* ICYMI: Chicago, Cook County, Illinois leaders gather at Soldier Field to honor veterans. CBS Chicago…

- Veterans who fought in every war since World War II filled the United Club at Soldier Field for the event Monday.
-Mayor Brandon Johnson, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker were all present.
- During the ceremony, Mayor Johnson gave a special resolution making Chicago a Purple Heart City for retired Illinois Air National Guard Lt. Col. Eldridge Johnson Jr.

* Related stories…

∙ WICS: Duckworth Reflects on the 20th Anniversary of Her Alive Day
∙ Daily Herald: How a Mount Prospect man navigated bureaucracy to revive agency that helps veterans
∙ Tribune: Solving mysteries behind unclaimed Purple Hearts may restore medals to families – and one surviving vet

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Capitol News Illinois | How Illinois will decide on spending $40M opioid settlement with Kroger: By 2038, Illinois’ Opioid Remediation Fund is projected to receive approximately $772.6 million in total from various opioid manufacturers and distributors, according to the settlement fund allocation dashboard operated by the Illinois Department of Human Services. Illinois was awarded more than $420 million from Johnson & Johnson, Walmart, Walgreens, Allergan, CVS, Teva, Mallinckrodt, and opioid distributors, such as AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson.

* Tribune | US Sen. Dick Durbin says Democrats’ minority status a consideration as he mulls reelection bid: The GOP victories undid a 50-50 tie in the Senate that gave Democrats control of the chamber because Vice President Kamala Harris was a tiebreaker as Senate president. “I’m going to watch and see what this means,” Durbin said in an interview after the city’s Veterans Day remembrance ceremony at Soldier Field. “I enjoy serving in the Senate. I’m a realist about the future. But I want to see how the relationship works.”

* Semafor | Gannett probes possible leak of bombshell Iowa poll: But roughly 45 minutes prior to the poll’s public release, a stray tweet predicted the poll’s findings. Its author said that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Duke University alumnus, had mentioned the not-yet-released poll during a Duke Democrats meeting that day. (A spokesperson for Pritzker did not respond to an inquiry about the apparent leak.)

*** Statehouse News ***

* WICS | AG Raoul announces $11.25 mil settlement agreement with DoorDash: Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced a $11.25 million settlement agreement with DoorDash. If approved by a judge, the settlement will resolve allegations that the company violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act by misrepresenting to customers that tipping would increase drivers’ pay.

* Center Square | Illinois files notice of appeal after district court strikes down gun ban: The state filed a notice of appeal late Friday. Federal courts were closed Monday for Veterans Day. “I believe the Court of Appeals will almost certainly extend the stay until the outcome of the appeal,” [John Schmidt, G-PAC Executive Board Member,] said. “Nothing in McGlynn’s opinion suggests any reason to anticipate that the Court of Appeals will not again reverse his injunction.”

IL state government is looking into the #IHSA yet again.

***
Sometimes, I'm sure people read what I write and think I have no idea what I'm talking about. It's the natural of the beast, especially when you deal with some school people at times who truly think they know all.… pic.twitter.com/eCrZHDhH3X

— Trost (@TrustTrost) November 11, 2024

*** Statewide ***

* WCIA | Illinois investing over $2 million to improve tourism: Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) announced that over $2 million in tourism funding will be available through two different grants. The Tourism Attractions Grant Program has $1.7 million in funding, and the Tourism Private Sector Grant Program will give out $600,000.

* WCIA | Illinois allows veterans to adopt pets with no fees: An Illinois law that went into effect Jan. 1 2024 requires animal shelters in the state to provide complete fee waivers to veterans who meet the requirements to adopt a dog or a cat. The law passed both chambers unanimously. […] All licensed animal shelters and animal controls are required to provide the fee waiver, according to the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Fee waivers for pet adoptions in Illinois can cost more than $250.

* Sun-Times | Illinois is holding $5 billion of lost, forgotten money and property: Is any of it yours?: Louise Bohannon got to wondering if she was owed any money after seeing an ad in September about unclaimed property held by the Illinois Treasurer’s office. Two weeks later, the 32-year-old Matteson resident received a check for nearly $500, the bulk of it an insurance reimbursement for a 2016 health care visit. She never got that reimbursement because the insurance company didn’t know she had moved.

* WGN | Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership Training Academy works to get more women involved in politics: An organization in Illinois has a mission to get more women involved in politics. The Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership (IWIL) Training Academy works to prepare and propel women to pursue elected and appointed positions to advance progressive, Democratic ideals.

*** Chicago ***

* Sun-Times | Johnson’s $300M property tax increase will be ’significantly decreased,’ top mayoral aide says: Twenty-two of the City Council’s 50 members met Saturday with top mayoral aides, including Johnson’s budget team, to begin negotiations that, some alderpersons said, should have started long before Johnson belatedly introduced his $17.3 billion budget. […] Ideas ranged from increasing the $9.50-a-month garbage collection fee by varying levels, to raising taxes on items including cigarettes, parking, bottled water, gasoline and liquor, to raising the amusement tax from 9% to 14% — but only on streaming services. One of the biggest-ticket items — bringing in nearly $100 million — involves raising the personal property lease tax on cloud computing from 9% to 10.25%.

* Crain’s | Negotiations underway to cut Johnson’s proposed $300 million property tax in half: Johnson himself has met with the leaders of the 19-member Progressive Caucus, stressing he is open to all options to reduce the property tax plan without tipping his hand on what measures he favored. The mayor hopes to block a vote on the property tax at a special City Council meeting this week by securing at least 17 votes against a procedural motion to suspend the body’s regular rules of order to take up the property tax levy. While Johnson staffers have expressed confidence they have the votes, members of the council say it’s unlikely. “There’s nothing wrong with voting down this property tax levy, so I’ll be voting it down,” said Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus.

* Tribune | No Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago for summer 2025: Pitchfork Music Festival has been held annually in Union Park in Chicago since 2006, except for a year off in 2020 due to the pandemic. Before that, it was the 2005 Intonation Music Festival, curated by Pitchfork Media. This summer’s festival July 19-21 had headliners Alanis Morissette, Carly Rae Jepsen and Black Pumas, among others.

* WTTW | Turf Grass Is America’s Default Lawn Setting. Chicago Researchers Are Rethinking the Possibilities: While turf has long been the country’s default landscape setting, there’s a growing push for a shift away from a monoculture of, say, Kentucky bluegrass to more environmentally friendly lawn alternatives. Ecologists argue that diverse plantings would be better for pollinators, better for stormwater absorption and better for soil than turf, among other benefits. Conservation-minded homeowners have responded by smothering their lawns with cardboard, tarps or other turf killers and replacing the grass with perennials — in Chicago, “prairie” plantings are a popular choice (“prairie” being a catch-all descriptor for a curated selection of native plants).

* Dan Wiederer | Call failed? Matt Eberflus’ indecisiveness on changes to the offense another sign of Chicago Bears being disconnected: Now it’s Eberflus’ duty — for as long as general manager Ryan Poles and President/CEO Kevin Warren allow him to keep his job — to find solutions for all that’s going wrong. That’s particularly important for an offense that has gone 23 possessions since its last visit to the end zone and 29 days and counting since rookie quarterback Caleb Williams last threw a touchdown pass. Yet on Monday, first with that morning radio call and 3½ hours later during a 10-minute news conference at Halas Hall, Eberflus struggled to provide clarity on what specific “changes and adjustments” he was promising to make.

Chicago friends: I'm hosting a new food TV show on @NBCChicago alongside Poochie from The Wiener's Circle.

It's a buddy cop food show with burgers, music montages, hijinks, cowboy outfits, and silliness abound.

Premieres Sunday 11/24 after Sunday Night Football + Sports Sunday. pic.twitter.com/PYGEu1iwWX

— Kevin Pang (@pang) November 11, 2024

* Sun-Times | Ella Jenkins, Chicago’s first lady of children’s music, dies at 100: From her home in Lincoln Park Ella Jenkins traveled the world, performing for generations of kids who never forgot listening to and performing with her. She has a Grammy Award, and her music is in the Library of Congress.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | Furtive GOP votes, blue-state security blanket: What were suburbanites thinking this election?: “The story here is turnout,” College of DuPage Political Science Professor Melissa Mouritsen said. Although she lost the election, Democrat Harris won Illinois with over 2.85 million votes to Republican Trump’s nearly 2.4 million, according to unofficial results. In suburban Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties, Harris garnered about 1.38 million votes, a drop from President Joe Biden’s 1.66 million four years ago, Friday tallies showed.

* Tribune | Oak Park becomes second suburb to OK ranked choice voting: Initial results from the Nov. 5 election indicate 79.21% of voters voted in favor of switching to ranked choice voting for those offices. The switch goes into effect in 2027 so next April’s village election will be held under the current first past the post system. Under ranked choice voting voters list all the candidates for an office in order of preference. A candidate who gets 50% of first preference votes plus one is elected. If no candidate reaches the 50% plus one benchmark, the last place finisher is eliminated and then the votes of those who voted for the eliminated candidate as their first choice are reallocated to those voters’ second choices. The process continues until a candidate has a majority of the votes.

* Shaw Local | Voter turnout comes up short of predictions in La Salle, Bureau, Putnam counties: Voter turnout was strong throughout the Illinois Valley, but county clerks guessed a bit high when predicting voter participation. La Salle County recorded 70.1% turnout. Bureau County was 69.7%. Putnam County led the pack with 82.2%. Each figure fell short of what clerks had anticipated, though Bureau County Clerk and Recorder Matt Eggers, who’d projected 70% to 75% turnout, pointed out stray votes still are being counted.

* Daily Southtown | South suburban casino opens to huge crowds, patrons ‘blown away’ by first look: As part of its license application, Wind Creek has promised to establish the Southland Public Benefit Fund. Initially, Wind Creek plans to distribute $150,000 annually during the first five years of operation, with the money providing scholarships to disadvantaged students in the south suburbs and helping bolster access to health care. Wind Creek said it intends to create a fund of $20 million after five years to boost yearly disbursements to $1 million.

* Daily Herald | ‘Never, never give up’: Former POW Jessica Lynch honored at Aurora Veterans Day ceremony: Vietnam War Army veteran Bob Royce of Schaumburg said it’s very important for every village to have a Veterans Day ceremony. “There are so many veterans that have been forgotten about,” he said. “The young generation doesn’t know a lot about what has happened in the past for our country, what they (the veterans) have given and done, the ones that haven’t come home.”

*** Downstate ***

* WGLT | McLean County GOP looks for improvement in next election cycle: A prominent McLean County Republican thinks Democrats took control of the county board because, right now, they’re better at the process of politics than the Central Illinois GOP. Some observers have said changing demographics have helped make Bloomington-Normal a blue dot in the red sea of Central Illinois. Former McLean County Party chair Chuck Erickson said population shifts may matter a little, but there’s a bigger reason several Republican candidates lost to Democrats.

* Sun-Times | 7 downstate counties vote to consider seceding from Illinois to form new state: The likelihood of any county seceding from Illinois is extremely low. Any formal request to secede would require approval from the Illinois General Assembly and the U.S. Congress. The idea to form a new state apart from Chicago has been a recurring proposal made by downstate Republicans in the state Legislature for many years.

* KWQC | Real Estate groups disagree on Galena housing growth: In their fall 2024 report, Ruhl & Ruhl Realtors claim the number of homes for sale in Galena has increased by 76% since last year. […] But local officials disagree, with Ruhl & Ruhl’s analysis of the market. “Since the past year, it’s still a seller’s market, we’re about two months out in sales of homes,” said the Director of the Galena Chamber of Commerce, Barbara Hocker.

* 25News Now | Pekin City Council to consider local 1% tax on groceries: The staff’s report to the council said the city’s share of the state’s tax boosts local revenue by an estimated $1.5 to $1.7 million a year, which is spent on public services. The local tax would go into effect in January of 2026, which is when the state tax expires.

* News-Gazette | Settlement reached with Danville chemical plant over alleged pollution: The Illinois Attorney General’s Office has filed a consent order with Brainerd Chemical Midwest LLC to resolve a lawsuit alleging the company failed to properly control emissions of hydrogen fluoride from its chemical distribution facility in Danville. As part of the settlement, the company is required to pay a $124,000 civil penalty and $1,000 in avoided construction permit fees. Hydrogen fluoride is a corrosive chemical that is harmful to human health. Low levels of exposure can cause eye, nose and respiratory-tract irritation, with high levels of exposure potentially leading to death.

* Illinois Times | Rail project receives final piece of federal funding: Construction on the only overpass in Springfield’s rail improvements project is expected to commence in early 2025 after federal officials announced $157 million in final grant funds. The federal allocation, announced by U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, and by U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Hoffman Estates, also will help pay for construction of the transportation center known as The Hub – with train and bus access – immediately north of the Sangamon County Building.

* WCIA | Purple Heart returned to daughter of WWII veteran in Decatur: Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs said he returned U.S. Marine Corps Private First-Class Delbert Tuttle’s medal to Carolyn Peckham. Tuttle earned the medal and a Silver Star after he was injured during the Battle of Saipan in the Pacific Theater on June 15, 1944.

*** National ***

* AP | Harriet Tubman posthumously named a general in Veterans Day ceremony: Tubman escaped slavery herself in 1849 and settled in Philadelphia. Intent on helping others achieve freedom, she established the Underground Railroad network and led other enslaved Black women and men to freedom. She then channeled those experiences as a scout, spy and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, helping guide 150 Black soldiers on a gunboat raid in South Carolina.