Criminal, prejudicial, comical and hopeful

GuidePosts: Southland educators get jobbed again. The ugly face of racism speaks on the Southwest Side. First GM, now the local pancake house? Government bailouts run amok. And finally, Toni Preckwinkle discovers the Southland. Every week, GuidePosts points you to the must-read stories of the Southland.

Education just isn't that important
Phil Kadner tells it like it is when it comes to the corruption in the useless office of the Cook County Regional Schools Superintendent and the utterly senseless decision of some state lawmakers to turn a blind eye. The office, held by Charles Flowers, is under a cloud of scandal exposed by Southtown reporter Duaa Eldeib, who's now at the Chicago Tribune. Thanks to her reporting, Flowers is now charged with theft and official misconduct.

The Daily Southtown first drew a bead on Flowers back in 2006-2007 when Southtown reporter Angela Caputo, now at Progress Illinois, exposed the nepotism in the office and rampant financial mismanagement, which forced Cook County to loan Flowers money to run his office

Timeless sensibilities
"Mike Corrigan doesn't want to be anybody's villain or a neighborhood hero," writes Casey Cora in one of the most interesting Southland stories of the week. "He's just a guy who wants to see his West Beverly neighborhood packed with white people and no one else."

"What's so wrong with that?" the 62-year-old South Sider asks.

Bowing to pressure, Corrigan covered up the racist signs he posted to scare blacks away from buying the house for sale next door. Clearly, the age-old racial divisions that define so many interactions in the Southland still fester here.

The pancake bailout
This would be funny if it weren't for the fact that the joke is on Country Club Hills taxpayers. Country Club Hills Mayor Dwight Welch gave a city loan to a local eatery that couldn't pay its utility bills. And residents are fuming.

Welcome to our suburbs
Toni Preckwinkle, the Democratic nominee for Cook County Board President, doesn't know much about the Southland. But she's willing to learn. Recently, she's met with the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, the East Hazel Crest-based group that tries to promote the economic interests of 42 suburban communities in south Cook and Will counties, according to the Times of Illinois.

"They presented me with their economic development agenda, and I will do what I can to help implement those projects they desire," Preckwinkle told the paper. "I know that one concern here is access to hospitals and the health care system that the county provides."

She says she'll pay close attention to the fate of Oak Forest Hospital.