Isabel’s morning briefing
Thursday, Nov 16, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller * ICYMI: Johnson unveils 60-day shelter limit for asylum seekers ahead of big Pritzker aid infusion. Crain’s…
- Pritzker is expected to announce more state money for migrant aid today. The amount is “more than” the $150 million Johnson included in his own 2024 budget for migrants. a knowledgeable source told Crain’s Greg Hinz. -Johnson said the city also will begin to “cite and fine bus companies that disregard our curfews, landing zone locations and loading and unloading rules,” beginning this weekend. * Related stories… ∙ Sun Times: Johnson implementing 60-day limit on shelter stays in next phase of plan to confront migrant crisis ∙ Block Club: Asylum Seekers Will Be Limited To 60-Day Stays At City-Run Shelters, Mayor Says * Isabel’s top picks… * WBEZ | One year before Chicago’s first school board election, key details remain unresolved: That schedule has long been set in stone — until last week. Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, threw a wrench in those plans by proposing to move elections for all board members to next fall. His reasoning? It’s too difficult to create a racially representative voting map that adheres to voting rights laws with only half the districts. He believes every model for transitioning from a partially elected to fully elected board has “glaring shortcomings.” * WTTW | Suspended CPS Security Guard is 3rd Fired Chicago Cop Hired by District After Being on City’s Do-Not-Hire List: WTTW News previously reported that two CPS security guards suspended by the district were hired despite being placed on the city’s do-not-hire list after they were fired from their positions as Chicago police officers. Deluna, like those two other guards, also worked as a police officer for Chicago before his suspension by the school district. Unlike those guards, Deluna didn’t even make it past his training cycle as a police officer before being banned by the city from holding a municipal job. He was hired back by CPS about a year and a half after his CPD firing. Governor Pritzker is set to announce new state investments in services for asylum seekers at 10 am today. Click here to watch. * Here’s the rest of your morning roundup… * Capitol News Illinois | State Supreme Court weighs constitutionality of lifetime restrictions on child sex offenders: According to court records included in briefs filed with the Supreme Court, Kopf served three years of probation and reportedly has had no other criminal convictions since then. Still, because he was convicted of a sex crime involving a minor, Kopf remains subject to an Illinois statute that requires him to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender and prohibits him from ever living in certain areas. Those residency restrictions cover any place within 500 feet of a “playground, child care institution, day care center, part day child care facility, day care home, group day care home, or a facility providing programs or services exclusively directed toward persons under 18 years of age.” * Tribune | Corruption trial of ex-Ald. Ed Burke to resume after weeklong COVID-related delay: After a sluggish start to jury selection and a weeklong COVID-related delay, the historic corruption trial of former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke is finally expected to head to opening statements Thursday after a jury is empaneled. * WBEZ | Cook County pitches a $100 million fund for migrants and disaster aid: About $70 million in that fund would be set aside to provide medical care for migrants. That’s in addition to money already budgeted next year to treat this population, proposed budget documents show. About $20 million would flow to suburbs to help cover costs related to providing services for migrants, and about $10 million would be used to help communities with other disaster response and recovery efforts, such as record-setting rainstorms that have inundated many residents’ homes. * Tribune | Mayor Brandon Johnson deflects questions over proposal tying homeless tent removal to City Council votes: The mayor Wednesday at first sidestepped a question about the exchange, telling reporters, “I am not necessarily privy to every single conversation that happens throughout the city of Chicago.” But pressed further on Conway’s allegations, Johnson said they were “a mischaracterization” and said “pushing for real support around the unhoused (is) what this has always been about.” * WGN | Migrants, crime, investment in people: Brandon Johnson’s first 6 months as mayor: “As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t know if there’s ever been a mayor that understand the trauma that violence causes in communities than someone like me who is living in one of those communities,” he said in a recent interview with WGN’s Tahman Bradley. “Today of course we’re centered in Austin, the neighborhood that I’m raising my family in. I can tell you the touch points have literally reached just outside my front door. And so I think about it every day, it’s a very serious problem that we have.” * WAND | Pritzker highlights trade jobs, workforce development during Apprenticeship Week: USDOL plans to award $98 million in grants to YouthBuild programs across the country. YouthBuild pre-apprenticeship programs lift up low-income children and young adults who dropped out of school, are unemployed or have limited job skills. “If we think of our workforce system as infrastructure, apprenticeships are the super highways,” said USDOL Acting Secretary Julie Su. * SJ-R | Milhiser: ‘Prioritizing public safety’ and ‘reducing violent crime’ is job one: John Milhiser said he has a slightly different perspective returning as Sangamon County state’s attorney. The 53-year-old Milhiser, who was nominated for the position by Sangamon County Board Chairman Andy Van Meter and was sworn in at Tuesday’s board meeting after being unanimously approved, served as state’s attorney from 2010 to 2018 before being appointed U.S. Attorney. * Crain’s | Former state, city officials win Democratic National Convention contract: An advisory firm run by former state of Illinois and city of Chicago facilities officials has been tapped to oversee the preparation of the United Center and its surrounding area for the Democratic National Convention next summer. * The Pantagraph | Caulkins seeks Supreme Court review of Illinois semiautomatic weapons ban ruling: A downstate lawmaker whose challenge of Illinois’ semiautomatic weapons ban lost at the state Supreme Court earlier this year has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision. * Michael Frerichs and Nell Minow | Those who want to ban sustainability-focused investing are on the losing end: Listening to Republican lawmakers and conservative voices, you might think that the ESG investment movement — which focuses on environmental, social and governance factors — is coming to an end. Growing anti-ESG sentiment among lawmakers, they would argue, is reflective of how the public is rejecting “woke” sustainable investment practices. We are here to tell you that this is simply not the case. Behind the smoke and mirrors of the anti-ESG fad lies a crumbling edifice with little support among investors, public fund managers or even other Republicans. * Illinois Times | From colleges to cannabis: Before George Kennett joined Cresco Labs eight years ago, he was in a job he didn’t like, and his abuse of alcohol and other drugs led to what could have been a fatal spiral. The job at Cresco “saved my life and changed my life for the better,” Kennett, 32, told Illinois Times. “It gave me purpose.” * Block Club Chicago | Narcan Vending Machine Comes To CTA Station, But Mother Of Overdose Victim Says More Must Be Done: The CTA’s Narcan vending machine is one of five turned on by Chicago Department of Public Health over the past two weeks, in a new pilot program bringing life-saving supplies to public spaces in high overdose areas. Uptown Library, Garfield Community Service Center, Harold Washington Library, Roseland Community Triage Center and the 95th Red Line station are recipients of the vending machines, which ask users to a create a unique PIN by first completing an anonymous online survey, although just Narcan can be dispensed by dialing “1234.”
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- sal-says - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 8:20 am:
== 60 day shelter limit ==
Uh, then what ? Put people on the streets ?
- Perrid - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 8:28 am:
Most of these people have to wait at least 6 months for work permits, right? And then they have to get through the backlog. So these people can’t legally support themselves, so what’s the thinking here? What’s supposed to happen to them after 60 days?
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 8:39 am:
===Uh, then what ===
===What’s supposed to happen to them after 60 days? ===
Click the links. C’mon. Don’t wait to be spoon fed. This ain’t Twitter.
- LastModDemStanding - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 8:54 am:
FYI– MLL Admin. had a 30 day limit that was enforced, which was repealed (or at least not enforced) by this Administration.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 9:27 am:
===had a 30 day limit that was enforced===
It was phased in and I don’t think it was widely enforced because some people have been in shelters since well before MLL left office.
- TheInvisibleMan - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 9:44 am:
re: lifetime restrictions on child sex offenders
The headline greatly understates the crime he committed. This was a high school coach, who violently abused a child on the team he had a position of authority over.
I’m sure he feels inconvenienced, but that is not the same as unconstitutional. He also didn’t say he hasn’t continued the behavior, he just says he hasn’t had a recorded offense for it. Something in the way he is describing himself is hiding something dark.
As for the case before the Supreme Court, there are different levels of having to register as an offender in Illinois. Many offenses only require 10 years or less of mandatory registration. He has the sentence he does, a lifetime requirement, specifically because of the severity of his crime. It’s not arbitrary.
Just because someone is not physically in prison, doesn’t mean they are finished serving their court issued sentence. The court sentence in this case includes lifetime registration. This is already the alternative to keeping him physically in prison for life for his crime.
There is a rather organized outside effort to reverse many child abuse punishments in Illinois. I didn’t see the organization mentioned in the story, and maybe this case is too far for even them to support.
- Tony T. - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 10:00 am:
From the WBEZ story on the elected school board:
“The Senate president dropped this on everyone’s head without the benefit of stakeholder input or even understanding,” Davis Gates said.
Um, no. Your lobbyist testified in a committee hearing for all districts to be up at once and your union advocated for a fully elected board for years.
- charles in charge - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 10:15 am:
==Just because someone is not physically in prison, doesn’t mean they are finished serving their court issued sentence. The court sentence in this case includes lifetime registration. This is already the alternative to keeping him physically in prison for life for his crime.==
No, actually the U.S. Supreme Court has held that sex offender registration and related restrictions are civil measures and not punishment. Of course that’s an absurd legal fiction, but it’s the law. Your claim that lifetime registration is an alternative to lifetime imprisonment doesn’t appear to have any basis in the law. Maybe you believe that’s what the law should be, but it’s not an accurate statement.
- TheInvisibleMan - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 10:40 am:
“registration and related restrictions are civil measures and not punishment.”
Yes. As applied by a court due to a conviction. If you fail to register, or are trying to hide your location, that’s a criminal offense not a civil one.
That’s also why I very clearly stated ‘alternative to’ lifetime imprisonment. As in, a different legally applied sentence other than imprisonment.
The offender registry is nothing more than a specifically named form of probation. That is in fact widely understood, even if you don’t like it.
Illinois also has almost identical registration requirements for violent offenders outside of child offenders. That you are not focused on the same supposed rights of those violent offenders and only on child offenses lays out your position and motivation quite clearly.
- charles in charge - Thursday, Nov 16, 23 @ 2:18 pm:
==That you are not focused on the same supposed rights of those violent offenders and only on child offenses lays out your position and motivation quite clearly.==
What on earth are you talking about? How do you presume to know what I am “focused on”? The linked item and your comment are specifically about sex offender restrictions.