Pulse

Yes, the latest health care reform bill in the House is about 1,990 pages long. But it isn't as bad as it sounds, said U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson , D-Crete.

"It's 25 lines per page, triple spaced, 14-point font," she said. "It takes 30 seconds to read a page."

Even so, Halvorson said she wasn't going to announce whether she was for or against the bill until she completed reading it.

"I started over the weekend and finally finished last night," she said Wednesday morning.

Halvorson decided to vote in favor of HB 3962.

The city of Joliet is picking up autumn leaves raked to curbsides in heavily wooded neighborhoods but considering eliminating the service next year.

City Councilwoman Jan Quillman said the curbside leaf pickup, which costs $100,000 a year, should have been cut already. She mentioned it when explaining her vote this week against a tentative property tax increase.

"If we're looking at every little penny, we need to look at every little penny," Quillman said.

Meanwhile, city budget makers are crunching the last numbers to get a 2010 budget proposal in the hands of the city council.

City Manager Thomas Thanas said the budget document should be done Monday. The first public meeting on the budget is Nov. 16.

Seen last week dashing through downtown Joliet in a football jersey was banker Jim Roolf .

Roolf said he was out of uniform -- banker's uniform that is -- for the sake of a pep rally Oct. 28 to launch the United Way of Will County Campaign. Roolf chairs the campaign, and the one-time split end for Notre Dame was wearing the No. 6 for a reason.

"They gave me a jersey with my name and my college number," he said.

Go United Way!

"It would have been a very negative reflection on Joliet, and it would have been a real slap in the face to the community." -- Russ Slinkard , CEO of the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry commenting on GM's plan to yank Bill Jacob's Cadillac dealership from the city, a move that was reversed by a local campaign of employees, union leaders and business people.

Deal or No Deal?

Marquee at the Thorntons gas station on Essington Road in Joliet: "Any size coffee: $119."

Surely math teachers grimaced as they drove by for the lack of a decimal.

Pulse contributors included Cindy Wojdyla Cain, Bob Okon, Kim Smith and Joe Hosey