10 MINUTE TALKS KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY Health-based programs help students stay healthy. PAGE 5A
TWO MORE TIL FINAL 4
Lighting up Urbana Candlestick Lane celebrates its 50th anniversary. Page 6A
THURSDAY December 11, 2014
SPORTS, 1B
Florida is next up for volleyball in Sweet 16.
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Lawsuit remains unresolved University to be invited to discuss Urbana’s lawsuit against Carle BY ABIGALE SVOBODA STAFF WRITER
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Urbana mayor Laurel Prussing will invite the University to a discussion about the recent lawsuit against the Carle Hospital Foundation.
The Urbana City Council will formally invite the University to host a public discussion about Urbana’s recent lawsuit against Carle Foundation Hospital. After much discussion on the issue at the Dec. 8 meeting, the
council decided to hold the resolution in committee while they work to revise it. Urbana mayor Laurel Prussing spoke about the resolution and why the University should be a part of the discussion at the meeting. “It’s in the long-term
interest of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to promote healthy and sustainable local communities in order to attract students, faculty and staff,” Prussing said. She emphasized the need to have a public discussion, in which other members of the community would be able to make comments and ask questions. Carle, which no longer pays Champaign County
property taxes, has pledged $10 million per year to the University’s proposed medical school if approved by the Board of Trustees. The resolution proposed by Prussing argues that Carle’s pledge to the University is equivalent to the cost of the hospital’s property tax. Since the hospital has been tax-exempt, the citizens of Urbana are facing
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Unions celebrate pension ruling BY JOSH WINTERS STAFF WRITER
Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge John Belz ruled Illinois Senate Bill 1, more commonly known as Illinois’ pension reform bill, to be in violation of the state’s constitution on Nov. 21. The pension reform bill was passed on Dec. 3, 2013. In his written opinion, Belz said, “On its face, the Act impairs and diminishes the benefits of membership in State retirement systems in multiple ways,” including reducing the amount of annuity that retirees can receive, capping the pensionable salary of members of select state retirement systems and raising the retirement age for certain retirement systems. John Colombo, interim dean of the College of Law, said supporters of the bill knew it was in violation of the Illinois constitution when they passed it, but claimed that they had the legal authority to do so. It was this theory that he said Belz addressed in the ruling. “The legal theory is essentially, ‘Yes, we know it diminishes pension benefits, but the legislature has residual authority to do that in times of crisis; this is a time of crisis, and therefore we should be allowed to do it,’ ” Colombo said. Belz said because SB 1 diminishes and impairs pension benefits and does not have any clear defense, the Court concluded that the act violated the Pension Protection Clause of the Illinois Constitution. Article XIII, section five
of Illinois’ constitution states that, “Membership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.” Supporters of the pension reform bill were quick to criticize the decision. Right-leaning think tank Illinois Policy Institute issued a report the same day of the ruling, expressing its concern that without significant reform to the state’s pension system, Illinois’ debt will continue to rise with little hope of slowing down. “As long as SB 1 is tangled up in the courts, Illinois’ massive pension debt will continue to balloon,” said Ben VanMetre, senior budget and tax policy analyst, in the report. “The unfunded pension liability is so large today that it would take three years of a complete government shutdown, during which the entire general fund went toward pensions, just to break even.” According to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, Illinois unfunded pension liability is roughly $111.2 billion. In the report, VanMetre said that Illinois could face credit downgrades over its massive unfunded pension liability, and that the pension systems themselves could soon face bankruptcy. However, opponents of SB 1 have hailed the ruling as
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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ANNA HECHT THE DAILY ILLINI
University ‘soft’ on enforcing smoking ban, not issuing tickets BY ELYSSA KAUFMAN STAFF WRITER
For Bobby McAllister smoking is a way to combat the high-stress environment that comes with college. “I have tried quitting smoking — and I have quit for about a month and a half with the patches — and then I got to school and stress started again,” said McAllister, senior in LAS. Smokers aren’t going anywhere, he said. If the University wants to enforce the ban, he believes it needs to offer students more free
resources to quit smoking. The University ban on smoking went into effect in January and was soon followed by an Illinois state law in July, which barred smoking on all state campuses. “We discussed a revaluation before it became a state law to ban smoking on campus,” said Renee Romano, vice chancellor for student affairs. “We will not have to decide to continue the ban because it is now a state law, but we will still discuss the topic.” A student smoke-free
ambassador program that enforced the ban last semester ended this year due to a lack of funding. Sarah Sommer, graduate student in LAS, worked as a smoke-free campus assistant last year. She trained and managed a team of student ambassadors whose purpose was to educate people on campus about the ban. Last year, students were able to apply for the ambassador team and selected students who took weekly shifts around campus and discouraged those who continued
to smoke. “The University has mostly focused on voluntary compliance through education,” Sommer said. “This included increased signage and communication around campus, and the student ambassador group.” She said in cases of repeated noncompliance, existing campus disciplinary measures are followed. Additionally, there is a reporting mechanism on the smoke-free campus website
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Joe’s Brewery tests website for finding lost and found items BY EDWIN HSIEH STAFF WRITER
EDWIN HSIEH THE DAILY ILLINI
Joe's Brewery on Fifth Street.
For some students who go out for a night at the bars, it’s not uncommon to wake up with something missing, whether it’s a wallet or a phone. Joe’s Brewery is the first campus bar to try an online lost and found platform called Crowdfind, which allows people to claim their
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lost belongings online. The campus bar began using the service this month. Crowdfind is a startup created and run by L Street Collaborative, a venture development firm that acquires, incubates and launches technology companies. Benji Friedl, account executive for L Street Collaborative and University alumnus, explained that
Crowdfind allows businesses to post pictures of lost items online. “Say people leave at 2 a.m., and they realized they left their stuff in the morning but the bar doesn’t open until afternoon — they can go online and take a look at the virtual lost and found and actually identify their object,” Friedl said. “It immediately gets rid of
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panic and makes the process easier.” The website allows users to post found items as well as file claims for lost items at specific locations. Mike Ferrin, front door manager at Joe’s Brewery, said people leave their belongings and clothes at the bar “all the time, every day.” “Now if you lose some-
thing, you can go on the website; however, most people still call and look for it,” Ferrin said. Typically, he said, the bar receives about four to five phone calls in the morning asking if the missing items were found. The lost items are sometimes claimed, he added, but often sit in the
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