• Construction of the OSF Children’s Hospital building, which brought pediatric inpatient
  care into one state-of-the-art building when it opened in 2010.
• Participation in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement
  Program (ACS NSQIP).
• Opening pediatric general surgery satellite clinics throughout northern, central and
  southern Illinois.

In 1998, Dr. Pearl was the first board-certified pediatric surgeon recruited by OSF Children’s Hospital. The team has grown to five pediatric surgeons.

Dr. Pearl is a retired U.S. Army colonel, with a career spanning nearly 30 years from 1966 to 1994. He served as an infantry officer and helicopter pilot in Vietnam and Germany, and as a surgeon in Saudi Arabia and Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.  He has received numerous military honors and awards, including the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit. 

Dr. Charles Aprahamian is the new pediatric surgeon-in-chief. 

PEORIA

Trash cart audit central to program changes

The city of Peoria will be introducing updates to the trash, recycling and yard waste programs, which will start in January 2019.

To prepare for the updated program, the city wants to make sure each household has a cart and that the city knows the location of each cart. So, to get started, each trash cart will get a tag with a unique serial number. Existing serial numbers on trash carts have not been previously associated with an address.

The new serial numbers will be placed on trash carts during the weeks of Oct. 1, 8, 15, and 22. The city is requesting that residents leave their trash carts on the regular collection day until 5 p.m.

During those weeks, a crew from Rehrig Pacific, the city’s trash cart manufacturer, will stop at each residential home on the regular trash collection day to attach a tag to the trash cart. Once attached, they will use a scanner to connect the serial number to the residential address. That number will help the city manage the trash cart inventory.

City officials say that the serial number sticker will never be connected to a homeowner or renter’s name, personal information, weight or contents of the trash cart, or anything other than the residential address. The scanner will not take any pictures of the trash cart or surrounding areas, and the crew will not be coming by until after trash is collected, so they will not be able to see any contents of the trash cart.  The serial number will also help the city manage the trash cart inventory.

Each household will also receive a bag of information on the new trash, recycling and yard waste program. Rehrig Pacific will tie the bag onto the handle of the trash cart. This will indicate that the trash cart has received a new serial number and residents can bring their carts in. 

The public will receive more information later this fall on other updates to the trash collection program, as well as recycling and yard waste, before they go into effect Jan. 1, 2019.

‘My Man Mitch’ to address George Washington Day banquet

The keynote speaker at the 121st annual George Washington Day Banquet will be Purdue University President and former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels,

The banquet, sponsored by the Creve Coeur Club of Peoria, is scheduled for Feb. 25, at the Peoria Civic Center.

Daniels is known as “My Man Mitch,” a moniker he earned from former President George W. Bush. Daniels was director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2003, the first two years of Bush’s first term.

The pseudo-nickname became Daniels’ campaign slogan when he ran for Indiana governor in 2004. Daniels ousted the incumbent in the general election and served two four-year terms.

Daniels’ popularity as governor spurred talk about him possibly being a 2012 U.S. presidential candidate. However, he became president of Purdue that year.

The Washington Day Banquet usually features a prominent speaker from politics, punditry or government. Previous speakers have included former Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, columnists Charles Krauthammer and George Will, ex-Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Tickets for Daniels’ speech are on sale, and can be purchased by calling the Creve Coeur Club at 309-672-2267.

–Peoria County News Briefs–