Jack Franks let his Com Ed chainsaw bill see the light of day on March 6th in the House Public Utilities Committee. Opposition was so great that he did not allow an up or down vote.
The Illinois Environmental Council has released its ratings and the highest for a McHenry County legislator is Mike Tryon at 79%.
State Senator Pam Althoff received a 57% score.
Democrat Jack Franks, whom I have dubbed “Chainsaw Jack” for introducing a bill that would allow Com Ed to cut down any tree within 20 feet of an electric line, scored 54%.
And the organization didn’t even use the House Bill 3884 that the lead editorial in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday the second week of March railed against.
Appointee Kent Gaffney came in lower–50%.
Lowest was State Senator Dan Duffy. He got 21%.
You can read the bills on the IEC’s score card and how the group wanted legislators to vote here.
How legislators voted can be found on the score card, which can be found here.
Here we go again with the “chainsaw jack” stuff.
Franks is right in his assertion that trees do not belong under power lines.
Let’s try and think long term here.
The safety and welfare of the entire population is at stake when tree limbs cause power to fail.
It is no fun when a large wind, snow or ice storm cuts power and phone and cable to thousands of people for days or weeks at a time.
If the tree stock in utility right-of-way is so important, then lets pony up the money to remove the lines to a secure location, like underground.
Com Ed does its best to keep the power on but these outages are enormously expensive and they are preventable.
This character assassination of Jack Franks is not about the environment at all, and the writer should know better.
Don’t even try to argue with Cal- he’s absolutely crazy.
He even managed to rant about “Chainsaw Jack” when complaining the power went out because a tree fell on power lines.