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Isabel’s morning briefing
Friday, Feb 24, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Here you go!…
* Tribune | Little Village activists demand action after publication of confidential report on botched Hilco smokestack demolition: “This report confirms what our communities have known to be true — that this administration and Hilco cannot be trusted,” said Kim Wasserman, executive director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization at a Thursday morning news conference. * Crain’s | Election board to probe Dan Proft PAC spending in governor’s race: The Illinois State Board of Elections has taken the first step to probe whether a political spending group run by Chicago political activist and talk radio host Dan Proft illegally colluded with GOP gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey in last year’s election. At its meeting yesterday, the board agreed with a hearing examiner that “justifiable grounds” exist “with some basis in fact” to believe that Proft coordinated with Bailey’s campaign in efforts to promote Bailey, then a state senator, and bash his Democratic rival, incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who was re-elected. Read the Board of Elections report below. * Daily Herald | ‘Embarrassed to have a D next to my name’: Kane sheriff faults fellow Democrats over weapons ban: Hain publicly spoke out against the gun ban this week for the time since he issued a written statement last month. In that statement, Hain said he would not proactively seize weapons from legal gun owners in the absence of some other criminal activity. * Tribune | GOP lawmakers make proposals for Choate while decrying Pritzker’s handling of troubled downstate mental health center: The proposal from House and Senate Republicans for the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in Anna offers fixes that range from additional surveillance cameras to additional employees who are better trained to work with the mentally and developmentally disabled residents of the facility. * AP | Illinois governor plan targets kids’ mental health crisis: “It’s all really geared toward creating an experience for families, where the boundaries between those different state agencies that are there to serve them are less visible,” said Dana Weiner, whom Pritzker tabbed for the initiative. * WMAY | Illinois teachers’ unions overwhelmingly supports teaching children about slavery and racism – opposes banning books: But the union’s survey finds that 77% of those surveyed favor teaching students about slavery and its impacts, and 72% support honest discussions of the history of racism in the U.S. * Crain’s | News group focused on gun crime setting up Chicago bureau: The Trace, a New York-based nonprofit newsroom focused on gun violence, announced that after 18 months of planning they have launched a new local reporting initiative with two local bureaus in Chicago and Philadelphia. The new model will take on a “trauma-informed approach” by centering survivors of gun violence and making their news gathering “more democratic,” according to an announcement made by the news group. * Tribune | Weeks after Ohio derailment, feds mull merger set to bring more freight trains to the Chicago area: Illinois members of Congress have raised other concerns about the merger, urging federal regulators to pause a final decision until further study of the merger’s effects on the region can be completed. In a Feb. 17 letter, Democratic U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Delia Ramirez said a recent environmental study “significantly underestimates the impacts of the merger” between the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads, and relies on disputed data provided by Canadian Pacific. * Illinois Times | Firefighters push for municipal ambulance service: “We’d like to grow our department,” said Kainan Rinaberger, president of Springfield Fire Fighters Local 37. “We have the resources. We have the people. We have the paramedics on the job, and we want to provide that service because that’s what people expect of us.” * SJ-R | Here’s what Springfield mayoral candidates said about energy, city’s homeless, livability: On behalf of voters, The State Journal-Register asked candidates for Springfield mayor questions about plans for providing clean and affordable energy, how the city should combat homeless, and the livability and viability of the city. Here are the responses from incumbent Mayor Jim Langfelder and challenger city Treasurer Misty Buscher. * Daily Herald | Naperville mayoral candidates are prioritizing public safety, but in different ways: Naperville mayoral candidates Scott Wehrli and Benny White have differing views on a shared priority if elected: public safety. White, a Naperville city councilman, and Wehrli, a longtime liquor commission member, both said they’re committed to preserving the city’s status as one of the safest communities in the nation. * Pantagraph | ISU hopes campus visit encourages Latino student enrollment: “I want my students to know that college is an option,” said Maribel Díaz, teacher of heritage Spanish and English as a Second Language at Joliet West. * Center Square | Illinois cities looking for pension relief, restoration of income tax share: The plan aims to restore to cities the full 10% of funding through the Local Government Distributive Fund, which comes from state income taxes imposed on individuals and businesses across Illinois. As of 2022, the payback to local governments was just 6.16%. * Shaw Local | Presidential visits, however brief, become historical markers: Following news of Carter, 98, entering hospice care, I’ve been researching his visits to Illinois. Looking through the American Presidency Project, part of University of California, Santa Barbara, I came across speeches of Carter the candidate: October 1976 remarks at a Pulaski Day dinner in Chicago and later at the Quad Cities airport, one week before the election. * Sun-Times | This young artist won our student art contest and will have her work turned into a mural you can see at the Salt Shed: Buffalo Grove sixth-grader Lucy Holloway, 11, created the work for a Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ/Vocalo contest. It will be turned into a sprawling mural at the entertainment venue that took up the old Morton Salt site. * Tribune | Andrew Vaughn makes the move from the outfield to first base for the Chicago White Sox: “You still have to keep working every day,” Vaughn said Monday of the transition. “You’ve got to get better. I wasn’t at first too much the last couple of years, more in the outfield. Just got to try to do my best in spring and get ready for the boys.
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- John Lopez - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 7:48 am:
Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain (D) made the headlines as I knew it would when he spoke out at the Kane County Board’s Legislative Committee meeting Wednesday. While Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser (D) had a seat at the table on the trailer bill of the SAFE-T Act last year, LEOs beginning with the sheriff’s did not.
Exacerbated by the Assault Weapons Ban, hopefully Springfield Democrats take notice.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 8:05 am:
===‘Embarrassed to have a D next to my name’: Kane sheriff faults fellow Democrats over weapons ban===
Would the Sheriff want to be associated with a party that welcome racist thinkers, insurrection apologists, and conspiracy theorists?
Here’s the thing, for me…
You can’t frame the assault weapons ban about “rights” or law, and then have a harsh partisan take towards what you feel the legal is.
As a sheriff, what, are there “Democrat” laws as FoxNews wants to push, or even “Republican” laws… “you know, freedoms, ‘Merica, strict interpretation of the Constitution”?
I wonder if the sheriff will be embarrassed if, sadly… and tragically inevitably, a mass shooting occurs yet again?
The partisan “embarrassment” seems to be the political cover type lingo that allows one to “continue” to be a “D” but be a champion of some odd think to assault weapons?
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 8:28 am:
===hopefully Springfield Democrats take notice.===
Take notice of what?
Polling concerns in assault weapon bans favor Dem positions.
You wanna make it political, well, between banning abortions and wanting no assault bans, those ain’t winning partisan points.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 8:32 am:
If the Board of Elections seemingly let Proft off the hook with missing tens of thousands of dollars, what exactly should I expect with an “investigation” where Proft made hundreds of thousands and now lives in Florida?
How far will this investigation go in its findings, and if, and only if, Proft is found “breaking” the rules, what will that mean?
- John Lopez - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 10:33 am:
=== Take notice of what? Polling concerns in assault weapon bans favor Dem positions. ===
Nothing political about enforcing the law. When Sheriff Hain first made his position known last month, the 4 Democrat state representatives with districts partially in Kane County responded, and included this excerpt:
“This bipartisan law is the product of hundreds of hours of negotiations and advocacy from across our shared community, including with the Illinois State Police, the Illinois Association of Police Chiefs, and the Illinois Association of Sheriffs. Law enforcement was given a seat at the negotiating table and several of their changes were incorporated into the final bill.”
The Illinois Association of Sheriffs did not agree with the final product.
Most IL sheriffs, when issuing their press releases, used the Sheriffs Association boilerplate. Not Sheriff Hain. He brought up his specific concerns which HB5471 didn’t, from his standpoint, address.
Most notably gun violence and “black market cannabis trafficking”.
Nothing Republican or Democrat, just a LEO pointing out the truth.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 11:09 am:
===The Illinois Association of Sheriffs did not agree with the final product===
And?
- Big Dipper - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 11:09 am:
==the sheriff’s did not.==
When many sheriffs suffer the delusion that they are the highest authority in their county I would exclude them as well.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 11:15 am:
===The Illinois Association of Sheriffs did not agree with the final product===
It won’t help in the polling where…
…voters don’t do nuance and a Dem sheriff is embarrassed by the D next to his name.
You have all these “in the weeds” ideas, and in a discussion that’s interesting to the nuance, but to the idea you want it to matter in the *politics*, and it’s the politics because of the party ID here and your want to ignore the framing, the Sheriff’s choice to be embarrassed about a weapons ban bill, and making it because of party ID, that’s the “simple”, and what I see/saw as I did.
You want it to be… “ just a LEO pointing out the truth.”
The headline talks about in party context.
Why.
Nuance
- John Lopez - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 11:35 am:
=== voters don’t do nuance and a Dem sheriff is embarrassed by the D next to his name ===
Your “nuance” reference is a strawman, and polling reference equally useless, given. IL sheriffs aren’t up for election until 2026.
Having voted for Sheriff Hain last year, he’s a good one (I gave him the thumbs up after his speech on Wednesday as he was leaving the board room).
But if you want to go there, most sheriffs are usually popular, and popular sheriffs usually win, like the new Republican governor of Nevada, who flipped the statehouse last year as the popular Clark County sheriff.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 24, 23 @ 12:01 pm:
=== Your “nuance” reference is a strawman, and polling reference equally useless, given.===
(Sigh)
It’s actually not, “given” polling has assault bans as favorable, and this Sheriff makes a point to party ID on this, bucking the party and the polling.
Sheriffs, win, lose, it’s not about *their* race or races, but about next elections where the Safe-T Act will be “on the ballot”, along with “abortion” (abortion will be in the ballot until the GOP changes its own course or gets bailed out by an abortion bill that becomes law)
=== Having voted for Sheriff Hain last year, he’s a good one (I gave him the thumbs up after his speech on Wednesday as he was leaving the board room).===
Wholly irrelevant.
=== But if you want to go there, most sheriffs are usually popular, and popular sheriffs usually win, like the new Republican governor of Nevada,===
Also irrelevant to this discussion unless the Nevada governor weighed in as an Illinois Sheriff on the Safe-T act.
Some might call that a straw man.
Physician, heal thyself.
The headline is the political takeaway, the nuance, even you thinking “if I can vote for…” to not supporting an assault ban is why the Dem legislators weighed in as *they* did. You missed that.