* ICYMI: Illinois legislators dominated their Missouri counterparts in the annual Greater St. Louis Inc. Bi-State Softball Showdown played at Busch Stadium since the series began in 2019…

MVP is winning pitcher Bob Rita pic.twitter.com/StjzT5R6LJ

— Capitol Fax (@capitolfax) September 6, 2024

Subscribers know more.

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Sun-Times | ‘Everything is on the table’ to eliminate $982.4 million budget shortfall, top mayoral aide says: Budget Director Annette Guzman said options range from layoffs and pay cuts on the expense side to a property tax increase, video gaming and volume-based garbage collection fees on the revenue end.

* Crain’s | Chicago Sun-Times knocked down its paywall. Now it’s putting up fences: Two years after eliminating its paywall and giving people access to articles with just an email registration, readers today were met with a message inviting them to sign up for recurring donations or watch a video with advertisements. It appears to be a light reversal of one of the bigger changes to the Sun-Times since its acquisition by WBEZ parent Chicago Public Media in 2022.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Patch | IARF Names Four Legislators Champions for Supporting Wage Increases: The state association representing community providers of services for this disabled is publicly praising four legislators for stepping up to improve care. The Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities has honored the four legislators for their support of funding to hire workers to provide high-quality care.

* Daily Herald | Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza to talk about fair pay and economic equity for women: Illinois Comptroller Susana A. Mendoza will speak about the status of “Fair Pay and Economic Equity for Women in the state of Illinois” on Wednesday, Oct. 2. This program is sponsored by the AAUW Elmhurst Branch, League of Women Voters Elmhurst, and the Elmhurst Public Library,

* WSIU | A south-central Illinois lawmaker launches a petition drive to halt the Illinois flag redesign: Republican State Representative Adam Niemerg from Dieterich says the effort to change the Illinois flag is a blatant attempt to infuse far-left ideology onto the state’s flag and he is calling on Illinois citizens to join him in opposing the redesign efforts. says he’s concerned about the direction of the flag redesign after Governor JB Pritzker said it may be time to create a new flag that exemplifies the values of Illinois.

* WSIL | Giannoulias Announces Libraries Receiving Grants: Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announces more than $496,000 in grant funding to improve local library services. Library districts will receive funding to help ensure all residents have access to quality resources and programming. Libraries throughout the 58th Senate District, serving over 126,000 people, receive a combined $496,783 in grants.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | Ahead of the DNC, City Hall spent $814,000 on a fence to lock out homeless: The massive barrier was part of an “emergency” effort to permanently lock out unhoused people from the location near the United Center, where the convention was held, the records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show. The Johnson administration had refused to say how much taxpayer money went toward blocking off the green strip of land between the 1100 block of South Desplaines Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway just north of Roosevelt Road until after the nationally televised gathering was over. The Sun-Times has been asking for those records, which should be public under state law, since July, when that tent city was cleared of its residents, the tents and the items they left behind.

* Crain’s | Brandon Johnson facing potential labor fight as spending cuts set to begin: Without easy revenue sources, Johnson has said more drastic personnel options are on the table, including eliminating vacancies, furloughs for city workers and, if all else fails, what one member of the City Council described as the “L word”: layoffs. “The L-word is a bad word. Layoffs, that’s a very, very bad word,” said Ald. Michael Rodriguez, 22nd, who chairs the Workforce Development Committee. “Not on the back of city workers do we balance this budget.”

* WBEZ | Chicago school board elections see big ’school choice’ cash, including from billionaires: Two groups that support “school choice” and charter schools and are critical of the Chicago Teachers Union have amassed $3.6 million from prominent business leaders — including a few billionaires — looking to shape the city’s first-ever school board elections. […] One of the independent expenditure committees, Urban Center Action, was formed earlier this summer by Juan Rangel, who recently worked for a private school tax credit program and previously was fired amid controversy from UNO Charter Schools, a large network he founded. Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO who lost against Mayor Brandon Johnson in last year’s mayoral election, is also affiliated. The group has raked in $671,000 in less than two months, state election records show.

* Tribune | With CTU and school choice proponents investing in elected school board races, do ‘independent’ candidates stand a chance?: Since filing their nomination paperwork in June, 15 candidates have fallen out of the running in Chicago’s historic school board election this November. With the exception of one candidate, each of the hopefuls either withdrew their names or were knocked off the ballot during the objections process. Challenging the validity of the constituent signatures that every candidate running for office in Illinois is required to file, the more than 40 objections to school board candidates were filed by only a handful of nine lawyers whose ranks include high-profile political operatives and lobbyists.

* NBC Chicago | Bears CEO says team is open to working with White Sox on stadium funding bid: Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren said that the team would still prefer to build a new stadium within city limits, and expressed a willingness to work with another team in securing funding for the project. Speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago, Warren said that he’s aware of “how difficult” projects like the proposed stadium can be, but that the benefits would far outweigh the drawbacks, bringing marquee events and new jobs to the city.

* Block Club | Workers Leave Gaping Hole On South Side Block — And For Months, No One Has Fixed It: Little work has been done at the site since early June, Green said. The street is still largely inaccessible, and the hole in the middle of the street has become a repository for trash, with people tossing empty fast food bags, bottles and dog waste into it. Steel planks put on the ground to cover it have instead started to shift away from the hole, leaving it exposed. Residents are at the end of their rope, with some ready to leave the block altogether.

* NBC Chicago | Bronzeville child care center closes due to lack of teaching staff: Low-income families that met certain requirements could send their children, ranging from 6 weeks to 5 years of age, to the center for free before its closure earlier this month. According to the non-profit’s CEO, staffing has struggled as workers have left the facility for jobs with better wages. “We have tried to get additional funding so we can have competitive wages. The main issue is, we are competing for staff. And we cannot afford to compete,” Center for New Horizons CEO Lakisha McFadden said.

* Crain’s | Long-awaited O’Hare concessions contracts put out for bid: The city of Chicago is finally putting out for bid the concessions contract for O’Hare’s domestic terminals, one of the most lucrative deals at the airport. But the management and operation of more than 100 restaurants and shops in Terminals 1 and 3 will look very different. Today those deals are largely held by just two vendors — HMSHost and Hudson Group. But a Department of Aviation website shows 20 individual contracts up for bid, as well as another deal to operate duty-free shops.

* Sun-Times | 2 Chicago cops, including deputy chief, charged in tire-slashing incident, sources say: Deputy Chief Roberto Nieves, 53, and Officer Jacob Gies, 26, were both charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal damage to property, police said in a statement. They surrendered to police at the Central District, 1718 S. State St., according to an internal police alert. They have both been relieved of their policing powers, and Nieves was demoted to captain, police said.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Sun-Times | Evanston shelter mourns former resident killed in Blue Line shooting: ‘Nobody’s really OK’ : Connections for the Homeless helped Margaret Miller Johnson secure housing in 2020. They do not know how she ended up on the Blue Line but said her death is a painful reminder: “Our society can and should do better.”

* Daily Herald | A green resting place: Palatine Catholic cemetery embraces natural burial trend: Run by the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Meadows of St. Kateri, a new section at St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery, now caters to green burials. “Natural burial has been becoming more and more prevalent in society. The requests from families for natural burial have continuously increased every year,” said Ted Ratajczyk, executive director of Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

* Tribune | Feds flag Chicago-area business magnate over alleged tax fraud involving NFL players: A search warrant recently unsealed in U.S. District Court alleged John Burgess, 75, of North Barrington, directed a scheme to “aid and assist” dozens of National Football League clients in filing false returns that reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in phony charitable contributions and business losses, dramatically altering the players’ tax due. The investigation began in 2017 and centers on two Burgess-owned companies: Valuation Advisory Services, a tax preparation business; and Entertainment Tax Advisors LLC, a consulting services firm that at one point counted around 50 professional athletes as clients, according to the sworn affidavit from a special agent with the IRS criminal investigation division.

*** Downstate ***

* WCBU | Peoria County Board of Health ends efforts to implement Cure Violence: The unanimously-passed motion to terminate the health department’s contract, effective immediately, followed an almost two-hour executive session at a special meeting of the Peoria County Board of Health Thursday night. Board of health secretary Ben Brewer told WCBU the entire discussion was held in an executive session because terminating a contract opens the possibility of potential litigation. He said an additional motion, to have an audit performed on the department’s business with Cure Violence, is typical of any contract termination.

* Madison Record | Class action over $180 million Casino Queen pension wipeout settles: Former owners of Casino Queen settled a claim that they deliberately sold the casino to employees on terms that nearly wiped out their $180 million pension plan. Ryan Wheeler of Washington D.C., one of eight lawyers representing pension plan participants, reported the settlement to U.S. District Judge David Dugan on Sept. 3.

* Pantagraph | Rivian moves toward potential expansion across the street from Normal plant: The company’s plans to subdivide the property, designating two 90-acre parcels for future development, earned a positive recommendation from the Normal Planning Commission on Thursday. The Normal Town Council has the final say on the plans, which also call for an extension of College Avenue.

* WCIA | Lincoln fire under control, building likely a total loss: Aaron Johnson, the Chief of the Lincoln Fire Department, said the fire is under control but the building that burned is likely a total loss. He added that there isn’t much holding the building up. Caution tape has been set up to keep people away from the unstable ruins.

*** National ***

* Bloomberg | How Local Governments Got Hooked on One Company’s Janky Software: Clerks and lawyers were worried, to put it mildly, about North Carolina’s $100 million-plus software upgrade. After more than three years of custom development, the state was finally ready to introduce Odyssey, a digital suite that promised to streamline trial date scheduling, court document sharing, fine collection and communication among divisions. But within the first few months that four counties adopted Odyssey early last year, state administrators discovered 573 defects. Users complained about the “wheel of death” that spun interminably when they tried to load cases. There were reports of glitches resulting in erroneous court summons, inaccurate speeding tickets and even wrongful arrests.