* Tribune…

A lawyer for ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan’s longtime confidant told a federal jury Tuesday that the allegations of bribery and corruption against the pair attempt to criminalize legal lobbying and relationship building at the center of the state’s politics.

“The evidence will show Mike McClain was a lobbyist, and like all lobbyists, (he) understood if you want to get access to a politician you need to develop a relationship of trust,” defense attorney John Mitchell told the jury in his opening statement.

Mitchell likened lobbying to sales, saying it’s all about the “hope” of getting a meeting, having that relationship. Bribery, he said, is an exchange, an envelope of cash for a vote.

“A good lobbyist builds good positive relationships with elected officials,” Mitchell said. “If you don’t have access to a politician, you have no hope of convincing them.”

* Citizens Utility Board…

The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) pushed back on a recommendation by state regulatory judges that the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) grant Ameren Illinois an electric rate hike of $315 million, saying the judges had overlooked key examples of overspending by the utility.

The Proposed Order, submitted on Oct. 8 by three ICC Administrative Law Judges, granted the utility more than 90 percent of the $334 million Ameren had requested. On Tuesday, CUB planned to file a brief asking the ICC to take a stronger stance to protect customers from unnecessary Ameren spending.

“The Proposed Order is disappointing, given the fact that CUB had identified roughly $100 million in overcharges in the utility’s original request,” CUB Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz said. “We urge the five-member ICC to hold Ameren accountable, remove wasteful spending and slash Ameren’s rate hike.”

The ICC is scheduled to make a final ruling on the case (Docket 24-0238) before the end of the year. The five commissioners can follow the proposed order or adjust the rate hike up or down, as they see fit.

*** Statewide ***

* Sun-Times | Nearly 140,000 Illinois residents sent checks for unclaimed property: ‘It is not a scam,’ treasurer says: Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs on Tuesday reminded residents who receive these unclaimed property checks that it is not a scam. “All you have to do is open that envelope and cash that check.”

*** Chicago ***

The new Chicago school board appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson earlier this month will be sworn in at Thursday's board meeting.

The Rev. Mitchell Johnson is slated to serve as president, and Mary Gardner as vice president.

The seventh board member is Rafael Yáñez.

— Mila Koumpilova (@MilaKoumpilova) October 22, 2024

* ABC Chicago | Man wrongfully imprisoned for over 40 years files lawsuit against CPD, Cook County: lawyer: A man wrongfully imprisoned for over 40 years filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Chicago police, several Cook County prosecutors, Cook County and the city of Chicago, his lawyers said. James Soto was imprisoned for over 42 years for a murder he said he did not commit. […] The suit, which civil rights firm Loevy & Loevy filed, seeks damages from dozens of Chicago police officers, three Cook County assistant state’s attorneys, Cook County and the city of Chicago.

* WBEZ | Ahead of Mayor Johnson’s second budget, we take a look at how far he’s come on his fiscal campaign promises: But “how we pay for that” is a question Johnson may be stumped with now as mayor. He must work to close both a $223 million deficit for this year and a $982.4 million gap for 2025, caused by an underperformance of revenue, a disputed CPS pension payment and rising pension and labor costs. Next year’s gap is the second largest the city has faced since 2002, according to a WBEZ analysis of prior budgets.

* WBEZ | Chicago’s rental crisis: Is an algorithm rigging the system?: RealPage, a Texas-based real estate technology company, allegedly feeds proprietary rent-pricing data into an algorithm that generates daily rent prices for landlords and property managers across the country. […] In the Chicago metropolitan area, tens of thousands of units were priced with RealPage’s price-setting algorithm, according to the company’s own data and a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court last year. Plaintiffs in that lawsuit allege RealPage has harmed tenants and contributed to steep rent increases in the Chicago area. Among the nation’s 10 largest metropolitan areas, metro Chicago has witnessed the second highest growth in rent prices over the past year, according to data from Zillow, the real-estate marketing company.

* Block Club | State Grant Helped Neighborhood Hit Hard By War On Drugs. Now, A Group It Funded Could Close As Money Runs Out: A spokeswoman for Gov. JB Pritzker’s office said the grant was never meant to be the group’s sole source of income. Instead, it was supposed to help the organization grow and become better-positioned to get other funding. But the struggles of the Hermosa Neighborhood Association are part of a broader debate over the effectiveness of the grant program, which was created with the goal of helping communities hit hardest by the war on drugs.

* Chicago Mag | The Hotel for the Homeless: When I moved into the neighborhood in 2022, the Diplomat, still in operation at 5230 North Lincoln Avenue, no longer looked like the kind of building that could be on a novelty postcard. Instead, the motel was a muddy gray, its doors painted green with shocks of red trim. The windows along the sidewalk had been plastered over, a slab of nondescript brown that would press itself into your periphery when you walked past it. […] That was before the city announced, in 2023, that it was going to buy the motel. That it was going to turn the Diplomat into a transitional housing facility called the Haven on Lincoln, a chance to try something new that could maybe, just maybe, address this city’s struggles with homelessness.

* Crain’s | Here’s how Fritz Kaegi feels about the Mag Mile: Magnificent Mile hotels have recovered all of their lost value from the COVID-19 pandemic and then some, if you ask Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi. That’s probably hard to buy for hoteliers along one of the city’s biggest tourist destinations. At the InterContinental Chicago hotel at 505 N. Michigan Ave., a comeback from the pain of the public health crisis has pushed the 45-story building’s assessed value to $96.2 million, newly released assessment data shows. That’s a whopping 284% higher than the property’s final assessed value last year after the owner of the 792-room inn appealed to the Cook County Board of Review.

* Northwestern Medill | Writer Underwriting Writer: After the Chicago Tribune didn’t replace retiring architecture critic Blair Kamin, he funded his own successor: Kamin is paying for the Tribune’s next architecture writer out of his own pocket. Why would he do such a thing? “I’m a realist, and I realize that, given who the Tribune is owned by now and given the realities of the business model of journalism having collapsed, either somebody was going to do something, or nothing would get done,” he said.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* News-Sun | Former Lake County clerk challenging incumbent circuit court clerk: Two-term incumbent Erin Cartwright Weinstein, a Democrat, is seeking another four years in office. She is facing Republican challenger Carla Wyckoff, a former Lake County clerk in the Nov. 5 election. During the forum, both agreed that the most important part of being the circuit court clerk is administering the changes to the court system, as they are revised and implemented by the state Supreme Court and the General Assembly. During the forum, Wyckoff criticized Weinstein for a lawsuit that three former circuit court clerk employees filed against Weinstein. The employees, who supported Weinstein’s opponent in the 2016 race, alleged that Weinstein fired them for political reasons.

*** Downstate ***

* SJ-R | Massey Commission requests for review of hiring practices, procedures of sheriff’s office: In one of its first acts, the 14-member Massey Commission voted that a formal request be sent to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Illinois Attorney General and the Illinois State Police requesting they conduct “a full review of the hiring practices (and) procedures” of the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office. The commission, formed after the fatal shooting of Sonya Massey in her home in an unincorporated area of Woodside Township by a now-former sheriff’s deputy on July 6, held its first hearing on Monday.

* WCIA | Decatur leaders going green after approving compost plan: Decatur City leaders are going green after unanimously voting yes on a new plan to help with food diversion. It’s part of their economic development plan. They’re trying to figure out how the City could make better use of green waste and how to create compost from green waste instead of putting it in the landfill.

* SJ-R | ‘Project Capitol’: What we know about the proposed warehouse development in Springfield: The company which will be the end user for the warehouse has not been confirmed yet, but there have been rumors about the mecca of online stores, Amazon, as the end user to the warehouse. Caitlin Tully, the Chicago regional public relations lead at Amazon, could not confirm Amazon would be the end user of the location. “At this time, I cannot comment on our future roadmap,” Tully said. “I cannot talk about the project at all if it is or isn’t Amazon.”

* KSDK | ‘They can’t simply live off this wage’: Hundreds of Eaton B-Line workers on strike in Illinois: More than 400 workers are on strike in the Metro East, bringing production at a power management company to a standstill. Union members for Eaton B-Line have been picketing since midnight, all fighting for better pay. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Engineers, known as IAM, walked off the job Monday at midnight. They’ve been outside of both Eaton B-Line facilities in Troy and Highland ever since and said they’ll continue all day and all night until they reach an agreement on fair wages.

* WGLT | In a Bloomington district, McLean County Board incumbent faces challenge from advocate of limited government: Stevens said he doesn’t see the need to take any steps to reduce the carbon footprint. “I don’t really see any real problem with the carbon we have in the atmosphere right now,” Stevens said, adding he does not believe global warming is a concern. “I think it’s just a hyped-up problem that a lot of people use just to spend money on certain businesses and make profits.”

* WCIA | Multiple Central IL counties issue burn bans: Multiple counties and cities in Central Illinois have issued burn warnings and burn bans as of Tuesday afternoon because of a high fire danger. The Danville Fire Department said that the City has issued a ban on all opening burning within city limits.

* WCIA | ‘It’s like a family’: Meet the Urbana retirement community taking a bus to every Illini Volleyball game: The group has built up its own “fan club” over the years and always strives to support each woman and coach behind the team. In fact, the Finnertys and Gross agree, they’ve formed their own “family” through Illinois Volleyball.

*** National ***

* WaPo | John Grisham poached material for new book, media outlets say: Prolific author John Grisham has written a nonfiction collection about wrongful convictions, and it looks likely to join his oeuvre of legal thriller novels as another bestseller. But the New York Times and ProPublica now say Grisham went too far in his use of their reporting on a murder case in Texas, and they want changes made to the book.

* AP | Hospitals’ IV fluid shortage may impact surgeries for weeks: The federal government and medical suppliers have taken several steps to help ease the supply crunch created by Hurricane Helene, which forced Baxter International to close its North Carolina plant late last month. But experts say supplies are still choppy, and improvements will take time.