Leave it to Gov. Rod "The Mod" Blagojevich to want to wreck a perfectly good lecture hall, Cole Hall at Northern Illinois University at DeKalb, with a $40 million replacement. Guess we have money to burn in the Land Of Lincoln --- not!
The reason the governor wants to tear down Cole Hall is because five NIU students were killed by a nutjob and 18 students, including three from Lake County, were wounded. Blagojevich believes keeping Cole Hall standing would be too traumatic for NIU students who would be reminded daily of the shooting rampage.
Once Cole Hall would be razed, a new building would rise in its place and named Memorial Hall. Who is advising this man? Whomever, they should be replaced. What? They will be in 2011. Oh, OK.
Cole Hall was built on about the middle of the NIU campus and opened in 1968. From what The Hound saw on the TV, it looks in pretty good shape for being 40. If only The Hound could say the same.
To follow Blagojevich's logic, we should tear up every airport where there has been a plane crash and carnage or any highway where at least five or more people have died in an auto accident. Did they tear down the 32-story clock tower at the University of Texas-Austin after Charles Whitman killed 14 people and wounded 31 others in August 1966? Nope.
It still stands although access is restricted to guided tours by appointment only. Those Texans are frugal people. Except for George W. Bush. They also haven't torn down the classroom building at Virgina Tech, site of the first collegiate massacre.
The Hound believes Cole Hall should stand and its name changed to Memorial Hall as a reminder of what our fellow human beings are capable of at any given moment. Some sort of sculpture should be constructed as a fitting monument to remember the dead and wounded. As for the monetary savings, let the Legislature decide and not Official A.
My heart goes out to the students and families of NIU. I think the building should stand and the $40Mill should go to um I dont know help fix the roads that really need work that thousands of people travle everyday. If you have driven east of Grand Ave in Gurnee in front of Menards and Gurnee Mill you know what Im talking about.
THE HOUND SAYS: Do you really thing $40 million will fix those potholes dotting Grand Avenue. And those aren't potholes, they're sink holes. You could sink a Buick in some of them.
You can't understand what it would feel like to go back into that building after the shooting. You aren't a student and you didn't share space with those who died in it. Sure close it up for four years wait until we are all gone and reopen it as a memorial hall. I just can't attend another class in that building. I won't register for a class in that building and neither will my fellow students. It is just to painful.
THE HOUND SAYS: Well, it sounds like its too painful for taxpayers to ante up $40 million for a new building. The idea for closing Cole Hall until everybody on campus who was there during the horrific shooting has some merit. The last we heard, NIU President John Peters wants to poll the university community on what to do. For sure, the Legislature will not be budgeting $40 million for a new facility.
Of course $40 mil isn't enough to fix the potholes on Grand Avenue. By the time the local incompetent government get their hands on any funds allocated for something, there will be damn little for anything else. But not to worry...they have a sure fire money maker coming up if they go through with putting cameras at certain intersections.
Sympathy to the victim's families, but that $40 mil would be better spent on any worth while endeavor other than political posturing.
THE HOUND SEZ: Well, they'll be spending about $22 million on fixing the Grand Avenue and Route 41 intersection, The Hound hears, over the next two years.