"This is a time of year as autumn falls upon us, the trees change colors, the leaves fall to the ground, we are reminded of hope," Bob DeLacy Jr. of Marengo writes in a letter to the editor.

What’s a better framing for the reserve, 2% or $29 million? What about Pritzker’s proposal versus what Democrats formally budgeted: who wanted to pull which levers of power at what time or, from the other side, who was willing to bear the criticism if the money doesn’t move?

"McHenry County was all red with all the Trump signs. How’s that working out for you? High tariffs, high prices," Jake Getter of Huntley writes in a letter to the editor.

Whether these bills might become law is analysis best saved for someone more familiar with Madison than Springfield but it’s interesting to at least consider the proposals as well as underlying factors in order to draw comparisons to Illinois.

After visiting a teller in person and signing off on several forms, we got seven letters confirming the change – one for each checking and savings account affected – then two days later seven more initially sent to the old house and rerouted to the current address.

The number of living veterans has generally decreased yearly, but again Illinois account for about 3.2% of the nation’s 14.2 million veterans.

That failure contradicts the General Assembly’s reputation as a place where powerful Democrats always get what they want and subverts the expectation of the veto session as a setting for ramming through transformative legislation on deadline in dark of night.

Proficiency rates “would have increased if we had kept the same cut scores. However, we changed the cut scores, so we can’t tell you what they would have been. But we know they would have improved.”

When tragic things happen in our community, those of us at your local newspaper share in the loss and sadness.