* The Pantagraph…

Former Illinois Rep. Dan Brady announced Monday he will be running for mayor of Bloomington in next year’s consolidated election.

Brady, who served as a Republican in the Illinois House of Representatives for more than 20 years, said in a news release his campaign for mayor will include plans to enhance public service and public safety, create affordable housing, lower taxes and supporting business and economic development with a new leadership style. […]

He recently lost a bid for Illinois Secretary of State against Alexi Giannoulias in 2022. […]

In response to Brady’s announcement Monday, Bloomington Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe said, “I welcome his entry into the race.”

Bloomington’s consolidated primary election, if necessary, will be on Feb. 25, 2025. The consolidated election will be April 1.

* Tribune…

Whether Steve Balich regains his position as a Homer Township Republican precinct committeeperson could come down to a coin flip depending on the ruling of Will County Judge John Anderson.

At issue is one ballot that was not initialed by an election judge during the March 19 primary election.

The Will County clerk’s office certified results of the election earlier this month with Homer Glen resident Tami O’Brien beating Homer Township Supervisor Steve Balich 115 votes to 114.

Balich, who is also the Republican Leader on the Will County Board, challenged those election results.

* Jake Sheridan…

* Press release…

Today, Governor JB Pritzker joined leaders from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) Program at Englewood STEM High School to announce the fifth year of CREATE grant funding. As part of the 75th street Corridor Improvement Project (CIP), the CREATE Program and its partners have donated over $600,000 since 2019 as part of their educational commitment to communities within the 75th street CIP corridor. This year’s grants will be dispersed among nine awardees including Chicago Public Schools, Leo High School, The Museum of Science and Industry, and the Chicago Public Library Foundation.

“The impact of CREATE goes beyond any economic indicators. It lies in the way it has connected and invested in our people – from workforce development to community improvement projects and of course, STEM education,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Thanks to this funding, students here in Englewood and across the 75th Street Corridor are gaining exposure to new career paths and learning the skills needed to thrive in the economy of tomorrow. At their core, these programs foster curiosity and creativity, helping students turn their ingenuity into innovation and action.”

Today’s announcement outlines awardees for the 2024-2025 school year, with grants totaling $200,000. $100,000 was direct funding from CREATE Program, with an additional $100,000 matched by Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Through partnership with Children First Fund (CFF): the Chicago Public Schools Foundation, the CREATE Program is providing CPS Schools and other educational institutions with creative programming, resources, and the establishment and improvement of STEM clubs (rocketry, cybersecurity, 3D printing, bridge building, and physics). The funding will also assist with makerspaces and internships available to Chicago Southside youth to encourage transportation and infrastructure education.

Grant funding will also positively impact the Chicago Public Library System’s ScienceConnections program, which fosters critical thinking skills and technology literacy among school-aged youth, and the annual STEAM-Powered Saturday event, which highlights year-round STEM programming across various library branches.

The CREATE Program also supports the ongoing success of programming at the Museum of Science and Industry, including their MSI Curiosity Kits and Summer Brain Games Kits, which encourage youth to engage with STEM concepts in their respective neighborhoods.

The 2024-2025 CREATE Program grant recipients are:

- Lillian R. Nicholson STEM Academy (CPS)
- Scott Joplin Elementary School (CPS)
- Asa Philip Randolph Elementary School (CPS)
- Martha Ruggles Elementary School (CPS)
- Englewood STEM High School (CPS)
- Simeon Career Academy (CPS)
- Leo High School
- Chicago Public Library
- Museum of Science and Industry

*** Statewide ***
* DPI | Democratic Party of Illinois Chair Lisa Hernandez Congratulates New DSCC 7th District Committeewoman Emma Mitts: Yesterday, the committee people of Illinois’s 7th Congressional District selected Alderwoman Emma Mitts as the new Democratic State Central Committeewoman after the passing of Committeewoman Karen Yarbrough. Democratic Party of Illinois Chair Lisa Hernandez shared the following to congratulate the newest DSCC Committeewoman: “Committeewoman Emma Mitts’s enthusiasm for the role–and for Democratic values–is palpable. Her decades of public service experience and commitment to “Unity In The Community” will bring invaluable input and energy as we gear up for critical elections up and down the ballot this November.

* SJ-R | Could a result in an Alabama election impact Illinois? One abortion-rights group says yes: This November, Planned Parenthood is backing a slate of abortion-rights Democrats running for the Illinois House and Senate. That list primarily consists of incumbents, but also 11 challengers to Republican-held House districts. Democrat victories in those districts would make House Minority Leader Tony McCombie’s job even harder, where she and 39 fellow Republicans in the 118-member chamber often lack the voting power to carry through on many of its major policy initiatives.

*** Chicago ***
* NBC Chicago | Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson not attending funeral for Officer Luis Huesca: The last-minute change comes after multiple sources told NBC Chicago Huesca’s family asked Johnson not to come. Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza said she and another state official were asked by Huesca’s “grief stricken mother” to tell Johnson “he was unwelcome at her son’s funeral.”

* WTTW | ‘He Was a Great Man’: Slain Chicago Police Officer Luis Huesca Remembered, Celebrated During Funeral: “Luis left a great impression on not only everyone sitting here, especially his team, but he’s leaving an impression on the entire country,” Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said. Huesca’s family described him as a “kind soul,” who always wanted to protect the innocent.

* Chalkbeat | Chicago school board candidates gather virtually for first debate: The group that organized the candidate forum has been advocating since the start of the school year around restoring busing for roughly 5,500 general education students who lost transportation service at the start of this school year. Most of those students travel to magnet and selective enrollment schools. CPS stopped busing general education students as it worked to ensure students with disabilities whose Individualized Education Programs require transportation were getting it and that their ride times were not longer than an hour.

* Borderless | After Decades Of Disinvestment, Black And Latino Leaders Want ‘Profound Transformation’ Amid Migrant Crisis: “Unfortunately, Black and Brown people are taking the bait,” said the Rev. Kenneth Phelps, senior pastor of Concord Missionary Baptist Church in Woodlawn. “It’s not just a feud; we’re seeing it right before our very eyes. The tensions are real.” […] “We, too, were a little bit angry with how the city was handling things,” according to Phelps, who acknowledges the complexity of it all. “ But for us, [the migrants] were helpless. They were hungry, they were hurting, and they were human. So we decided to take another tack, as opposed to protesting their presence, we decided to welcome them and approached the city, you know, and said, ‘How can we help?’”

* Crain’s | Three Chicago-area bridges among most vulnerable in the U.S.: Bloomberg’s review of government inspection reports found 14 bridges in the entire country have significant deficiencies in each of three critical structural elements. Those bridges in Chicago are: the Lake Street bridge crossing the South Branch of the Chicago River, the Chicago Avenue bridge crossing the North Branch, and the Harlem Avenue bridge crossing the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal — just north of where the street crosses Interstate 55.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | ‘No Mow May’ is a little helpful, but native plants are better, experts say: Several suburbs will see hundreds of unwieldy lawns next month as homeowners partake in “No Mow” programs, which exempt residents from local mowing codes in the name of providing shelter and food for early spring pollinators. The hands-off lawn care practice, which originated in England, has been gaining traction across North America over the last five years, and suburban communities such as Westmont, Glenview, Lombard and Northbrook are gearing up for another year of “No Mow” programs, including “No Mow ’til Mother’s Day” and “Slow Mow May.”

*** Downstate ***

* Crain’s | Why Rockford, small Midwestern cities dominate list of hottest home markets: Rockford’s affordable housing market helped put it at the No. 1 slot on the list of the nation’s hottest housing markets of first-quarter 2024, compiled by Realtor.com and published first in the Wall Street Journal on April 25. The median listing price for Rockford homes was $235,000 in March, according to the report. In Schaumburg, it’s about $283,000, according to online real estate marketplace Redfin, and in Elgin, $335,000.

* Rockford Register Star | A new market analysis says Rockford is in need of new housing. Here’s why: Rockford’s loss of population but increased employment made it difficult for the 2024 Housing Needs Assessment and Market Study to nail down an estimate for the number of needed housing units. Usually increased employment means increased population. That hasn’t been the case in Rockford, authors said. They estimate the city needs to plan for an additional 3,000 to 9,000 units of housing over the next decade to keep pace with supply and demand.

*** Sports ***
* WBEZ | Candace Parker announces retirement after 16 seasons, three WNBA championships: “I’m retiring,” Parker continued. “I promised I’d never cheat the game and that I’d leave it in a better place than I came into it. The competitor in me always wants one more, but it’s time. My heart and body knew, but I needed to give my mind time to accept it.”

* Tribune | Arlington Heights still wants Chicago Bears to consider moving there: ‘I don’t think it’s anything close to a done deal’: “We offer the opportunity for the Bears to own their own stadium, which is a big difference between our opportunity and the proposal that they submitted” to the city of Chicago for the redo of the land immediately south of where their current Soldier Field home sits, said [Mayor Tom Hayes]. […] The Arlington Heights plan, Hayes said, would have allowed the Bears to “provide that game-day experience that they have told me from day one that they were looking to do with a new stadium – that’s really kind of the industry standard now” and to be landowners.

*** National ***
* NBC | Supreme Court rejects Elon Musk’s challenge to SEC agreement to vet his social media posts: The SEC cracked down on Musk after he posted tweets in 2018 saying he had secured funding to take Tesla private, which came as a shock to the market and initially sent the company’s shares surging. The agency said the tweets were “materially false and misleading” in violation of securities law. […] Now, Musk is saying that the limits on his speech are unconstitutional and says he was effectively coerced into agreeing to it. His lawyers say in court papers that the SEC has waged an “ongoing campaign” against Musk. […] The SEC responded in court papers that Musk had waived his right to bringing his argument when he signed off on the settlement.

* NYT | Florida Abortion Ban to Take Effect, Cutting Off Major Access Point: Between 2018 and 2023, about 60 percent of abortions in Florida happened after six weeks of pregnancy, according to state data. Clinics are scheduling ultrasounds earlier and ramping up other health care services to try to stay open. Funds are training volunteers to plan travel for patients to Illinois, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. (North Carolina is closer but its waiting period to get the procedure makes it a less feasible destination.)