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Isabel’s morning briefing
Thursday, May 18, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Here you go…
* WAND | Illinois lawmakers could include funding for free college test prep in FY24 budget: Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) told WAND News Wednesday that Illinois should have a program to help students prepare for licensure exams to become teachers, nurses, social workers and lawyers. * Tribune | Legislators OK putting Illinois on path toward a new state flag: “I really want people to get excited about Illinois again,” state Sen. Doris Turner, a Springfield Democrat who’s sponsoring the bill, said in an interview after the bill passed the House on Wednesday. “This is an opportunity for us to engage with the electorate.” * WBEZ | Tax breaks for Bears punted to state legislature’s fall veto session: Moylan’s bill would freeze property values, which means the Bears would not pay more taxes as the Racecourse property value increases. The measure sets up an oversight committee composed of local and state officials. Every year they will negotiate what the team should pay surrounding communities to offset the loss to schools, road maintenance and other services reliant on property tax revenue. * Sun-Times | Bears finding it’ll take more than two-minute offense to win Springfield help for new stadium in Arlington Heights: State Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, told lawmakers he needs more time — and more support — to clinch a deal that he says would freeze a property tax assessment for up to 40 years for the Arlington Heights stadium and create a $3 admission tax on all events held there. * Daily Herald | As session end nears, state legislators consider range of environmental bills: Environmental advocates have cited a dust storm earlier this month that led to a chain of car crashes and eight deaths in central Illinois. It was loose soil from freshly plowed farm fields, combined with dry conditions and high winds, that created the plumes of dust and near-zero visibility that led to the crashes, weather experts said. * Sun-Times | Eighth person dies in I-55 pileup crash caused by dust storm: Ruth Rau, 81, of downstate Sorento, died Tuesday night at a hospital, Illinois State Police said. * WBEZ | Ten years later, more than half of Chicago’s closed schools remain unused: Over six months, reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ have visited each of the shuttered buildings. The closings of 50 schools, including four that shared facilities, left 46 buildings empty. Reporters spoke with dozens of neighbors and reviewed thousands of public documents to learn what has become of the schools spread across 21 wards that were closed by Emanuel’s chosen schools CEO and school board. * Sun-Times | Johnson administration distances itself from $12 billion tax plan co-written by member of transition team: The plan by the Action Center on Race & the Economy and the People’s Unity Platform “has nothing to do with what we’re trying to do,” said Jason Lee, a senior adviser to Mayor Brandon Johnson. The mayor’s approach, Lee said, involves “sober analysis of what might be feasible.” * Tribune | Ex-Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned about email electioneering 10 months before campaign tried to recruit CPS students: When it came to light in January, Lightfoot’s camp first defended but then quickly denounced the practice of sending emails to public workers soliciting campaign help. Now it’s emerged that her campaign had been warned by the city Board of Ethics in March 2022 to cease sending political communications to public employee emails. * Toni Preckwinkle | Lawmakers must make county’s pension code change permanent: My office’s proposed reform is to ensure that the county is consistent with federal Safe Harbor guidance — where pension benefits provided to an employee instead of Social Security must be comparable to the value of Social Security benefits. We want to make sure employees are not receiving less than what they would get under Social Security. * NBC Chicago | Long-Debated South Suburban Airport a Step Closer to Reality After General Assembly Passes New Bill: The airport, which would be located in Peotone, some 40 miles south of Chicago, would serve commercial and cargo planes, according to lawmakers, and has been the subject of heated debate for decades. * Tribune | CTA is rolling out more electric buses: With the expansion, CTA will have 25 electric buses serving passengers. Most of those will continue to run on the Chicago Avenue route, but two will begin running on the 63rd Street route. CTA has equipped three of its seven bus garages to handle all-electric buses. * Fox Chicago | Chicago suburb approves first recreational cannabis lounge in Cook County: To ensure compliance, patrons will be required to adhere to a strict set of rules, including making mandatory reservations and consuming only cannabis purchased from the dispensary on the same day. * Tribune | Chicago Tribune to buy Daily Herald plant, move printing operations to Schaumburg in coming months: The deal, announced Wednesday, is expected to close within days, with printing operations and production employees moving to the new facility in the northwest suburbs over the coming months, sources said.
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- Old IL Dude - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 8:56 am:
Johnson’s new tax plan, tl;dr: “Hey, we were going to do it but then people freaked out big time and we are no longer going to embrace this particular tar baby. We also have ZERO plans for figuring out how to appease the CTU. Stay tuned.”
- Rich Miller - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 8:57 am:
===“Hey, we were going to do it===
No.
===We also have ZERO plans for figuring out how to appease the CTU===
lol
They’ll be fine.
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 9:11 am:
- Old IL Dude -
Dude, relax.
Campaign in poetry, Govern in prose.
If there’s any trolling?
The reality is either one of TWO.
1) All knew there’s no 60/71 and 30/36 and no chance for constitutional changes so let’s be bold *knowing* there’s no chance
2) Fooling those who don’t understand #1 was going to be “fine” because winning elections matter first, the governing is always the harder part.
If you understand #1, then it really doesn’t matter what #2 is, was, intent, or disappointment. The election is over. Governing begins.
What’s the best part of the community Rich has built here is that folks grasping truths and reality take sharing knowledge to “next level” and the commenters that are likely in comments anonymously, it’s a messaging take, not a take to the honesty of what can be.
These are not serious tax ideas, in functionality. How one in an end finally realize that is different for folks.
- DEE - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 9:19 am:
First the Bears and now the Tribune to the northwest suburbs. Do them both like the Patriots, nka the Northeast Illinois Bears and the Northeast Illinois Tribune
- DTownResident - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 9:33 am:
With Brandon Johnson I think we are seeing some of the run to the direction, left or right depending on party, but govern in the middle which is what some of this shows. Most importantly something lost with Blago land Rauner and Lightfoot…actually govern and do it well. Whether we’ll remains to be seen but with most of these staff appointments show an attempt to actually govern the city.
- Big Mike - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 9:47 am:
I live Arlington Heights and would like my property tax rate frozen for 40 years and allowed to negotiate
my property taxes also. Where to I sign up?
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 10:02 am:
===40 years===
Anything more than a “5-year, with two 5-year renewals, with both sides needing to agree” would be another horrendous part of this horrendous bailout.
In “16 years” after being built, there will be a need for “major renovations”… like each and every new building like the one the Bears want.
The 40 year ridiculousness is a “want”, not a need
- JS Mill - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 10:04 am:
=I live Arlington Heights=
Fair request. You need. to hire an attorney to press that issue with the Assessor’s office or get Arlington Height’s to create a TIF with your house in it. Seriously. It would cost money but it would make a real point.
You could also try to schedule an meeting with your legislators and see if they would put a bill forward for you. Seriously, why not try?
- Squirrel - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 10:07 am:
Big Mike - I’m not in Arlington Heights, but I would also like to freeze my property taxes for the rest of my lifetime.
40 years. 40! Will the owners even still be alive then? They can bail themselves out of their self-made quagmire.
People have said that Arlington Heights School District needs to hire a PR firm to get their side of the story out there, and I totally agree… it really wouldn’t take much to make the Bears ownership look like a bunch of jerks.
- JS Mill - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 10:26 am:
Fighting TIF’s, which is essentially what the legislature is setting up for the Bears, is always an uphill battle for schools. And usually a losing battle. The firms that set these TIF’s up are very good at selling these to communities. But the reality is it is legalized theft. Schools are seen as standing in the way of development when all they want is to retain financial viability.
- Gravitas - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 10:53 am:
Huh?
The flag proposal is a trifle confusing. Since the state seal is an integral element of the flag, do the legislators mean to rework the seal as well or do they merely want to create a brand new flag that omits the seal?
Somehow, I think that the General Assembly has a 1,001 more important issues to deal with than setting up a commission to recommend a new state flag.
- Friendly Bob Adams - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 11:21 am:
Re: the Bears tax situation. Wasn’t that Madigan’s main cash flow for his law firm, i.e., helping people and businesses lower their property tax assessments?
The Bears should give him a call. He’s still available for a few more months at least.
- Betty Draper’s cigarette - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 12:03 pm:
=== The closings of 50 schools, including four that shared facilities, left 46 buildings empty.===
Does the city pay to heat those empty buildings? Do they pay for security? Electricity?
How much do those buildings cost us?
- Dotnonymous x - Thursday, May 18, 23 @ 8:29 pm:
- To ensure compliance, patrons will be required to adhere to a strict set of rules,… -
This would make a hilarious Monty Python sketch?
Stop that giggling immediately and obey the stoner rules!