A day after federal agents raided the offices of Chicago Ald. Carrie Austin, new details are beginning to emerge over what exactly it was they were looking for.
On Thursday, NBC 5 learned about questions surrounding the home Austin built three years ago. The home is in an area where the alderman requested a zoning change, and it was also part of a TIF district, according to sources.
Documents show that Austin requested a zoning change in April 2016 for the land where her home, as well as a group of condominiums, were built.
The developers building the project received a $3.6 million TIF for six single family homes and 80 condos, according to the documents.
Just four months after the zoning upgrade on the land, Austin received a building permit to build a $300,000 home on the site. The land she owns in the area, a total of 70,000 square feet, is valued at nearly $900,000.
Recreational marijuana is all but a done deal in Illinois. Late last month, Illinois became the first state in the nation to approve such a measure via a legislative body, rather than a referendum.
But on Tuesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to make it final.
Multiple sources tell WTTW News that the governor, who campaigned on legalizing recreational adult use cannabis, is scheduled to sign that law June 25.
Legal weed is still about six months away, as the law won’t actually take effect until Jan. 1, 2020.
Governor JB Pritzker signed two pieces of bipartisan legislation today to impose the strictest limits in the nation on ethylene oxide emissions from ethylene oxide sterilization facilities and other companies that use ethylene oxide.
“Protecting the health and well-being of the people of Illinois has always been my top priority, and I’m proud that this legislation keeps dangerous pollutants out of our communities,” said Gov. JB Pritzker. “Families in affected areas can breathe easy. Illinois now has the strictest safeguards in the nation, and I appreciate the hard work of the General Assembly in developing this bipartisan legislation and bringing it to my desk.”
“As Attorney General, I am pleased that, with Gov. Pritzker’s signature, Illinois will lead the nation in enacting stronger regulations of facilities that emit ethylene oxide,” said Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “I appreciate the General Assembly’s work to craft new, stringent regulations of ethylene oxide, which my office will work with the Illinois EPA to enforce.”
“Protecting Illinois residents from the threat of ethylene oxide was a bipartisan effort and I would like to thank everyone, including Governor Pritzker and his staff, who worked on this legislation that ensures proper protections are in place when it comes to this dangerous chemical,” said Leader Jim Durkin. “The tragic situation which unfolded in Willowbrook at the Sterigenics facility should have never happened. This law will help make sure that it never will again.”
“This new law creates the strongest ethylene oxide sterilization regulations in the nation,” said Senator John Curran (R-Downers Grove). “I would like to thank Governor Pritzker for swiftly signing this bill into law.”
“It is vital that once a public health crisis is identified, it is dealt with as quickly and aggressively as possible,” said Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake). “As soon as I learned that Lake County had two companies that were emitting Ethylene Oxide into our air, I started to work on what is now the strictest set of regulations of Ethylene Oxide emissions in the United States. Today Governor Pritzker is signing into law two very important bills – bills that both set the highest emissions standards and ensure constant monitoring of those that use Ethylene Oxide. Our residents deserve nothing less than clean air to breathe.”
* The first new law…
Senate Bill 1852
Under Senate Bill 1852, ethylene oxide sterilization facilities would be prohibited from operating in Illinois unless:
The facility captures 100 percent of all fugitive ethylene oxide emissions within the facility.
The facility reduces ethylene oxide emissions to the atmosphere from each exhaust point by at least 99.9 percent or to 0.2 parts per million.
The bill requires facilities to conduct an initial emissions test within 180 days and yearly tests thereafter, and the results must be submitted to the Illinois EPA. Upon receiving a failed emissions test, a facility must:
Immediately cease operations.
Notify the Illinois EPA within 24 hours.
Within 60 days, conduct a root cause analysis of the failed emission test, take corresponding corrective actions, and seek IEPA approval prior to restart of operations.
The measure also requires EtO sterilization facilities to conduct quarterly ambient air testing and to obtain construction permits from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency before making the modifications required to comply with the emissions limits in the legislation. After January 1, 2020, any new facility seeking a permit to sterilize with EtO must comply with setback requirements mandating that the facility be located at least 10 miles from schools or parks.
The measure prohibits facilities that have previously been subject to a Seal Order from the Illinois EPA relating to EtO emissions from using the substance unless the facility can certify to the Illinois EPA that EtO is the only available sterilization method for the medical instruments or other products and that the facility’s emissions control system uses technology that produces the greatest possible reduction in EtO emissions.
As Leader Durkin explained this to me recently, previous state law allowed companies subjected to a Seal Order to either use the only available method or install the best available emissions control system. Now they have to do both.
* The other new law…
Senate Bill 1854
Senate Bill 1854 applies emission limits on non-sterilization facilities that emit ethylene oxide. Beginning in 180 days, any such EtO facility would be required to obtain a permit from IEPA, which must include a site-specific cap on the facility’s EtO emissions. Hospitals are specifically excluded from the requirements of this bill.
The Illinois EPA will also be required to conduct at least one unannounced inspection of all EtO sterilization sources per year and air testing to determine the ambient levels of EtO throughout the state.
Both bills have immediate effective dates. We’ll see how long that hospital loophole lasts.
Making good on his promise to make Illinois a welcoming state for all, Governor JB Pritzker signed three pieces of legislation Friday to protect Illinois’ immigrant community amid growing attacks from the federal government.
“Illinois is and always will be a welcoming state,” said Gov. JB Pritzker. “Let me be perfectly clear: the state of Illinois stands as a firewall against Donald Trump’s attacks on our immigrant communities. In the face of attempts to stoke fear, exploit division, and force families into the shadows, we are taking action. We will not allow private entities to profit off of the intolerance of this president. We will not allow local police departments act as an extension of ICE. And we will ensure that every student in this state who wants to go to college should be able to do so without saddling themselves with debt for the rest of their lives.”
HB 2040 bans immigrant detention centers in the state of Illinois, halting the proposed federally-run center in Dwight, Ill. Specifically, the bill prohibits state, county and local governments from entering any agreement or making any financial transactions with a private detention facility, with an exception for contracts with providers of ancillary services such as medical or food services.
This makes Illinois the first state in the nation to ban private civil detention centers, after the state already banned private criminal detention centers. HB 2040 takes effect immediately.
And HB2691…
HB 2691 allows undocumented and transgender students to received MAP grants and institutional aid at public institutions. The Illinois Student Assistance Commission estimates that approximately 3,500 additional students will qualify for a MAP grant as a result of this new law.
While citizenship status and registration in selective service are required for federal financial aid, any Illinois resident is now qualified for state financial aid. The bill also allows students who used MAP grants to help pay for at least 75 credit hours to continue receiving scholarships rather than cut them off until they attain junior status. HB 2691 takes effect immediately.
* He also signed HB1637, the Keep Illinois Families Together Act…
HB 1637 prohibits local law enforcement agencies from engaging in federal immigration enforcement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
While local law enforcement agencies in 21 states, including Wisconsin, participate in the 287(g) Program — an ICE program that allows local law enforcement officials to identify and remove undocumented residents from the U.S. — Illinois now statutorily prohibits participation.
This bill ensures witnesses of all backgrounds can come forward and report crime to their local police. HB 1637 takes effect immediately.
The bill also provides that “nothing shall preclude a law enforcement official from otherwise executing that official’s duties in ensuring public safety.”
The 287(g) Program allows Homeland Security to “deputize selected state and local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.” None of those deputizing programs currently exist in Illinois.
* These early provisions were eliminated from the bill via an amendment…
It would also prohibit law enforcement officials from asking anyone who has been arrested or detained about their citizenship or immigration status, or their place of birth. That prohibition also would apply to people who submit to questioning, crime victims, witnesses and any person who contacts law enforcement seeking assistance.
Additionally, it would call on the state attorney general to propose rules limiting how much assistance certain public agencies could provide to immigration officials. Those rules would apply specifically to public schools and higher education institutions, state-funded health care facilities, public libraries, facilities operated by the secretary of state and courthouses.
Chicago is finally set to get a much-anticipated casino. And it’s not just any casino, but one that could rival Las Vegas mega-casinos in size and scope.
Unlike previous proposals, this will not be a city-owned venture (though Chicago is set to get a third of the casino’s adjusted gross receipts, so it’s in the city’s interests for any eventual operator to succeed). Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday that’s at the city’s request [Emphasis added.]
Consider the new mayor’s ties to the owners of Rivers Casino in Des Plaines — who include billionaire real estate developer and casino operator Neil Bluhm, Bluhm’s family and Kentucky horse-track operator Churchill Downs. A spokesman says they are considering applying to operate the Chicago casino.
The final decision on where that casino would go lies with the Illinois Gaming Board. But Lightfoot is expected to play a big role in determining the best site, as well as who would run the casino.
Lightfoot says campaign contributions won’t influence her, noting “the worst thing” anybody could do is try to sway her by giving her campaign money. “I’m always going to look after the best interests of the city . . . I’m going to play by the book,” she says.
Lightfoot attended law school at the University of Chicago with Bluhm’s daughter Leslie Bluhm, and they remain close friends.
Leslie Bluhm and her sister Meredith Bluhm-Wolf, who have a financial stake in Rivers, gave a total of $212,500 to Lightfoot’s mayoral campaign fund, records show. Leslie Bluhm also co-hosted a fundraiser for Lightfoot.
Among Lori Lightfoot’s early boosters are a posse of girlfriends she’s known since law school and college. Leslie Bluhm, Hilary Krane, Margaret Dale and Judy Gold graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1989 with Lightfoot. Bluhm, Gold and Lightfoot also knew each other before that—when they attended University of Michigan. Like Barack Obama, who received early and critical support from his law school classmates, these girlfriends lent their advice and fundraised. Dale is a New York attorney at Proskauer Rose, where she’s co-chair of the litigation department. Gold is a partner at Perkins Coie in Chicago and expert in government and business law. Crane is general counsel at Nike. And Bluhm is a founder of the Chicago Cares nonprofit that connects volunteers to nonprofit projects across the city. Bluhm, whose father is billionaire Neil Bluhm, donated $212,000 to Lightfoot’s campaign.
Judith Gold is the only registered exclusive lobbyist for Perkins Coie. The firm has just two Statehouse clients. One is Neil Bluhm’s Rush Street Gaming. The other is Bluhm’s Midwest Gaming.
Mayor Lightfoot’s former law firm is Mayer Brown. The firm is also a registered lobbyist for both Rush Street Gaming and Midwest Gaming, among others.
Keep in mind that Bluhm did not oppose a city casino, even though Rivers is just outside city limits. Perhaps he’s confident for a reason.
Organized labor helped push the bill to legalize recreational marijuana across the finish line in the closing days of the spring legislative session last month, but unions’ involvement in the marijuana industry is likely only just budding. […]
Hundreds, if not thousands of jobs could be created in the emerging industry, sponsors and proponents of legalization have said repeatedly. Unions like the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 881 and Service Employees International Union Local 1 had been at the negotiating table for months working on the marijuana legalization bill. […]
“They missed opportunities to really fix some wrongs,” [Beniamino Capellupo, the executive director of SEIU Local 1] said of other states. “The sort of failed war on drugs. Who’s that affected? We got into this with the understanding that this bill needed to come from a social equity and expungement point of view first and foremost. If that wasn’t included in the bill, we would not have been a supporter of it.”
SEIU Local 1, which represents more than 50,000 service workers like custodians and security officers in states all over the Midwest, also stands to represent future workers in the recreational marijuana industry. Already, Local 1 represents approximately 8,000 security officers in the Chicagoland area, according to the union’s communications director Izabela Miltko. […]
(U)nionized security officers also offer an added benefit to recreational cannabis dispensaries, Miltko said, in the form of less employee turnover.
“If security officers are allowed to join in unions, not only are they fighting for better wages, healthcare and benefits, they’re able to really lift the industry standard,” she said.
Organized labor will have strong opportunities for organizing those workers under the licensing requirements laid out in H.B. 1438, Koutsky said. Companies seeking operating licenses would be given credit for adhering to “labor peace agreements,” by which the licensee couldn’t interfere with a union’s efforts to organize and represent workers’ interests.
“You have seen this emerging as a standard approach in the states where this is happening,” said Koutsky, who worked with lawmakers drafting the bill. “So Illinois is in line with what’s happening elsewhere, but this is a significant step that Illinois is taking because it is the first state where this happened through a legislative process rather than a rulemaking or administrative approach.”
Koutsky said the UFCW would take a lead role organizing Illinois workers engaged in the cultivation, testing, and sales of cannabis products. That effort meshes with the UFCW’s national goals under its Cannabis Workers Rising campaign, which has organized more than 10,000 cannabis workers in states with medical and recreational marijuana programs.
As a jurisdictional matter, Koutsky said the SEIU would likely have authority to try to represent security personnel hired in cannabis facilities. The Teamsters would have jurisdiction for workers transporting cannabis products and driving armored trucks, he said.
With the 2020 census nine months away, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed an executive order Thursday creating an office designated to help with statewide outreach efforts.
The order will allow Pritzker to appoint two coordinators for the office, which will be housed under the Illinois Department of Human Services, and create a 12-person advisory panel. The office and panel will divvy up funds for local groups to do census outreach, particularly in hard-to-count communities. The operating budget for fiscal year 2020 allocated $29 million to the Department of Human Services for census outreach.
At stake for the state are billions of dollars in federal funding directly tied to population figures determined by the census, according to a study by the George Washington University Institute for Public Policy. The population figures are also used for redistricting and Illinois could lose one or two congressional seats after the 2020 census, experts have previously said. Census data released this month showed the metro Chicago area lost an estimated 22,000 residents from 2017 to 2018 — marking the fourth consecutive year of population loss.
Pritzker didn’t detail how quickly the office will be put together or when groups could start applying for grants to do census outreach.
“We need to get these funds out the door as soon as possible,” Pritzker said.
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said the stakes include billions of dollars in federal funding, as Illinois could lose $120 million annually for each 1% of the population that is undercounted – about $1.2 billion over the 10-year period between each census.
Stratton said nearly 42% of the state’s African-American population, 33% of the Latino population and 20T of children under the age of 5 live in communities classified as hard to count. Undercounts in minority communities could be “disastrous” not only for those communities but to the entire state, she said.
“The census is about equity and representation and how much money for critical services is distributed to communities in need,” she said.
Executive Order 19-10 creates a census office as part of the Illinois Department of Human Services to coordinate the state’s census turnout efforts, and allows the governor to appoint two “census co-coordinators” to direct the census office. It also creates a census advisory panel made up of 12 members appointed by the governor and legislative leaders of each party.
The Census is more than just a tally of everyone who lives in the United States.
Billions of dollars for roads, schools, and health care are on the line. As is the state’s representation in Washington D.C.
“Our representation in the United States of Representatives is on the line,” Pritzker said Thursday. “Illinois has lost six congressional seats since 1960. And there are experts who predict that we will lose one, or even two, after the 2020 Census.”
While signing an executive order Thursday laying out plans, Pritzker criticized former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration for being slow to support census activities. He was also critical of President Donald Trump.
“We certainly can’t count on the federal government to be a good partner. The Trump administration is doing everything in its power to ensure an undercount,” he said. “It’s a multi-pronged approach to slash funding and force communities into the shadows.”
Homeowners and commercial property owners on Chicago’s North Side and the city’s central core could be hit with much steeper property taxes this year, according to calculations issued by the Cook County clerk’s office Thursday.
A northward shift in the city’s tax burden, though, means many South Side property owners will be spared significant hikes.
That fact may offer minimal comfort to owners of property in segments of the city that are booming.
A North Sider who owns a single-family home with an average market value of $298,250 will pay an average of $5,213 in property taxes this year, according to Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough’s office. That’s an increase of about $536, or nearly 11.5% from last year.
A commercial property owner in the central portion of the city will see an average property tax bill bump of $11,616, if their site has the average estimated market value of roughy $2.7 million.
If you look at the charts Clerk Yarbrough released, you’ll see tax rates actually went down as property values soared. The average North Side home value jumped almost 19 percent, from $251K in 2017 to over $298K in 2018. Central business district commercial property values rose almost 20 percent. The corresponding tax rates fell by 6.61 percent.
The average South Side homeowner, however, will likely see a property tax hike of just $23.37 — about 1%. […]
On the South Side, the average commercial tax bill will go down by about $10.68, or 0.08%, according to the report.
Property values increased less in that region. Combine that with the overall lower rate and the result was smaller payment increases or a reduction even with a levy increase.
But with the city of Chicago facing a $700-million-plus hole in its 2020 budget, the new figures could pose a real political dilemma for newly installed Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Lightfoot will be tempted to fill part of the hole by tapping property taxes, a reliable revenue source. But if she does, much of the burden could fall on neighborhoods like Wicker Park, Lake View, Edgewater and North Center, where homeowners already may be in revolt once they see today’s new bills, which do not include any increase Lightfoot may order.
Former Assessor Joe Berrios was sharply criticized for favoring wealthier areas of the city while pushing up property taxes in poorer areas. The wealthier folks were the driving force behind Berrios’ ouster. Now they’re gonna pay more, but it’s what they voted for.
[Marilyn Hite Ross] was appointed the Winnebago County, Ill., state’s attorney in November, to complete the unexpired term of her predecessor, who’d just been elected to a judgeship. She had been the previous state’s attorney’s criminal bureau chief. Shortly after taking office in December, she issued a new policy governing her interactions with journalists.
The policy dictates that reporters wishing to interview Hite Ross must submit their questions in advance. If the interview is granted, any reporter who asks about something not on the pre-approved list will have his or her questioning terminated immediately.
Local news organizations in Rockford, the county seat, have tried to get Hite Ross to rescind the policy, but she has steadfastly refused. She even took her policy an ominous step forward, having a reporter removed from a news conference because the journalist asked a question not related to the event’s stated topic.
I’ve never heard of a reporter being forcefully removed from a press conference for asking an off-topic question.
Hite Ross has offered the board even more questionable advice, [board member Jean Crosby] said. County employee and personnel issues “should not be discussed in public, or with the media, to avoid potential liability for the county,” Hite Ross wrote in a Feb. 13 memo to the board.
That correspondence followed a guest column in the Register Star written by board member Dan Fellars, D-19, in which Fellars criticized County Administrator Carla Paschal’s job performance and called for her to resign.
“We still have the First Amendment the last time I checked,” Crosby said.
Winnebago County Board Chairman Frank Haney, municipal leaders of Loves Park, Machesney Park and Winnebago and even a few County Board members are blasting State’s Attorney Marilyn Hite Ross for advising the board to keep mum about how the county spends its public safety sales tax revenue. […]
Hite Ross has advised the board in an April 1 memo to discuss the public safety tax only behind closed doors because of a lawsuit filed in March against the county by Sheriff Gary Caruana, who alleges that the board hasn’t provided his department sufficient funds to do its job, which includes oversight of 911 services. Additionally, the sheriff’s suit claims that the board has misspent proceeds of the public safety tax, which supplements the county’s public safety services. Any public discussion of the tax, especially in the context of the ongoing 911 talks, “risks jeopardizing our ability to defend the lawsuit,” Hite Ross said in an April 18 memo to Haney.
“If the state’s attorney is telling the County Board that they can only talk in closed session about the public safety tax as it relates to 911, then how are we ever going to work this out?” Jury said.
Chairman Frank Haney will sue the Winnebago County Board within 30 days in an effort to reclaim the executive power that the board stripped from him in recent months.
Haney’s ability to file a complaint in circuit court to reclaim his power was made possible by Judge Donna Honzel’s decision on Wednesday to appoint Haney’s personal lawyer, Ken Florey, as the chairman’s special state’s attorney. Haney’s basis for such a lawsuit: The County Board, by approving a series of ordinances that have diminished Haney’s power, has violated his rights and subverted the will of the voters who elected him chairman.
Winnebago County Chairman Frank Haney violated at least half a dozen conditions of the county’s vehicle policy after crashing his county-owned vehicle on June 8, according to a policy review conducted by Auditor Bill Crowley.
Haney was driving on an expired driver’s license at the time of the crash and his vehicle registration and license plate sticker had expired more than a year before the accident, Crowley noted in a four-page memo to the County Board on Tuesday.
Haney’s relationship with the board has deteriorated since his election in November 2016. Board member Fred Wescott, R-17, was among those who called on Haney to step down in December, asserting that the chairman lacks leadership skills and is unable or unwilling to listen to the board’s concerns. Haney’s four-year term ends in December 2020, and he announced in April that he won’t run for re-election.
Wescott renewed his call for Haney to resign last Thursday, stating that Haney was using his county vehicle for personal business — a flagrant violation of the county vehicle policy.
* Related…
* Our View: No, Marilyn, you’re not going to muzzle us
* I’ve burned through the last hour dealing with a spam attack on one of my posts and looking for interesting and fresh stories. Success on the first front, not so much on the second. So, I’m turning it over to you. As always, keep it Illinois-centric and be kind to each other.
Kentucky-based Churchill Downs Inc. completed its $326 million acquisition of a majority stake in Rivers Casino in Des Plaines despite state gambling regulators concerns that the new ownership group does not include enough women and minorities.
The Illinois Gaming Board gave its initial approval of the sale on March 1, pending the execution of final documents to seal the transaction. At the time, board members said they wanted Churchill Downs to make a “good faith effort” to bring in more women and minority investors over the next 90 days so they would comprise up to 10 percent of the ownership interest.
Gaming board officials confirmed this week the transaction was finalized June 4, despite the fact that there had been no stock sales to female and minority investors, something that had been a statutory condition of granting the original license in 2008 to a consortium that included Midwest Gaming and Entertainment LLC, Rush Street Gaming LLC, and a Canadian private equity firm, Clairvest Group Inc.
During a June 13 meeting in Chicago, Illinois Gaming Board Chairman Donald Tracy said that even though the deal had closed, he wanted the board to continue reviewing the transaction and to take up the issue again at the board’s next meeting Aug. 1. […]
Tracy made that comment during what turned out to be his final meeting as a member of the board. He has since resigned and Gov. J.B. Pritzker has accepted his resignation.
The governor also signed his support for consolidating the more than 630 municipal public safety pension funds to increase investment returns and save money. He said those funds are missing out on higher returns.
“Best practice is to have one pool of assets from which you’re investing collectively,” Pritzker said. “You can get into much better investment vehicles and do better.”
[Rep. Mark Batinick, R-Plainfield] said municipal police and fire pension costs contribute to the state’s second-highest-in-the-nation property taxes.
“The increased cost at the local level for local pensions dramatically increases property taxes,” Batinick said. “So if you’re going to attract business, if you’re going to grow the economy, if you’re going to stop bleeding people out of the state, you’re going to need to attack from all angles.”
Batinick said consolidation of local police and fire pension funds is much more realistic through legislative action than trying to amend the state constitution’s pension-protection clause to reduce owed benefits.
Pritzker said he’s formed a pension consolidation task force, but it has yet to produce a report.
“They’re doing really outstanding work behind the scenes to deliver to me recommendations that I hope will lead to some legislation,” Pritzker said.
Several bills promoted by the Illinois Municipal League over the past few legislative sessions to consolidate public safety pension funds have failed to advance out of the legislature.
* The Daily Line’s A.D. Quig has been at the Cook County Democrats’ pre-slating session almost all day. Her Twitter thread is worth a read, but this one stuck out for our purposes…
We're still on Circuit candidates. Audrey Cosgrove, a native SW Sider, paints a vignette of growing up near House Speaker Mike Madigan, seeing him bringing starched shirts home + a precinct captain carrying an elderly neighbor down the stairs so they could make it to vote (!).
In a recent story published in the Indianapolis Business Journal, Patrick DeHaan, of the cost analyst company Gas Buddy, speculated that come the first of July, many Illinois motorists will make the short trip to Indiana to take advantage of lower fuel costs.
The Hoosier State charges a 29 cent per gallon fuel tax, which is 9 cents per gallon less than the per gallon tax Illinois is about to impose. […]
Two of those places stand to be the neighboring Indiana towns of Morocco and Kentland. For many of us, these towns can be reached in 30 minutes or less by car, and a bit more investment in time will be justified by the cash savings.
Morocco, Indiana is 34.4 miles from the Daily Journal’s office. Figure the miles per gallon at 27 (much less if you drive a pickup) and that’s a bit more than 2.5 gallons of gas round trip.
I couldn’t find gas prices for Morocco, but according to DeHaan’s Gas Buddy, just to the south in Kentland the best price is $2.67 per gallon - 20 cents more per gallon than the price at Kankakee’s Murphy USA truck stop.
If you think it’s worth it to spend over an hour of your precious time (actually closer to two hours with the stop) and $6.68 in gas to save $1.80 in Motor Fuel Tax (plus a few cents more on sales tax) on a 20-gallon fill-up (for gas, by the way, which might still be more expensive than at the Murphy USA station), then, by all means, be my guest.
* Way back in 1976, DCFS entered into a consent decree that was designed to make sure Latinx kids in the state’s foster parent system had caregivers and social workers who spoke Spanish. You can click here for some background on the Burgos Consent Decree.
But the agency has never gotten its act together. And more than 40 years later, DCFS is still not in compliance. ProPublica Illinois…
The agency’s records show nearly 300 possible Burgos violations since 2005. That number is almost certainly an undercount because basic information about a case, including race, ethnicity and language preferences, frequently has been unreliable and, in some instances, was deliberately falsified by staffers.
DCFS cannot provide a consistent count of children of Spanish-speaking parents who are currently in foster homes where Spanish is not spoken. The agency initially provided data that showed more than 50 children in recent placements that could violate the consent decree.
DCFS spokesman Jassen Strokosch later said there were only two violations. In May, he said the agency performed a case-by-case review and reported that the correct figure was fewer than 25.
Finally, this week, Strokosch acknowledged “difficulties providing accurate numbers.” He added that now, “from top to bottom, we’re looking at better ways to do that reporting.”
Some placements may appear to violate Burgos but don’t because the agency might have prioritized other factors, such as the medical needs of the child, above language, he said. Other placements may violate agency policy but not Burgos, because the consent decree covers families in the Chicago area but DCFS policy applies the order statewide.
Still, Strokosch said, complying with Burgos and ensuring that Spanish-speaking families across Illinois receive services in their own language is a priority of DCFS acting director Marc Smith, who was appointed to the position in April by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Smith is the agency’s 13th leader in the last decade. […]
For an agency that has long struggled with high-profile child deaths and crushing caseloads, it’s easy to see how Burgos has been ignored, said Rubén Castillo, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the first federal court monitor on the consent decree. DCFS, he said, has been so overwhelmed by responding to crises that it has not prioritized issues specific to Latinos, who make up just 8% of the more than 16,000 children in state care.
It’s a long story, but it’s definitely worth a read.
* Some would obviously disagree with his assessment, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens…
After winning passage of a state budget and an infrastructure plan that rely on hundreds of millions of dollars in increased taxes and fees, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday made the case to a group of business leaders that his “rational, pragmatic, progressive agenda” is good for Illinois’ economy.
Pritzker, an investor and billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune, rankled many in the business community when he began his term by signing into law a statewide minimum wage increase and proposing a host of taxes to fill the state’s gaping budget hole. The new governor’s signature policy initiative — shifting the state from its constitutionally mandated flat-rate income tax to a graduated rate structure — also has received strong pushback from pro-business groups.
The governor told a lunchtime gathering of the Executives’ Club of Chicago that he doesn’t see any tension between his Democratic political beliefs and his experience as an entrepreneur and investor.
“I’m a businessman. I’m a progressive. I’m a believer in growing the economy and lifting up people’s wages,” Pritzker said.
Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Pritzker has completely changed the direction of this state. The $15 an hour minimum wage, a possible graduated income tax, legal cannabis, legal sports betting and expanded gaming opportunities, strengthened abortion laws, big tax hikes to fund a $45 billion capital program, etc., etc., etc. Bruce Rauner had equally transformational ideas (in much the opposite direction), but Pritzker actually got his done (except the graduated tax, which is now up to the voters).
On state policies overall, he said there’s no tension between being progressive and being business friendly.
“It’s not the public sector that creates jobs, it’s the private sector that creates jobs,” Pritzker said. “You can be a progressive and believe that and know that the job of government is to create an environment for all of you to succeed in the private sector.”
One example Pritzker noted was the increase of the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over five years. He said special, yet temporary, tax credits for small businesses will ease the cost burden.
American’s For Prosperity Illinois State Director Andrew Nelms said the best way to increase wages is to allow the free market to prosper.
“Look to states where there’s a tight labor market and you’ll see that businesses are having to pay higher and higher wages, and offer higher wages and better incentives in order to attract and retain employees,” he said. “So rather than government by fiat dictating what businesses ought to be doing, government ought to be creating a level playing field where all businesses have the same opportunity.”
The population of Cook County and six nearby suburban counties grew older and less white in the last year, reflecting broader national trends, according to new demographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Across the nation, more than 80% of counties grew older in the past year as the large baby boomer generation continues to age, according to a news release accompanying the new estimates for 2018. In all seven counties analyzed by the Tribune — Cook, Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall and Will — the median age increased.
The percentage of white, non-Hispanic residents, meanwhile, decreased in those seven counties, though non-Hispanic whites continued to hold a majority in all Illinois counties except Cook.
Kane County had the second-lowest percentage of non-Hispanic white residents in the state, at 57%. There, Hispanic residents of all races made up nearly a third of the population. That group grew by 8%, or 13,487 people, since 2010, the census data shows.
Nationally, non-Hispanic whites represented 60.4 percent of the population in 2018, the Census Bureau reported. That’s down from 60.8 percent the previous year, as the white population shrank by 152,386 people.
From 2010 to 2018, [Cook County’s] African American population fell by 5.8% from 1,311,698 million to 1,236,170 — a loss of over 75,000 people.
Cook County’s white population also fell for the fourth year in a row, with the loss of about 21,000 people — a drop of 0.6%. […]
The Asian population, for one, has steadily increased. In 2018, the county’s Asian population reached 408,151. That was up more than 75,000 compared to 2010.
Hispanics also increased, with 78,000 more county residents since the 2010 census — a gain of more than 6%. That growth has slowed, however, to a modest 0.3% from 2017 to 2018.
…Adding… Press release…
Building on a record investment of $29 million for the 2020 Census, Governor JB Pritzker signed an executive order cementing the state’s comprehensive effort to ensure an accurate count in all communities across Illinois.
“In this year’s budget, we committed $29 million to prepare and execute the census in Illinois. That’s by far the largest per-person investment made in any state in the nation,” said Gov. JB Pritzker. “These resources will go directly to outreach and education, with grants to community organizations across the state engaged in this work, particularly in our hard-to-count communities. This executive order will also establish a Census Office within our Department of Human Services to lead this effort and a Census Advisory Panel to guide its work. This is an aggressive effort because that is what the work ahead requires.”
Recognizing that a Census undercount could threaten Illinois’ representation in Congress and its share of federal funding, Executive Order 19-10 establishes a new Census Office within the Illinois Department of Human Services and a bipartisan, bicameral Census Advisory Panel to guide its work.
The Census Office will administer grant funding and conduct outreach and education to ensure an accurate and complete count. Led by two co-coordinators, the office will use the full force of all state agencies and departments to complete its work. The Department of Human Services will file public reports online on a monthly basis to detail its budget, expenditures and distributions of funds to organizations throughout Illinois.
The Census Advisory Panel is made up of 12 members appointed by the governor and legislative leaders and will focus its efforts on “hard to count” communities. Specifically, it will advise the Census Office on drafting and ensuring a wide distribution of the Notice of Funding Opportunity, coordinating with the Illinois Complete Count Commission and ensuring all communities receive communications during the 2020 Census.
The executive order follows a record $29 million investment for census implementation, the largest per-person allocation made in any state in the nation. It was appropriated in the Fiscal Year 2020 budget, which was signed into law on June 5, 2019.
Illinois has 102 counties, so that patchwork of regulations is bad enough. But imagine the potential problems if 1,432 townships step in with their own rules.
Construction crews are already heading to Douglas County, where board members voted Wednesday in favor of giving EDP Renewables a permit to build a 48-turbine wind-farm complex.
Within hours of the long-awaited vote, EDP officials said the work to upgrade public roads to handle the construction activity is expected to begin within the next couple of weeks.
“I think the board in general is just relieved that we have come to this point, and I honestly think that all of us feel like our vote was the right vote,” board Chairman Don Munson said soon after Wednesday’s 5-1-1 vote, which brought a relatively quiet end to a long and at-times-loud process. […]
Wednesday’s vote had been postponed by about two weeks after a required public hearing on the issue drew a large crowd and a lot of public comments — both for and against the project.
* From the Stop the Douglas County Wind Farm’s Facebook page…
The sellout of Douglas County began this morning when the county board voted 5-1 (one abstention) to approve the permit application of Energias de Portugal to construct 48 nearly 600’ towers in two townships, with more to come-likely stretching across the county. Obviously only Bibby Appleby cares anything about the health and property values of the residents of this county. Thank you, Bibby McKay Appleby!
Now it’s time to take serious action against the board, and we need your help. There is a GoFundMe account (see this page for details), or you can send donations to KMAC, PO Box 47, Camargo, IL, 61919.
It ain’t over yet, kids.
The GoFundMe effort has raised just $465 in the past month.
* ADDED: No, President Trump, wind turbines don’t cause cancer: Still, the President’s casual offhand remark that perhaps the noise from a wind turbine could cause cancer appeared to resonate in Newman Township, an old coal town where more than 90 percent of voters supported the Republican in 2016. A surprising number of local residents repeated the rumors that perhaps the arrival of new wind turbines could somehow lead to a spike in cancer.
* Finally, a bit of good news for the ALPLM. From the New York Times…
In 1864, Abraham Lincoln made a rare wartime trip out of Washington to visit a charity event in Philadelphia raising money to care for wounded soldiers. He donated 48 copies of the Emancipation Proclamation to be sold for fund-raising.
But it turns out he received a gift in return: a Bible whose pages were edged with gilt and decorated with the words “Faith,” “Hope” and “Charity” after I Corinthians 13:13 — a holy book at a time when Lincoln was turning increasingly to Scripture to understand personal tragedy and national trauma.
Now, more than 150 years later, historians have discovered the Bible for the first time, a unique artifact of the 16th president’s life that they did not even know existed. Given by his widow to a friend of Lincoln’s after his assassination, it has remained out of sight for a century and a half, passed along from one generation to another, unknown to the vast array of scholars who have studied his life.
As of Thursday, it will go on display for the first time at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., a bequest from the family of the Rev. Noyes W. Miner, who lived across the street from the Lincolns in the Illinois capital and spoke at the slain president’s funeral. After preserving the Bible over the decades, Miner’s descendants recently came forward to disclose its existence and donate it to the public.
* This email from GOP Sen. Jim Oberweis, who hopes to take on freshman Democratic US Rep. Rep. Lauren Underwood, has been going around lately, and it made me curious for obvious reasons…
I mean, was that even real?
* So, I reached out to the candidate…
The copy of the email is personal communication that referenced a larger discussion regarding the desirability of supporting female candidates in the Republican primary. I responded to an individual who was part of this larger discussion by pointing out the gender and racial diversity of the likely GOP slate for 2020.
As for my self-description as a “token white male,” it was intended to be ironic given the traditional demographics of Republican Party candidates, but, in hindsight, was a less than optimal choice of words. I apologize.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice P. Scott Neville, Jr. on Thursday launched his campaign for a full 10-year term to the state’s highest court. The Committee, Citizens for P. Scott Neville, Jr. announced endorsements from over 50 elected officials, community leaders, and retired judges from a cross section of Cook County.
Justice Neville has served on the Illinois Supreme Court since 2018, when retiring Justice Charles Freeman selected him for the appointment to his seat. Justice Neville is the second African American, following Justice Freeman, to serve on the Supreme Court in its 200 year history, and he is the only African American or person of color on the Court today.
A native of Bronzeville on Chicago’s South Side, Justice Neville’s legal career has been defined by his tireless dedication to fairness and equality. His legal decisions have made him one of the most highly respected jurists on the bench in Illinois.
In addition to announcing key endorsements, below, the Committee on Thursday released a campaign video, “Trailblazer,” linked here, highlighting his lifelong commitment to equal justice for all.
Justice Neville has said “No person will be unseen and no person will be unheard,” “Everyone wants the law to treat everyone fairly. Every day of my career, I’ve fought to ensure that we have a fair system, and I look forward to continuing that fight on the Illinois Supreme Court in the years to come.” […]
Justice P. Scott Neville, Jr., the 117th justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, seeks election for a 10-year term on the State’s highest Court in the March 17, 2020 Democratic primary. Prior to his appointment to succeed retiring Justice Charles Freeman in 2018, Justice Neville served as an Illinois Appellate Court judge from 2004-2018 and Cook County Circuit Court judge from 1999-2004. Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1974, he is a graduate of Culver Stockton College and Washington University School of Law and co-founder of the Alliance of Bar Associations.
