Afternoon roundup
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Interesting…
* I told you yesterday that the governor seems all-in on increasing traffic, particularly truck traffic. Well…
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker visited the Metro East to attend ribbon cutting ceremonies for some big transportation-related projects in the Bi-State region.
“We’ve got 51,000 vehicles everyday going across the bridge. If we expand the bridge, we’re going to have more. And more is better, on both sides of the river,” Pritzker said. “So, we’ve shared the cost of this. $300 million on the Illinois side, and $200 (million) plus on the Missouri side. When you put that together, you’re replacing one bridge with two.”
* First “Home Illinois Summit” held to discuss homelessness…
Governor JB Pritzker, together with the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) and members of the Interagency Task Force on Homelessness and the Community Advisory Council on Homelessness, hosted the inaugural Home Illinois Summit at Malcolm X College today in Chicago. The summit, which brought together community leaders, and experts to discuss potential solutions and strategies, served as a launch for major next steps in the Home Illinois plan, a multi-year holistic approach to reach “functional zero” homelessness in the state. […]
Since the launch of the Interagency Task Force via executive order in 2021, the Pritzker administration has taken significant steps to address homelessness in Illinois. The Home Illinois plan expands affordable housing options, targeting individuals in high-risk situations (including homeless college students and those leaving medical care), and providing comprehensive support for individuals experiencing homelessness.
The plan also focuses on bolstering the safety net, securing financial stability for clients, and closing the mortality gap all through the lens of racial equity with the goal of correcting the racial disparity among unhoused individuals.
Governor Pritzker’s FY24 budget commits almost $360 million for the initiative, an $85.3 million increase from FY23. These investments include:
• $118 million to support unhoused populations seeking shelter and services, including $40.7 million in the Emergency and Transitional Housing Program.
• $50 million in Rapid ReHousing services for 2,000 households, including short-term rental assistance and targeted support for up to two years.
• $40 million in Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) Capital funds to develop 90+ new PSH units providing long term rental assistance and case management.
• $37 million in Emergency Shelter capital funds to create more than 460 non-congregate shelter units.
• $35 million for supportive housing services, homeless youth services, street outreach, medical respite, re-entry services, access to counsel, and other shelter diversion supports.
• $21.8 million to provide homelessness prevention services to approximately 6,000 more families.
• $30 million for court-based rental assistance.
• $15 million to fund Home Illinois Innovations Pilots.
• $12.5 million to create 500 new scattered site PSH units.
* Crain’s…
At long last, the state of Illinois appears ready to begin a detailed study of whether the proposed One Central megaproject makes financial sense — a study that, depending on the results, could kill off the South Loop proposal once and for all or clear the way for developer Bob Dunn to get the $6.5 billion state subsidy he wants. […]
(T)he state lawmaker whose district includes the One Central site, Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, is pressing for fast action.
“This study is very important. It’s way overdue,” Buckner said. “This project has been flawed from the beginning,” with open questions about the viability of Dunn’s plan to build $20 billion worth of offices, residences, retail space and a large transportation center on a deck over Metra air rights just west of Soldier Field, Buckner said. A full study should provide some answers.
* WICS…
Regan Deering announced on Wednesday that she will be running to represent the 88th district in the state of Illinois.
State Representative Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) is endorsing Regan Deering.
Caulkins says he chose to endorse Deering because of her strong commitment to values and family.
* WCIA…
The Illinois State Fair announced Tuesday that a new promotion for this year’s fair will give fairgoers a way to double their fun this August.
State fair officials said anyone who pays for parking on the Illinois State Fairgrounds on Thursday, August 10, called County Fairs and Horse Racing Day, will receive a voucher. They said the voucher is for free parking to be redeemed on either Tuesday, August 15, Wednesday, August 16, or Thursday, August 17.
The “Double the Fun” promotion is valid on nights REO Speedwagon, Alter Bridge, and Tim McGraw perform at the Illinois Lottery Grandstand, fair officials reported, making fairgoers’ Grandstand concert experience more affordable. Tickets are still available for all shows and can be purchased online or at the Illinois State Fair Box Office.
* Isabel’s roundup…
* WGEM | Local librarians react to statewide measure against book-bans: Director Kathleen Helsabeck said the Quincy Public Library will continue following the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights, and consequently, continue receiving funding. “The ALA’s position has always been to provide a wide variety of materials to all patrons,” Helsabeck said. “The ALA’s position has always been to support libraries and support librarians.”
* WBEZ | Illinois continues to enact abortion protections a year after Roe v. Wade reversal: Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the abortion battle in Illinois rages on — despite the state previously enacting some of the strongest abortion protections in the country. Since June 2022, Democratic state lawmakers have passed a slew of bills ramping up protections for out-of-state patients and expanding overall access. But a small coalition of GOP legislators has been working to undo many of the abortion-rights bills introduced by their colleagues across the aisle — without much luck.
* Block Club | Cook County Judge Loses Retention Vote: Gregory P. Vazquez, who was set to retire next month, was the only Cook County associate judge not reappointed to a new four-year term. The vote follows Injustice Watch reporting about the judge’s actions inside and outside the courtroom.
* Daily Journal | Kankakee County will soon be debt free: As recently as 2016, the Kankakee County government was nearly $5 million in debt. […] The report showed actual revenues came in higher than projected from sales and use tax, and out-of-county bed rentals at the Jerome Combs Detention Center.
* NPR | Regan Deering launches campaign for Illinois legislature: “I am running because I’m afraid for my children’s future in Pritzker’s Illinois. Families here pay some of the highest taxes in the nation. They struggle to find quality education for their children and live in communities plagued by violence. Extreme Democrats are forcing their radical values into our homes and schools, relentlessly attacking our cherished freedoms, and destroying our jobs and economy.”
* WTTW | Developer Touts ‘Very Balanced’ Plan to Remake Hundreds of Acres of West Suburban Land, But Some Residents Still Skeptical: Hundreds of acres of vacant land in the western suburbs could be in line for a major makeover. It’s land that Crown Community Development has long owned and now wants to use for housing, civic space, retail – and distribution warehouses.
* Tribune | Naperville woman charged with using Indian Prairie-issued credit card to buy personal items, officials say: It’s alleged Mondell, while working as a financial secretary at Neuqua Valley in Naperville, used the district-issued credit card to make purchases ranging between $500 and $10,000 from Nov. 22 to Nov. 27, 2022, the release said.
* PJ Star | Peoria water buyout issue returns as city hires firm to study the contentious issue: After some debate, the council voted 7-4 to spend $99,550 to hire a consulting firm to help do research over the coming months before making a decision whether to buy the waterworks. The issue comes before the council every five years.
* Tribune | Volunteers feel shut out of city meeting on migrants, meanwhile move is made to new shelter at Daley College: Collaboration efforts between volunteers and city officials came to a head when the city hosted a closed meeting to respond to a letter sent by the Police Station Response Team, a network of volunteers providing support and resources to migrants sleeping on the floors of police stations as they wait for placement in shelters.
* WTTW | Chicago Failed For Years to Enforce Law Requiring Half of Construction Waste to be Recycled: Watchdog: That failure likely sent hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete, wood, brick, gypsum, metals, glass, plastics, soil, asphalt, soil and rock as well as doors, windows and plumbing fixtures into landfills that could have been reused or recycled, according to the audit.
* Chalkbeat | Chicago Public Schools proposes flat budget for next year: Roughly half — or $4.8 billion — would go directly to schools. District officials said it’s an additional $240 million compared with last year and about $90 million more than they reported earlier this spring, when they unveiled some preliminary school-level numbers ahead of an appeals process for principals. Roughly half of the increase — $128 million — would pay for additional teachers and support staff dedicated to students with disabilities.
* Sun-Times | Civic Federation offers revenue, cost-cutting options to confront Chicago’s financial challenges: For each new administration, the Civic Federation tries to make confronting Chicago’s financial challenges a little easier, analyzing the pros and cons of taxes, fines and fees — but without taking a definitive position on any of them.
* Tribune | What does it take to afford a 2-bedroom rental in Chicago? New report finds wages still lagging.: The study bases apartment costs on fair market rent values, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development standard that represents the cost to rent a moderately priced unit in the local housing market. The average fair market values of one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in Chicago are $1,255 and $1,440, respectively.
* NYT | ‘Shiny Happy People,’ Fundamentalism and the Toxic Quest for Certainty: It was the same cult featured in the current most-watched show on Amazon Prime, a documentary series called “Shiny Happy People.” It’s centered on the Duggar family and the teachings of a man named Bill Gothard. The Duggars, as many readers know, were the focus of a popular 2008 reality television show called “19 Kids and Counting” and its 2015 spinoff, “Counting On.” Gothard — the Duggars’ spiritual mentor — is less famous in secular America but far more consequential across evangelical America, where the influence of his movement continues today.
* Poynter | Why one local newsroom startup in Chicago succeeded where others failed: Last month, Block Club Chicago officially outlasted its predecessor, DNAinfo, a Chicago online news startup that operated for four years and 11 months before billionaire owner Joe Ricketts abruptly shuttered it (and the Gothamist network of sites) in November 2017. Newly lacking funding and employment, DNAinfo editors Shamus Toomey, Jen Sabella and Stephanie Lulay chose to continue their mission and started a new neighborhood news site from scratch, Block Club Chicago, on June 13, 2018, exactly five years ago
* PJ Star | Temporary ban on 4 a.m. bars? Peoria debates new options to cut down on violence: Downtown Peoria has seen pop-up parties and large gathering plague it this spring and summer, which culminated this weekend when two people were shot at a gathering on Main Street and Hamilton Boulevard. The shooting happened around 3:45 a.m. Councilmember Denise Jackson, who represents the 1st District, asked the city attorney if the city would be able to potentially temporarily require downtown Peoria’s 4 a.m. bars close earlier to curb violence.
* Block Club | Re:SET Music Festival Is In 2 Weeks — And The Park District Won’t Say If The Shows Will Actually Happen: Ticket holders and neighbors trying to block the festival want Chicago Park District officials to make a decision to either reject or approve permits for the three-day event as soon as possible.
* Daily Journal | Presentation on links between Lincoln, Kankakee: Kankakee and Alonzo Mack were factors in Lincoln’s two failed quests for the U.S. Senate. By 1859, Mack had become Kankakee’s state representative and was involved in a financial scandal that required Lincoln’s attention just as he was about to vie for the Republican presidential nomination. George recently published his findings in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association.
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Caption contest!
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Alexi Giannoulias’ baby and Gov. Pritzker at this week’s bill-signing event…
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From “death spiral” to finger-pointing
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the recent campaign…
“Our city faces a housing crisis and raising property taxes would only exacerbate that crisis, leading to a death spiral for our city,” Johnson’s financial plan states.
“As mayor, Brandon Johnson will not raise property taxes on Chicago families. Property taxes are already painfully high.”
* Sun-Times today…
CPS is also issuing its highest allowed property tax increase of 5%, or about $131 million, to help support its budget. Property taxes are the school system’s largest revenue source with state funding still falling about $1.4 billion short. But CPS-issued increases — a routine yearly occurrence — have often gone under the radar compared to those at the city level. […]
Johnson also vowed on the campaign trail that he would avoid raising property taxes that he claimed were squeezing the middle class out of Chicago. But the district is allowed to raise taxes by the lesser of inflation or 5% — and is again doing just that. Inflation this year was calculated at 6.5%, so CPS will take in a 5% — or $131 million — increase. That falls in line with previous years. CPS has raised property taxes every year for the last decade.
Johnson’s senior adviser Jason Lee portrayed the new mayor as powerless to stop the “tax-to-the-max” increase.
“The mayor didn’t appoint a single person on the school board. These aren’t the mayor’s appointees,” Lee said. “At the end of the day, there’s been a budget process that was operated under a different regime with different assumptions. Now, it’s the 9th inning. … This is the end of the budget process.
“This is not an act of the Johnson administration … All we can do is look forward to the elected school board and whatever intermediary board that we have,” said Lee.
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Meanwhile, in Opposite Land…
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* New York Times…
Governor DeSantis supported state laws aimed, at least in part, at limiting access to some reading materials in public schools. Books targeted to be removed have dealt primarily with L.G.B.T.Q. and social justice themes, with some groups objecting to materials on gender and sexuality in books that schoolchildren could read.
Other states, including Georgia and Kentucky, have followed suit with laws that could make it easier to lodge complaints about specific books and influence library or education boards, according to EveryLibrary, a political action committee that advocates for increased public library funding and tracks proposed book regulation laws across the country.
* South Carolina …
PEN America responded today to the removal of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ acclaimed memoir Between the World and Me from an advanced placement course in South Carolina, calling it “an outrageous act of government censorship.”
As reported, earlier this spring students in the Chapin High School classroom reported a teacher for including Coates’ memoir and two related short videos in her argument essay unit. The unit, designed in preparation for the AP Language test, which is accepted for credit by many colleges, included questions such as: “Do you think racism is a pervasive problem in America? Why or why not?”
Several students wrote to the school board about the class, saying it made them feel “ashamed to be Caucasian” and “in shock that she would do something illegal like that…I am pretty sure a teacher talking about systemic racism is illegal in South Carolina.” South Carolina passed an educational gag order last year that banned “divisive concepts” related to race and sex.
In response, Jeremy C. Young, freedom to learn program director, released the following statement:
“This is an outrageous act of government censorship and a textbook example of how educational gag orders corrupt free inquiry in the classroom.”
* Florida…
Officials with Alachua County Public Schools say they are taking stock of what’s on school library bookshelves over the summer break.
Jackie Johnson, the Alachua County Schools public information officer, said the county is having ongoing meetings to ensure that content abides by state and district standards in preparation for the 2023-2024 school year. […]
While the school board says that it is committed to the education of their students, Gainesville residents, following the actions of the school board, remain weary about the future of censoring books in schools. […]
Brad McClenny’s job as the public relations and marketing manager of the library district is to ensure libraries abide by the American Library Association’s position on censorship of information addressing diversity education standards. […]
“We have had two challenges so far this year,” McClenny said. “A book is in the middle (of being challenged) and a movie was denied to be taken off of shelves. The book is called “Grandad’s Pride.”
* Wisconsin…
Community and board members of the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau school district discussed a committee’s ban of the book “Queer Ducks” from GET’s middle school library.
No decision was made tonight, and the book is back on middle school shelves.
The book: “Queer Ducks- The Natural World of Animal Sexuality” is a book about the diversity of sexual behavior in the animal world.
The book was pulled from shelves temporarily last week after an instructional resource committee vote.
The removal was canceled after concerns were raised about the vote being done illegally.
* Virginia…
At a heated meeting on Tuesday night, the Hanover County School Board voted 5-2 in favor of adopting a new policy over explicit books in school libraries.
The new policy will allow residents to file a challenge to remove books with sexually explicit material, rather than allowing educators to adequately assess the content of the libraries.
In addition, under the new policy, the school board can have sole discretion to remove books.
Following this decision, the school board exercised this new power and went on to remove 19 popular books from circulation, including “Looking for Alaska” and “Water for Elephants.”
* Indiana…
“Pornographer.”
That’s the insult Chad Heck remembers, hurled by the people behind him as he testified in the state legislature earlier this year.
Like other Indiana school librarians who spoke against legislation seeking to restrict school bookshelves this session, Heck tried to dispel the notion that he and his colleagues were peddlers of porn — and found himself part of the national culture wars that have pitted some parents who mistrust public education against school leaders and staff.
Ultimately, lawmakers passed a bill that forbids books deemed “obscene” or “harmful to minors” on school library shelves, following hours of heated public comment. House Enrolled Act 1447 also requires school districts to establish procedures to publish their school library catalogs, and to set up a process for a parent or community member to request removal of obscene or harmful material.
Now, Heck and other librarians with the Indiana Library Federation (ILF) who fought against the legislation are learning to live with the law, but they are still trying to clarify misconceptions about it. They stress that the law is not an outright book ban. They also say many districts already post their catalogs online, and already have procedures for challenging books.
* Missouri…
New restrictions on Missouri libraries have led one Kansas City-area library system to ban LGBTQ Pride displays in its children’s and teens’ sections.
The Mid-Continent Public Library said the decision was made to comply with Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s new rules, which forbid libraries from having displays of “age-inappropriate” materials in areas designated for teens and children. If libraries don’t comply, they could lose state funding.
The library will also require that all display signs come from its central office or from marketing program LibraryAware, instead of from individual branches. Adult books, including parenting books, are no longer allowed in children’s areas.
The new policies are outlined in the minutes of the library’s May 16 branch managers’ meeting.
In an email to KCUR, the library said it still has Pride displays in common areas and it strives to make its children’s displays “diverse and inclusive.”
* Iowa…
The Iowa Library Association is cautioning school librarians to wait for guidance from the state education department before removing books from school libraries to comply with state law.
The law, Senate File 496, signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds May 26, bars from school libraries books that depict or describe sexual acts. Schools are also required to have a policy that allows someone to request removal of any classroom materials.
The law also requires schools to put their library catalog online and allow parents to review certain instructional materials, a practice many schools already have in place. The Iowa City district, for example, has had an electronic catalog — that is accessible to the public — of all school library collections “for decades,” said Kristin Pedersen, Iowa City schools spokeswoman.
Without guidance from the state, librarians are left trying to interpret the law, which is not their role, said Michelle Kruse, director for the Iowa Library Association and past president of the Iowa Association of School Librarians.
“The beautiful thing about a library is that if you find a book that doesn’t speak to you — maybe it doesn’t align with a belief you or your family has — you can close it, return it and move on,” Kruse said. “Now, we have a law that’s going to limit that access.”
* Arkansas…
There are lawsuits attempting to block a new Arkansas law that bans certain books from the shelves in the children’s section. The Fayetteville Library is one of several plaintiffs involved in one of the lawsuits.
40/29’s Yuna Lee spoke to David Johnson, the Executive Director of the Library, on this week’s edition of On the Record.
“It’s a real challenge to our first amendment rights, to read what we read,” Johnson said. “If they’re going to have a governmental agency, whether it’s a quorum court or a city council or a mayor, to determine what we can and cannot read, what’s next?”
* Utah…
Republican lawmakers rallied with more than one hundred Bible-toting parents and children at Utah’s Capitol on Wednesday to protest a suburban school district’s decision to remove the Bible from middle and elementary school libraries in the wake of a GOP-backed “sensitive materials” law passed two years ago.
Concerned parents and children holding signs that read “The Bible is the original textbook” and “Remove porn, not the Bible,” said they were outraged after northern Utah’s Davis School District announced that a review committee concluded the Bible was too “violent or vulgar” for young children. The committee ruled that it did not qualify as obscene or pornographic under the sensitive materials law, but used its own discretion to remove it from libraries below the high school level. […]
State Rep. Ken Ivory, the sensitive materials law’s Republican sponsor, rebuffed the idea that his law paved the way for the Bible to be banned. Though he defended the review process after the sacred text’s removal, he said on Wednesday that the Davis School District had overstepped its role by removing the Bible from middle and elementary schools because of criteria not in state law.
He said criticism of the review process that led to the banning of the Bible didn’t relinquish the need for oversight from parents and administrators about materials in schools.
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* Context is yesterday’s testimony by former Chicago Ald. Pat O’Connor, who was hired as a gaming consultant a month after leaving office, but was almost never consulted…
This is not confined to Illinois. Attorneys call this a retainer, for example.
It’s also not uncommon for people or companies with big bucks to hire an attorney, lobbyist or consultant solely to ensure that nobody else hires the person.
* The topic came up during the ComEd 4 trial. The defendants were accused of hiring a bunch of do-nothing consultants at the behest of Speaker Madigan. According to investigative recordings, then-ComEd CEO Joe Dominguez said he was “fine” with the arrangement, explaining…
“(I)t’s like the lobbying team itself. You know. There are, at periods of time where people are saying, ‘What the hell are these guys doing? Why are we paying them?’ And then they will do something in the minute, in the magic moment.”
Discuss.
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Question of the day
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Upworthy describes itself as a site which “strives to share the best of humanity with the world.” An article on the site today claims that Gov. Pritzker’s Northwestern commencement address was “a lesson in kindness”…
“Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true—the kindest person in the room is often the smartest,” Pritzker says.
Priztker’s observation may sound nice, but it is rooted in research. Numerous studies have found that people who have lower cognitive abilities—or, as Pritzker and Dwight Schrute would call them, “idiots”—are more likely to harbor bigoted beliefs about people who are different.
Pritzker concluded his speech by summarizing the lessons he learned from watching “The Office.”
“Be more substance than show. Set aside cruelty for kindness. Put one foot in front of the other even when you don’t know your way. And always try and appreciate the good old days when you are actually in them,” Pritzker said. “And remember what Dwight Schrute said, ‘You only live once? False! You live every day! You only die once.’”
* The Question: Agree or disagree with this Upworthy take? Explain.
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The Trump primary begins in CD12
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Shot…
U.S. Representative Mike Bost (IL-12) formally announced the launch of his reelection campaign at a meet-and-greet with supporters in White County on Saturday.
“Joe Biden and the crazy liberals in Congress are attempting to fundamentally change our way of life. Their woke, radical agenda is causing chaos with our economy, confusion in our schools, and a crisis at our southern border,” said Bost. “I’m honored to run for reelection because Southern Illinoisans deserve a fighter they know and trust to stand up for constitutional conservative values. We’ve got enough show horses in Washington as it is; that’s why I remain laser focused on serving the people and delivering real results for Southern Illinois, the place I’ve proudly called home my entire life.”
During his time in Congress, Bost has compiled a proven, conservative record, previously receiving endorsements from the NRA’s Political Victory Fund, Illinois Right to Life, and Illinois Farm Bureau. He was also endorsed by President Donald Trump the last three election cycles. Bost served as a state representative, small business owner, professional firefighter, and is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.
* Chaser via a Mark Maxwell tweet last night…
ILGOP failed ‘22 nominee for governor Darren Bailey has a front row seat reserved to hear Donald Trump on the day of his arraignment, according to this picture taken at Bedminster. He’s tracking as close to Trump as he can ahead of an expected 2024 run vs. Mike Bost for Congress.
Pic from Politico this morning…
* Dessert from the guy who endured a 15-point thumping at the hands of Mary Miller…
Make no mistake, this is gonna be a hot one.
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Open thread
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* What’s goin on? Keep it Illinois-centric please…
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Isabel’s morning briefing
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* Here you go…
* Sun-Times | Chicago politics take center stage as feds wind down their corruption case against businessman James Weiss: The focus turned from the state capitol to City Hall, with testimony from former Ald. Patrick O’Connor (40th) and Sam Toia, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association. It revolved around Weiss’ claim that he had not bribed then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo, but rather paid him to help block an ordinance O’Connor had proposed.
* Chicago Defender | State Rep. Lilly Named Assistant Majority Leader in House Democratic Caucus: State Rep. Camille Y. Lilly, a Democrat from Chicago, has been appointed as an assistant majority leader in the House Democratic Caucus. The nomination is in recognition of her extensive experience and effective leadership in addressing family-related matters, particularly in health and human services.
* WGLT | Dan Brady explores a run for Congress or return to the state legislature: Brady, a Republican from Bloomington, said he’s considering running for Congress next year, or for the state legislature where he served for 20 years before a failed bid for Illinois Secretary of State. “Over the next few weeks, I will be meeting and discussing with voters, donors, and my family the options I have to serve the public once again,” Brady said in a statement.
* NBC Chicago | Illinois kids age 5 and under can receive free books thanks to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, state grants: According to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office, the new FY24 budget allocated $1.6 million to participating in the Imagination Library program, meaning that all children in the state that are age five or younger can participate free of charge.
* Block Club | Feds Give Chicago Over $10 Million To Help Asylum Seekers As Humanitarian Crisis Continues: The state of Illinois will also get $19.3 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support housing and basic services for thousands of Central and South American migrants.
* Sun-Times | After days of delays, city moves migrant families from North Side to Daley College: Mayor Brandon Johnson’s chief of staff said families with children needed to move to Daley College so the High Ridge YMCA could be used only for single men, who make up the majority of the 500 or so people still sleeping in Chicago police stations.
* NYT | To Fight Book Bans, Illinois Passes a Ban on Book Bans: The law, which takes effect next year, was the Democratic-controlled state’s response to a sharp rise in book-banning efforts across the country, especially in Republican-led states, where lawmakers have made it easier to remove library books that political groups deemed objectionable.
* CBS | South suburban mayors say their municipalities they need revenue and resources: Curry is in the middle of her first term as mayor of Lynwood. She and some other Southland mayors recently met with Gov. JB Pritzker – on the topic of increasing the percentage of the local government distributive fund, or LGDF. “For a village like Lynwood, when our LGDF percentage was lowered over these past years, we’ve lost roughly $6 million in revenue,” said Mayor Curry. “If you hand me $6 million today, I can do some transformative things in my village.”
* Tribune | Chicago Bears: Breaking down the team’s growing number of options in stadium search: The franchise, a founding member of the league, valued at $5.8 billion by Forbes, is looking for a new home. Team officials hadn’t been planning an immediate move from Chicago’s Soldier Field until Arlington International Racecourse went for sale in 2021. They jumped at the chance and closed the deal to buy the property for $197 million this year.
* Axios | Illinois’ state flag may get a redesign. How would you do it?: Turner wants the new design to be collaborative. “I want people from across the state to feel like they are a part of the process of designing our next official state flag,” Turner said.
* Tribune | Chicago Bears defensive lineman Justin Jones rips Green Bay Packers fans: ‘Half of them don’t even know football’: Jones’ barbs came in response to a question about the seemingly wide-open NFC North picture this year after the Packers traded quarterback Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets.
* WTVO | Illinois announces high-speed trains between Chicago, St. Louis: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced on Monday a $1.96 billion high-speed rail project that will allow Amtrak trains to reach 110 mph, according to Fox News. Trains currently reach 90 mph on the route.
* AP | The Beatles are releasing their ‘last’ record. AI helped make it possible: McCartney, 80, told the BBC that the technology was used to separate the Beatles’ voices from background sounds during the making of director Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary series, “The Beatles: Get Back.” The “new” song is set to be released later this year, he said.
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Live coverage
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
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Afternoon roundup
Tuesday, Jun 13, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Former Rep. Dan Brady says he’s exploring a bid against freshman Democratic US Rep. Eric Sorensen…
I have been honored to serve the people as State Representative, first in the 88th legislative district, then the 105th legislative district. As I continue to explore running for re-election in the newly drawn 88th district, I have also been exploring a run for Congress in the 17th Illinois Congressional district.
Over the next few weeks, I will be meeting and discussing with voters, donors, and my family the options I have to serve the public once again.
I have been successful in my public career because I believe service to others, and not harsh partisan rhetoric, is what our State and Country need. As coroner, I helped to convict murderers, as State Representative I championed college M.A.P. Grants for working families, and as Deputy House Republican Leader I supported and was endorsed by labor and business. Being my own man has provided me the knowledge, experience and dedication needed to be an effective representative, whether in Springfield or Washington, DC.
I look forward to making my decision soon regarding where I can offer my service to do the greatest good.
The 17th is the swingiest of all Democratic districts here, but Biden won it by 7.6 points and Pritzker won it by 9 in 2018. Brady ran for secretary of state last year and lost to Alexi Giannoulias.
* You may recall that Toia has never registered as a Statehouse lobbyist…
More from Jason Meisner’s tweets on Toia’s sworn testimony today…
Toia says is ticking off the advocacy he’s done for the restaurant and food industry.
“We brought Happy Hour back here to the state of Illinois…we got Cocktails-To-Go,” he says. […]
Toia says he’s known Weiss since 2011 and consulted for his business, Collage LLC. “We were out there promoting electronic devices, and sweepstakes machines were electronic devices,” he says. “Sweepstakes are in a gray area but they do get a sticker from the state of Illinois.”
Toia says he was part of Weiss’ team of consultants and lobbyists working to move sweepstakes out of the gray area and get them regulated by the state. “I understand independent restaurants and I wanted to help them so they could pay their income taxes,” he says.
Toia appears to be waffling when asked when he stopped consulting with Weiss. He says it was 2019.
“I, I, I can’t remember the exact date, but I want to say mid-2019,” he says.
Franzblau asks him if he’s aware he’s under oath.
“I am under oath, I understand,” Toia says.
Toia asked about his testimony before the grand jury on Sept. 17, 2020, when he said he was not aware of any sweepstakes related lobbying going on at the city level after the fall of 2018.
That’s different than what he just said on the stand.
Toia’s group has said that Toia isn’t required to register as a Statehouse lobbyist, but they’ve never explained why.
* More proof that every accusation made by these people is a confession…
Real estate agent Libby Andrews contended that Chicago brokerage @properties ruined her business reputation by firing her after she posted pictures of herself at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington on social media.
The Illinois Appellate Court ruled today that Andrews’ own social media posts — not @properties’ actions — were the cause of any damage to her reputation.
From the opinion…
The company @properties next wrote, “Effective immediately, @properties is terminating this agent,
who acknowledged on social media, that she took part in ‘storming the Capitol.’” … Moreover, it was Andrews who first reported around 3:15 p.m. on her Facebook page that, “After storming the capital a good glass of champagne is needed!”, along with a photo depicting a glass of champagne on a patio
Her social media post is here.
* MidAmerica St. Louis Airport held a grand opening celebration of its expanded terminal today…
Today, Governor JB Pritzker joined state and local officials to announce the grand opening of MidAmerica St. Louis Airport’s expanded terminal – a $31 million multi-year project bolstered by $7 million in grant funding from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) in addition to $24 million in federal dollars. The terminal expansion program supports passenger growth while giving airlines the opportunity to provide additional service.
* The governor seems all-in on increasing traffic, particularly truck traffic…
Today, Governor JB Pritzker joined the departments of transportation in Illinois and Missouri to celebrate the start of construction on the new Interstate 270 Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River, part of a combined $531.6 million investment to improve one of the country’s critical freight corridors. The project, made possible by Gov. Pritzker’s historic, bipartisan Rebuild Illinois capital program, will improve safety and mobility while creating good-paying jobs in an area experiencing strong industrial and commercial growth. […]
The I-270 loop connects many of the region’s warehouses and distribution parks, ports, airports, and rail yards on both sides of the Mississippi River. Nearly 70% of the region’s industrial tenants occupying large warehouse space in excess of 500,000 square feet are within ten minutes of the interstate. Built in 1966, the existing bridge over the river is two lanes in each direction with narrow, one-foot shoulders that pose safety concerns for vehicle breakdowns and first responders. The bridge accommodates 51,000 vehicles a day, about 20% of which are trucks, and the structure requires frequent maintenance and repairs due to its age.
A $496.2 million joint IDOT-MoDOT project will replace the bridge with two structures that have wider shoulders that can accommodate the eventual expansion of I-270 to three lanes in each direction. A companion $35.4 million Missouri Department of Transportation project will reconstruct the Riverview Drive interchange just west of the bridge.
* Hope ain’t a plan, and the plan clearly hasn’t worked so far…
As the weeds grow taller on the Belvidere Assembly Plant campus, Belvidere Mayor Clint Morris is hopeful that the Belvidere Assembly Plant won’t remain idle.
Not much after that except a lot of hopium.
* Teamsters are now out from under a federal consent decree. Scott Holland…
A federal judge has ended more than four decades of oversight of pension funds associated with The Teamsters by terminating a consent decree installed as a response to evidence that union leaders conspired with organized crime to access the money.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin issued an opinion in the matter June 9 over opposition from the U.S. Department of Labor, which argued the potential for organized crime leaders to influence pension fund investments — nearly $40 billion in assets — is not completely abated. […]
Even without the decrees, Durkin said, the DOL can still enforce ERISA’s fiduciary responsibility requirements through its broad investigatory and subpoena powers. The Internal Revenue Service can investigate plans it believes don’t meet minimum funding requirements and AROPA placed additional obligations on funds that got SFA allocations, such as requirements for annual compliance filings and being subject to PBGC audits.
The order is here.
* Legislative scorecards released…
Citizen Action/Illinois, the state’s largest progressive political coalition, proudly announces the release of its 2023 Legislative Scorecard. The comprehensive scorecard serves as a valuable resource for Illinoisans, shedding light on elected officials’ voting records on crucial issues in the areas of healthcare affordability, worker protections, consumer protections, gun safety, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights and the environment. […]
The following leigslators received scores less than 10%, earning an Abysmal rating from our organization: Representatives Adam Niemerg, Joe Sosnowski, Chris Miller, Blaine Wilhour, Randy Frese and Senator Jason Plummer.
Click here for the list.
…Adding… Press release…
Today, Governor JB Pritzker joined Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton, along with state and local officials at Maplewood School in Cahokia Heights to announce Illinois’ partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The recently signed FY24 budget allocates $1.6 million to the program, which is dedicated to improving the lives of children by inspiring a love of reading. The initiative includes a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth to age five, no matter a family’s income. […]
The Dollywood Foundation, which supports the Imagination Library Program, is a nonprofit organization founded by Dolly Parton in 1988. The Imagination Library Program was launched in 1995, with books originally being distributed to children living in Sevier County, Tennessee where Dolly grew up. However, it became such a success that in 2000, it was replicated nationally and by 2003, one million books had been mailed to children all over the country.
Numerous studies have found that the first five years of life are critical for young children, with around 90% of brain developing occurring during that time. Through the Imagination Library Program, children have seen a 29% increase in kindergarten readiness.
* Isabel’s roundup…
* Crain’s | GM, Samsung pick northern Indiana for EV battery plant: It’s unknown if the proposed plant was one Illinois officials were hoping to land. Earlier this year, state lawmakers approved a deal-closing fund, meant to help lure EV makers and other manufacturers to the state, that Gov. J.B. Pritzker had asked for.
* AP | Amtrak St. Louis-Chicago travel getting upgraded from current 90 mph to 110 mph: The higher speeds take effect June 26 and will reduce the duration of the trip from the current five hours and 13 minutes. Trips from St. Louis to Chicago are a few minutes shorter, according to Amtrak timetables.
* CNBC | Inflation rose at a 4% annual rate in May, the lowest in 2 years: The consumer price index increased just 0.1% for the month and 4% from a year ago, the latter being the lowest level in about two years.
* Daily Herald | DuPage County chair suggests stripping clerk of election commission control after budget fights: Board members continued to press for misdemeanor criminal charges against Kaczmarek if she goes over budget. Berlin, however, said that likely would not occur until the fall if she overspends on salaries. County officials have estimated the clerk’s office will be over budget on salaries due to increases, some as high as 30%, Kaczmarek gave to some employees.
* Crain’s | Johnson allies to push for phasing out tipped wages: “I look forward to being at the table with the powers that be when an ordinance is ready to be discussed,” Toia told Crain’s last week. “Businesses like to see a plan so they can work it into their business plan, which is usually a five year plan.”
* Crain’s | Climate change and homeowners’ insurance are on a collision course: American International Group Inc., which has already pulled back from new California business, is now set to curb home-insurance sales for affluent customers in around 200 ZIP codes across the US, including New York, Delaware, Florida, Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. The decision was first reported in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, citing people familiar with the company’s plans.
* Sun-Times | FOP demands same 12 weeks of paid parental leave Johnson gave teachers: Chicago police officers already have a generous sick pay policy that allows them to take up to 365 days off every two years.
* Block Club | Feds Got Permission To Trace Ald. Jim Gardiner’s Phone Calls As Part Of FBI Investigation, Court Records Show : The 2021 wire tap order was part of the federal investigation into bribery allegations against the alderman, but the records don’t show the current status of the inquiry.
* Pioneer Press | Controversial church leader with Hinsdale ties featured in Amazon docuseries ‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’: The Duggars’ reality TV show was canceled after the allegations against Josh Duggar surfaced that he sexually abused his younger sisters and a babysitter and he apologized. As a teen, Josh Duggar went to a Little Rock, Ark., facility operated by the IBLP following those incidents. The new documentary explores Gothard’s teachings and his connection to the Duggars. In a 2015 interview with the Tribune, Gothard defended the Duggars. “They did the right things.
* Fox Chicago | U.S. cancer centers grapple with severe drug shortage as over 90% report impact: Pharmaceutical companies say production shortfalls are to blame for the drug shortages that have plagued the nation for months. However, cancer treatments are among the hardest hit.
* Journal Courier | Illinois transportation agency hearing on proposed I-55/I-72 project is today: There will be a public hearing 4-7 p.m. today about the project at Northfield Inn Suites and Conference Center at 3280 Northfield Drive, Springfield.
* Bloomberg | Accenture to double AI workforce three months after massive layoffs: Accenture Plc announced plans to double its AI staff to 80,000, just three months after shedding 19,000 jobs in a cost-cutting effort. The professional-services company will invest $3 billion in its Data & AI practice over the next three years to help companies develop the new strategies they’ll need to capitalize on the boom in artificial intelligence, Accenture said in a statement on Tuesday.
* WICS | The Sangamon County Fair begins June 14: General admission is reduced this year to only $5. Children 4 and under are free.
* Daily Herald | IHSA discontinues tournaments for boys gymnastics, debate: Since 2000, boys gymnastics has averaged just over 50 schools participating, but that number shrank to 46 teams in 2022 and 40 teams in 2023, the news release said. The IHSA currently has 817 member high schools.
* Sun-Times | Residents want large festivals out of Douglass Park, say they pose a danger to patients at nearby hospitals: “Mount Sinai is a level-one trauma center, meaning that patients who have experienced acute trauma and may require timely surgical intervention are often brought by EMS crews to this hospital,” said Marcus Paulson, an emergency medical technician. “For these patients, mere minutes can determine their outcome. The obstruction of traffic around the park and stream of low-acuity patients from large festivals has and will clearly affect the capacity of surrounding hospitals.”
* WCIA | Central IL police arrest suspected serial, interstate pickpockets: Brandel said that in recent weeks, the department received multiple reports of a man, believed to be Pribegeanu, approaching women over the age of 50 at the city’s Walmarts and asking for directions to a hospital. The women later discovered after these interactions that their wallets, or items from their wallets like ID, credit and debit cards, or cash, were missing.
* Shaw Local | U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood’s office named finalist for Constituent Service Award : In 2023, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood’s office has helped return or saved constituents $863,989 and counting, according to a news release.
* Daily Herald | Once seized by the feds, Rosemont hotel undergoes $35 million transformation: The nine-story, 274-room hotel at the edge of O’Hare International Airport had been seized by the U.S. Marshals Service after the arrest of owner Xiao Hua “Edward” Gong on fraud and money laundering charges in Canada. “It was a bit eerie when we walked through the hotel,” Curto remembers. “In one of the back offices, we saw safes that the U.S. marshals had blown open. We saw lunches that were left. We saw coats that were there. The ballroom was already fitted out for a wedding with name tags. The U.S. marshals had shut down the hotel in 20 minutes and locked it up.”
* Shaw Local | As ticks expand throughout the state, experts say prevention remains key: “Ticks are pretty hardy. It’s difficult to control their population size,” said Alana Bartolai, the ecological services program coordinator at the Lake County Health Department. “We do the monitoring side to understand what is out there and to help our medical providers understand what’s out there as well. But a lot of our communication is geared toward how people can prevent it themselves.”
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* Gov. Pritzker was asked by a reporter today to comment on former President Donald Trump’s arrest in Florida on federal charges…
It looks to me like he committed espionage. We’ll have to see how the trial goes. But everybody should be held accountable to the law. it doesn’t matter what position you ever held. The fact is that the law is the law. if you broke the law, you ought to be held accountable.
I’ve tried to avoid this topic, but a comment from the governor puts it in the ballpark. Take two deep breaths before commenting, please. Maybe three.
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* ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois…
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law on Friday that strengthens the range of penalties that a state watchdog can mete out for health care employees who conspire to hide abuse or interfere with investigations by the state police or internal oversight bodies.
The legislation was introduced following an investigative series by Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises Midwest and ProPublica into rampant abuses and cover-ups at Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center, a state-run institution in southern Illinois that houses people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental illnesses. The new law applies to employees at state-run institutions and at privately operated community agencies for people with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses that operate under the oversight of the Illinois Department of Human Services and its Office of the Inspector General.
The news organizations detailed how employees had lied to investigators, leaked sensitive investigative details, retaliated against people who reported abuse and sought to indoctrinate new workers into the cover-up culture. Employees who engaged in such actions made it difficult to pursue cases of patient abuse, yet they rarely faced serious consequences. IDHS Inspector General Peter Neumer suggested the change in law last year.
The new law allows the OIG to report workers who engage in such misconduct to Illinois’ existing Health Care Worker Registry, which would bar them from working in any health care setting in the state.
The registry identifies any health care worker who has been barred from working with vulnerable populations in any long-term care setting, such as state-operated developmental centers or group homes. Under prior law, workers could be barred because they had been found to have engaged in financial exploitation; neglect that is considered “egregious”; or physical or sexual abuse. The new law adds “material obstruction” of an investigation to the list of findings that can be reported to the registry, which is maintained by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Pritzker signed the bill on the same day the IDHS inspector general released a 34-page report that recommended a “top to bottom analysis” of all processes related to the reporting of abuse and neglect at Choate “because at the present time there appear to be fundamental problems with all aspects of that system.”
* Scott Holland…
The report says nothing new about Choate: staff repeatedly and systematically covered up their own abuse and neglect of residents, state state is scrambling to try to make things marginally better and ultimately, per the report, “a fundamental overhaul of the system is needed to establish a new culture where the reporting of abuse is automatic and not an act of courage.”
Enacting a zero-tolerance policy for abusing residents shouldn’t be controversial, but apparently we must first clear lower bars.
Unfortunately, the takeaways from Friday are much more broad and less impactful on the people actually suffering in Anna. That DHS made the report so easily accessible is commendable but is more accurately another example of something that simply ought to be standard procedure. Not just at DHS, but at every state agency.
Pulling that thread yields another lesson: administrators in every corner of state government should read the Choate report to identify possible commonalities with their own agencies. What are the systemic vulnerabilities and potential solutions?
* While we’re on the topic of human services, let’s shift gears to to WGLT’s report…
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is trying a new approach to fill hundreds of jobs.
The child welfare agency hosted an on-the-spot job clinic Monday in Bloomington. It held a similar event in Rockford last week and might schedule additional job fairs in the future, depending on how many positions it can fill. […]
According to data provided by DCFS, the agency handled nearly 98,300 case investigations in 2022 and has managed nearly 47,400 cases so far this year. That marks a 14% increase over pre-pandemic levels (2019). […]
Despite the hiring needs, the agency’s staff levels are currently at a 15-year high with more than 3,100 workers.
Strokosch said the agency offered jobs to nearly 200 applicants at its event in Rockford. A DCFS official said the agency hopes to hire 50 new workers after Monday’s event in Bloomington.
The next hiring event will be in La Salle on Thursday.
* Block Club Chicago…
Migrants and volunteers who work on the front lines with them are sounding the alarm on conditions at some of the city’s temporary shelters, saying people are served moldy food, don’t have hot water and aren’t allowed to accept donations from neighbors. […]
Migrants told Block Club the conditions at Leone Beach House, 1222 W. Touhy Ave. in Rogers Park, and the Inn of Chicago Hotel, 162 E. Ohio St. in Streeterville, are concerning.
Two women who have stayed at both shelters said they were given visibly moldy food and insufficient amounts of food, which they photographed. They said they have to shower and bathe their kids with cold water and can’t bring anything given to them by volunteers or anything they’ve bought themselves inside the shelter.
While staying at Leone Beach, the women said they slept on the floor. At the Inn of Chicago, they said there are beds and bunks to fit three families in one hotel room.
People at Inn of Chicago are also restricted to only 20 pieces of clothes per family — meaning a family of four could have five pieces each — and can only have their clothes laundered once a week, the women said.
“The police stations treated us better,” one woman said, who asked to remain anonymous in fear of getting in trouble. “But at the shelters they wont let [volunteers] give us anything.”
* Sun-Times…
Even as City Hall has changed administrations, unhoused individuals continue to be locked out of O’Hare. In late May, four Chicago officers remained stationed outside of the Blue Line station.
A Chicago police officer was seen guiding a man wearing a coat and carrying a small duffel bag back to the train station where a worker for Haymarket Center — which provides services for unhoused individuals — handed out sandwiches to a group of men.
In a statement, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration said Friday that it was evaluating laws and security policies with other airports to guide what happens at O’Hare.
“Mayor Johnson is committed to the safety of all airport passengers and employees and he is working to identify solutions to the City’s housing crisis,” the statement read.
His office also said that Johnson still supports proposed policies like the financial assistance program Bring Chicago Home because he “believes it can deliver real solutions to supporting unsheltered people and reducing homelessness.”
* WTTW…
The Chicago Urban League released its 2023 “State of Black Chicago” report, which measures outcomes in health, education, income,and housing for Black Chicagoans as compared to other racial groups.
The findings indicate there is still a lot of work to be done in advancing equity for Black residents. Among the issues highlighted in the research is persistent and overwhelming residential segregation, poverty rates triple that of White Chicagoans, worse educational outcomes for Black Chicago Public Schools students and lower average life expectancy for Black residents. […]
While the nonprofit West Side United works to close the health gap in Chicago, Executive Director Ayesha Jaco said it’s a focus that ends up having much broader implications. […]
Jaco said she hopes the Johnson administration will continue to take cues from Black communities in deciding what solutions will work for improving health outcomes.
“COVID exacerbated what we already knew to be true,” Jaco said. “The same communities that had the higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, infant mortality are also the same communities that had the higher rates of COVID mortality and morbidity. And so COVID just blew that out of the water.”
* Journal Courier…
Almost 2 million people in Illinois receive SNAP food assistance, but several hundred thousand are expected to lose access to it at the end of October, after pandemic-related extensions expire.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated the debt ceiling agreement would put almost 750,000 adults ages 50 to 54 at risk of losing food assistance because they do not meet the SNAP work reporting requirements.
Steve Erickson, executive director of Feeding Illinois, said most people are not just taking advantage of the system to get food. They have real needs and are often already working. […]
Apart from SNAP changes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children will need an additional $615 million in the coming fiscal year to meet the program’s expanding caseload.
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[The following is a paid advertisement.]
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* Sun-Times…
When the FBI confronted businessman James Weiss in October 2019 about $2,500 that had been passed along to then-state Sen. Terry Link, an agent told him bluntly, “This looks like a bribe.”
Weiss insisted that wasn’t his intention. He claimed he’d hired a consultant on behalf of his sweepstakes gaming business, Collage LLC, to help get legislation passed in Springfield. He said he had to hire her “to get Terry Link neutralized with the gaming guys.”
Trouble was, that consultant had been concocted by the FBI amid a bribery investigation that eventually led to charges against Weiss and then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo. […]
The jury also saw a text exchange between Link and Weiss, in which Link asked Weiss, “Did you send me the check?” Weiss allegedly texted Link a picture of a Post-it note featuring Link’s name, phone number and post-office box.
Weiss allegedly wrote, “This is where Lou [Arroyo] told me to send it.”
* Tribune…
At the direction of the FBI, Link had told Arroyo to have the checks made out to a purported associate named Katherine Hunter, who didn’t actually exist.
When Weiss was later questioned by agents, he lied and said Hunter was a lobbyist who lived in Winnetka and that he’d spoken to her on the phone, according to a recording of the interview also played for the jury Monday.
Weiss’ attorneys have argued Weiss was paying Arroyo as a legitimate consultant for his business, and that trying to enlist another politician’s help is not a crime.
Near the end of his direct examination Monday, however, Link was asked by prosecutors what he believed the $2,500-a-month offering was for.
“Passing legislation for sweepstakes games,” Link said.
* Jason Meisner…
* Jon Seidel…
* And…
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* From Waukegan Mayor Ann Taylor…
June 12, 2023
Mr. Kevin Warren
President and Chief Executive Officer Chicago Bears Football Club, Inc.
1920 Football Drive
Lake Forest, IL 60045
Dear Mr. Warren:
It has come to my attention that the Chicago Bears are no longer singularly focused on redeveloping Arlington Park as the franchise’s new home. With this knowledge, it is incumbent on me as Mayor of Waukegan to make you aware of the City of Waukegan’s opportunities, advantages, and history with the Bears organization.
The City of Waukegan, located along Lake Michigan, has multiple large parcels, including lakefront property within 20 minutes of the PNC Center at Halas Hall, that could be developed into both the state-of-the-art stadium and entertainment district the team has publicly expressed interest in building. In addition to the availability of land controlled by the City of Waukegan, the City also has excellent transportation infrastructure as Waukegan is located along Interstate 94 and U.S. Route 41, a major stop on Metra’s Union Pacific North Line, and is home to Waukegan National Airport.
The Bears have a rich history in Lake County. In addition to the current PNC Center at Halas Hall, the previous Halas Hall was also located in Lake County at Lake Forest College, a short trip down Sheridan Road. Furthermore, the City of Waukegan was home to the Bears’ winter training facility in the early 1990s. For generations, Bears players have called Lake County their home, including the neighboring towns of Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, Libertyville, Gurnee, Vernon Hills, Mettawa, and others. Some members of the Bears organization currently live in my neighborhood in Waukegan.
Home of NFL Hall of Famer Otta Graham, Jr., Waukegan is known as the City of Progress, and it is the full intention of my administration and our nine elected Alderpersons to ensure we live up to our motto. With over a half billion dollars of economic development projects underway, Waukegan is making unprecedented progress.
Our working class and diverse community is as tough as the 1985 Super Bowl-winning Bears, and our leadership team at Waukegan City Hall is as aggressive as Justin Fields running the ball downfield when it comes to creating economic opportunities for our City, our residents, and the region at large.
Our City’s staff and I invite you and your leadership team to come to Waukegan to learn about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity our City can offer the Bears. We believe that the Monsters of the Midway deserve the opportunity to continue the tradition of playing along the shores of Lake Michigan, with the market opportunity of having a year-round facility capable of hosting other major events, including the Super Bowl, the Final Four, and other events of an international scale.
Again, I would be pleased to host you and your leadership team to discuss a potential partnership between the Chicago Bears and the City of Waukegan. I can be reached directly by phone at xxx and by email at xxxx.
Thank you for your consideration. Go Bears!
Sincerely,
Mayor Ann B. Taylor
City of Waukegan
Thoughts?
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Today’s quotable
Tuesday, Jun 13, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The credit ratings agencies also prefer governors who don’t put their own personal crusades ahead of negotiating a reasonably balanced budget for their state. Just sayin…
Rauner also couldn’t stop himself from taking a dig at the Pritzker’s administration’s boasts about how the state has earned several credit rating upgrades in recent years.
“Credit agencies love tax hikes,” Rauner said. “And they love federal bailouts.”
…Adding… Here’s some context…
Back in April 2015, less than two months before the impasse started, Rauner suggested he could leverage a state budget crisis to win approval of his economic agenda.
“Crisis creates opportunity,” Rauner told the Chicago Tribune editorial board. “Crisis creates leverage to change … and we’ve got to use that leverage of the crisis to force structural change.”
The Springfield impasse did create a budget crisis, and for two years, Rauner kept Republicans unified.
* And after a bipartisan super-majority in both chambers finally voted to raise the income tax to just under where it had been before Rauner took office, and then Rauner vetoed that bill, we saw this…
With a $6.2 billion annual deficit and $14.7 billion in overdue bills, disaster is around the corner. The United Way predicts the demise of 36 percent of all human-services agencies in Illinois by year’s end. Billions of dollars in road construction work is shutting down. Public universities have been cut to the bone and face a loss of academic accreditation.
No other state has come close to Illinois when it comes to a budget impasse. The standoff entered a third straight year on July 1.
Credit-rating houses have threatened to downgrade the state’s creditworthiness to “junk,” signaling to investors that buying state debt is a highly speculative venture.
Rauner dismissed the possibility of another downgrade for Illinois, which already has the worst credit rating of any U.S. state.
“Don’t listen to Wall Street. Don’t listen to a bunch of politicians who want power,” he said after local business owners talked about rising property taxes and residents going to nearby Indiana to shop and fill up on gas. “Listen to the people of Illinois.”
And this…
The Ounce of Prevention Fund, an early childhood education foundation headed by Rauner’s wife Diana, issued a statement Wednesday calling for the House to override the governor’s veto.
“The governor vetoed the bills and the Senate has voted to override that veto,” the statement read. “We strongly urge the House of Representatives to now follow the Senate in voting to override the governor’s veto.”
The state currently has $14.7 billion in unpaid bills and has just entered its third consecutive fiscal year without a budget. Credit monitoring agencies have previously warned that without a budget, the state’s bond rating could fall to “junk” status, which would be a first for any state in the country.
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Open thread
Tuesday, Jun 13, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* Good morning! What’s goin’ on in your part of Illinois?…
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Isabel’s morning briefing
Tuesday, Jun 13, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* Here you go…
* Tribune | ‘What’s in it for me, though?’ Ex-state Sen. Terry Link testifies about secret recordings in bribery trial of Chicago businessman: That conversation was one of a number of secret recordings made by Link that were played Monday in the trial of James Weiss, a politically connected businessman accused of agreeing to pay bribes to Link and Arroyo in order to advance legislation that would help Weiss’ sweepstakes gaming business.
* Capitol News Illinois | Health care workers who cover up patient abuse face stiffer penalties under new law: The registry identifies any health care worker who has been barred from working with vulnerable populations in any long-term care setting, such as state-operated developmental centers or group homes. Under prior law, workers could be barred because they had been found to have engaged in financial exploitation; neglect that is considered “egregious”; or physical or sexual abuse. The new law adds “material obstruction” of an investigation to the list of findings that can be reported to the registry, which is maintained by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
* Tribune | Measure aimed at preventing book bans at public libraries signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker: “Book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts,” Pritzker said before signing the legislation at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. “Regimes ban books, not democracies. Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, the Taliban’s Afghanistan. We refuse to let the vitriolic strain of white nationalism coursing through our country determine whose histories are told.”
* WTTW | Why Are There So Many Units of Local Government?: In the big ol’ U-S-of-A, Illinois may be 25th in size and sixth in population, but, when it comes to the number of units of local government? We’re No. 1. Depending on how you count, the Land of Lincoln is home to 7,000 to 9,000 units of local government.
* WCCU | Socially disadvantaged farmers await grant money going on 3 years: As for the hold up, the Department of Agriculture says the Governor’s office of Management and Budget needs to sign off before the money is released. We reached out to the governor’s office and they replied with a statement: “The $1 million in the FY24 budget actually can’t go to anyone before July 1st. The $2.5 million is from ARPA funds and the program and grantees have to meet strict requirements because it is federal money that has to be followed according to rules set up by the Treasury Department. The Department of Ag is working with DCEO to help them administer these grants in compliance with federal rules and we look forward to getting this money out soon.”
* Sun-Times | Planned Parenthood of Illinois reports spike in abortion patients since Roe v. Wade overturned: The amount of patients seeking both medication and procedure abortions rose 54% in the last year, Planned Parenthood reported on Monday. Patients needing financial and travel help also more than doubled in that period.
* Sun-Times | FOP demands same 12 weeks of paid parental leave Johnson gave teachers: “The teachers were granted parental leave — without bargaining. We certainly expect the same considerations for our membership,” John Catanzara, Fraternal Order of Police president, told members in a video posted late Friday.
* Tribune | LGBTQ workers are at the forefront of Chicago’s labor resurgence. ‘You have to learn to stick up for yourself.’: “If you grew up queer somewhere that it’s not accepted, you have to learn to stick up for yourself,” Parshall said. “That’s true for a lot of my queer co-workers. There’s just more of a willingness to speak up for yourself and defend yourself, and you know, advocate for changes if you’re working under unfair conditions.”
* The Trace | Violence Interruption Programs Are Receiving Millions. This Initiative Wants to Make Sure They’re Prepared: The biggest benefit of a community-based organization is access to a hard-to-reach population. They can reach individuals that other organizations can’t. The biggest knock is that it’s sometimes not evidence-based or they don’t have business acumen. They know how to do the work, but the business part has been lacking. And that’s why we have had trouble collecting data, doing evaluations, and procuring funding.
* Illinois Answers | Were New HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Paused over Patient Safety or Is It a Cook County Money Grab?: Cook County Health is spending millions of dollars creating its own medical research department while it continues a yearlong investigation into the nonprofit managing its clinical trials — a move drawing criticism from research staff members and advocates.
* WGLT | Illinois wants more EVs on the road, but the new budget just reduced funding for EV rebates: The new budget, signed into law last week, includes $12 million for the EV rebate program, officials said. That’s about $7.3 million less than was spent on the rebate program last year.
* WGLT | DCFS hosts on-the-spot hiring event in Bloomington to keep up with increase in investigations: Strokosch said the agency offered jobs to nearly 200 applicants at its event in Rockford. A DCFS official said the agency hopes to hire 50 new workers after Monday’s event in Bloomington.
* Tribune | King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard isn’t a band, it’s a lifestyle. And a strange one at that.: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — which is cool to say, if nothing else — is fun. Like, capital F fun. The same fun once associated with rock. The kind of heady, indulgent fun that leaves me wondering if they’re idiots or geniuses. They are hard to pin down, and that’s the point of KGLW. They’re from Australia. They’ve made 24 albums in 13 years. They look like a bar band full of tech dads. Your friend who pines for the glory days of Rush is super into them. Your friend likes his bands virtuosic, but he’s also a loose canon. If that other fun Aussie import, AC/DC, traded in its caveman clubs for the complete Rush, Steely Dan and Metallica discography, they might approach the alchemy of KGLW. Or maybe KGLW is more like the live equivalent of vibing with friends on a bedroom floor with a stack of vinyl: Listen to this. No, listen to this. You’ve got to hear this part.
* Tribune | Former Gov. Bruce Rauner jokes as his Capitol portrait’s unveiled: ‘Most gentlemen hanging here did not go to prison’: ”It was difficult. We had many challenges. I lost 22 pounds and most of my hair,” Rauner said. “And it was very stressful. My hair has not come back. It’s continued to, like, run away. I’ve gained back most of the weight, so that’s good. I don’t have any stress in my life anymore, so it’s been a little easier.”
* Outdoor News | Feds awaiting Illinois’ signature on carp plan: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is on the cusp of construction on modification of the Brandon Road Lock in the Des Plaines River, 27 miles southwest of Chicago and Lake Michigan. But there’s been a glitch. The project, originally estimated to cost $275 million, is now projected to cost $1.1 billion. The main sticking point is that it requires Illinois to sign an agreement as the non-federal sponsor that the state has so far refused to sign.
* Tribune | Chicago White Sox’s ugly season could get uglier if Liam Hendriks is out for long: Without Liam Hendriks to close either game, Joe Kelly and Kendall Graveman took turns gagging on cue, turning a would-be sweep of the Marlins into a series loss and killing any momentum from an uplifting 5-1 stretch against the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees.
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Tuesday, Jun 13, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
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