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Kenneally seeks state’s attorney job Hand-picked GOP candidate announces run, to face former assistant state’s attorney Regna By CHELSEA McDOUGALL cmcdougall@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – Speaking for the first time since filing to run for McHenry County state’s attorney, Patrick Kenneally formally announced his candidacy Tuesday amid a crowd that included local prosecutors, law enforcement and the Republican establishment. Kenneally, 37, is seeking the Republican nomination
for the office, and was handpicked to succeed his boss, State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi. Kenneally, of Crystal Lake, left the state’s attorney’s office briefly in 2014 to work in environmental law, and has worked primarily civil cases since returning in June. He tried the Michael Romano murder case in October. “I am here because this county needs to continue to move forward and not re-
gress,” Kenneally said. “Prior to Lou’s arrival in 2004, McHenry County was an easy place to work if you were a criminal defense attorney. … That all changed with Patrick Lou. No more Kenneally insider deals, no more amendments of DUIs
Long legacy of police mistrust
and dismissals of domestic batteries and zealous prosecutions of the worst, most dangerous offenders.” Later he added: “As state’s attorney, I am ... first and foreDan Regna most a servant of the law. Politics will have no place in the administration
of my official duties as state’s attorney.” Kenneally will face a primary challenge from Dan Regna, a former assistant state’s attorney who left the office in 2004 when Bianchi was elected. Regna, 51, of Woodstock, since has been in private practice and says he is an outsider who will bring true reform. Regna unsuccessfully ran against Bianchi in 2008. “Under Bianchi’s leader-
ship, the state’s attorney’s office serves as the political muscle of McHenry County,” Regna said in a statement. “Mr. Bianchi’s concentration of political power [and] patronage within the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office would garner envy from the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation. Mr. Kenneally does not have the
See CANDIDATES, page A7
AREA COLLEGES CHANGING APPROACH TO STUDENT DEBT
Relations between Chicago police and blacks shattered By TAMMY WEBBER and DON BABWIN The Associated Press
CHICAGO – A South Side police commander and his officers tortured black suspects into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit. Another rogue unit shook down drug dealers on the West Side for drugs and money. A different group of officers accepted payments from drug dealers to warn them of police raids. And for years, whenever Chicago officers did something wrong, their colleagues covered for them. The city’s longstanding reputation for police misconduct and brutality shattered relations with the black community long before the federal government announced this week that it was launching a wide-ranging civil rights investigation of the Chicago Police Department. The probe was prompted by a video showing a white officer shooting a black teen 16 times and revelations that other officers filed false reports about what happened. “There is a deep mistrust, and it really becomes a cancer here in Chicago because it eats away at respect for authority and respect for the law ... that becomes toxic,” said the Rev. Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church. He said some communities feel like they’re being occupied by police rather than protected by them. Craig Futterman is an attorney who helped win the release of video showing the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. He said the footage underscored two things: A pervasive code of silence at all levels of the department has allowed misconduct and brutality to fester, and previous reform efforts have done little to solve the problem. “Political leaders never had the political courage to address underlying issues that allow a minority of police officers to abuse the most
H. Rick Bamman – hbamman@shawmedia.com
McHenry County College financial aid/workstudy specialist Ina Weiskopf (center) speaks with students recently in her campus office. The number of students taking out student loans is down at MCC. College officials attribute this to a relatively new practice adopted by MCC last year to either require or strongly encourage students to come in and sit down with a financial aid adviser, instead of simply auto packaging loan options with financial aid.
MCC, nearby community colleges see drop in student loan borrowing By ALLISON GOODRICH agoodrich@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – As opposed to previous years, McHenry County College students who decided to take out student loans last year had to make a request and sit down with a counselor in order to do so. The result, MCC’s Director of Financial Aid Leana Davis believes, has been a reduction in both the number of students taking out student loans and the total amount awarded over the past year and a half. During the age of staggering student loan debt across the country,
it’s a trend that mirrors that of other area colleges, which also have put measures in place to ensure students only take out debt they’ll be able to handle once out of college. In the 2013-14 year, 789 MCC students took out about $2.8 million in direct student loans, Davis said. That was when loans were auto packaged in a way that allowed students the freedom to decide how much to take out based on their eligibility for federal loans. However, since the 2014-15 school year, that practice has been abandoned for one that offers students more than just an online choice. “There was a decline from [20]13-
14 to [20]14-15 due to the switch from auto packaging loans to the request and loan counseling process,” Davis wrote in an email. In 2013-14, there was a little more than $1.4 million in subsidized loans and $1.3 million in unsubsidized loans, while in 2014-15, students took out $918,000 subsidized and $1.1 million unsubsidized. The number of student borrowers declined to 522 in 2014-15, too, she said. MCC’s relatively new loan counseling practices look familiar to financial aid officials at two nearby schools. Elgin Community College
changed the way loans were processed back in 2011, said Mary Crowe, ECC’s assistant director of financial aid and scholarships. “What we did in the past was package student loans so a student with a Pell Grant had the option to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to ‘Do you want the loan?’ and ‘Do you want the max amount?’ ” Crowe explained. “A lot of students would just say, ‘Sure, I’ll take it.’ ” Now students have to sit down annually with a loan adviser, who will go through the cumulative loan amount, explain the interest
See BORROWING, page A7
“The key is communicating with these students. Keeping them informed of the amounts that they’re borrowing. The most important thing to remember is that we’re here to help.” Laura McGee, Harper College director of student financial assistance
See POLICE, page A7
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