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Isabel’s afternoon roundup
Monday, Apr 7, 2025 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Click here to follow the Sen. Emil Jones III trial. Capitol News Illinois’ Hannah Meisel is covering the case…
* WAND | IL Senate unanimously passes plan keeping veteran tiny homes affordable: Sen. Sally Turner (R-Lincoln) refiled her bill this year to allow tiny homes to be exempt from the 2023 state law requiring all homes to be built with electric vehicle charging capacity. […] This plan passed unanimously out of the Senate Thursday. Sen. Michael Hastings (D-Tinley Park) said Turner did a wonderful job working on this bill to help her constituents. Senate Bill 39 could be assigned to a House Committee in the coming weeks. * Olivia Allen | A look at a variety of education legislation: Illinois Senator Meg Loughran Cappel (D-Shorewood) proposed a bill last session to give all educators “daily, continuous, uninterrupted” individual classroom planning time, equal to one class period but no less than 45 minutes. The bill, Senate Bill 2721, also says teachers could use this time to attend meetings, trainings or conferences. While it hasn’t been assigned to a committee yet, I think Illinois lawmakers should consider revisiting SB 2721 this session — to me, it’s a sure-fire way to provide teachers with additional and necessary support. * WCIA | ‘Best I’ve ever seen’: New simulator offers state-of-the-art training to all Illinois police departments: Several police academies have simulators like this in the state, and larger police departments have their own simulators that don’t have as many bells and whistles. This one, however, is going to be different, and it’s all because of who can access it. “I think the primary objective when we started looking at virtual reality training or simulation training in this manner was to close the gap on opportunities from large departments down to our smallest departments in the state,” Paul Petty, Manager of in service training at ILETSB said. * Tribune | Andrew Boutros officially announced as interim U.S. attorney in Chicago: Veteran Chicago lawyer and former federal prosecutor Andrew Boutros was officially appointed Friday to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. The move is effective April 7 and was announced internally by the office of U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, according to Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago. * Streetsblog Chicago | Is ‘Walk Score’ Really Just a ‘White Score’?: Neighborhoods that score highly on the “Walk Score” metric are more likely to be disproportionately white, a new study finds — and it may be creating a troubling feedback loop that drives investment away from neighborhoods of color, and towards the communities that need it least. In a provocative new paper, researchers Kate Lowe of the University of Illinois Chicago and Anna Brand of the University of California, Berkeley found that Windy City census tracts that were rated most highly by the popular real estate algorithm mapped almost exactly onto the census tracts with the highest share of white residents — and a literature review suggested that the same thing is likely true in other dense urban areas. * Crain’s | Wall Street regulator takes back Chicago office space it slashed last year: After shedding a chunk of its Chicago office space, the agency that writes and enforces rules for Wall Street brokers has taken it all back and then some. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has expanded its office at 101 N. Wacker Drive by more than 25,000 square feet, bringing its new footprint at the top of the 23-story building to about 70,000 square feet, according to people familiar with the matter. * Block Club | Water Tower Place ‘Past Its Prime’ As A Mall— But Mag Mile Recovery In Full Swing, Backers Say: During March’s town hall meeting, Hopkins confirmed those plans, saying MetLife plans to keep the first three floors as retail and repurpose the remaining floors for office and medical office space. “We think that will not only revitalize Water Tower Place, but ensure its success for hopefully decades to come,” Hopkins said. “I can’t imagine what would happen to this community if Water Tower Place went the way of Chicago Place and became a vacant white elephant.” * WSJ | Ken Griffin Pushed the Luxury Home Market to New Highs—For Better or Worse: After purchasing the two penthouses at Faena House for a record sum, he resold them in two transactions in 2020 and 2021 for an aggregate $46.2 million, taking a 23%, or $13.8 million, loss on the resale. Griffin wasn’t the only big-name buyer to take a loss at the building amid a slowdown in the Miami market pre-Covid. Art dealer Larry Gagosian and investor Leon Black were among the buyers who also sold at a loss. … “The decline in value of Ken’s Chicago properties is representative of the failed political leadership in Illinois and the appreciation of his property in Florida far outstrips any losses in Chicago,” Ahmed said. * Daily Herald | ‘We got killed’: Cemetery board weighing next move after referendum fails: The future is uncertain for several Kane County cemeteries after the Campton Township Cemetery District’s referendum failed Tuesday. Voters resoundingly rejected the request for a tax rate increase, with 3,080 votes opposed to 890 votes in favor. “We got killed,” said cemetery board Chair John Hamer. “I’m going to get together with our board and figure out what to do. We cut to the bone already. It’s obvious what we are not maintaining.” * Daily Herald | What drove voter turnout in some suburban counties this election?: Turnout was up throughout the suburbs from four years ago when the same seats were up for grabs — except in Will County, which has seen steady decline since 2017, according to records from county election officials. The largest spike was seen in Kane County, where there was a 10 percentage-point increase in turnout from 2021. Nearly 22% of all Kane County voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s election, according to unofficial results tallied by Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham’s office. That’s up from an 11.2% turnout in 2021. * Evanston Now | Schenita Stewart named state Police Chief of the Year: In an announcement Monday, the Association said Chief Stewart has “transformed her department with visionary leadership, strengthening collaboration and trust, and excellence among officers.” The chiefs’ group also said that Stewart’s commitment to officer well-being, transparency, and community engagement has “set a new standard in policing.” * Daily Herald | Rep. Bill Foster’s town hall at McHenry County College sold out but livestream planned: Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Foster is hosting a town hall on April 16 at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake. […] Foster hosted a town hall last month at Benedictine University in Lisle that included Foster and about 600 constituents, according to a press release from Foster’s office. * SJ-R | ‘It’s a ridiculous argument.’ City’s new city council rules leave residents frustrated: “It’s not communications decision to not air that, it’s coming from the mayor’s office,” Moredock said. “With the QR code, that will be coming from the Mayor’s office; we had a year ago a situation came up with potential for liability. We don’t know where those QR codes go. They (the camera team) have been given guidelines to not show any QR codes.” * PJ Star | ‘I intend to tell the story’: Bradley’s new president shares optimistic vision for the future: Shadid enters his presidency during a rocky period at the university, with the final leg of Standifird’s tenure having been financially tumultuous amid a $13 million budget shortfall in 2023. The institution saw cuts to programs and staff layoffs that led to campus-wide division, distrust and student protests. * KWQC | Rock Island Mayor-elect to join wildlife protests for Milan Bottoms: Officials from the Nahant Marsh Education Center said Ashley Harris will join conservationists during two “roost-ins” before the Rock Island City Council votes on expanding a TIF district that could allow for development in the Milan Bottoms. Harris will be at “roost-ins” from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. on April 9 and from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on April 14. The first “roost-in” will be at the Milan Bottoms, and the next one will be at Rock Island City Hall. * Maybe the GA can get together for a post session slide…
* WIRED | What Makes Modern Measles Outbreaks Different: Look closely at the outbreak’s edges, though, and the patterns are more unusual: It’s not just children getting measles. Where Texas’s outbreak has spilled over into New Mexico, for example, half of the confirmed cases and one potential death involve adults, largely unvaccinated. Last year, too, adults older than 20 accounted for more than a quarter of U.S. measles cases. This is all in keeping with what experts have warned: Adults are now susceptible to this childhood disease. * WIRED | Bluesky Can’t Take a Joke: The lack of humor detection is made worse by tech: algorithmically curated content, à la Bluesky’s Discover feed, surfaces random posts to random people. A Maddow referral on Bluesky might see an ex-Twitter user’s vivid description of what they’d do to the Hamburglar if they saw him in person and react with genuine horror and confusion. It’s also PEBKAC issue—problem exists between keyboard and chair. You cannot force a person to understand a joke. The only action more futile is to get mad about it.
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