* ICYMI: Pritzker pitches grants to open new stores in food deserts. Sun-Times…

- Pritzker’s Illinois Grocery Initiative, enacted last year, initially offered up $3.5 million in grant funding for local grocers.
- While the first phase supported equipment upgrades for existing independently owned grocers, the second phase of the program will offer grants to open new grocery stores in food deserts.
- The awards, which can range between $160,000 and $2.4 million, require the recipient to put up matching funds equal to one-third of the grant.

* Related stories…

∙ Forbes: Gov. JB Pritzker Announces Phase 2 Of Statewide Initiative To Improve Fresh Food Access In Illinois
∙ WREX: Governor Pritzker announces Illinois Grocery Initiative, aiming to bring new grocery stores to food deserts and improve existing ones

* Isabel’s top picks…

* Tribune | Local School Council elections are this week. Why that matters to your community.: Local School Councils exist at each of the more than 600 public schools spanning all 77 neighborhoods of Chicago, and operate independently of the district administration, the school board and other schools. They were created in part to give Chicago parents more control over what happens at their children’s schools. […] In recent months, the autonomy of LSCs came up when the Board of Education voted to remove student resource officers from all district schools — a controversial measure that effectively removed local school decision-makers from the process.

* ABC Chicago | Blue Island Police Department to swear in its 1st officer who is a DACA recipient: On Tuesday night, she will become a police officer for the south suburb, and she wants to encourage others to follow their dreams, regardless of their citizenship status. Mitchell Soto-Rodriguez has deep roots in Blue Island. “Some officers, when I’m riding with them, they are like, ‘you say hi to everyone.’ Well, I know the community, so they know me. They know who I am,” Soto-Rodriguez said.

Governor Pritzker will be in Springfield to give remarks at the Illinois Makers Madness Luncheon. Click here to watch at 12:30 pm.
* Here’s the rest…

* Daily Herald | Lake County staffer leaving for state post as adviser on homelessness: In May, Community Development Administrator Brenda O’Connell will join the Illinois Housing Development Authority as a senior policy adviser responsible for coordinating the agency’s work in the statewide homeless response. In announcing her departure, O’Connell lauded the partnership of others for ensuring the success of various programs.

* WAND | Champaign County Auditor under investigation: Serious allegations have been made against the Champaign County Auditor after months of complaints by his staff and a forensic audit of his computer. WAND obtained documents of filed HR complaints from staff accusing auditor George Danos of having inappropriate images on his work computer, undressing in front of staff and berating and cursing at staff members.

* Daily Herald | Kane County Board delays vote on sales tax referendum: But board member Chris Kious said the resolution should be sent to the finance committee for discussion first. While the committee previously discussed the idea of instituting a sales tax, Kious said the panel never considered a formal resolution. The board agreed unanimously.

* Daily Herald | Should DuPage County elected officials get a pay raise?: Members of the county board’s finance committee Tuesday seemed to settle on a proposal that would offer those board members and countywide officials also on the November ballot no raises in the first two years of their terms. They would receive a 2% and 3% increase in the final two years of their terms if board members sign off on the proposal later this month. Currently, county board members are paid $52,102 a year. Under the proposed increases, board members would see a $1,042 bump in the third year of their term and a $1,594 increase in their fourth year.

* BND | Madison County Board will consider putting secession question to voters in November: The Government Relations Committee of the Madison County Board on April 2 approved a nonbinding advisory referendum 6-1 that asks voters if they should communicate with other counties outside Chicago about secession. The full board still needs to approve the referendum for it to be on the November ballot. The committee’s actions possibly negated a requirement that supporters gather roughly 7,800 signatures — about 8% of the county’s turnout during the last gubernatorial election — to get the referendum in front of the county’s voters.

* Tribune | Evanston to continue exploring options for migrant shelter: Discussions at the April 8 City Council meeting moved away from hosting a potential shelter at 1020 Church Street, a vacant two-story office space with the ability to house anywhere from 60 to 65 people, or the Morton Civic Center, where city operations are being temporarily moved from starting in July.

* QC Times | Moline-Coal Valley school board votes to censure member Farrell over dating app allegations: As previously reported, Matthew Harris — the ex-husband of Farrell’s wife — claims Farrell has been “pretending to be (him),” including pretending to be a veteran, on Tinder. He detailed the accusations in a YouTube video titled, “Moline Coal Valley School Board Member Pretends to be Military Veteran on Tinder.”

* Daily Beast | The Catfish Scandal Rocking an Illinois School Board: “We are not a court or jury, but the alleged conduct is just so deeply disturbing, and it has resulted in the district being cast in a terrible light,” board President Andrew Waeyaert said at the meeting. “The board and administration have been inundated with inquiries, complaints, and FOIA requests about this matter, and it has monopolized all of our time,” he added. “This situation and its impact have taken away countless hours from our mission, which is to serve kids and families.”

* Sun-Times | Lori Lightfoot hired to investigate embattled Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard: Lightfoot was greeted by a round of applause and cheering at Monday’s meeting, telling the crowd their large turnout was an indication that “people in this village want something different, they want to go in a different direction.”

* Crain’s | On O’Hare expansion, the city gives the airlines what they want: In a letter sent to the airlines last week and obtained by Crain’s, the Johnson administration offers the airlines what they have been pushing for: a new sequence of construction for the long-stalled airport revamp as well as a signal that some of the fancier design elements included in the original blueprint could be dropped. “The city plans to prioritize construction of Satellite 1 and O’Hare global terminal before construction of Satellite 2, while continuing work on aspects of Satellite 2 and other (Terminal Area Project) elements that are necessary,” the letter states.

* Sun-Times | Watchdog chief questions whether Chicago cops lied about why they stopped Dexter Reed before killing him in exchange of gunfire: COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten raised “grave concerns” about the officers in a letter to police Supt. Larry Snelling last week, days before her agency released video it said showed the officers firing roughly 96 shots in just 41 seconds after Reed shot one of them during a traffic stop.

* PJ Star | Illinois issues warning on cosmetic procedures after 2 hospitalized with botulism symptoms: Both patients had received injections of Botox, or a similar counterfeit product, from a licensed nurse in LaSalle County who was performing work outside of her authority, according to a news release from IDPH.

* Tribune | Federal court delivers another victory to Obama Foundation in park group fight: Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Wood — joined by Judges Ilana Rovner and David Hamilton — ruled against the parks advocacy group, which argued in October that the city’s agreement to lease a slice of Jackson Park to former President Barack Obama’s foundation to build a museum and complex violated the public trust.

* Bloomberg | How the U.S. Steel takeover became about Biden and swing states: Unions don’t typically hold much sway in the world of takeover battles. But Nippon Steel’s bid to buy US Steel is now caught in an election year maelstrom as President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, in the wake of the union’s objections, have both publicly opposed the deal as they vie for blue-collar votes. The turmoil threatens to strain American relations with one of its top allies while underscoring how the politics of winning swing-state voters is dramatically influencing the corporate landscape.

* WCIA | UI study examines social media usage during disaster: Tweets from Puerto Rico and places in the U.S. with large Puerto Rican populations — like Florida, California, New York and Texas — were considered in the sampling. Pérez Figueroa said that despite the collapse of the island’s power grid, users in Puerto Rico were still able to access Twitter during the hurricane. He believes this is because Twitter does not require a strong signal to use, making it more reliable under extreme conditions.

* Tribune | Proposed master plan for former McDonald’s campus in Oak Brook recommends mixed-use district: The proposed master plan for a project to be developed on the former McDonald’s campus site in Oak Brook includes a mixed-use district of restaurants and retail, along with both owner-occupied condominiums and townhomes. The plan was to be submitted Tuesday, April 9 for preliminary review by the Oak Brook Village Board and still needs approval before work may begin. Village Manager Greg Summers said the preliminary board review is the very first step in the process for a proposed Planned Development.

* SJ-R | African American History Museum in Springfield searching for new executive director: The Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum is starting the search for their next executive director, following first director Nalo Mitchell’s resignation from the museum on March 30. Mitchell announced her leaving of the museum in a statement days before a Women’s History Month panel which took place on March 30. In the statement, Mitchell said she has served her one-year contract with the museum successfully, as she moves forward in her career.

* The Nation | Elon Musk Wants to Gut the National Labor Relations Act: In late November, at a New York Times DealBook Summit where the aspiring-to-be-rich gather to get pointers from the actually rich, the Tesla CEO explained that “I disagree with the idea of unions…. I just don’t like anything which creates a lords-and-peasants sort of thing.” In the same interview, Musk—a mega­-billionaire who famously threatened, in 2018, to take away the stock options of Tesla workers if they organized to exercise their collective-bargaining rights—griped, “I think the unions naturally try to create negativity in a company.”

* Sun-Sentinel | Judge blocks teacher pronoun restriction, saying Florida once again has a ‘First Amendment problem’: A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Florida education officials from enforcing a law requiring a transgender teacher to use pronouns that align with her sex assigned at birth, saying the law violated her First Amendment rights. The 2023 law restricts educators’ use of personal pronouns and titles in schools.

* NYT | The U.S. Urgently Needs a Bigger Grid. Here’s a Fast Solution: Replacing existing power lines with cables made from state-of-the-art materials could roughly double the capacity of the electric grid in many parts of the country, making room for much more wind and solar power. This technique, known as “advanced reconductoring,” is widely used in other countries. But many U.S. utilities have been slow to embrace it because of their unfamiliarity with the technology as well as regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles, researchers found.

* Sports Handle | Illinois Sports Betting Handle Totals $1.07 Billion For February: The state collected more than $12.5 million in tax receipts, lifting its two-month total for 2024 to $32.8 million. Cook County, which is home to Chicago and has a 2% levy on revenue generated within its limits, saw an inflow of $921,855 into its coffers for the month.

* Sun-Times | Amid slow start, injuries, White Sox manager Pedro Grifol faces uphill climb: Pedro Grifol, in the second year of a three-year contract, has his hands full with a roster that not only wasn’t built to win but was projected to lose 100 games. And that was before the Sox traded Cy Young candidate Dylan Cease. And before their only star, center fielder Luis Robert Jr., went down for weeks with a torn hip flexor a week into the season.

* The Southern | Despite heavy eclipse traffic, no major emergencies in region: Paul Wappel, public information officer for the Illinois Department of Transportation, said the lack of major emergencies resulted from preparations from state and local agencies. Wappel said IDOT met with more than 36 counties and municipalities months ago to plan and prepare for Monday.

* WSIL | Eight Babies Born at One Hospital in the Path of Totality on the Day of the Total Solar Eclipse: These eight total solar eclipse babies were announced on the SSM Health Illinois Facebook page on Tuesday. Five boys and three girls were born at the SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital on April 8, 2024. The hospital is located in Mt. Vernon which was in the path of totality.