Isabel’s afternoon roundup
Tuesday, Dec 12, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Danny Solis has been summoned to the witness stand…
* H/T to Hannah Meisel for putting this on my radar…
* Democratic Party of Illinois…
* Preliminary NTSB report on the Yellow Line crash has been released. Tribune…
Emphasis added by me.
* Here’s the rest of your roundup…
* Tribune | Will County judge shares frustration with pace of criminal case against New Lenox gun shop owner, business partner: Defense attorney Jack Friedlander told the judge his team received 300 pages of discovery last week and the grand jury transcript an hour before a court proceeding Dec. 5. Friedlander asked for a continuance to review the material. […] [Will County Judge David Carlson] called the delay for grand jury transcripts an “oversight.” Pointing to the two Secret Service agents in the courtroom, Carlson said he was ready to scold them for the delay in the case. In a previous hearing, Carlson said he understood the agents were not cooperating, but it turns out that wasn’t true. * Injustice Watch | Unsealed records reveal new details about Illinois appellate judge’s alleged role in decades-old fraud scheme: Judge Carl Walker was never charged and denied any wrongdoing in mortgage frauds perpetrated by a real estate client. But a controversial 2003 raid on his law offices has reemerged in an effort to remove him from hearing a case. * Muddy River News | After losing to Pritzker, Bailey using Miller playbook in attempt to join her in Congress: Bailey is going with the Miller playbook to beat Bost. He has called him an establishment RINO (Republican in Name Only), bashing Bost’s “liberal” voting record and pledging fealty to former President Donald Trump, the tough guy who doesn’t have the cojones to debate his opponents. While most of Illinois is geographically red, the big blue dot of Chicago and the smaller blue dots in Metro East and many college towns still have the majority of people and votes, which is why Democrats have all of the statewide offices and super majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. * Pioneer Press | Evanston plans event to select descendants for reparations funds: The committee expects to be able to disburse payment to at least 80 direct descendants in 2024, according to the letter, and those selected will be contacted in March to decide how they would like to spend the money. A majority of those in the ancestor group have been awarded funds from the city’s cannabis dispensary tax revenues, with 26 of 140 ancestors, those who were 18 and older at the time and directly experienced racist housing policies in Evanston from 1919 to 1969, awaiting disbursements or continuing to weigh their options. * Daily Herald | Elgin mayor proposes using $6M in discretionary funds to lessen lead pipe replacement debt: The city has been replacing lead service lines using $13.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act and voted Wednesday to approve accepting a $2 million loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The city planned to sell $20 million in general obligation bonds next year for the program, but Kaptain’s proposal would drop that down to $14 million. * Pioneer Press | Skokie Village Board violated Open Meetings Act, Illinois Attorney General finds: According to the public access counselor’s review of information sent by Johnson and Van Dusen, the village board adjourned its open meeting session on Oct. 2 at 8:10 p.m. to go into a closed session to discuss pending litigation. “The closed section verbatim recording confirms the allegations in Trustee Johnson’s Request for Review, which stated that during the relevant portion of the closed session meeting, the Board approved the June 5, 2023 closed session minutes with Trustee Johnson abstaining,” according to the public access counselor’s opinion. * SJ-R | Injunction levied against the city of Springfield for “discriminatory” housing ordinance: A federal court has blocked the city of Springfield from enforcing a local housing ordinance that prevented people with disabilities from living within 600 feet of each other, over a year after damages were awarded in the case. * Patch | 2 Run For Elmhurst State House Seat: Elmhurst Alderman Marti Deuter is running as a Democrat to succeed Jenn Ladisch-Douglass, a Democrat who decided not to run again after one term. The Republican candidate is Elmhurst resident Dennis Reboletti, who is the elected supervisor of Addison Township. * Austin Weekly News | Illinois Senate President Don Harmon reflects on 20 years of change and calls for solidarity with migrants: “We need to do a better job of using these opportunities to create a more durable social infrastructure, so that we are prepared to handle the next crisis that comes around the corner, because once this one is addressed, another will inevitably come,” Harmon, of the 39th district, said. * Tribune | Rylie O’Meara: Chicago’s warming shelters are not adequately caring for the unhoused in winter: In my role on the board of Chicago Street Medicine and as a third-year medical student at the Stritch School of Medicine, I regularly go on “street runs” with medical providers who travel to locations in the city where people experiencing homelessness congregate and provide them with medical care. Unsurprisingly, cold weather injuries are common among those with no indoor refuge during a Chicago winter. * Chicago Mag | Cops vs. Counselors: Rebecca Neusteter, executive director of the Health Lab at the University of Chicago Urban Labs, which is formally evaluating the CARE pilot, says the biggest implementation hiccups are often mundane ones — “even basic questions like procuring vehicles and making sure people’s schedules align” — products of melding teams of first responders from different city agencies, with their own workplace cultures and systems. Then there’s this vital consideration: What if it had been a social worker, not a police officer, facing a bat-wielding Quintonio LeGrier? Are unarmed mental health professionals equipped to handle potentially violent situations? * Chicago Mag | Joe Shanahan: The Metro and Smartbar owner, 66, on DJ’ing, meeting Bob Dylan, and battling cancer: Metro was the building I could afford. It was rundown, in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood. We were duct-taping the pipes because they’d burst in the middle of a Saturday night. At first, neighbors were unhappy that we were causing such a ruckus, but then they began to realize, Oh, there are people around here at night who aren’t breaking into the cars. There’s a caretaker’s unit in the building, and I lived there with a .38 under my pillow and a cat that chased the rats out. Those first 10 years, it was pure adrenaline. * AP | Shohei Ohtani’s Dodgers contract has $680 million deferred: Ohtani’s record-setting deal, agreed to Saturday, calls for annual salaries of $70 million, according to details obtained by The Associated Press. Of each year’s salary, $68 million is deferred with no interest, payable in equal installments each July 1 from 2034-43. * WICS | Hunters encouraged to support Illinois Deer Donation Program for community meals: Hunters still have time to donate to the Illinois Deer Donation Program, as the 2023-2024 hunting season ends. Donated deer help feed individuals and families in east-central Illinois, and hunters do not have to pay the processing fee at partnering meat processors. * Tribune | 4,000 days of prayer: A man’s journey out of Chicago street violence to a trucking convoy honoring the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe: Since he was released from prison in October 2019, Romero commemorates the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe every December with hundreds of other truckers in a pilgrimage the weekend preceding the holiday, on Dec 12. They join thousands of devotees who visit the shrine walking, running, biking and horse riding, making the Midwest celebration the second largest one after Mexico City and the Des Plaines shrine the most visited monument of its kind in the U.S.
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- Homebody - Tuesday, Dec 12, 23 @ 2:52 pm:
Thanks for bringing back those quotes from Hannah, Rich. Great reminder about how opposed to actually rooting out criminality and corruption so many of our elected officials are.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Dec 12, 23 @ 2:54 pm:
===those quotes from Hannah, Rich===
Isabel’s name is on the headline. Her byline is on the post.
- Steve - Tuesday, Dec 12, 23 @ 3:28 pm:
Did Danny Solis wear a wire on Rahm Emanuel? Objection?
- Homebody - Tuesday, Dec 12, 23 @ 3:31 pm:
Apologies to Isabel, didn’t read the headline.
- Dotnonymous x - Tuesday, Dec 12, 23 @ 3:51 pm:
How long has Solis been a federal confidential informant?…I imagine I’m not the only one to wonder.
- H-W - Tuesday, Dec 12, 23 @ 3:55 pm:
The Skokie story about violating the open meetings act triggered a concern I have with Illinois’ Open Meetings Act (5 ILCS 120/ Open Meetings Act).
The policy as written requires the full agenda or regularly scheduled meetings to be available at least 48 hours prior to such meetings. Subsequently, it indicates that the full agenda for emergency meetings must be available at least 48 hours in advance.
As to the latter, I understand why an agenda might not be ready until a day or so before the emergency meeting.
But as to regular meetings, waiting until the last minute to post an agenda is a very effective way to prevent public scrutiny of the agenda.
By way of example, our Board of Trustees meets four times a year in regular session. Historically, the agenda was available much earlier, which allowed faculty and staff, unions, etc., enough time to review the agenda, and decide collectively whether or not they would respond. Lately however, the Board is waiting until the deadline to share its agenda with the public. With only 48 hours to go, it now requires an emergency meeting by all other constituency groups to meet and discuss an agenda that will be acted upon within 48 hours of receiving notice.
I believe the legislature needs to reconsider what is an emergency (at least 48 hours), and what is regular business and thereby allowing more time for constituents of these public boards to review and plan should they wish to address agenda items.
- Red headed step child - Wednesday, Dec 13, 23 @ 6:59 am:
Them,quotes from elected officials reference the wearing of a wire,are shocking. Disgraceful