* Gov. Pritzker is on the road…

The Early Learning Center serves more than 700 preschoolers in Springfield each day, in morning and afternoon classes. Yet, like many preschools in the state, the ELC has to turn down parents of 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds because of a lack of staffing and space.

Springfield Public School District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill said the center plus two satellite sites are all that currently exist to serve the local need. As a result, anywhere from 100 to 150 families can find their way on a wait list she said. […]

Smart Start is a multi-tiered, $250 million program that would also address staffing issues experienced in early intervention programs and childcare facilities by providing workers a raise. It would also send $5 million to the Department of Human Services to expand its home visiting program.

Gill, Springfield Mayor Jim Langfelder, and local Democratic legislators state Sen. Doris Turner of Springfield and state Rep. Sue Scherer of Decatur, joined the governor at the ELC library, his first stop on a state tour Thursday promoting the budget proposal that will need General Assembly approval.

* Mystery solved by Illinoisans? Aviation Week…

A small, globe-trotting balloon declared “missing in action” by an Illinois-based hobbyist club on Feb. 15 has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat-seeking missiles launched by U.S. Air Force fighters since Feb. 10.

The club—the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB)—is not pointing fingers yet.

But the circumstantial evidence is at least intriguing. The club’s silver-coated, party-style, “pico balloon” reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska, and a popular forecasting tool—the HYSPLIT model provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—projected the cylindrically shaped object would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11. That is the same day a Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same general area. […]

The descriptions of all three unidentified objects shot down Feb. 10-12 match the shapes, altitudes and payloads of the small pico balloons, which can usually be purchased for $12-180 each, depending on the type.

* Interesting story in Crain’s…

Schaumburg thought it scored an economic development win several years ago, when it inked tax break deals with Zurich North America and Motorola Solutions to keep two of the village’s biggest employers — and thousands of high-paying jobs — in the suburb and provide an anchor for an ambitious office, residential and retail development.

Then came the pandemic, severing the link between job and office. Suddenly, the economic ripple effects that local officials imagined when tax breaks were first dangled — a steady stream of office workers stepping out for lunch in the village each day, dropping off their dry cleaning, filling up at local gas stations or stopping by a nearby grocery store on their way home from work — shrank precipitously as workers stayed home, perhaps for good.

Now Schaumburg wants to rework the deals and stop paying millions to the companies for jobs being done remotely rather than in an office park. […]

In reaching the incentive deals, the village estimated that each employee would spend $222 to $361 a week in the suburb, generating nearly $300 a year in annual sales taxes locally, according to court documents.

The village is now in court for refusing to reimburse the companies.

And to give you an idea about the local spending involved with this job location shift, here’s another Crain’s piece…

Compared to 2019, the average Chicago office worker is spending $2,387 less on meals, shopping and entertainment near their workplace, the researchers found. That dropoff is smaller than many other U.S. cities, including New York City ($4,661), Los Angeles ($4,200), Washington, D.C. ($4,051), and Atlanta ($3,938), among others.

Chicago workers are spending 26.8% fewer days in the office now than in 2019, according to the study. That ranks ninth among the studied cities, with Washington, D.C., seeing the highest in-office decline, at 37%.

The survey is here.

* It’s a terminal disease and I suffer from it as well…

* RIP…

Tim McCarver, the square-jawed catcher who anchored the St. Louis Cardinals famed “El Birdos” through three pennants and two World Series championships in the 1960s, then went onto a lengthy career as a broadcaster, died Thursday morning. The National Baseball Hall of Fame made the announcement with Major League Baseball later confirming that heart failure was the cause of death. McCarver was 81 years old. “Tim McCarver was an All-Star, a World Series Champion, a respected teammate, and one of the most influential voices our game has known,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “As a player, Tim was a key part of great Cardinals and Phillies teams in his 21-year career. In the booth, his analysis and attention to detail brought fans closer to our game and how it is played and managed. Tim’s approach enhanced the fan experience on our biggest stages and on the broadcasts of the Mets, the Yankees and the Cardinals.

* Isabel’s roundup…

* Center Square | How Illinois Students Perform on the ACT Compared to the Nation: While ACT scores have declined nationwide in recent years, there is considerable variation in average ACT scores from state to state. In Illinois, the average composite ACT score in 2022 was 24.5 out of a possible 36, the 13th highest among states.

* Inside Climate | Navigator’s Proposed Carbon Pipeline Struggles to Gain Support in Illinois: McDonough County residents are asking officials to stand their ground as Navigator offers payments totaling up to $18.9 million to the county in exchange for its support.

* The Real Deal | Illinois Realtors spends big in Chicago aldermen races: An Illinois real estate trade group has given more than $500,000 to the campaigns of multiple Chicago aldermanic candidates, bolstering their campaigns for this month’s upcoming elections.

* Crain’s | Bally’s Tribune drama is yet another perplexing plot twist in Lightfoot’s casino quest: Much as the Lightfoot administration would prefer that we all move on and celebrate her great victory before electing her to a new term, the questions keep coming about why she was in such a rush to select Bally’s to run the city’s prized casino. The questions, many of them about apparent favoritism, have circulated for the last year. Now, in recent days, comes another set of questions surrounding when Bally’s will be able to move the current tenant out of its River West site — the Tribune printing plant — and how much it might have to put on the table to induce such a relocation.

* Tribune | 4 years after Aurora, mass shooting deaths in Chicago area continue to climb: In total, there have been 214 mass shootings in the Chicago area since that day, resulting in 143 deaths and 973 injuries, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people, not including the gunman, shot in a single event.

* Sun-Times | ‘A great injustice’: Property tax hikes lead to protests, workshops to help homeowners lower bills: A protest Thursday Downtown and workshop Saturday in Little Village are the latest in a series of actions to help homeowners save money and change the process that led to the increases.

* Tribune | What will happen to Soldier Field without the Chicago Bears?: If the team leaves Soldier Field, Irizarry said she hopes the stadium can host many more concerts each year, easing the increasingly controversial burden on neighborhood parks for big musical events such as Riot Fest in Douglass Park and the recently announced Re:SET festival in Riis Park.

* Block Club | As Re:SET Concert Series Promotes Summer Shows In Riis Park, City Officials Tell Angry Residents They Never Approved It: The Park District has been criticized for allowing music festivals to take over public parks for weeks at a time without community input. Officials said the Re:SET concerts are being promoted without their approval.

* Tribune | Waukegan’s temporary casino opens Friday: ‘This will bring a new vitality to the city’: Babinski said there are 350 employees, with a goal of reaching 500 in the near future. Hiring is ongoing. Those without experience will be trained to be dealers, or handle other tasks. Pay is competitive at nearby places of employment like Amazon, Medline and Visual Pak, casino officials said.

* WBEZ | Chicago’s mayoral candidates want to fix the unreliable, unsafe and downright filthy CTA: The CTA has gotten the most diss this mayoral election season. But making biking and walking in the city safer tops many Chicagoans to-do lists too.

* Sun-Times | Big issues in Gardiner’s reelection bid in 45th Ward are crime, development — and Gardiner himself: Ald. Jim Gardiner faces five contenders in the Northwest Side ward — and a string of scandals. While the first term incumbent has name recognition, it’s not necessarily the kind of recognition a candidate wants among potential voters.

* Crain’s | Is Lightfoot’s signature housing policy working? Depends on who you ask.: City approvals for marquee apartment projects have been smaller and less frequent since the City Council passed Lightfoot’s 2021 revamp of the city’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance, an Illinois Answers Project analysis shows. Some builders point to the trend as vindication for their opposition to the ordinance, which cranked up requirements for developers to include some affordable units in any large project they propose in wealthy or gentrifying neighborhoods. They say the rules were so harsh that they choked off development, ultimately leading to less new housing — including fewer new affordable units.

* WTTW | Mayoral Race Gets Pointed as Election Day Nears: In this week’s edition of Spotlight Politics: The Chicago municipal election is less than two weeks away. As early voting opened citywide, things got pointed at the final mayoral candidate debate. And Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave his combined budget and state of the state address Wednesday. Our politics team of Amanda Vinicky, Paris Schutz and Heather Cherone takes on those stories and more.

* Sun-Times | Ald. Sophia King says Chicago needs a mayor who can represent the ‘entire city — not just segregated parts’ of it: “There is a lot of dissension between the administration and the police and our teachers. With all of my colleagues leaving — 16 of us — we’re at a pivotal point. We really need some stability in this city,” mayoral challenger Sophia King told the City Club of Chicago.

* Axios | Texas abortion ban architect turns to libraries: Jonathan Mitchell, the Austin attorney widely credited with devising the legal strategy for a Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks and also empowers private citizens to bring lawsuits against those who violate it, is now applying the same novel legal mechanisms to book bans.

* NYT | A New Goal for Abortion Bills: Punish or Protect Doctors: Most of the bills are in the early stages, and many are not likely to survive politically divided state governments to make it into law. But if there is one thing that is evident, the legislative flurry shows that both sides of the debate agree on at least one point: Doctors are the critical link — and that has made them the most vulnerable to punishment. At least three dozen bills are aimed at doctors and other medical personnel as a way to regulate abortion.

* WGN | At 103, Sister Jean publishes memoir of faith and basketball: “I guess there aren’t too many 103-year-old nuns using iPads these days – there aren’t too many 103-year-olds, period,” she writes in her memoir that will be published Feb. 28. “But I’m pretty comfortable with modern technology. I’ve always said, ‘If you’re not moving forward, you’re going to get left behind real quick.’ Adaptability is my superpower.”