* House Speaker Chris Welch on the mass transit fiscal cliff…

They should've known there was no way this would happen in veto session, which requires three-fifths votes to pass anything with an immediate effective date. If they didn't know, then that's a big part of their problem.

— Capitol Fax (@capitolfax) September 17, 2024

* WAND…

A former Springfield Police Department lieutenant will be named Sangamon County Sheriff, according to a statement by Sangamon County Board Chairman Andy Van Meter.

Paula Crouch is expected to be confirmed as the new sheriff at Wednesday’s board meeting. She will lead the embattled department after former Sheriff Jack Campbell retired last month following the police shooting death of Sonya Massey.

Crouch, if approved by the board, will serve out the remainder of Campbell’s term which ends in December 2026. […]

Crouch started with the Springfield Police Department in 1999 after first serving as a 911 dispatcher, according to a statement by Van Meter. She retired in 2023 from law enforcement but has most recently served as the Chief Deputy of Administration in the Sangamon County Circuit Clerk’s Office.

* Block Club…

Crews made quick work Monday of flattening an unsanctioned skate park under a state expressway in Bridgeport after South Siders tried for months to get a meeting so they could make their case to keep it.

A bulldozer knocked down the community skate park at the Stevenson Expressway underpass intersecting with South Loomis Street — dubbed “Irish Banks” — about 9 a.m. Monday. As local skaters looked on, crews with the Illinois Department of Transportation cleared away the last bits of rubble from a 20,000-pound concrete quarter pipe the skaters poured themselves. […]

State Rep. Theresa Mah got IDOT to delay a previous demolition date as she looked to broker a meeting between officials and skaters. Ald. Nicole Lee (11th) also threw her support behind the skate park, saying she might “give it a try” on a scooter.

Mah said Monday she “didn’t know anything about” the demolition despite ongoing talks with IDOT. […]

Mah said she will keep lobbying IDOT to permit the skate park for use by the Park District, similar to a model that formalized a skate park under the state-owned Kennedy Expressway in Logan Square. But the “crux of the issue” was that the Logan Square skate park had “movable structures,” unlike Irish Banks, Mah said.

*** La Schiazza Trial ***

* Tribune | A crime or just political jostling? Jury hears arguments in former AT&T exec’s bribery trial: In the end, after all the sweating by AT&T President Paul La Schiazza over House Speaker Michael Madigan’s power to block favorable legislation and all the handwringing over secretly hiring a Madigan ally to win the speaker’s influence, it wound up being a “pretty successful” bribery scheme, a federal prosecutor told a jury Tuesday. AT&T got its bill to end mandated landline service, a national priority that stood to save the phone giant hundreds of millions of dollars. La Schiazza got the “white whale” he’d spent years chasing, backslaps from superiors and a nice little $85,000 bonus. And former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo got his $22,500 payday, in the form of a do-nothing “consulting” contract, the prosecutor said.

* Sun-Times | Feds say AT&T president bribed Michael Madigan to land his ‘white whale’: Assistant U.S. Attorney Sushma Raju delivered a 90-minute closing argument at the end of the trial of former utility head Paul La Schiazza, laying out the evidence in Chicago’s latest corruption trial. And to show the exchange between AT&T Illinois and Madigan, she pointed to emails sent less than two weeks after the utility finally secured its legislative priority — and after it arranged $22,500 for ex-state Rep. Edward “Eddie” Acevedo.

*** Chicago ***

* WBEZ | CPS looks to improve neighborhood schools, backs off changes at selective enrollments and charters: Avoiding the thorniest topics around selective enrollment, magnet and charter schools is likely to go over well with critics of Mayor Brandon Johnson and his appointed school board following a board resolution last year that vowed to favor neighborhood schools.

* Tribune | Illinois Supreme Court hears arguments in Jussie Smollett case: Largely at issue throughout the appeal has been a decision by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office to drop charges against Smollett, a move that at the time embroiled State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office in controversy. On Tuesday, Supreme Court justices fired questions at attorneys for both Smollett and the state, digging into the matter of what constitutes an agreement with prosecutors.

* WTTW | Key City Panel OKs 6 of Mayor’s 7 Picks to Serve on Chicago Police Oversight Board: The City Council’s Police and Fire Committee unanimously advanced the nominations of Anthony Driver Jr., Remel Terry, Aaron Gottlieb, Abierre Minor, Kelly Presley and Sandra Wortham to serve four-year terms on the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. Driver, a South Side resident, serves as president of the interim commission, which is designed to give Chicagoans real control of the police department as part of an effort to build trust in officers and police brass and put an end to repeated allegations of misconduct.

* Tribune | Could Chicago lower its citywide speed limit? Aldermen weigh drop from 30 mph to 25 mph: The effort got its first look in the City Council Wednesday during a Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee subject matter hearing where experts praised the potential shift. They lauded the impact small decreases in speed could have to reduce crash deaths. No legislative effort to lower the limit has yet been made, and Ald. Daniel La Spata, the committee chair, promised there was no ordinance “sitting under the table.”

* Crain’s | Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lee Bey joins ABC7 Chicago as architecture critic: During a conversation with anchors Rob Elgas and Cheryl Burton, Bey discussed designs for the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, Bally’s permanent casino at the former Freedom Center printing plant in River West and a proposal for a new Chicago Bears stadium along the lakefront. Bey has written numerous works on architecture, including the book “Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side.” In addition to his writing, he previously served as chief of staff for architecture and urban planning in the Mayor Richard M. Daley administration.

* Tribune | Can we engineer our way out of the climate crisis? U. of C. hopes to find out: Could clouds be brightened so they reflect more sunlight back into outer space? If lab-grown seaweed is sunk into the ocean, how much carbon dioxide could it absorb? Would drilling holes into glaciers extract enough heat to slow sea level rise? The University of Chicago positioned itself as a leader in this emergent field — known as geoengineering — after recruiting renowned physicist David Keith to build out a climate engineering program with 10 tenure-track faculty hires and several young researchers.

* Crain’s | Florida firm nears discount deal for distressed Loop office tower: No deal has been completed and the discussions could still fall apart at a precarious time for landing financing for office purchases, sources said. But a sale at roughly $70 per square foot for the 1.4 million-square-foot tower would be a fraction of the $375 million that a joint venture of Chicago-based real estate firms Hearn and GEM Realty Capital and San Francisco-based Farallon Capital Management paid for the building in 2014, according to Cook County property records.

* Block Club | Chicago Needs A Shower: Why The City Smells So Bad Right Now: From Edgewater to Roscoe Village to Beverly, Chicagoans have said they’ve been smelling similar wafts of sewage this month. Online, a Reddit user said they were getting “gross, fishy wafts of stank” outside of a West Loop McDonald’s last week. The culprit: Lack of rainfall, said Megan Vidis, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Water Management.

* ABC Chicago | How the ‘Salsa King of Chicago’ turned his family tradition into a business: Salsa King of Chicago owner Marty Garcia grew up watching his mother make homemade salsa. Eventually, he and his brothers made it. […] “It wasn’t my vision to be on grocery store shelves. It wasn’t my vision to be in stores all over Illinois and Wisconsin and Wrigley Field,” Garcia said. But he is. Four years ago, Garcia was working in a downtown office, making salsa for lunch. His co-workers loved it so much that they helped convince him to start selling it.

* ESPN | How White Sox clubhouse is coping as worst team in MLB history: Last week, hours after the Chicago White Sox’s latest attempt to win a baseball game fell apart in typically absurd fashion, Davis Martin could only chuckle. Every White Sox player has found a coping mechanism to endure the 2024 season, and Martin’s is laughter. Unlike much of the sports world, he’s not snickering at the team, but rather at how every day seems to invite something more farcical than the previous. Martin was the starting pitcher in that game, looking to secure Chicago’s first win at Guaranteed Rate Field in a month. Going winless at home for so long is almost impossible for a Major League Baseball team. The White Sox seem to specialize in acts of futility: Sometime in the next 10 days, they could lose their 121st game and pass the 1962 New York Mets for the most losses in an MLB season since the dawn of the 20th century. Never in baseball’s modern history has the game witnessed a team like the 2024 White Sox, whose commitment to the bit of playing a positively wretched brand of baseball has not waned even as the season has.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | Lake Zurich facility set to become suburbs’ second DMV+: As part of the work, a confusing design with separate driver and vehicle services will be changed so customers can get a license and sticker, for example, at one counter rather than waiting at separate spots for assistance. At the single service counter, customers will be able to renew a driver’s license or state ID; apply for a REAL ID; register or renew vehicle registration and get vehicle stickers; convert a temporary driver’s license to a standard one; order a new license plate; register to vote; and join the Illinois Organ and Tissue Donor Registry.

* Daily Herald | Hanover Park parks board president cited over verbal assault of teen referee: According to a partially redacted police report, which cited video footage of a U-14 soccer game between teams from the Hanover Park and Streamwood park districts, [Hanover Park Park District board President Mark Elkins] is accused of running onto the field during the second half and yelling at the referee for not giving a foul call. […] “I needed to make a show so that he knows I’m calling him out for not calling the game properly,” Elkins is quoted as saying in the report.

* Daily Herald | Michael Jordan finally finds buyer for his Highland Park mansion: Basketball legend Michael Jordan has found a buyer for his ultra custom mansion in Highland Park and is on track to end his years-long saga to sell one of the most iconic homes in the area. The home in the affluent suburb went into contract on Sunday, according to Katherine Malkin of Compass Inc., the listing agent, who declined to provide further information about the deal.

* Daily Herald | Pickleball boom continues with three new Picklr openings: Pickleball continues to be the fastest-growing sport in America. Participation grew 51.8% between 2022-23, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, and 223.5% in three years. New pickleball clubs in Mount Prospect, Mundelein and Villa Park will help meet the surging demand.

*** Downstate ***

* PJ Star | Why Morton decided to remove its fire chief after 25 years: The trustees voted unanimously to remove Joe Kelley as director of fire and emergency services after he moved outside village limits last month. He also had not been driving his village-assigned vehicle, which was also a violation of the municipal code. Village President Jeffrey Kaufman made the decision to remove Kelley on Aug. 29 and announced his decision at their Sept. 3 board meeting. A yes-no vote on reinstatement, required to complete the state-mandated, two-step process for removal or reinstatement of municipal officials, was tabled until Monday’s meeting. All six trustees voted no to Kelley’s reinstatement.

* WCIA | DACC president on leave after investigation into mayor’s complaints: The board recommended job termination for DACC President Stephen Nacco. It came after a three-hour discussion period behind closed doors. […] The investigation began in August following a complaint to the Board of Trustees from Danville Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. It started when the mayor claimed Nacco used abusive language in text and during in-person communication exchanges — including claims Nacco called Mayor Williams “boy,” which Williams said is historically associated with racial slurs.

* Capitol City Now | Budget process “bugs” D-186 president: A frustrated board president Micah Miller presided over Monday’s District 186 school board meeting, at which the board passed a deficit budget. “What kind of bugs me about this process,” said Miller, “and having had four different budget directors in the past five years, and then having had $107 million worth of ESSER money that’s been sprinkled into the mix, and all those nuances, is it gets really hard to keep track – apples to apples – each year, and also to assign any accountability when you are trying to look back at different years and where we are in this year.”

* SJ-R | ‘Your hurting — we’ve heard it.’ Massey Commission holds first listening session: Several people expressed concern about the proposed makeup and representation of the 12-member Massey Commission as it held its first public listening session at Union Baptist Church Monday. While the full slate is expected to be announced later this week, one of the co-chairs of the commission, the Rev. T. Ray McJunkins acknowledged that nine people have already affirmed that they have agreed to serve, including a family member of Sonya Massey, the namesake of the commission, who was fatally shot in her home in an unincorporated part of Woodside Township after reporting a possible intruder on July 6.

* Tribune | BrightFarms opens second Illinois greenhouse, plots nationwide expansion of hydroponic salad greens it sells in grocery stores: Hydroponic grower BrightFarms has opened a new greenhouse in Yorkville, about 50 miles outside Chicago, as part of a nationwide expansion it says will eventually increase its growing capacity seven times over. The greenhouse is the second in Illinois for BrightFarms, which grows leafy greens sold in grocery stores including Mariano’s and Jewel-Osco.

*** National ***

* Vox | Are Americans generous?: For 20 years, experts have sounded the alarm on the decline of charitable giving in the US. Then came the pandemic, which led to a wave of new donations and volunteers to nonprofits. For some leaders, this was a sign that perhaps the retreat from philanthropy was reversing course. But it’s clear now, according to a substantial new report released today by a group of nearly 200 philanthropic leaders, that Covid-19 did not bring about any lasting reversal of declining charitable giving — and many of the trends identified in the 2010s have only since accelerated.

* AP | Suspicious packages sent to election officials in at least 6 states: Powder-containing packages were sent to secretaries of state and state election offices in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wyoming and Oklahoma, officials in those states confirmed. The FBI and U.S. Postal Service were investigating. It marked the second time in the past year that suspicious packages were mailed to election officials in multiple state offices. […] Several of the states reported a white powder substance found in envelopes sent to election officials. In most cases, the material was found to be harmless. Oklahoma officials said the material sent to the election office there contained flour. Wyoming officials have not yet said if the material sent there was hazardous.