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Isabel’s afternoon roundup

Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* House Speaker Chris Welch on the mass transit fiscal cliff


* 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.

  9 Comments      


The Republican Party’s problem in the suburbs summed up by one article

Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller

* There are simply too many preposterous claims and ridiculous projections being made in a Daily Herald article about a debate in the 6th Congressional District to sum up on this website. So, go read the whole thing

“Everything I stated has been documented and reported, and I stated no falsehoods,” she said. “His accusing me of doing so just underscores the narrative that he and his party are pushing and the misinformation they are pushing out to the public.”

There’s even more in the video.

  27 Comments      


Caption contest! (Updated x3)

Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Background is here if you need it. Isabel posted this Sun-Times story earlier

The Chicago White Sox and mega-developer Related Midwest put on a South Loop fantasy camp Monday in their latest pitch to state lawmakers who so far aren’t swinging on public funding for a new stadium. […]

“Everyone knows this would be awesome. That doesn’t mean taxpayers should put up a dime for it,” the representative said, asking not to be named.

Lawmakers across the state have uniformly bristled at White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s push for about $1 billion in public funding for the project, including a tax-increment financing district, an extension of the 2% hotel tax increase used to renovate Soldier Field and a new sales tax overlay district around The 78. The team Reinsdorf is currently fielding at Guaranteed Rate Field is closing in on the modern-day Major League Baseball record for most losses in a season.

* Somebody I know took a pic as the boat went by…

Not exactly a huge turnout.

…Adding… Yep…


…Adding… Republican Senator from Springfield…

…Adding… House Speaker Chris Welch said today that he attended the event…

I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see what this diamond looked like… I was there. It was a beautiful baseball field. What a great view. But again, that doesn’t change the conversation about who pays for it. You know, it’s certainly something I think would be a great economic development project for the city of Chicago to have, a 78th neighborhood. I think 78 is great, by the way. A 78th neighborhood would be great for Chicago. But again, I think when it comes to a baseball stadium, that might be something private investors might want to look at.

  53 Comments      


Millions of Illinois election records were exposed by contractor’s unsecured databases

Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* WIRED last month

Databases containing sensitive voter information from multiple counties in Illinois were openly accessible on the internet, revealing 4.6 million records that included driver’s license numbers as well as full and partial Social Security Numbers and documents like death certificates. Longtime security researcher Jeremiah Fowler stumbled upon one of the databases that appeared to contain information from DeKalb County, Illinois, and subsequently discovered another 12 exposed databases. None were password protected nor required any type of authentication to access. […]

“I’ve found voter databases in the past, so I kind of know if it’s a low-level marketing outreach database that someone has purchased,” Fowler tells WIRED. “But here I saw voter applications— there were actually scans of documents, and then screenshots of online applications. I saw voter rolls for active voters, absentee voters with email addresses, some of them military email addresses. And when I saw Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers and death certificates I was like, ‘OK, those shouldn’t be there.’”

Through public records, Fowler determined that all of the counties appear to contract with an Illinois-based election management service called Platinum Technology Resource, which provides voter registration software and other digital tools along with services like ballot printing. Many counties in Illinois use Platinum Technology Resource as an election services provider, including DeKalb, which confirmed its relationship with Platinum to WIRED.

Fowler reported the unprotected databases to Platinum on July 18, but he says he didn’t receive a response and the databases remained exposed. As Fowler dug deeper into public records, he realized that Platinum works with the Illinois-based managed services provider Magenium, so he sent a disclosure to this company as well on July 19. Again, he says he did not receive a response, but shortly after the databases were secured, pulling them from public view. Platinum and Magenium did not return WIRED’s multiple requests for comment.

* Capitol News Illinois today

Fowler identified 15 unsecure databases before contacting several county clerks and eventually a technology vendor that is contracted to provide services for those counties.

Fowler told Capitol News Illinois that the list of counties affected include Alexander, Boone, Champaign, DeKalb, Effingham, Gallatin, Hamilton, Henry, Jefferson, Ogle, Pike, Sangamon, St. Clair, Williamson and Winnebago.

He traced the issue to Platinum Technology Resource, an elections technology company based in Batavia. It is unclear if anyone other than Fowler accessed the information, although Platinum has denied that any voter registration forms were “leaked or stolen.”

Capitol News Illinois contacted county clerks in all of the counties Fowler identified. All but one, Alexander County, responded and indicated they had been in communication with Platinum about the issue. One other county, Henry, denied that they were affected by the incident. […]

Platinum’s website indicates it currently contracts with 20 election authorities around Illinois. A Capitol News Illinois review of 12 of its contracts showed they had a cumulative value of more than $1.7 million of annual license fees ranging from about $4,500 to $58,000.

  11 Comments      


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Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Advertising Department

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  Comments Off      


Today’s quotable

Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Daily Herald story on the one-year anniversary of the end of cash bail

Some remain unconvinced of cashless bail’s merit. Describing the law as “failed and flawed,” Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain says it put more people into custody and strained the court system by increasing caseloads. […]

— The Lake County Sheriff’s Office reported a total of 639 individuals in custody at the jail on Sept. 10, 2023, with 98 on electronic monitoring, and 604 individuals in custody on Sept. 10, 2024, with 84 on electronic monitoring.

— Conversely, according to Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain, jail population increased from a daily average of 270 in 2023 to 320 in 2024.

  32 Comments      


Open thread

Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* What’s going on? Keep it Illinois-centric please…

  6 Comments      


Isabel’s morning briefing

Tuesday, Sep 17, 2024 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* ICYMI: Developer mum on what pols, White Sox greats attended South Loop stadium pitch. Sun-Times

Legislators, business leaders and other VIPs were invited on a downtown riverboat tour that docked at the undeveloped parcel known as The 78, near Roosevelt Road and Clark Street, where longtime Sox groundskeeper Roger Bossard has manicured a pop-up field of the team’s future dreams.

Attendees then got to “round the bases and shag ground balls on The Diamond with White Sox Greats and Hall of Famers,” according to an invitation for the event, which was closed to press and billed to “celebrate the spirit of America’s pastime, and embrace the future of Chicago’s legacy.” […]

A Related Midwest spokesperson wouldn’t say how many lawmakers were invited Monday, who made the trip or which Sox greats were enlisted for the cause.

One suburban state representative told the Sun-Times they passed on the invite “because I don’t need a tour to know it would be awesome with that outfield skyline.”

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* The Trace | More Than a Thousand Felons Have Challenged Their Gun Bans Since the Supreme Court’s Bruen Decision: The Trace reviewed more than 2,000 federal court decisions that cited Bruen over the past two years. More than 1,600 of them answered challenges to a wide variety of federal, state, and local gun laws — from assault weapons restrictions to bans on guns at the U.S. Post Office. The majority — some 1,100 — of the decisions included a challenge to the felon gun ban, making it the single most frequently contested statute by far.

* Crain’s | Ty Fahner, former Illinois attorney general who mentored Lori Lightfoot at Mayer Brown, dies at 81: Fahner was president of the Commercial Club of Chicago and its Civic Committee from 2010 to 2017, when it wrestled with the still unsolved challenges of public pension deficits and other fiscal woes. He was an apostle of the late Gov. Jim Thompson, dating to their days in the U.S. attorney’s office 50 years ago.

* Chicago Reader | ‘No new revenue without reform’: The CTA, Metra, and Pace leaders have all opposed merging their agencies and instead want more state funding. At the first of six public hearings held by the Illinois Senate Transportation Committee, CTA president Dorval Carter argued that “the governance model is not the problem here”—chronic underfunding is. Metra and Pace executives also argued against consolidation, saying the issues of suburban and collar county riders would go ignored under a single board.

*** La Schiazza Trial ***

* Sun-Times | Madigan’s ‘bandits’ comment barred from trial again: The judge made his ruling during a hearing that lasted more than six hours Monday. U.S. District Judge John Blakey, prosecutors and defense attorneys reviewed logistics and evidence for the Oct. 8 trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan and his longtime confidant, Michael McClain.

* Sun-Times | Ex-AT&T Illinois chief declines to testify in his corruption trial — closing arguments expected Tuesday: The trial over whether the payments to Acevedo amounted to a bribe has played out just weeks ahead of Madigan’s own trial, which is set for Oct. 8. In fact, Madigan spent much of the day Monday in a pretrial hearing five floors below the La Schiazza courtroom.

* Capitol News Illinois | Prosecutors rest case against former AT&T Illinois boss accused of bribing Madigan: After years of pushing in Springfield, AT&T Illinois’ executive team was thrilled when the Illinois General Assembly in 2017 passed legislation that would get the company out from under expensive obligations to maintain its aging copper landline wires in Illinois. “Game over. We win,” AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza wrote to a colleague after the final vote to override then-Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of the legislation on July 1, 2017. “I am very proud of our team persevering through the most difficult of circumstances.”

*** Chicago ***

* WTTW | Chicago Budget Director on Anticipated Shortfall, Hiring Freeze and City Services: On anticipating the deficit: “In January, beginning this year, we started to look at our expenditures, to better understand where our expenditures were going, as well as where our revenues were coming in. As we saw our revenues come in a little softer this year we started to contract on our expenditures. One thing that we didn’t anticipate that came to us a little bit later in the year was the non-receipt of a very critical revenue source that we use to support our pension obligations.”

* Tribune | Mayor Johnson dismisses criticism after staff changes, controversy: The mayor defended former progressive organizer Kennedy Bartley, whose appointment to head up his intergovernmental affairs office set off the controversy. “Here’s someone who has apologized. She has sought atonement,” Johnson said. “I mean, isn’t that what this is about? Being able to have the grace of God, where, even when we say things that are harmful, that we can recognize those who seek atonement and then ask for grace and for forgiveness?”

* Tribune | ShotSpotter fight continues as detection system’s days in Chicago dwindle: Wednesday’s meeting could offer two chances for the City Council to voice its support for ShotSpotter. The first is being led by South Side Ald. David Moore, 17th, who has signaled he will use a parliamentary maneuver to force a vote on an ordinance compelling the police superintendent to extend the contract. Meanwhile, members of the council’s informal pro-police caucus called for a separate special vote immediately following the regular City Council meeting on a measure allowing the head of the city’s Office of Public Safety Administration to extend that same contract.

* Jinx Press | “SheepdogCPD” Detective Shawn Popow faces termination: People’s Fabric and Jinx Press first reported on Officer Shawn Popow’s social media posts in November 2023. The South Side Chicago Police detective with more than twenty years on the force should be fired over dozens of social media posts disparaging “African Americans, migrants, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, and people who are disabled,” wrote investigators with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability in their full summary report.

* Sun-Times | CPD slammed for ‘complete failure’ at traffic checkpoints during Mexican Independence Day revelry: The city promised to make sure area residents could get home and medical employees could get to work at Northwestern and Lurie Children’s Hospital. But that didn’t happen, said Ald. Brian Hopkins, and one resident said they slept in the car after being turned away by police on the way home.

* Crain’s | Chicago morning news wars heat up as TV viewership declines: Local morning news stations are on a mission to attract and keep viewers in the face of decreasing ratings and economic challenges. Glen Dacy is stepping into the role of vice president of news content and streaming for Fox’s Chicago stations, WFLD and WPWR, with the aim of bringing fresh energy to the morning news landscape. He replaces Matt Piacente, who left the station earlier this year after eight years.

* Sun-Times | Rules Committee backs Burnett as chair of City Council’s Zoning Committee: Ald. Walter Burnett, the Council’s vice mayor and longest-serving member, offered to “take one for the team” and accept the Zoning job after Mayor Brandon Johnson was unable to get the votes for his first choice, progressive firebrand Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez.

* Sun-Times | Chicago’s National Public Housing Museum to co-present conversation on race events with Smithsonian: Before opening its new building on the Near West Side, the National Public Housing Museum will partner with the Smithsonian and other organizations to host the latest installment of the “National Conversation on Race” in Chicago. The nationwide series was created as part of a Smithsonian initiative, “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past,” which examines the history of racism while working toward an equitable future.

* ABC Chicago | Illinois Supreme Court to hear Jussie Smollett appeal Tuesday: In 2021, the former Empire TV star was convicted of faking a racist an homophobic attack in 2019 and then lying to police about it. His attorneys appealed arguing Smollett should not have been punished for the same crime twice. In 2019, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx reached a plea agreement with Smollett to drop the charges against him in exchange for a 10-thousand dollar bond and community service.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* CBS Chicago | Chicago area center for homeless residents transformed with help of community: When CBS News Chicago first met Township Supervisor Bonnie Kahn Ognisanti last year, she gave out some hard facts about homelessness. “You don’t have choices,” Ognisanti said. “Where you’re going to sleep, what you’re going to eat, how you’re going to be treated, where you can rest, and if you don’t have these very simple things, it exacerbates everything else.” That’s why she founded the Niles Township Respite Center in 2022 in the basement of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Skokie. It’s a daytime space for people experiencing homelessness.

* FOX Chicago | Dixmoor aims to end years of water woes with major water main upgrade: Officials announced the completion of the Dixmoor water main infrastructure improvement project Monday. In 2021, multiple water main breaks led to a system failure. Since then, the village has not had a reliable water supply, leading to multiple water main breaks

*** Downstate ***

* WCIA | Sonya Massey Commission holds first listening session, lays out roadmap: The commission was created by Sangamon County Board Chairman Andy Van Meter and Democratic State Senator Doris Turner to discuss, research and eventually propose policy changes for at both the local and state level in response to Massey’s death. “We wanted to look at systematic change throughout all of the systems within our community,” Sen. Turner (D-Springfield) said. “I know that in this situation and in a lot of situations, we focus on law enforcement. But there are so many other sectors that are involved that usually culminate with law enforcement or an instance with law enforcement. But we want to look at all of those different sectors and really focus and channel it into real change.”

* WCBU | East Peoria Mayor Kahl discusses push for a new TIF district to spark future development on riverfront: “I call it visionary leadership. I look at TIF districts (creating) Town Centre I, Town Centre II,” said Kahl, referencing the shopping centers at the intersection of Main and Washington streets. “Back in the day, when I grew up in East Peoria, you had the old-style, four corners, and a lot of those buildings were dilapidated and some were vacant. […] The proposed area for what would be East Peoria’s fourth TIF district is east of Interstate 74 and along Illinois Route 116. Kahl says plans to have these properties developed have been in the works for a long time.

* 25 News Now | Stark County starts 911 service, the last Illinois county to do so: “Stark County has finally reached the 21st Century with our 911… When you call 911, it’s going to show up on our map. We’re going to know right where you’re at. Where before, we didn’t have that. We had to be transferred from a different county,” said Stark County Sheriff Steve Sloan. It was an effort that took about 100 meetings over two years. Now, Stark County’s 911 service isn’t just online, it wound up with a next generation system with Geographic Information System Location and other enhanced call data. Illinois State Police hope to eventually bring this technology statewide.

* WSIL | 14th Annual “Our Stories, Our Lives” African American Women’s Conference focuses on medical issues Black women face in Healthcare: Dozens of African American women traveled to Ullin, Illinois, to advocate for their health care needs. Lynne Chambers is the executive director of Legacy Training Incorporated and says they started the conference in 2010. “14 years ago we focused on HIV, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. So we’ve still kind of kept those themes throughout the years,” Chambers said.

* WCIA | Tuscola fertilizer plant nears construction after more than a decade: The company behind it, Cronus Chemicals LLC, has gained the approval of necessary air permits. That should be one of the last steps in making the ammonia production plant come to life. “Economic development is a long road, and the bigger the project, the longer the road can often be,” Brian Moody, Douglas County economic development corporation executive director, said.

*** National ***

* AP | Postal Service insists it’s ready for a flood of mail-in ballots: U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy assured state election officials in a letter released Monday that he’ll work with them to handle their warnings of problems with election mail delivery during the primary season, while insisting that the Postal Service will be ready for the flood of mail-in ballots ahead of the November election. The Postal Service already dealt with most concerns raised by election officials, he said, after they warned that properly addressed election mail was returned — a problem that can cause voters to be automatically placed on inactive status — and that mail-in ballots were postmarked on time but arrived after election deadlines.

* WaPo | Scientists just figured out how many chemicals enter our bodies from food packaging: These are just a few types of food packaging that surround humans every day. And a new study released Monday shows the chemical toll of all that wrapping — and how it might affect the human body. Researchers from Switzerland and other countries discovered that of the roughly 14,000 known chemicals in food packaging, 3,601 — or about 25 percent — have been found in the human body, whether in samples of blood, hair or breast milk.

* ProPublica | Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable: The most restrictive state laws, experts predicted, would pit doctors’ fears of prosecution against their patients’ health needs, requiring providers to make sure their patient was inarguably on the brink of death or facing “irreversible” harm when they intervened with procedures like a D&C. “They would feel the need to wait for a higher blood pressure, wait for a higher fever — really got to justify this one — bleed a little bit more,” Dr. Melissa Kottke, an OB-GYN at Emory, warned lawmakers in 2019 during one of the hearings over Georgia’s ban.

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