* Congressman Mike Bost wins FOP endorsement…

U.S. Representative Mike Bost (IL-12) today announced that his 2024 re-election campaign has been endorsed by the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police State Lodge.

“The men and women of law enforcement have always known they can count on Mike Bost for his unwavering support. Mike has always had our backs, even when many other elected officials abandoned us,” said Chris Southwood, Illinois FOP State Lodge President. “He has supported bills to give law enforcement officers better pay and benefits in our dangerous but vital profession. The Illinois FOP State Lodge gives Mike Bost our sincere and hearty endorsement.”

“I have never wavered in my support for our law enforcement officers, especially now when woke liberals in Illinois and Washington, D.C. continue to demonize them with an anti-police agenda,” said Bost. “I would like to thank the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police State Lodge for putting their confidence in my re-election. I’ll always Back the Blue in Congress and will never stop defending the brave men and women who protect and serve our communities.”

* Press release…

Governor JB Pritzker joined the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) and Google Public Sector on Monday to announce the creation of BEACON (Behavioral Health Care and Ongoing Navigation): A Service Access Portal for Illinois Youth. Powered by Google Cloud’s secure, scalable, and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing technology, the new state-of-the-art online portal will provide a user-friendly experience for Illinois families to access behavioral and mental health resources for children. The Division of Mental Health (DMH) at DHS is collaborating with Google Public Sector to deliver this ongoing statewide transformation.

“We are doing away with decentralized, difficult-to-navigate behavioral health resources scattered across different agencies, providers, and websites,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Instead, families will have a modern, easy to use online system to guide them through the behavioral health universe. This is another example of Illinois is leading the way — to mobilize public-private partnerships and couple ingenuity with empathy.” […]

On February 15, 2023, the Pritzker Administration published this groundbreaking transformation plan, entitled “Blueprint for Transformation: A Vision for Improved Behavioral Healthcare for Illinois Children.” A team of experts, led by Dr. Dana Weiner, Director of the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative, will work closely with various Illinois agencies to create a comprehensive approach to expanding resource availability. […]

The centralized point of access will improve the experience of families engaged with the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS), the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), the Department of Public Health (DPH), and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). This distinct support service will eliminate any further frustration for parents and caretakers who are already challenged by their child’s distress.

The development of the BEACON portal moves the State closer to accomplishing the five goals recommended by the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative:

- Streamlining processes to make it easier for youth and families to access services,

- Adjusting capacity to ensure the right resources are available to youth in need,
Intervening earlier to prevent crises from developing,

- Increasing accountability to ensure the State has a transparent system, and

- Developing agility so that the system can adjust to meet the evolving needs of youth.

* Here’s the rest…

* South Side Weekly | CPD Reported Hundreds of Missed Shootings to ShotSpotter Last Year: “I got my head handed to me yesterday by Dan Casey,” wrote Gary Bunyard, ShotSpotter’s vice president of public safety solutions, in an email to other senior employees. “This incident involved a high-profile shooting with ‘55’ rounds. And, we missed it! …I am a big boy—I can deal with Dan. However, I owe Dan some explanation! Obviously, I cannot tell him that we have a bunch of down sensors in that area and insufficient resources to service our largest customer.”

* IPM | Champaign hired Police Chief Timothy Tyler despite disciplinary past and allegations of misconduct: After receiving information and questions about Tyler’s background and disciplinary history from Invisible Institute and IPM Newsroom, City Council member Davion Williams forwarded the email to City Manager Dorothy Ann David and asked, “Were we aware of these incidents as a city?” Several of the investigations into Tyler’s misconduct led to settlements and disciplinary action. Among those: an off-duty domestic incident with an ex-girlfriend, an improper vehicle pursuit that ended in a crash outside of Chicago Police headquarters, and missing currency from a narcotics bust. In addition, federal civil rights lawsuits accused him of false arrest and conspiring with city officials to illegally shut down a nightclub in his previous position in Markham.

* Herald-News | What’s happening in Joliet mass shooting investigation: A spokesperson for Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow said his office will not be able to provide a response on Friday to questions regarding the $100,000 bond in Nance’s 2023 case, the SAFE-T Act and the statement from the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice.

* Daily-Journal | Kankakee Auditor’s job function comes under scrutiny at finance committee: During County Treasurer Nick Africano’s report, he shared with the committee the results of a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request for how many times Lee logged into the county’s bank accounts online to view the inflows and outflows of money since Jan. 1, 2021. Africano said more than $200 million flows through the county’s bank accounts annually. […] The report showed that there were 9,372 total logins to see the county’s bank accounts in the approximate three-year time span. All the logins were people from the treasurer’s office and no logins by Lee.

* Bond Buyer | Muni advisor to Harvey, Illinois library district charged $86,000 by SEC: Brandon Comer and his firm Comer Capital Group, the Mississippi-based municipal advisor to the library district of the City of Harvey, Illinois, have been fined a total of $86,000 in a final judgment reached in the Northern District of Illinois after years of litigation.

* NPR | Cook County kicked off a wave of local governments erasing billions in medical debt: New York City pledged last week to pay down $2 billion worth of residents’ medical debt. In doing so, it has come around to an innovation, started in the Midwest, that’s ridding millions of Americans of health care debt. The idea of local government erasing debt emerged a couple of years ago in Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago. Toni Preckwinkle, president of the county board of commissioners, says two staffers came to her with a bold proposal: The county could spend a portion of its federal pandemic rescue funds to ease a serious burden on its residents.

* Crain’s | Ascension nurses threaten another strike at Joliet hospital: The union said a third strike is being called in response to leadership implementing an offer rejected by the union in December. INA said its members voted against the offer for several reasons, including management’s “insistence on certain nonmonetary terms and conditions of employment which would pose serious health and safety risks to both nurses and patients.”

* NBC Chicago | When will new I-PASS stickers replace Illinois Tollway transponders? What to know: Officials say the stickers will be available at oases, participating Jewel-Osco stores and the Tollway’s headquarters at the end of January. They will be available for online ordering by February.

* Press Release | SIU researchers work to place Southern Illinois Black heritage sites on National Register: Work by Southern Illinois University Carbondale researchers in recognizing significant Black heritage properties in the region could also reveal more information about a Union Army military camp that hosted up to 5,000 freed Blacks in Cairo at one point during the Civil War. The work is part of a project led by Mark Wagner, a professor in SIU’s Center for Archaeological Investigations and anthropology department. Wagner and his team of graduate students will produce National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) nominations for several locations in Southern Illinois associated with Black history and amend existing National Register nominations for three other sites in the region. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) announced the $75,000 grant in late November. Wagner hopes all of the applications can be completed by the end of the semester in May.

* Press Release | UChicago engineer driving key role in Great Lakes water transformation: For Junhong Chen, Crown Family Professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and Lead Water Strategist at Argonne National Laboratory, the announcement is the culmination of years of effort – and the promise of years more important work ahead on a critical task. Chen is the co-Principal Investigator and Use-Inspired R&D Lead for Great Lakes ReNEW.

* Block Club | The CTA Will Let You Charter Your Own Train — For $3,000: The agency books “a few” private train parties a year, usually for birthdays and nonprofit fundraisers, and once a wedding reception, the spokesperson said. The chartered trains are mostly used for movie productions and commercial shoots, the spokesperson said.

* Crain’s | THC-infused wing sauce for the Super Bowl? It’s a sign Illinois’ cannabis industry is maturing: Green Thumb Industries’ edible brand Incredibles launched chocolate bars with New York’s Magnolia Bakery just before the holidays last year. And Okay Cannabis, a newer dispensary chain, sells infused brownie and cake mixes using West Town Bakery’s recipes. The collaborations are one more step in the industry’s long-running effort to build identifiable consumer brands. Such products also rope in new customers. A fan of Magnolia Bakery might come into the dispensary to try a Swirled Famous Banana Pudding Bar and pick up a few other items.

* WCIA | Daylight saving time: How long until the clocks change, and could it be the last time?: More than two dozen states at least considered withdrawing from the biannual clock change. Unfortunately, they’re largely hoping for permanent daylight saving time, not permanent standard time. For a state to observe daylight saving time all year, Congress ultimately needs to take action. There have been multiple bills introduced to make that change.

* The Guardian | ‘Chaos campaign’: how an Armenian enclave became the center of an anti-LGBTQ+ battle: On a gray afternoon last June, the school board in Glendale, California, was preparing to make what was once a routine vote to honor June as LGBTQ+ pride month. School board meetings used to be pretty placid affairs. This year, however, cops in riot gear surrounded the building and helicopters hovered overhead. As Erik Adamian, an alum of the school district, waited in line to get inside the meeting, he heard demonstrators shout: “You are all a bunch of pedophiles!” “Stop grooming our kids!”

* AP | Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands: Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. After rumbling down a country road to an auction house, the cows are bought by a local rancher and then followed by The Associated Press another 600 miles to a Texas slaughterhouse that feeds into the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill.

* The Philadelphia Inquirer | Self-checkout can be convenient, but human cashiers may inspire more customer loyalty, study finds: Businesses including Costco, Kmart, and Jewel-Osco have removed self-checkout in many stores, the study cites. Others are still betting on the machines. [Yanliu Huang, associate professor of marketing at the Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business] says more research is needed to understand if this study’s findings are also applicable in other retail environments, if the kinds of products being purchased influences the outcome, or if the use of other shopping technologies such as smart carts or scan-and-go apps affect customers’ loyalty.

* WBEZ | An end of an era for Pitchfork: What’s next for music journalism?: Reset’s Sasha-Ann Simons spoke with Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber, former Pitchfork president Chris Kaskie and former executive editor Amy Phillips. Journalists Britt Julious, a music critic for the Chicago Tribune, and Alejandro Hernandez, a freelance music writer in Chicago, later joined Simons to discuss Pitchfork’s influence and what the changes mean for the future of music journalism.

* SJ-R | Springfield’s Super Bowl connection: Brendan Daly headed again to the NFL’s big game: Daly, 48, played for Ken Leonard, the winningest high school football coach in Illinois history, at Sacred Heart-Griffin High School. He has remained friends with Leonard, who retired from coaching after the 2022 season, through the years. […] Before reaching the National Football League, Daly had a nomadic coaching career, starting off at a high school in New Port Richey, Florida. His father, Mike, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, recalled in a 2021 interview with The State Journal-Register that the team didn’t win a game that season.