* My plan last week was to post Monday and then take the rest of the week off. I didn’t anticipate all heck breaking loose. There’s just no way I’ll be able to stay away from my computer now. So, you’re stuck with me for a bit longer. Let’s hope things settle down a little. Peace.
* ISP Director Brendan Kelly spoke to reporters today…
Let me first just touch on really why we are here. Our fellow citizens our fellow human beings, wish to be heard. They wish to be heard so that action can come from being heard. And it is difficult to be able to hear them in a peaceful and productive way if that message and those voices are overwhelmed and drowned out by crime and by being hurt by violence, and by destructive activity and petty crime.
Director Kelly went on to talk a bit about what the ISP had done in Chicago and in Aurora.
Please pardon all transcription errors.
* More…
We’ve had requests for assistance from every part of the state. Obviously there was some activity in Springfield in Champaign, Aurora Rockford, other communities throughout the state that have called upon for the ISP to provide the systems, but also something called ILEAS. Not many members of the public may be aware of something called the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, essentially that is a mutual aid system that has been in place for some years for departments to provide assistance to other departments that may be overwhelmed by particular events, catastrophe, mass casualty type of situation or other events, which may require additional law enforcement manpower beyond what that particular community has. So, as these events unfolded over the weekend as a peaceful protest shifted to unfortunately some criminal conduct as we’ve been saying, there have been requests to the Illinois State Police request to ILEAS, and to some extent those resources and the manpower that’s been available has been reaching the point where additional resources have been needed. We’ve seen looting, we’ve seen thefts went to criminal damage and we’ve seen some Parsons throughout the state. And again, there’s not one particular location or one particular community in which this is entirely focused on it sometimes. We are very quick to say there’s a hotspot here or a hotspot there.
But frankly, the information that we’ve been receiving and how this process has evolved over the past 24 hours 48 hours 72 hours, has been that we have seen a number of individuals who are between the ages of 17 to 25, young people, communicating with one another on social media, targeting a particular business, particular retail, saying let’s meet at this location at this time. And once they reach a critical mass of people they find a way to break the windows, either using rocks or a hammer or picking up trash can or more location with a bicycle breaking those windows going into the business then taking as much property as they can in some cases, there’s some indication that maybe attempted to set fires in some locations, but as a process which has been repeated as the governor said today we are in close communication with our federal partners at all times.
The information we have consistently received from them and they’ll be approved and providing to them, is it does not appear to be yet, any indication of an organized structured group that is driving a critical mass of these incidents.
In large part these are, as described at that particular age group of people seeing a pattern and practice that they’re modeling after what they’ve seen on social media. There are people who are traveling around different communities they’re maybe not from that community, they come from different parts of the state. They are driving in their vehicles sometimes hanging outside their vehicles, waving signs, making gestures. We’ve seen people with bats and other types of items that are potential weapons, driving around and voicing their opinion with regards to law enforcement. But then some of those individuals committing the type of acts that we’ve been that we’re describing here that have resulted in looting have resulted in criminal damage to property theft. And the type of activity we’ve seen play out and Champaign, Aurora and other locations.
We’ve seen many ramp closures, more closures of ramps on interstates in this state than anybody can remember. We don’t have a record going back all the way to when interstates were open but it appears of the records that are available, including the collective memory of the men and women of the Illinois state police that this is the first time we’ve seen a point in our history where this many ramps to the interstates have been closed at the same time.
* More from Director Kelly…
We’re seeing activity today, but it is so far of a different tone and tenor than the activity that we saw over the weekend and we hope it stays that way. But in order to make sure it stays that way, there are steps that the governor has directed us to do. He’s very concerned that making sure that these peaceful protests are protected and that human life is protected, infrastructure is protected, that the livelihoods of so many people who are just struggling to get their lives back together now. After the first phase of the pandemic that that activity is protected, while people are practicing peaceful protest during the weekend.
* Types of policing…
While we have been responding to incidents, the division of patrol, crowd control group, SWAT, as well as the state bioterrorism Intelligence Center which is a component of the Illinois State Police that works with our homeland security advisor.
* Limitations of ILEAS…
But the way it works, essentially, is if your neighbor’s house is on fire, we all go to help our neighbor, put out that fire. The problem with the limitations of that model is if everybody’s house is a little bit on fire, how are we all supposed to respond to the one critical thing? So when we see these various brush fires, these small incidents being repeated in any number of communities around the state, all at the same time, it makes it very difficult for that process to work.
So, to respond to the governor’s concern that he has for protecting the people at the state and protecting property and human life and the right to be able to peacefully protest. I shifted some resources that we have within the ISP to be able to devote more human resources to the role of patrol.
He then went into some detail about what resources had been shifted.
* Unprecedented?…
What’s interesting to hear from the men and women who have been doing this for many years, people that are in all walks of law enforcement, is that this cycle of activity is is not like the usual cycle of crime. This is different than other protests. This is different than other types of flare ups that we’ve seen or other types of confrontations that have occurred in response to a particular event.
And what we’re seeing here is some factors that we don’t have any way to measure or anything to compare to. This is the first time, where we’ve seen a huge surge in the number of people that are temporarily unemployed. With the economy we’re hoping we hope that goes down but we’re at a point where that is a factor and we don’t know how that is impacting public safety. We’re at a point where people are coming out of the various phases in the first round of the pandemic. People that have pent up energy, they have concerns about their health, they have concerns about their economic future that have been impacted by measures that have been needed to protect public health. We’re not sure how that how that’s gonna play out yet in terms of public safety.
We don’t have good criminology and sociology numbers to compare rates of crime and the time those crimes that occur. The days those crimes occur what type of crimes would occur to compare to from the 1918 pandemic criminology sociology of prediction of criminal activity and being able to respond to that was not developed the way it is now, with last time we had a pandemic so that is a factor that is impacting the way people are behaving.
And again, we’re not quite sure how that looks. How some of the protests and the level of aggression, the level of violence that has mutated from peaceful protests, peaceful protest majority of peaceful protests to some things that really are distinct and apart from the peaceful protests. That’s not something that has played out in a way that it does. There are some consistencies with previous protests and previous response to these type of events, but they’re in terms of what time of night in terms of where and when it has been different in some ways, so because of that we have to take additional measures, we have to be different.
* Three regions…
The state police with ILEAS and with the support of the National Guard will be coordinated through three regions. During the pandemic, we have set up three law enforcement support centers, the Illinois state police have and coordinated with with guard resources as necessary and with at least some local departments, we are going to continue that model of having regional law enforcement support centers in the northern part of the state, the central part of the state and the southern part of the state. We’ll divide the state into three areas to be able to provide support and maximizing the additional resources that the Illinois State Police are bringing to bear and maximizing the manpower, from the Illinois National Guard, that will help us free up a local law enforcement in the state police to be able to focus on the needs as they arise.
* On to questions for the director. Asked about bricks thrown off an I-55 overpass…
I can’t talk about particular locations where bricks have been thrown. I can tell you that there have been examples of not just bricks but batteries, you know, rocks, things that are made of cement, you name it any number of objects that have been thrown at law enforcement vehicles, and I’m not aware of any civilian vehicles yet. It would surprise me if that’s happened in the midst of some of these riots, but we know that that’s a pattern of conduct that we’ve seen from some people that are taking again, a moment that should be about righteous justice and turning that into something that’s violent and just purely destructive so we the only state police have only had two vehicle, which have been damaged that were damaged by bricks, so far. I know that other departments have had vehicle set on fire. I’ve had vehicles taken damaged objects thrown at them, destroyed so that is a that is a phenomena that we’re aware, but that’s that’s specific case that’s not something I can comment on here.
He was also asked a question about Mayor Lightfoot’s criticism of CPD’s efforts over a week ago and declined.
* No more questions, so he concluded with this…
It is the duty of this department and this agency, as it is for all men and women who serve in this capacity, to be ready for anything. And we are going to be ready for anything and we are ready for anything.
I’ve asked for a list of communities that the ISP has deployed to and will update if I get one.
Yesterday into today, 375 members of the Illinois National Guard joined local law enforcement in Chicago to assist with street closures. We implemented stringent parameters on their mission and use of force, including no interference with peaceful protesters expressing their first amendment rights. Since that deployment we have received additional reports of escalating situations and requests for assistance from communities around the state. We have now called up an additional 250 members of the Illinois National Guard, to be ready to assist other cities across the state that have faced a surge of destructive action, notably looting over the last 24 hours.
Again, our role is to support the response led by local law enforcement and municipalities, we are working with local leaders and law enforcement to meet their requests for assistance to the greatest extent possible. An additional 300 Illinois State Police troopers are also coming online today into tonight to help keep our communities outside, Chicago safe, with a focus on preventative measures and supporting local law enforcement, where departments are running thin.
* More from the governor…
The State Emergency Operations Center in Springfield is monitoring requests from local governments around the state. Individuals from Illinois Emergency Management Agency, and various mutual aid networks are on standby to assist. Illinois State Police director Brendan Kelly will provide a live update from the Blue Room at the Capitol in Springfield at 5:30pm today, with more details on our statewide response
I guess I’ll be covering that, too. Please remember to pardon all transcription errors.
* More news from the governor…
To bolster this response and give us greater flexibility, I have today issued a disaster proclamation for Cook, Champaign, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Madison, Macon, Sangamon and Will counties to coordinate state agencies and resources as we work to assist local governments with their disaster response and recovery operations.
In time property can be rebuilt. But the pain will fall disproportionately on the backs of our small business owners, our working families and our communities of color. And it has to stop. We have to take care of our people. And for that reason we will continue to flexibly deploy Illinois State Police and the National Guard strategically as we work with the dual purpose of protecting Illinoisans, as well as the first amendment rights of peaceful protesters.
I know there are people in this country, including some elected officials, who will point to the looting we’ve seen in Chicago and across Illinois and use it to dismiss the pain and anguish and sorrow of the moment.
Let me be clear. We cannot allow those who have taken advantage of this moment to loot and smash to also steal the voices of those expressing a need for real meaningful change. That will not be our story here in Illinois. Because this anger doesn’t come out of nowhere, it’s born of decades and centuries of systemic racism and injustice. The White House might fan the flames, but the fear that of what happened to George Floyd could happen to you or to your son or daughter is woven deeply into the fabric of what it means to be black in America. And that’s what all of us have to recognize. That’s where our work begins.
* On to questions for the governor. This morning, President Trump got on a conference call with governors, he had choice words. Calling governors weak, said that they need to be much tougher, that states are being overridden, and you’re making yourself look like fools. Much has been made this morning that he said to Governors that you have to dominate. First of all, what was your takeaway from that conversation. And what was your interpretation of when the President said you have to dominate?…
Well you heard my reaction. The truth is that the President has fanned the flames instead of bringing peace and calm. It is usually the job of the president to stand up in these circumstances, and try to bring down the temperature, that’s not what this president does. And so I felt, you know, after many minutes on that call I mean I think we were on that call for 40 minutes hearing him express what I found to be inflammatory rhetoric. And then I heard other governors get on and not call it out. And so I spoke out, and felt that was my obligation. I wish that the President would hold his words, I wish he would, if he can’t say something that is going to help us across the nation to bring the temperature down then he shouldn’t say anything at all.
* Yesterday you approved the National Guard in Chicago in a limited role as you have discussed. What is it going to take, you know you’ve seen the images of looting, not only in the city but in neighborhoods around Chicago. What is it going to take for the National Guard’s role to be enhanced?…
Well, as you see, we are enhancing it, we respond though to local law enforcement to local municipalities, we were asked to play a limited role yesterday. I did so at the request of the city of Chicago. I think it’s an appropriate request by the way I think the city of Chicago has a significant police force, and much of it was out last night doing their job. Even though I know that there was a lot of looting.
The fact is that the National Guard doesn’t have the job and doesn’t regularly train to be a frontline police officer doing law enforcement in municipalities. We have military police that are trained to be military police, some of them are police officers in their home counties or home cities across Illinois, but many of them are not. And so I think they were providing a support function, they’ll continue to do that more. As you heard me talk about today we’ll have more of them out all across wherever the municipalities have requested and where we can. But the important thing to know is that between the state police, which are going to have 200 plus troopers out there, almost 300, add that on top of the 375 that we already had up from the National Guard plus 250 more than been called up. It’s a pretty significant force.
* If you had any hope President Trump would take your advice, what’s the suggest you do to address the unrest and violence across the country?…
Well I think he should speak to the pain that’s being experienced by people all over the country. African Americans people of color who have been subject to situations like we’ve seen you know the unfortunately the George Floyd situation was not a unique one. And so I’d like to hear the president stand up and talk to that situation and also bring clergy together ask clergy to step up, I would do that. I am doing that. I really think it is time to call for calm around, not just the city of Chicago, the entire state of Illinois and entire country. That is, in part, the job of a president, this one hasn’t done it.
* Will the National Guard’s work change so they’re not just managing the perimeter in downtown?…
Well it’s their job to support local law enforcement so we’ll continue to do that and do it wherever they are asked to do it. And again, we have resources that we’re bringing to bear you’ve heard when you add up everything that we’re bringing forward it’s approaching 1000 personnel from state police and from National Guard and we’ll do what’s necessary here to help. First of all, to allow the peaceful protesters to do the kind of protest that’s appropriate. And then to catch the bad guys.
* And has the state closed down any of its COVID-19 testing facilities in response to protests and separate looting and having to call the National Guard to focus their attention on the issues at hand?…
Yes, it’s one of the unfortunate consequences of what’s happened is we can’t have guardsmen out there unprotected providing the testing well you know we can’t have police out there protecting the guardsman. We’re out there trying to protect the public and we just it’s impossible at the moment. So temporarily, the guard which has done an unbelievably great job. Let me just be clear, we would not have the kind of testing numbers that you have across the state if the guard wasn’t manning these posts, but unfortunately this situation has forced us to shut down some of those temporarily.
[The governor did not have the numbers of shuttered facilities.]
…Adding… Press release: “On Sunday, IEMA Director Alicia Tate-Nadeau ordered the closure of all Community Based COVID-19 Testing Sites in Illinois in order to protect staff and those utilizing these services. A reopen date will be announced as soon as determined.”
* What advice would you have for small business owners who are seeing images of looting and rioting, how can you assure them that the state is doing everything that it can to protect private property?…
We’ll do everything that we can to protect private property, that’s, you see here, some of the bravest individuals representing the bravest individuals in the state and they are out there protecting private property public property and lives. So we’ll continue to deploy as needed. These things have popped up overnight unexpectedly in some other areas outside of the city of Chicago and then outside of even the center of the city of Chicago. And so we’re being responsive as municipalities have asked us to step in. But it’s not our job to go in and take over for law, local law enforcement. Our job is to go help them deliver their mission locally.
* Some have question though, you know after seeing images yesterday on the south on the west side that were at times there were stretches where there was no presence of local law enforcement to enter calling into question, you know, is all is everything being done possible?…
Well, again, local law enforcement have strategies, the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department as you know managed the NATO protests and other protests, historically has the capability to manage this. They’re the ones who set the mission here. But I must say that our Illinois State Police which really was responding on an emergency basis to situations around the state, brought down the temperature in places. They managed to dispel people disperse the people who are in Aurora that were surrounding a police department in in Aurora Police Headquarters and we’re doing as we are asked by local law enforcement and the Chicago PD has this capability.
* Not counting the Bulls championship, the Illinois National Guard hasn’t been utilized for civil unrest within the United States since the Kent State shooting and the protests of the Vietnam War. Given the gravity of that time, what does the significance of this moment mean to you as you prepare to deploy the guard under these current circumstances?…
Well we live in some extraordinary and difficult moments. Now, during my lifetime I have not seen this, I was very young in 1968. What I can say is that this has something to do about leadership in the nation. When you don’t have national leaders who are bringing down the temperature in situations like this, it tends to fan the flames. Please look at the words that the President has put out on Twitter, look at the words that he says, he talks about total domination.
I don’t want to dominate peaceful protesters who have legitimate grievances. I do want us to put down the situations of people destroying property or violent behavior. And so I just, to me this is an extraordinarily unusual [time]. Having said that, we will meet the challenge, and we have the capability, need to challenge the people of Illinois have the capability. And again, I would ask for people to step up and call for calm and peace in our streets. It is time really for people all across our state and particularly for our faith leaders to step up and remind us who we are. I am doing it every day but I think it’s very important coming from the various faiths that represent faiths that are represented across the state.
* Several Chicago aldermen are calling for 3000 members of the National Guard to be deployed to the south and west sides of Chicago because of all of the looting in those areas. They’ve been critical that the Guard has been used to help secure downtown but not the city’s neighborhoods. What is your reaction to the widespread looting on the south and west sides and this request for additional members of the guard to specifically target those, the looting on the south and west sides and really all over the city?…
What I would say is that it’s the mission that gets set by local law enforcement that is being followed. We’re providing support services which is the appropriate thing to do, and State Police have been stepping up on the front lines because they have the kind of training that’s necessary to be right there on the front lines, making arrests for example. And so you’ve seen we’re deploying state police, significant numbers of state police and deploying significant numbers of guardsmen and women.
* How does it help Illinois for you call out the president as you did today?…
I think there are two things. One is I think we have to express our values. What I said is an expression of the values of the people of the state of Illinois. That inflaming the kind of violence and looting by simply calling for utter dominance of everybody including the peaceful demonstrators is, that’s just one example. You saw when the looting starts the shooting starts you saw that the President said that, and repeated something that comes from a racist past in the United States. So I think it’s an important thing to call out the values of the people of Illinois at an appropriate moment. And, it helps the state of Illinois because I think people should know what we stand for. I mean we are, we’re great people the state of Illinois, as you know, has produced some amazing presidents of the United States because of the values that we all share. And so I’m just reminding everybody that that that’s who we are.
* Can you expand on what the 300 state police troopers will do in pursuing preventative measures and assisting local law enforcement what types of preventative measures?…
ISP Colonel: We have several missions that we have identified that we’re going to use those additional personnel for. So, of course we already have our crowd control aspect, and we’ve been using that for the last three days and they have been doing an amazing job. We have a need from local law enforcement local municipalities for assistance with traffic control. They are requesting us for those type of details. We also are going to be using our officers to do just some of the calls for service that we have right now within the city. We have been inundated with calls of service so those extra personnel will help us they’re there. They’re there investigative components that we’re going to be using our additional officers for as well. So, there are several different missions that we do have identified in place, and we will be using those additional officers for all of those.
Gov. Pritzker: Something important if I may, just there is an enormous amount of coordination that is going on between law enforcement at the federal, state and local level and I’m really proud of that fact. I was on a call earlier today with federal officials, with our state officials, with our National Guard. We are getting briefings from the city of Chicago, and briefing them on our capabilities and what we can do to be helpful. So I just wanted to point out that the state police, which has the ability to rapidly to respond where there’s a need, the coordination that’s going on between all of these levels of government and in particular law enforcement is really spectacular.
* What do you plan to do with your disaster orders for these counties, what executive orders will you issue. Will you release funds via EO to help build rebuild businesses. What else can you do to provide security through an EO? How long will the disaster orders last, should a large relief package be considered legislatively?…
That’s an awful lot to read leading down a road that we haven’t yet gone down. I think what we’re trying to do is to operate flexibly and that’s what a disaster proclamation allows us to do in these circumstances. But it is limited right now to simply law enforcement and being responsive to the needs of those counties without having to deal with a lot of red tape when you need to move quickly within minutes or hours to help local law enforcement.
We experience microaggressions on a daily basis. But in this current moment we have lists of names that bring us to tears, vandalism that deters the message of our voices, and a virus that is no longer breaking news but is yet breaking up black families. The black community is gasping for air.
George Floyd. Saying his name reminds me of names that cried aloud in the Rockford community: Mark Barmore, Logan Bell, Kerry Blake. Names of black men who died at the hands, or the knee, of a police officer. Sadly, I find myself hesitant to start listing names in fear of missing a name – that’s how long the list is of black men and women killed by the police in the past 10 years, often captured on video.
It’s counterproductive to vandalize and terrorize a community that we live in. However, we must acknowledge the reasons behind the rage and violence as well as commend the peaceful protests that rose up for the sake of seeking justice, seeking equality. We must not mistake protesters for looters or vandals. There was a DISTINCT difference this past weekend in Rockford and I commend the organizers of the protest.
I encourage the Rockford community to understand the weight of current events that makes it hard for black people to breathe. On top of police violence and the fear many of us feel in living our daily routines, COVID-19 is roaming freely throughout the world and is killing black people in disproportionate numbers. There’s economic hardship in the Black community that makes it hard for us to live before and especially during this pandemic. To make matters worse –healthcare inequalities add to this strain as the ONLY west side hospital in the Rockford community has decided to dump their primarily black Medicaid patients.
The black community everywhere is gasping for air.
In Rockford and in Illinois we have political leaders who truly love the people they represent more than the job itself. Let us work together to address the underlying issues: police reform, economic redevelopment, healthcare, and education.
1. Not all police are bad. However, we need a statewide system where police officers can be held accountable to answer circumstance around deaths of unarmed black people.
2. The funds that are going into Rebuild Illinois and other capital improvements must include African Americans in these well-paying infrastructure projects.
3. Healthcare equity on both the west and east side of the Rock River must be a priority.
4. Illinois has some of the best higher education institutions in the country – however, the black representation is weak. We need a pipeline to advance black students at community colleges, state colleges, and private universities.
5. There are hundreds of millions of dollars going into hiring contact tracers for COVID-19. 80% of that money should go to black nonprofits not universities. This is the moment to strengthen the infrastructure of our black communities to stop black deaths, contain the spread of the virus, and create jobs. I want to thank Dr. Sandra Martell, the Director of the Winnebago County Health Department, for committing to working with me on that.
6. Looters have destroyed small businesses – businesses that were already suffering due to the pandemic. We need business relief and equity for these businesses by releasing the nearly $400M small business grants and technical assistance funds to save these businesses and especially black businesses.
7. Provide real and immediate economic relief to people who are unemployed and can’t get through the flooded IDES system. Our community needs immediate federal stimulus checks so that people can feed and clothe their families.
8. Provide mortgage and rental assistance immediately to stop foreclosures and evictions in our communities.
While we work on that, we also need the people protesting in this country to utilize their voice and go to mycensus2020.gov and complete the form. Your vote and your voice is necessary – you are the boss of EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL. If they are not hearing you, then it’s time for them to go. Get involved in the political process. If I could do it, I know you can too!
There are so many names that we must never forget – and my heart aches for the loss of their lives and for their families. It’s time for a strategy – it’s time for a response. Now is that time.
Updated: Daily Public Schedule: Monday, June 1, 2020
What: Gov. Pritzker to hold a media availability.
Where: James R. Thompson Center, 15th Floor, Blue Room, Chicago
When: 4:30 p.m.
Watch live: https://www.Illinois.gov/LiveVideo
Note: One broadcast and one print reporter will be allowed in the room. Pool information to follow.
We’ll have live coverage and then that’ll be it for the week, I think.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 974 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 23 additional deaths.
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 121,234 cases, including 5,412 deaths, in 101 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 20,014 specimens for a total of 918,273. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from May 25–May 31 is 6%.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. Information for a death previously reported has changed, therefore, today’s numbers have been adjusted.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,343 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 60 additional deaths.
Cook County: 3 females 30s, 1 male 40s, 2 females 50s, 2 male 50s, 2 females 60s, 3 males 60s, 1 unknown 60s, 6 females 70s, 4 males 70s, 8 females 80s, 2 males 80s, 4 females 90s, 1 female 100+
DuPage County – 1 female 60s, 1 female 70s, 2 females 90s, 1 male 90s
Kane County – 1 male 50s, 1 female 90s
Lake County – 1 female 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Madison County – 1 female 60s
Monroe County – 1 female 60s
Peoria County – 1 male 80s
St. Clair County – 1 male 70s, 1 male 80s
Union County – 1 male 90s
Whiteside County – 1 male 90s
Will County – 1 male 50s, 1 male 60s, 1 female 80s
Williamson County – 1 male 50s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 120,260 cases, including 5,390 deaths, in 101 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 21,154 specimens for a total of 898,259. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from May 24–May 30 is 7%.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,462 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 61 additional deaths.
Coles County: 1 male 80s
Cook County: 4 males 40s, 1 female 50s, 3 males 50s, 1 unknown 50s, 1 female 60s, 4 males 60s, 1 female 70s, 6 males 70s, 5 females 80s, 2 males 80s, 5 females 90s, 1 male 90s
DuPage County: 1 female 60s, 2 males 70s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Kane County: 2 males 60s, 1 female 70s, 2 males 70s, 1 female 80s
Kankakee County: 1 female 60s
Lake County: 1 male 90s
Madison County: 1 female 90s
McDonough County: 1 female 50s, 1 male 70s, 1 female 80s
McHenry County: 1 male 80s
St. Clair County: 1 female 90s
Tazewell County: 1 male 70s
Union County: 1 female 90s
Will County: 1 female 80s, 2 males 80s, 1 male 90s
Winnebago County: 1 female 90s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 118,917 cases, including 5,330 deaths, in 101 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 25,343 specimens for a total of 877,105. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from May 23–May 29 is 7%.
…Adding… Hospitalization numbers…
As of 5/31 (11:57pm)
Total COVID patients in ICU: 902
Total COVID patients on ventilators: 547
Total COVID patients in hospital (non-ICU): 2313
Total COVID patience in hospital: 3215
As of 1:28 p.m., the following additional closures are in place until further notice:
I-94 N/B and S/B ramps to Sibley E/B
I-80 E/B and W/B at Torrence
* From earlier today…
-EXIT RAMP CLOSURES - June 1, 2020 -
As of 12:15 p.m., the following Interstate exit ramp closures are effective until further notice:
I-94 N/B and S/B to Lake Street
I-94 N/B and S/B ramps to Old Orchard Road
I-290 E/B to Congress
I-94 N/B ramp to Congress
I-90 N/B ramp to Ohio
I-90 S/B to Ohio
ALL exit ramps on I-90/94 from 18th Street to Division Street are closed until further notice.
The exit ramps are listed below:
18th Street
Roosevelt Road
Taylor Street
Polk Street
Van Buren Street
Jackson Boulevard
Adams Street
Monroe Street
Madison Street
Washington Boulevard
Randolph Street
Lake Street
Ohio Street
Ogden Street
Milwaukee Street
Augusta Boulevard
Division Street
*** UPDATE *** From the ISP…
*This closure is NO LONGER in effect: I-94 E/B ramp to IL-21*
* This phony post was plastered all over Facebook and Twitter yesterday…
Yeah. JB and MK hanging out with Jack Franks in Wisconsin on Saturday. Right. Toooooooootally believable.
The Franks bit should be your first clue. The man has been banned from the Statehouse. Pritzker is a super-cautious dude. Do you really think he’d go openly partying in Cheeseland with that guy? If you do, you really need to check yourself.
Also, notice that they were standing in front of Gordy’s. Here’s another photo from the same day last year supplied by the governor’s office…
* While we can always hope, nothing good is coming from any of this right now. A man is dead for no good reason. Again. Our nation is in turmoil, much of it understandably so. And now we have all this collateral damage and genuine fear of another coronavirus spike at absolutely the worst possible moment…
This was supposed to be the week Chicago took its biggest step back to normal.
Now it’s not even clear how to step back into the Loop.
Though the mayor’s office said Sunday that people with legitimate reason to enter the Loop would be free to go about their business, several restrictions on public transportation and expressway ramps seemed to limit access points.
Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot acknowledged she is concerned about what the protests, and the riots that followed, will mean for Chicago’s reopening following the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m worried,” Lightfoot said Sunday. “I’m absolutely worried about a potential outbreak as a result of what we saw yesterday. Thousands of people, in cheek to jowl, in small spaces is exactly the opposite of what we have been preaching now for 10 weeks’ time.”
The protest started off peaceful at the Aurora Police Department, but turned violent in the downtown area with many businesses and buildings damaged.
In at least two separate instances, instigators set fire to buildings in the downtown area, Aurora Police Department spokesperson Paris Lewbel said. […]
In at least two instances, shots were fired at the officers working to contain the crowds, Lewbel said. Three squad cars were also set on fire and completely destroyed.
In multiple other instances, bricks, glass and rocks were also thrown at the officers. One Aurora Police officer suffered injuries as a result of items being thrown, Lewbel said.
The Aurora Police Department requested mutual aid assistance through the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, with officers from all over the state coming in to assist with the response.
Approximately two dozen businesses were broken into and looted, and somewhere around a dozen of people were arrested by police, Lake County Sheriff Spokesman Sgt. Christopher Covelli said.
A Bloomington man has been arrested on multiple traffic charges in relation to a crash that involved protesters in downtown Bloomington Sunday night. Two people were injured.
McLean County jail documents indicate Marshall R. Blanchard, 21, was booked into the McLean County jail at 10:30 p.m. Sunday on a charge of reckless conduct, failure to obey a police office and being involved in an accident that causes injury.
“While we are aware of multiple reports of rumors, particularly on social media, we currently have no reports of any lootings or shootings in Kankakee County and all large-group gatherings appear to have remained peaceful at this time.”
* A Southwest Side lawmaker told me last night that he and others spent much of yesterday dealing with “an unbelievable amount of half truths and outright lies on social media.” More from his texts…
A Walmart got hit near 83rd and the Ryan by a roving band of looters who jumped in their cars and headed west. Walmart alerted the Evergreen Park store that they might be coming their way and the police converged on the Evergreen Park store, but nothing happened. That sparked a round of panic closings all over the area.
“I hate Facebook and Twitter,” the legislator said.
Businesses across the suburbs, including at least four shopping malls, closed abruptly Sunday amid threats of looting and vandalism, authorities said. […]
Oakbrook Center in Oak Brook closed as numerous reports surfaced online about looting at the mall and nearby businesses. Police confirmed the closure on Facebook, but in a follow-up post stated there were no looters and the mall is secure.
Lombard officials in a tweet said Yorktown Center and several surrounding stores also closed early Sunday because of looting fears. […]
Police in Schaumburg confirmed that Woodfield Mall closed early Sunday as a result of social media threats, but said no looting or property damage was reported.
Hundreds of volunteers, many armed with brooms and other cleaning supplies, were working to make repairs in downtown Aurora Monday morning following an evening of violence and looting.
There were so many volunteers, in fact, that some said they couldn’t find anything to actually clean.
Driving home from his overnight shift at the Perry County Counseling Center Saturday morning, Nicholas Tate felt called to join the movement across the country calling for an end to violence against black people by police officers.
He didn’t have time to plan a larger gathering, so decided he would do his own one-man protest.
“I just wanted to spark a movement for people to stand up for love,” he said.
On the way home, he picked up materials to make a sign. At Dollar Tree, he ran into a friend, Tenielle Worthington, and told her about his plans. She offered to join him, doubling the expected attendance count from one to two. They met up at 2 p.m. on a visible corner of Du Quoin, between the RollnUp Smoke Shop & Liquor and Taco Bell.
Tate carried a sign that said, “One Honk to Acknowledge Black Lives Matter.”
They set a simple goal: 100 honks.
“Within 30 minutes, we got that done,” said Tate, a 28-year-old African American resident of Du Quoin. The small town of about 5,700 is about 7% black.
But what happened Saturday afternoon surpassed Tate’s expectations.
“Some people drove by, they started honking, and before you know it, people that were honking were pulling over in the parking lot of the grocery store and they were coming and joining us,” he said. “We had probably 20 people out there with signs and stuff helping with the protest.”
President Trump and @GovPritzker had a testy exchange on the call. Pritzker called out the president's rhetoric and the president replied that he doesn't like Pritzker's rhetoric either, per a person on the call.
*** UPDATE *** Transcript from the governor’s office…
GOV: Mr. President, can you hear me? This is Governor Pritzker.
POTUS: I can hear you.
GOV: Thank you, you know, I wanted to say Mr. President…
POTUS: Are you on your cell phone? JB, are you on your cell phone?
GOV: Can you hear me ok? Sorry, can you hear me ok, Mr. President. Thank you.
GOV: I wanted to take this moment - and I can’t let it pass - to speak up and say that I’ve been extraordinarily concerned about the rhetoric that’s been used by you. It’s been inflammatory, and it’s not okay for that officer to choke George Floyd to death. But we have to call for calm. We have to have police reform called for. We’ve called out our national guard and our state police, but the rhetoric that’s coming out of the White House is making it worse. And I need to say that people are feeling real pain out there and we’ve got to have national leadership in calling for calm and making sure that we’re addressing the concerns of the legitimate peaceful protestors. That will help us to bring order.
POTUS: Okay well thank you very much JB. I don’t like your rhetoric much either because I watched it with respect to the coronavirus, and I don’t like your rhetoric much either. I think you could’ve done a much better job, frankly. But that’s okay. And you know, we don’t agree with each other.
GOV: Mr. President, we’re the second
POTUS: I saw it, what happened, it was a disgrace. But I spoke about it probably as long as I did about Barack and himself, and those police officers, what they did, including the three of them, that stood there and watched, and they didn’t even participate in it. The whole world was disgraced by it — that’s just our country — and the whole world was watching. So I - someone can tell me I haven’t spoken about, I’ve spoken about it at great length, at great length, and I will continue to speak about it. But I also have to speak about law and order. We need law and order in our country. And if we don’t have law and order, we don’t have a country. So we need law and order. Okay, who’s next?
So, I will make this offer: I will reserve as many blog posts as necessary for any and all Illinois Legislative Black Caucus members who have a plan. The posts will be unfiltered and unedited. They’re all yours, and you’ll have my audience’s full attention. The idea will be to construct a dialogue about how this state moves forward.
Illinois has a real opportunity to be the first state to step up to solve this seemingly intractable problem.
I want to help make this happen and I am all ears.
I am still planning to shut down the blog the rest of this week. But I will post these proposals as soon as I can get to them.
* From Rep. Chris Welch…
Dear Rich,
First I would like to thank you for your thoughtful column today. You asked for policy recommendations from the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus to meet this moment of pain and heartbreak. I don’t purport to speak for the caucus. I speak as a black legislator who led on equity measures like representation of black people on corporate boards and payment for black student athletes in the NCAA. I speak as a black father who had difficult conversations with my young son and daughter on what is happening.
But since you kindly committed to print words from black caucus members, here are my thoughts:
George Floyd was murdered by policemen in broad daylight as onlookers pleaded for humanity. Only one of the four policemen involved has been charged. And now our country is in flames and our City of Chicago is in flames. Of course I don’t think it’s right to burn cop cars, bust out windows, break into stores, hurt innocent police officers and reporters who are just doing their jobs. Some of the violence and destruction is coming from provocateurs and opportunists, and some of it is a violent expression of rage and hurt at the lack of justice and equality in our Country. Have you read the names of all of the black men and women killed by the police in the past 10 years, often on film? Did you watch the videos of the shooting of Laquan MacDonald and the killing of George Floyd? How would anyone expect a black person to feel about that?
The police violence, the disproportionate numbers of African Americans dying of the COVID 19, and the economic devastation in Black communities during this economic crisis are a poisonous stew. Can we finally address some of the underlying issues? Is this the moment?
In Illinois we have good, decent political leaders who deeply want to address underlying issues. Let us begin with police reform, economic redevelopment, healthcare, and education.
1. Statewide system where bad police officers can be held accountable for the deaths of unarmed black men and women.
2. Create a pipeline to advance black students at community colleges, State colleges and private Universities. We have some of the nation’s top institutions of higher education but the representation of black students is pathetic.
3. Rebuilding Illinois and Capital funds must include African Americans in these well paying infrastructure projects.
4. Healthcare equity so hospitals like Westlake serving poor black people are not first on the chopping block.
5. Release 80% of the hundreds of millions of contact tracing dollars to black nonprofits not universities. Take this moment to strengthen the infrastructure of our black communities to stop black deaths, contain the spread of the virus and create jobs.
6. Business relief and equity for black businesses by releasing the nearly 400M small business grants and technical assistance funds to save black businesses. Absent immediate and targeted intervention, what happened this weekend will be a final nail in their coffin,
7. Provide real and immediate economic relief to people who are unemployed and can’t get through the flooded IDES system. Our community needs immediate stimulus checks so that people can feed and clothe their families; and
8. Provide mortgage and rental assistance immediately to stop foreclosures and evictions in our communities.
We also need the people protesting in this country to go to mycensus2020.gov and fill out the census. Finally, people protesting need to vote in the upcoming Presidential Election, vote in the upcoming local elections for Mayors who appoint police boards and police chiefs, and run for office yourselves.
I am heartbroken by black bodies piling up and black businesses burning. But the question for all of us is this finally the time to address underlying causes?
* The Illinois Statehouse is also being closed at 2 o’clock, I’m told…
Secretary of State office buildings in Springfield are closing today at 2 p.m.
The Springfield buildings impacted include, but are not limited to, the following: The Howlett Building, the Illinois State Library, the Herndon Building and the Driver Services facility located at 2701 S. Dirksen Parkway. All of the buildings will reopen tomorrow, June 2.
Out of an abundance of caution and after conferring with law enforcement, these buildings are being closed at 2 p.m. today to protect the public and employees.
* The SoS confirmed to me that this rally prompted the closure decision…
Spokesman Henry Haupt says media are not required to vacate the [Statehouse] pressroom, but the office is advising it out of “an abundance of caution.”
* Last night…
From IL Secretary of State: "Fire was contained to the back of the facility. It’s out and building boarded up. Assessing damage and will know more in the morning." https://t.co/t8dsgrz5IT
A Chicago-area broadcaster and the company she works for have filed a lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker in federal court over her exclusion from news briefings after the reporter spoke at a protest in Chicago in May.
Salem Media and AM 560 broadcaster Amy Jacobson filed a lawsuit against the governor in federal court on Monday.
“Attorneys also are asking the court to take immediate action to allow Jacobson back into the press briefings,” said Liberty Justice Center, the nonprofit organization that is representing Salem Media in the lawsuit.
Last month, attorneys representing Salem and Jacobson said Jacobson “broke the story that Pritzker’s family had traveled to their equestrian estate in Wisconsin amid Illinois’ stay-at-home order – weeks after it was reported that his family was at another estate in Florida.”
“The news raised questions about why the stay-at-home order did not apply to the governor’s family,” the statement said.
Last month the governor defended the decision to bar Jacobson from news briefings after she attended and spoke at a rally in Chicago focused on reopening Illinois.
“Look, when you’re standing up at a rally, where people are taking a political position, holding up Nazi swastikas, holding up pictures of Hitler and taking an extreme position as she did, it strikes me that that’s not objective in any way,” Pritzker said. “It’s not the way you act it’s not the way that your colleagues in the media act, who are reporters.
“That is not a reporter,” the governor said. “She represents a talk show that has a particular point of view, we allowed her to ask questions because once upon a time she was a reporter, but she proved that she is no longer a reporter.”
I don’t think the governor himself handled this very well and I said so at the time. To this day, Jacobson has access to the governor through the pool reporters, like I do, like we all do. Pritzker should’ve made that clear in public. Now her attorneys are trying to cast her as some sort of martyr.
I’ve been to press conferences where I couldn’t get my questions answered. I may have already told you this story, but Gov. Blagojevich tried that with me once, so I walked around the room and whispered questions to every Chicago TV reporter there. He had no choice but to answer questions from them.
“The reason we sent Amy to these press briefings is because she is a dogged reporter with a reputation for holding public officials accountable,” said Jeff Reisman, regional vice president and general manager of AM 560 The Answer. “Over the last two months Amy has done her job well, asking the tough questions that are on the minds of so many of our listeners.
“We’re disappointed that the governor would retaliate against her and take the unprecedented step of blocking her from his press briefings. We had hoped litigation would not be necessary, but it’s imperative for Amy to get back into the room and keep doing her job.” […]
Jacobson and Salem are being represented by Liberty Justice Center, a Chicago-based non-profit conservative public-interest litigation center with ties to the Illinois Policy Institute.
Patrick Hughes, president and co-founder of the Liberty Justice Center, said: “It’s not up to Governor Pritzker to pick and choose which reporters can cover him based on how much he agrees with their coverage or their points of view. And keeping reporters out of the room because he disagrees with their line of questioning or point of view is a gross violation of the First Amendment.”
Um, she can’t get “back into the room” because access is being limited for everyone right now due to COVID-19.
And while Pritzker most certainly disagrees with her points of view, she did speak at a rally in opposition to his stay at home order. That goes well beyond attendance.
On the one hand, she’s a show-boating hyper-partisan. On the other, I’ve always been opposed to the government deciding who is and who is not a reporter, although it is indisputable that legislative leaders can limit access to their press boxes based on broad criteria (like working for a lobbying group). On the third hand, if reporters were really upset about this, they would’ve stood up for Jacobson and her access would’ve been restored by now.
Our not for profit center that we share with 2 other NGOs was breached by breaking out a conference room window. We were fortunate damage and theft was minimal because of a great building layout with multiple locked doors.
ABJ Center….has served South Shore for 26yrs in multiple service based capacities….our org serves youth through sports based youth Development. Arts based org and another social service org in building. Combined 189 yrs of service..my community is killing itself tonight Rich
If you can’t physically make it to the neighborhood today, you can help South Shore businesses with the financial costs of cleaning up and repairing some of the physical damage by clicking here. More on ABJ Center is here.
If you know of other constructive ways to help, let us know in comments. Thanks.
“It was designed with all these different things, basically to fail, I think,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in late April about his state’s unemployment insurance application system.
He’s right. The system was specifically designed by DeSantis’ predecessor to make it more difficult to obtain unemployment benefits, according to an early April article in Politico.
The director of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency told the New York Times his state’s system is stacked against applicants. It was, he said, “built to assume that you’re guilty and make you prove that you’re innocent.”
Elsewhere, including in Illinois, years of neglect and disinvestment produced rickety, aging systems that were and are still nowhere near capable of handling 41 million unemployment benefit applications filed in the nation over just 2½ months.
For many, if not most of those Americans, this is the first time they’ve ever had to file for unemployment benefits. I did so once, back in the 1980s. It was a simple process. But the nation was in an economic expansion when I suddenly found myself out of a job. I don’t think I even had to wait in line at the local office.
That’s not the case now. The pandemic has closed pretty much all unemployment insurance office doors to the public. Police have been called to some offices.
Phone lines have been jammed as untold thousands of desperate human beings try as one to access the benefits that they paid into from their own paychecks. We’ve all read about or even experienced firsthand the hours-long waits to talk to a “real” person.
Ohio’s unemployment agency had just 40 people working the phones when the economy crashed, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The state has averaged 350,000 calls per day, a Cincinnati TV station reported. It’s like a mouse trying to drink from Niagara Falls.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security was a tiny bit better off. It had 173 employees answering and processing calls at the beginning of the economic crash, according to a report by CBS2 Chicago. IDES has since added 41 employees to take calls and contracted with Deloitte to run a call center with 242 people.
In the period just before and after Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued his first stay-at-home order in March, houses of worship in Illinois reportedly experienced 13 COVID-19 outbreaks, resulting in 88 cases.
Since then, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health, Illinois has seen no such outbreaks — until one was revealed last week. IDPH told me of a very recent church-related outbreak of 39 cases, including the pastor.
That outbreak was acknowledged last Wednesday by the administrator of the Jackson County Health Department. The administrator told WSIU Radio that the unnamed Southern Illinois church had been holding services in defiance of the governor’s stay-at-home order.
And now, you gotta figure more church-related outbreaks could happen if people aren’t careful.
Pritzker told reporters last week that his administration will be posting “guidance, not mandatory restrictions, for all faith leaders to use in their efforts to ensure the health and safety of their congregants.” He said the guidance would be “suggestions” on capacity limits, indoor gatherings of 10 persons or less, etc.
“Governor Pritzker has capitulated, and the Thomas More Society is claiming victory in a trio of church lawsuits charging Illinois’ governor with religious discrimination,” a spokesperson for the organization said.
And then Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed his office’s response, mandated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to an emergency request by two Illinois churches that wanted the governor’s restrictions lifted. In that response, Raoul claimed the two churches’ filing was basically moot because the governor’s executive order would expires the next day.
“The governor, Raoul wrote, “has announced that after that date religious gatherings will no longer be subject to mandatory restrictions.”
The governor’s subsequent order specifically says it “does not limit the free exercise of religion.”
Pritzker has always predicted ultimate victory in every case filed against his stay-at-home order, and his office pushed back against suggestions that he has capitulated to churches. But the demand from Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, may have spooked him.
Either way, nobody wants to make arrests or create a martyr, particularly a religious martyr. And most religious denominations will be complying with the new guidance. As for those who won’t listen, there’s not much anyone can do outside of law enforcement, and local sheriffs would likely resist orders to put preachers in jail.
Best to just declare victory and move on. If there are more outbreaks like those before the stay-at-home order was issued, perhaps church leaders and their congregations will eventually learn from it.
Meanwhile, the governor appears to be pushing ahead into the even less restrictive Phase 4 of his “Restore Illinois” plan next month without first setting up a robust contact tracing program.
For weeks and weeks, Pritzker’s “Three T’s” have been: Testing, Tracing and Treatment. The state, he has said, can’t do much about developing a treatment for COVID-19, but he has pledged to ramp up the state’s testing and contact tracing program.
Pritzker has done well with testing, but he didn’t hire anyone to set up a contact tracing program until early May, and he appeared in East St. Louis near the end of May to showcase the start of a local pilot project.
The governor’s Restore Illinois plan explicitly states that one condition for the state’s four IDPH regions moving into Phase 4 by the end of June is: “Begin contact tracing and monitoring within 24 hours of diagnosis for more than 90% of cases in region.”
On Wednesday, the governor said, “We’re at about 30 percent of the contact tracing that we need today.” The governor’s office claims they’re actually above that right now, but Pritzker repeated that figure on Friday.
And then Pritzker said, “we’re going to get to hopefully about 60-plus percent, it’s going to take us weeks and weeks, I can’t tell you how long, I mean some people think it will take through August to do it.”
One issue, the governor said, is that contact tracing cannot be mandated. A quick foray into social media will show you how insane the ever-growing conspiracy theories have become on this particular topic.
Anyway, my colleague Hannah Meisel asked Pritzker yesterday whatever happened to that 90 percent target. “Those are, I guess, internal goals,” the governor replied.
I was told by the governor’s office that Pritzker wants to focus on readily quantifiable, health-related goals. Contact tracing is apparently no longer essential.
Not to mention that Chicago isn’t scheduled to have its contact tracing fully operational until sometime in September. The city won’t want to be left behind.
The Supreme Court on Friday turned away a request from a church in California to block enforcement of state restrictions on attendance at religious services.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s four-member liberal wing to form a majority.
“Although California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the free exercise clause of the First Amendment,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in an opinion concurring in the unsigned ruling.
“Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time,” the chief justice wrote. “And the order exempts or treats more leniently only dissimilar activities, such as operating grocery stores, banks and laundromats, in which people neither congregate in large groups nor remain in close proximity for extended periods.”
* Gov. JB Pritzker at a joint media briefing with Mayor Lori Lightfoot today…
I have activated 375 members of the Illinois National Guard to carry out a limited mission to assist local law enforcement with street closures. With regard to protesters who are exercising their first amendment rights. The guard has explicit direction not to interfere. They will operate under the most stringent parameters on use of force and General Neely has made those parameters abundantly clear to members of our National Guard.
Remember to pardon all transcription errors.
* More from the governor…
I also think it’s important to recognize that for much of the day yesterday. The protests here in Chicago were beautiful, massive and peaceful. That is as much a part of the story of what’s happening in this city in this country as anything else.
But late in the evening yesterday. The protests became about violence and damage, and that changes the conversation, away from the terrible acts that took George Floyd’s life away from the insidious racism that we all have a role in addressing.
It’s hard to find the right words to say today. The truth is, words alone don’t cut it anymore. But it’s my job in moments of crisis to be a voice for all of Illinois, to bear witness to pain and rage and anxiety and fear. And I see the pain of this moment written on the faces of my black friends and colleagues and staff.
I know that peacefully protesting is only one part of the expression of that pain. I know that they need to see action, which includes real criminal justice and policing reform, as well as a sustained economic investment in black and brown communities. I know that they need to see complete and full justice for George Floyd and his family. Something we have not seen yet. I know that one of my most sacred obligations as your governor is to take actions that build trust. And that takes time.
I also have an obligation to the state, and to the city of Chicago to keep people safe, even as we are dealing with this destructive pandemic. We have never curtailed people’s right to peacefully express themselves. But the virus is still out there.
And we cannot forget that we have communities all around the state that are desperately trying to recover from the damage that this virus has done. And I’m imploring people to not force a difficult second rebuilding on our small businesses in the course of expressing your very justified pain.
I know things are broken. It doesn’t make us weaker to acknowledge that. I know people are suffering. and it doesn’t diminish us to see that despair exists when things are broken and people are suffering, and then everyone refuses to acknowledge it. We cannot fix things that we decide not to see. So let’s go forward with our eyes wide open in our hearts committed to actions that back up our words.
* Mayor Lightfoot…
I want to be clear and emphasize what the governor himself just said, the Guard is here to support our police department. They will not be actively involved in policing or patrolling, but here as needed support.
* More Lightfoot…
To be clear, we all support and cherish the First Amendment and the right of us as residents to express ourselves in peaceful, nonviolent protest. I’ve certainly marched in a number of protests myself.
But we also have an obligation to make sure that when there are elements amongst the protesters, or others who joined the fray that don’t have respect for peaceful, nonviolent protest, but do have, as the design, the decision to bring hammers, shovels, bottles of urine, excrement, accelerates, as we saw throughout yesterday and into the evening. We do have an obligation also, to protect life and liberty, and property. And that’s exactly what we did, and we will continue to do.
We are a strong city, and a proud people. This is our home. This is the city that we built. And we will always protect our city because this is the home that will provide for all of us, for generations to come. This is a city that also cares for each other. I’ve seen that over and over again in countless ways. During the darkest moments of the pandemic called COVID-19.
* More Lightfoot…
And I want to take this opportunity to once again to thank our men and women of the Chicago Police Department who exercised incredible restraint all day, all night against a very difficult and traumatic circumstances. I want to thank the men and women of our fire department who responded and put out fires that arsonists had said, and I want to express my gratitude to our many other city employees. We’ve been working around the clock now for days to keep our residents and businesses safe and our steady running, and they include the members of the Office of Emergency Management communication, because Call Center has been working overtime, as well as our men and women in our department of streets and sanitation and buildings and water management, our Department of Transportation, and the CTA. And I want to thank other partners who are standing with us here today. Illinois State police state police gave heroic support to the men and women of the police department yesterday and I am grateful for their assistance. Yesterday and today I want to thank State’s Attorney, Kim Fox, whose office has been an invaluable partner with us as we navigate these very difficult times. The governor said this, he is right, this is a time for us to unite.
Even from the destruction that we’ve seen what I choose to focus on is not what we’ve lost, but what we can and will gain from this moment, as we come together as a city and move forward as we return our pain into the purpose and continue the hard but necessary work of building a more inclusive equitable and just city. This is who we are, Chicago, and we will not let a small element subvert us try though they might, we will stand and rise above this moment, we will support our people who want to raise their voices and peaceful protests, and we will never, never allow element to conflate that noble and righteous expression [audio cut out at that point]
* From National Guard General Neely’s remarks…
I stood at this podium many times over the last several weeks as we responded to COVID-19 as our doctors and our medical personnel swarmed into the city to stand up community based testing and to support the communities, some of these communities today that are most challenged, ensuring that underserved communities had the testing that they needed and ensuring that we were there on the frontlines supporting our medical providers. And today, that’s what we do.
Again, we come in to support law enforcement. to support peace, to support First Amendment rights to free speech. Some of us have soldiers in our [garbled], or civilian police officers, first responders, some are teachers, firefighters, factory workers, mechanic ,students. They come from a variety of backgrounds. We are a slice of Illinois. And we are a slice of the city.
We are here to carry out a limited mission at the request of Mayor Lightfoot and the governor to help manage street closures, so that those protesters will not interfere with those who want to exercise their First Amendment rights. In fact, we are committed to protecting every citizen to ensure their rights are are not stepped on whether they’re here in Illinois, or while deployed overseas.
Today, the first contingent of National Guard members have already arrived, they’re fully equipped to protect themselves to get for this mission, as well as against COVID-19, the risk associated with a current mission, have been addressed. Each soldier has been given strict guidelines as the governor outlined with the use of force. And we will not during this teleconference today discuss those guidelines or policies, and that’s really for the protection of our soldiers who are on the fruit on the street and to ensure their safety. We are here to help.
* Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx…
As someone who was born and raised in this city, born in one of the toughest neighborhoods in this city, a community that was fair to say had been on the margins, who had seen all of the inequities that we are talking about this week, driving into the city with a piece of hope in my heart when I saw the skyline and my heart broke when I saw the boards on our windows. This is a tough day.
* Foxx on George Floyd…
When I looked at that video, and I made the mistake of looking at the whole thing, and I watched that man with his knee in that man’s neck hand in pocket. In the casual disregard for his life in broad daylight, while being filmed without a concern in the world as to what would happen to him that we will be inclined to think that it’s just the murder of George Floyd that has our streets filled. What I remember feeling in that moment was the casualness of all of the things that we have experienced in this country that we were dealing with, with COVID-19, the casual acceptance of racial disparities in health care that when we looked at the work that has been done in the last few months to deal with this pandemic and the news came out that African Americans were disproportionately dying and Latinos, the casual acceptance that that’s part of what happens with underlying health conditions, because the casual acceptance that we have people living in communities that don’t have access to health care. And we just accept the casual acceptance that those who were losing their jobs in the midst of this pandemic are frontline workers are essential workers were black and Latino and going into grocery stores and being clerks and being the least paid we casually accept that.
We casually accept with the hand in our pocket that the last time there were major riots in the city of Chicago in the 60s on the west side where we’ve seen burnt out buildings that remain an economic disinvestment continue that those folks we know, had been victims of historic discrimination and redlining that brought Martin Luther King to our neighborhoods in the 60s before I was born, and we still see the same levels of discrimination today with a hand in our pocket looking into the camera as though nothing’s going to change.
* More Foxx…
Whether it is those that have come here to sow discontent, who would have the audacity to write Black Lives Matter on buildings, when they don’t at all feel that, who would use this as an opportunity to sow that discontent to distract from what the real issues are.
To use criminality to poison the conversations around what we ought to be talking about that the last 24 hours. We’ve been talking about buildings and not policy, that the last 24 hours we’ve been talking about structures and not structural racism, that for the last 24 hours we have watched our neighbors have to shovel up glass, and rebuild after already having to endure closures due to the pandemic.
I want us to be clear.
We are working with our partners in the Chicago Police Department who have demonstrated extraordinary restraint. I’ve watched the national coverage. I’ve seen other cities. And I remind us that this is a test, the restraint, is what is required.
And we’ve met that test here.
And that we will hold accountable those who are seeking to exploit this moment, that those people who took to that street yesterday and exercise their first amendment right, mothers with children, elders who were there, who stood toe to toe, but did it without crossing the [boundaries]. That’s what this is about.
And I don’t want us to forget that for a moment. I don’t want our Twitter fingers to only tweet about the images that there are some only one of us to see. Because we will continue in this perpetual cycle. We will continue this thing that we do, the sensationalism of what this is and this, ladies and gentlemen, is a full [garbled] home.
And these people who’ve come in to try to disrupt that, the organized elements, who care not about systemic issues, but shoes for profit.
* More Foxx…
If we continue to talk about that [garbled] element who’s tried to hijack this and not about the men and women who died in the systems that have allowed for their deaths to go unpunished. We’ve learned nothing from this.
The State’s Attorney’s Office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners in the city of Chicago, and throughout Cook County to again hold those accountable. Not protesters. I want to be clear. We conflate protesters and looters. So two different groups. Let us not conflate what is happening in our streets across the country with the bad acts of a few. And I know we know that language, because we’ve heard about bad acts of a few versus systems use the same rhetoric, when talking about those who are taken to our streets right now, and not conflate them with those who seek to do harm.
* Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton…
There is righteous pain and outrage over injustice and historical inequities. These emotions are real and raw. And we all feel them in the black community. And as a black woman, I think about my black daughters, my black husband, my black brother, father, and nephews. And I’m sick about what happened to George Floyd and my prayers are with his family. I cannot imagine the pain that they are feeling and the pain of losing a loved one in this way.
Even still, our [angst] must be expressed peacefully. There is a message to be heard. And it should be heard loud and clearly. It should be heard without the distraction or disruption of the few who taint the goal of the many.
* On to questions for the governor, mayor and others. Were more police officers ordered on the job yesterday, was overtime authorized and really was the police department prepared for this?…
Mayor Lightfoot: Yeah, yes yes yes and yes. The planning for yesterday started days before. We had canceled days off over time. There were a number of police out on the same over the course of yesterday. We’ve now also shifted to 12 hour days, three watches.
But what happened yesterday over the course of a long day and the governor I think described it well. We moved from peaceful protest to an element that was in the crowd that was clearly there for a fight. You don’t bring a claw hammer or shovel, or bottles in urine or accelerants molecules talk cocktails, unless you’re up to something other than peaceful protests. And so, dealing with that element, certainly became a challenge. And then on the heels of tamping that down, we saw literally people coming by the car loads, and with u haul vans to loot and destroy and damage our businesses.
* Do we know who that element is?…
Mayor Lightfoot: We know what kind of organizations might be. What I can tell you at this point is we are in partnership with the FBI, the US attorney’s office the ATF particularly their bomb and arson unit. There’s no question that both the people who were fighting and brought the weapons that was absolutely organized and choreographed, it seems also clear that the fires that were set both of the vehicles and buildings that that was organized that was an opportunistic, as well as the looting, that we saw somebody driving up with a u haul, having crews jump out, breaking the windows, going in and literally hauling out the merchandise in coordination, as we saw in way too many places. Last night, car caravans doing a similar thing people jumping out using a metal device to pop the window, jumping into the stores and then loading up the cars by like an assembly line
Can we identify who they are?
Mayor Lightfoot: That is still under investigation. And once we are able to, we will certainly reveal that.
* Culd you please explain the timeline of the events leading up to the decision to activate the Illinois National Guard, we’ve kind of gone over this about the National Guard’s mission. But will they be visible. And what happens if they are confronted?…
Mayor Lightfoot: Well, what I’ll say is this, the governor I were in frequent contact throughout the course of the day yesterday, and he is frequently offered up the use of the National Guard, as a day in the evening wore on and we saw the really is a criminal element that we’ve now talked about at length. Really arising and thinking about what our deployments, were going to be. We, the superintendent and his leadership team made the call late last night, early this morning, indicated that they believe that it would be helpful to have additional resources from the National Guard and the general has explained what the limited role is that they will will play. But I’m grateful that the governor was up and around at about 1230 last night or this morning, when I called him and acted decisively and quickly to activate those resources and we’re grateful for it.
Gov. Pritzker: To the mayor’s credit yesterday, she asked for help from the state police. They were engaged yesterday they provided up to 150 troopers that were assisting. I have 250 troopers and we had 150 troopers engaged, they provided backup yesterday as well they will continue to to 100 I believe today and tonight, and the National Guard, the decision by the mayor to ask for National Guard late last night we I Mayor knows I don’t really sleep that much anyway so I was, I was up and ready for a call and call general Neely who jumped on it and you know we we acted quickly in there, you know we have 125 immediately engaged and others on their way 375 in total.
* What happens if they’re confronted?…
Gov. Pritzker: Well their job is to provide a perimeter. They’re not going to be on the front lines. There’s been a lot of discussion about that, and what their role would be but they’re really there to provide a perimeter, so that the center of the city doesn’t get overtaken the way that it seemed to in certain times.
* There are questions of whether 375 are actually enough or hearing reports this afternoon of issues in Tinley Park they’ve now issued a curfew for tonight, several miles across the suburbs, it isn’t just the city of Chicago. So, will 375 actually be enough?…
Gov. Pritzker: Well 375 National Guardsmen another hundred state police, and they, each of you know the state police in particular has the ability and does in fact on a regular basis assist local law enforcement I also want to point out that there is a network of police departments in a system called Ilyas where law enforcement agencies share resources across lines. And so for many of the other towns or cities that need additional resources they can turn to Ilyas as well so there really are resources available at all levels here for law enforcement.
* Are you concerned that their presence will inflame the violence?…
Mayor Lightfoot: No, I’m not. And to go back to the question that Rick asked, what happens if they’re confronted, there is every bit as well trained as our officers are, they are trained to come into these circumstances that particular acids that are going to be initially deployed are military police officers. So I have every confidence that they will show exactly the same kind of restraint, that our officers do, and we’re not going to let them get into a difficult circumstance thatthey can’t handle.
* Is there more you can tell us about whether any of the looters have known connections to alt-right groups? And is this criminal aspect of the protests that we’re seeing here in another city something that warrants the FBI?…
Mayor Lightfoot: The FBI is very much involved and they have been with us. Really along every single day and beforehand as preparation. We’re working in partnership with the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office, the ATF particularly their bomb and arson units. It’s too soon. In the course of this investigation for us to be able to say definitively one way or the other. As I said before, when I can say there’s no question that some of the destruction that happened last night, particularly the arsons were absolutely organized and coordinated. We’ll learn more about this over time as the investigation takes us course. But that’s, I’m confident of that.
* Mayor you mentioned in your earlier 11am news conference about thinking phase three as even trying to get into the city is so difficult and watching all the boarding up going on is phase three really going to be happening on Wednesday should people plan on coming to work this week, and going out to dinner this week in the city of Chicago?…
Mayor Lightfoot: I think we have to have a lot more conversations first and foremost with our public health officials and we’ve started those conversations very early this morning. I’m very concerned about the fact that while I think the vast majority of people that gathered in the streets were wearing masks now, we could, we can have an interesting discussion about why and who was wearing masks. But the fact of the matter is, there were thousands of people in the street in very close proximity to each other, or not social distancing there, we know from both Governor’s guidance and transparency around how COVID is spread certainly ours as well. There are a number of asymptomatic people that are out there. I’m worried. I’m absolutely worried about a potential outbreak. As a result of what we saw yesterday thousands of people in cheek to jowl in small spaces is exactly the opposite of what we have been preaching now for 10 weeks time. I’m worried about it. I think it’s too soon for us to say we are still on track for reopening on Wednesday. But if that changes we will certainly let people know as quickly as possible.
But let me just also just say this last piece. There are many things that were heartbreaking about what happened last night. But I will also say that for those businesses that have been closed out for 10 weeks in river north, and it really all over the city that we’re starting to prepare had put out. In many instances brand new patio furniture, wanting to give their workers, an opportunity to earn money, and to provide entertainment for people in the city to see their hard work and their money and resources, literally go open flame, their property, reduced to kindling. That’s heartbreaking. And that kind of lawlessness, as I think State’s Attorney fox is so incredibly eloquently that’s not first amendment expression. That’s criminal conduct. And my heart aches for the people who suffered the loss that we saw all over the city.
* Do you agree that an indefinite curfew something that hasn’t been seen in Chicago for decades, is the right course of action. The ACLU calls it broad and vague, which could lead to quote arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement and is exploring possible litigation?…
Gov. Pritzker: Well, I can say that these are decisions that get made at the local level. I think that certainly anybody who watched what happened last night, and the night before too would have to would have to understand the need for a curfew of some sort. And so I think that it seemed to be helpful to the police to Chicago police last night, as there was a curfew or really kept people, most of the people off the streets, the people who were breaking the curfew were of course the very people who are doing the damage that was done.
* If the protests causes an upswing in COVID cases, would you consider putting Chicago into its own region, its own IDPH region?…
Gov. Pritzker: We’ll have to look forward to what happens over the next two to three weeks. But I am deeply concerned, as the mayor said and I said in my remarks, I am deeply concerned that when you gather people together, large groups of people even when they’re wearing masks in very small or large groups in spaces that they can’t certainly distance and don’t, we do run that risk. And so we’ll have to look at this going forward, but I at the moment you know we’re not heading backward.
But I think that it is a warning to everybody that is protesting. Just to, you know that if you could have the decency to spread out in the process of doing it, of course, the lawlessness is completely unacceptable and not tolerated. But I am concerned about the COVID-19 that can spread even in a peaceful demonstration so people should just take it easy on each other.
You need to take a break. Living that in real-time all day, every day is too much. It’s too much.
I’ll be back Monday, but I’m hoping to take off much of next week now that the daily briefings have ended and the stay at home order has been lifted. It’s been real. Too real. Peace…
* Gov. Pritzker began his remarks by thanking Dr. Ezike…
Thank you for being here with me every day during this difficult time for our state. I really applaud the amazing work that you’ve done communicating with people in Illinois about this very very challenging infection and virus.
Please remember to pardon all transcription errors.
* The governor said he’ll be issuing a new executive order today. From his remarks…
In addition to the extension of necessary legal mechanisms like our disaster proclamation, the state and national economy demand that we take action to protect people as best we can from the financial challenges that COVID-19 has brought on. So I’ll also be extending our ban on residential evictions, moratorium on utility shutoffs and suspension on repossession of vehicles. We will also continue offering the ability to conduct marriages and notarization remotely, as well as the suspension of many in-person licensing and training requirements for the time being, to ensure that workers can keep their professional credentials active.
* More…
The president puts out a lot of tweets encouraging reopening before experts say that we should. But the White House guidelines on reopening developed by Dr. Fauci and the CDC are actually really specific and data driven, focusing on positive tests per capita and positivity rates, overall testing rates, hospitalizations and ICU availability, the same metrics that we track here in Illinois.
Well earlier this week Illinois became the first state in the nation to meet the White House guidelines to move to the next phase of reopening the first in the nation.
The path to this point has been tremendously difficult, no doubt. We have lost over 5000 of our fellow Illinoisan’s to this virus. It’s a harrowing number. And it’s just over a few months. Many of our residents have lost someone they love a family member, a friend to this virus. I have too. If you’re someone who doesn’t know a single person who has died because of COVID-19 or been hospitalized because of COVID-19. That doesn’t mean that pain isn’t real for another mother, another child, another friend. I hope you will take at least a moment to grieve for their loss.
As we take our next step forward. And especially as we begin to safely reopen meaningful swaths of our economy. We have to continue to look out for each other, our number one priority must be the health and safety of workers and families, and all of our state’s residents.
* And…
Finally, let me address this platform from which I’m speaking today. Eighty-two days ago, we held our first of these daily briefings. And aside from the last few weekends, we’ve joined together every afternoon for a public update on our COVID-19 response every day since. Keeping the public informed and our operations transparent has been our top priority over the last two and a half months, as it’s been throughout my administration. And on that front nothing’s going to change.
But as the state moves into phase three of our restoring Illinois plan, our daily update will be replaced by briefings specifically dedicated to COVID-19, only on an as-needed basis. That will start on Monday. Instead, we’ll be bringing back some of our more traditional public events, continue to make myself available to the press as often as possible and of course, COVID-19 questions are welcome at briefings, no matter the topic at hand. Additionally, IDPH will continue to send out our daily COVID-19 press releases, and our restore Illinois regional metrics, will continue updating every 24 hours so the public can track our progress online, and you can find the latest status of your region as we move through phase three at dph.illinois.gov/restore. So thank you.
* On to questions for the governor. Do you have a message for the president following his tweets concerning Minneapolis, your thoughts on Minneapolis, the devastation that’s happened there and the arrest today of the officer?…
Well, I have a lot I’d like to say, but let me begin by saying that from the very moment that I announced my decision to run for governor, three plus years ago, I said that this President was a racist, misogynist, homophobe, a xenophobe, and I was right then and I’m right now. His tweets, his reaction, his failure to address the racism that exists in America is stoking the flames in sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways, is completely unacceptable. It’s reprehensible, in fact, and I’m outraged by what he does in response to these situations. I mean this is, I cannot imagine the rage and the fear that must be felt by a black American watching what happened to George Floyd, the threat that comes to every black American under color of law, that they see in a video like that. We’re lucky that that video was ever taken because that is happening around America, probably every day.
And, unfortunately, time and time again, even when these videos come out. Even when so many of us have the feeling of it’s time for a major change. And we work toward that change somehow for black America never really comes. And that’s unacceptable. And to me, the progress that should have been made has failed. So, we have so much that we need to accomplish in this country but especially we need to address the underlying racism that clearly exists. And I will be a bulwark of change and somebody who believes to my core that we must change. And I want to send my condolences to the family of George Floyd, and also to every African American in this country.
* Churches declaring a big victory today after weeks of you being strong about a number of people not being allowed into churches, why did you lift restrictions, did you cave. And why are you backing down from prohibiting in person services or places of worship?…
Well actually, as you know from the very beginning I have said that the most important thing that houses of worship can do and faith leaders can do is to keep their parishioners safe. And that’s why we put out guidelines even in phase three recommending to people that they have services that are either online or drive up services, or in groups of 10 or less, because that’s the safety guidelines that have been recommended by the experts. And all along I have followed that science, those recommendations, and I would recommend that every faith leader do that. I’ve also said from the very beginning that I would never do anything to go break up a service, to interfere with religion. What I have done is implored leaders to not gather their parishioners because what we want most of all is for people to be healthy and safe.
Are those new guidelines in the pipeline or was it in response to that lawsuit?…
You know, we’ve always as you know I’ve talked from this podium about those guidelines, but we had never put out kind of business by business guidelines before. But in phase three we did that industry by industry and including outdoor activities things that aren’t really industries, and of course for religious activity. And no I mean if it were, wouldn’t be as comprehensive as it was if it was something that was just done on the fly.
* You keep saying the state government has been hollowed out if that’s the case, why is Illinois continuing to spend more year after year with plans to have level spending based on borrowing if there’s been a hollowing out?…
Well I don’t know if Greg has noticed, but if you look at the number of people who have worked at the Department of Public Health and the number of people who work at the Illinois Department of Employment Security or go, one after another, each of the agencies of government and you’ll find that there are many more authorized employees than there are actual employees, and many fewer authorized employees than there were in prior years. So, the hollowing out, I mean just look at the numbers of people working in state government. As you know, Illinois has the fewest number of state employees per capita of any state in the United States. And so talking about hollowing out, look what happened two years in a row with no budget in the state. That’s what hollowed out our state government.
* What is your polling during May indicated about voter support for your COVID-19 response and your stay at home orders? How did it change from pulling results back in April?…
Well, I don’t think it’s our polling results. I’ve read polling results I can say honestly that it’s clear that people supported the stay at home order, that people are deeply concerned to make sure that their fellow Illinoisans are kept safe and healthy. And that people support what we’ve done to keep people safe in Illinois.
It is actually gratifying in a way just to know, you’ve seen how Illinois have stepped up during the state home order. Look at what’s happened to the numbers and it’s because of them. And I think those polls are something of a reflection or at least the numbers as they’ve dropped a reflection of what those polls tell you, which is an overwhelming number of people in Illinois understand why we’ve had to react as we have to COVID-19, and they they’re the ones who their poll numbers the people of Illinois their poll numbers are the ones that I think we had a point to. They’re the ones who’ve done this for us.
* What plans do you have for acting on the bills the legislature sent you including whether there will be any big ceremonies for them?…
I don’t think there are any big ceremonies for anything these days. At least not well we’re in phase three and have gatherings of 10 or fewer people, but certainly I will be signing this number of pieces of legislation that came through.
* According to ABC seven analysis of COVID-19 testing data, why is it testing rank every week for the last two months to now rank 10th overall per capita and second per capita among large states. What will you do to ensure Illinois maintains this level of testing as the state reopens and more people are exposed to the virus?…
Again, we’re going to do what we’ve been doing every week. Those numbers are an indicator of where we’ve been and where we intend to go. So I just had a meeting earlier today, as I do on a regular basis, with our team that is in charge of building up our testing capacity and our testing supplies. All the things that are required for us to keep building that number up. So it’s hard to do I might add that this is not an easy endeavor. Because again, we’re competing against everybody else in the nation for a limited amount of supplies. And because we all need to ramp up testing in a massive way. I think we’ve been more successful than most other states at doing it. And I’ll just credit the people who have led that effort for us, and also our common drive and our goal that we set the mission that we set to make sure that we have testing, but there’s so much more to do. I would like to test much much more than we’re doing now, but right now we have to focus it on the most vulnerable populations and do what we can to keep people safe and healthy, as they’re going back to work. There’s no doubt going to be employers who will need to have their employees tested and we will try to jump on that wherever we need to.
* What does the US lose by having President Trump terminate the country’s membership in the World Health Organization?…
Well, I’m not. What I’ll tell you is the World Health Organization is one of several very important organizations that, I think all of us have looked for guidance from the CDC a national organization here in the United States is yet another one. But it seems as if President Trump is withdrawing us from the rest of the world and I think we saw what happens to a nation when you withdraw from the rest of the world what happens in terms of chaos around the world when the United States is not leading, and unfortunately that’s where President Trump has taken us to where the United States is not leading where it ought to.
* Now that you’ve looked at the stay at home order Do you plan to travel out of state with your family now perhaps as soon as this weekend?…
I don’t have a plan to travel outside of the state right now. But I’ve never said that people couldn’t travel outside the states.
You know people have for their jobs, sometimes people live in Wisconsin or in Indiana and they work in Illinois or vice versa. And there’s nothing wrong with traveling to your, if it was in the last stage and essential business and job. Now as things have opened up more and no doubt there’ll be even more activity, again, I would just encourage people to recognize that traveling is is a safe thing to do, but making sure that when you go to a state that has fewer restrictions that you’re not engaging in an activity that epidemiologists are telling us are relatively unsafe and put you at risk of catching COVID-19.
* It’s been reported Illinois contact tracing program is not near where it ought to be at the stage, can you reiterate what the contact tracing benchmarks are in order for the state to move to the next phases if there are any, are there any public information campaigns about contact tracing planned for the coming months?…
To the latter part, yes, of course we want to make sure that people as it is spinning up all over the state, we want people to understand what contact tracing is. I thought Dr. Ezike had a great message about, there are people who are scammers, who, on the idea of a contact tracing they use that to get your credit card information your Social Security, whatever. No one will ask you for that. You would get a call from someone from contact tracing in your county, typically, and, and that call would never ask you for that kind of private information they will provide you with information that’s all they’re intended to do provide you with information about the fact that you’ve been exposed to somebody.
So the first part of it was how far are we behind what are the two, what are the benchmarks to move forward. Yeah. Well we’ve talked about this before today as you know where we have, we’re covering about 30% of the contact tracing that you can’t, you know that’s of people who are contacts, and we need to get above 60%. And so that we’re trying [garbled] to get there. And again, it’s a large endeavor we have, you know, 97, local health departments that we’re coordinating with, they’re doing a terrific job by the way more than 80 of them are already very active in helping us build up this contact tracing capability. We have grants that are going out to them, allowing them to hire people over the next two weeks those grants in many places will have been given to them. And so there’ll be hiring, that’s ongoing during the month of June. But to the extent of what does it require to get us to the next phase, it’s building up that contact tracing and we’re doing it now.
* Just looking back, I think you said 82 days of these nearly 82 days of these, looking back just your, your emotion to all this, maybe what would have been done differently or something would have been done faster I know there’s lots of things we’ve talked about that would have, you know, been better had they worked faster. But just how are you feeling right now I think there’s a lot of hope right now on the street and it’s going to be a beautiful weekend and people are excited to hit the patios, how are you feeling?…
Well I have two minds about giving you an answer to that. I am happy to I’m very happy that again that people have been so good to each other in the state. And with this enormous challenge, you know, we’re all doing exactly what I would hope that we would and that doesn’t really surprise me. I mean, the people of Illinois are some of the most generous genuinely giving people. So it doesn’t surprise me.
I also, I can’t finish an answer without saying that we have to be careful things as we open up also means that opportunities to get catch COVID-19 open up. And so, wearing your face covering. I came here wearing it. I’m standing here without it, but when I step back, I will wear it again. Wearing your face covering in public, and other people wearing theirs, it’s an enormously important thing to be doing going forward. All of the experts, the true experts have recognized this and that’s why we put in a face covering requirement when you’re in public. Same thing all the things we’ve been saying over and over again. I have to keep reminding people, please wash your hands, please be careful, don’t gather in large groups because all those situations, not washing hands not wearing a face covering gathering in large groups. Those are the situations in which we get an outbreak and those is situation where people go into hospital. And ultimately, some of them die and I just, it’s we’ve worked so hard to get where we are. If we can just follow the rules going forward as we’re opening up. We can do this safely and keep people healthy.
* State lawmakers passed a bill that would offer Medicaid to undocumented seniors. Do you expect to sign this and do you foresee expanding it just beyond seniors?…
I will sign that bill. I think it’s important, especially at this moment in our history, during the middle of this crisis that we expand healthcare.
* Mayor Lightfoot was blunt in her criticism of Donald Trump and saying her message to him was FU. You’ve been outspoken in your criticism of Trump, but in using such a term has a line been crossed? Isn’t it just playing in his sandbox? Your thoughts?…
I’m sorry it’s him playing what ,she said is playing in his sandbox? I don’t know, look, I told you what I think. I’m pretty blunt about this, he’s a racist. I’m not sure what else I need to say. That’s more severe, the [garbled] of that’s precisely everything that I have fought against in my entire life is represented by what he tweets and says.
* There are reports that some testing locations are being scarcely used such as rolling Meadows. What metrics is the state using to determine testing location viability and sustainability?…
So we don’t get to pick every location, just to be clear. We try very hard to pinpoint neighborhoods that we’d like to be in. But then you’ve got to find an actual space to do it in. So, in a drive thru circumstance, those are harder to do than in a building. Just because of the amount of effort to create facilities. And then, when you’re doing it in a building, you’ve got to get the permission of the people in the building and the, you’ve got to be able to get ingress and egress at the hours that you want and so on. So I mean I would say we’re trying very hard to pinpoint the communities that are most vulnerable. Make sure that there’s testing there, but also to make sure it’s available to everyone in the state. Because first responders and healthcare workers and people who have compromised immune systems, that they are there isn’t an easy way to pinpoint a community that each of those people might live in. And so we just need to have it everywhere.
* What has COVID-19 taught you about yourself and what it means to lead Illinois?…
Dr. Ezike: I’m grateful for the support that most of Illinois has shared. I think it’s so evident that leading means having an amazing team of people to work together with and collaborate with and at this level it’s involved working with our various state agencies working with our local health departments working with all community based organizations. So leading just means collaborating on this stage with this COVID pandemic it’s meant collaborating on just the most intense levels across all bandwidth, up and down, all levels. And it’s really the more that’s done, the more successful we can be and I think, Illinois has just been a shining example of what leadership means in terms of collaboration and working together, and just making sure that everyone can have input to make sure we get the best results and I think we’ve done that, as the first state to actually meet the White House metrics, I think that’s a very laudable goal that we really have to celebrate and it also involved. The people of Illinois, being able to trust their leadership and be more wanting to follow the direction that we were trying to lead in so grateful for that opportunity grateful to have so many amazing partners that grateful to have such great teams and grateful, very grateful to be under the leadership of this governor who was so supportive of following the science so that we could do the right thing. And so glad that we could show that science works.
Gov. Pritzker: I don’t know exactly how to describe what it’s taught me about myself. I will say that it has really tested everyone in state government. It has tested everyone.
Think about the the workers that needed to come to work because what they do every day, providing services at our veterans homes or for our developmentally disabled or providing or helping people file their unemployment claims, or the many people at the Department of Public Health who have worked 24 hours a day. We have some unbelievably dedicated public servants. And so I just, I don’t know what to say as somebody who has not held elective office before becoming governor, but I did have some great pride in people who work in government, but I don’t think I had seen it this up close and in this intense environment ever before. And I think the people of Illinois should be just so proud really of the people who work every day. I’m not, sorry that the elected officials, I’m talking about Dr Ezike I’m talking about the people who are answering the phones, people who are actually, one on one serving people as part of state governments serving the people of Illinois, just by their second to none.
* Will the new executive order extend your emergency proclamations related to telehealth or civil liability protections for healthcare facilities?…
Yes that will continue under the under the emergency disaster proclamations. We didn’t talk about every aspect of it I suppose today. But there is, we obviously we’re no longer in a stay at home order. And there’s a lot that has evolved, but much will remain. And we do want to make sure there’s a bill that’s passed on telehealth which I’m very glad it did. And we began that in our executive order but any aspect of it. That isn’t covered by that bill we would extend.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,622 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 86 additional deaths.
Boone County: 1 female 70s
Coles County: 1 female 60s
Cook County: 1 male 30s, 1 female 50s, 1 male 50s, 6 females 60s, 5 males 60s, 8 females 70s, 8 males 70s, 5 females 80s, 8 males 80s, 6 females 90s, 4 males 90s
DuPage County: 1 female 30s, 1 male 30s, 1 male 50s, 1 male 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 70s, 2 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 90s
Kane County: 1 female 70s, 2 males 80s
Lake County: 1 female 60s, 2 males 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 70s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 90s
Madison County: 1 male 50s
McDonough County: 1 male 70s
McHenry County: 1 female 70s
Ogle County: 1 female 50s
Rock Island County: 1 male 60s
Sangamon County: 1 male 50s
St. Clair County: 2 females 90s
Will County: 1 male 60s
Winnebago County: 1 male 60s
Edgar County is now reporting a case COVID-19. Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 117,455 cases, including 5,270 deaths, in 101 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 25,513 specimens for a total of 855,479. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from May 22–May 28 is 8%.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. Information for deaths previously reported has changed, therefore, today’s numbers have been adjusted.
…Adding… Dr. Ezike…
As of midnight, 3599 individuals were hospitalized with COVID-19. Of those 3599 individuals, 980 were in the ICU and 593 were on ventilators.
The Winnebago County Board meets Thursday to consider a resolution condemning Chicago Rockford International Airport Director Mike Dunn for calling board member Dorothy Redd “pathetic and stupid” in a fiery text message he sent her this month.
The controversy began soon after Chairman Frank Haney nominated Mike Schablaske on May 4 to the Greater Rockford Airport Authority Board of Commissioners. Schablaske served as a finance executive at Woodward for many years before leading the Transform Rockford civic organization from 2013 to 2018.
In a May 14 memo to Haney, Redd asked that Haney withdraw Schablaske’s nomination and let whomever voters elect to succeed Haney in November nominate someone to the airport board. Redd’s concern? The airport board lacks diversity. Five of its six members are white, as is Schablaske. Two of the six airport commissioners are women.
When Dunn learned of Redd’s memo to Haney, he sent her a text message that read:
“I just read your pathetically stupid memo to the chairman re: the airport board. Please be aware if you did your research you would know that there hasn’t been an all-white male board at the airport for over 30 years. Since I have been associated with the airport and or the airport board since 2001, there has at all times been a minority on the board — Judge Gwyn Gulley, Rev. K. Edward Copeland and now, Leslie West. Your idiotic and stupid statements are actually more pathetic than stupid. Do your job. Thank God, the airport board is not and has not been filled with the likes of you.”
“A minority”? Rockford is 51 percent white, 21.2 percent African-American and 18.4 percent Latino. But, yeah, the airport board has always had one “minority.” Woo-hoo!
You may not be surprised to see the photos of County Commissioner Redd and Airport Director Dunn…
[Oops. I originally uploaded the wrong pic for Dunn. Fixed now.]
A scathing text message that the city’s airport director sent to a Winnebago County Board member was the communication of a private citizen and does not reflect the opinion of the airport board, said Paul Cicero, chairman of the airport board. […]
“Sounds like a private citizen expressed an opinion,” said Paul Cicero, chairman of the Greater Rockford Airport Authority Board of Commissioners, when asked on Thursday about his opinion of Dunn’s text message. […]
On Thursday, the County Board approved a resolution declaring Dunn’s text message to Redd was “inappropriate in subject matter and tone.” Board members elaborated on that message in a letter to airport commissioners.
“The lack of respect Mr. Dunn showed Ms. Redd is not acceptable from anyone, much less someone who occupies the position he has with the airport,” the letter states. ”… Mr Dunn owes Ms. Redd and the entire County Board on which she serves an apology. In the future we hope that his speech and writings will be tempered with professionalism and respect.”
“I have known Mike Dunn for 30 years or maybe more,” said [county board member Angie Goral], D-13. “I am tired of people saying ‘Well, that’s the way he is.’ He doesn’t just owe Dorothy an apology. He owes the whole board an apology. We all need to stay together on this.”
*** UPDATE *** From Gov. Pritzker’s press secretary Jordan Abudayyeh…
Gov. Pritzker has assembled one of the most diverse administrations in state history, because the governor knows representation matters. No public official should use inflammatory language and insults to silence those that call out inequity. The governor urges the Winnebago County Board to take action and make a real commitment to equity.
Since the first death in the state on March 16, the toll of the coronavirus pandemic has hit hard in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs in Cook County.
WBEZ is memorializing the names of those victims here and on air.
The names and information displayed below come directly from the Cook County medical examiner’s office; this page will be updated frequently.
Illinois will lose the equivalent of 550,000 yearlong full-time jobs due to the pandemic, with 40% of them concentrated in trade, transportation, leisure and hospitality services and the professional sector, according to a new study from the University of Illinois.
The study by the university system’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs also warned that more than $28.5 billion in income will be lost to Illinois citizens and businesses, along with $76 billion in economic output representing the value of goods and services produced due to stay-at-home and business closures.
The study’s authors said that in a slow reopening of the state’s economy, small changes in the critical economic component of household spending, such as non-food shopping or going to restaurants, could significantly impact a recovery.
The authors of the study note that the recession caused by the pandemic appears unlike previous economic-driven recessions, as Illinois’ economy is moving in concert with the entire country rather than lagging behind the rest of the nation.
As University of Illinois officials deliberate over how to reopen the Urbana campus this fall, a group of faculty members say they don’t believe the university can safely allow tens of thousands of students back into residence halls and classrooms this year.
Experts say tracking where people who’ve gotten COVID-19 live and work — and presumably where they may have come into contact with the virus — is vital to preventing and identifying potential future outbreaks. […]
But the problem is, this data is woefully incomplete.
To try to track cases in its infectious disease database, the Illinois Department of Public Health issued a 14-page form that it has asked hospitals to fill out when they identify a patient with COVID-19.
But faced with a cumbersome process in the midst of a pandemic, many hospitals aren’t completely filling out the forms. Then it falls to public health workers, already overstretched and under-resourced, to play catch up with patients to get this information.
The Illinois Press Foundation announced Thursday it has made the difficult decision to sell its facility at 900 Community Drive in Springfield.
The building has been owned by the foundation and home to the Illinois Press Association since its construction was completed in 2000.
“Times have changed, and the association no longer utilizes the entire 12,000 square feet of the building,” said Sam Fisher, president and CEO of the Illinois Press Association. […]
“The association plans on finding more suitable space, and the sale of the building will provide additional money for the Foundation to expand support of its many efforts, in particular Capitol News Illinois,” he said.
With restaurants and bars throughout the state reopening Friday, they will not have the ability to reap lost profits by serving takeout cocktails — even though legislators passed a bill last weekend allowing it. […]
Steve Brown, a spokesman for House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago), said the process for the House Clerk to send a bill to the governor’s desk may take some time depending on what sort of review the governor has requested. Additionally, a bill must be rewritten into a clean version including all amendments passed by the House and Senate.
“It’s a paperwork issue, but a meticulous one because you want to make sure the enrolled and engrossed version [of the bill] matches the amendments before going to the governor’s desk,” he said.
But even when Pritzker’s signature hits the bill, bars and restaurants in Chicago, at least, will not be able to sell pre-mixed cocktails just yet; the Chicago City Council must take up the issue to amend a part of the city’s liquor code to allow cocktails to go. The next time the council is scheduled to meet is June 17.
Harvey barbershop opens for mask-wearing clients: ‘It’s pretty much like a normal Friday’
Suburban restaurants move tables outside
Hair salons reopen with masked stylists, temperature checks
Reopening scenes in Chicago’s suburbs
Illinois starts reopening today; here’s what it looks like
Woodfield Mall to reopen Friday, with others to follow
Pritzker bolsters testing rules for nursing homes, issues Phase 3 ‘guidance’ for churches
The future of riding the CTA: Here’s how Chicago commutes will change
Chicago police announced Thursday one more case of COVID-19, bringing the total in the department to 552.
A pair of Cook County judges have tested positive for COVID-19, marking the first cases of the coronavirus in judges of the Circuit Court, officials announced Thursday.
Pandemic boosts the folly and madness of conspiracy theorists
D.O.A. proposal for South Side hospital merger deserves second chance
Chicago’s new normal: Cashless, contactless transactions might become our default post-COVID-19
The number of nonfarm jobs decreased over-the-year in April in all fourteen Illinois metropolitan areas, with six metro areas at record low payrolls, according to preliminary data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). Data also shows that the unemployment rate increased over-the-year in all metro areas to record highs for the month of April as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact local areas across the state. The official, BLS approved, sub-state unemployment rate and nonfarm jobs series begins in 1990. Data reported prior to 1990 are not directly comparable due to updates in methodology.
“With every corner of our nation impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is time for the federal government to provide state and local governments with additional relief,” said Deputy Governor Dan Hynes. “Our administration is focused on helping small businesses rebuild and ensuring working families recover as communities across the state begin safely reopening their economies next week.”
Data shows the number of nonfarm jobs decreased in all fourteen Illinois metropolitan areas. Total nonfarm jobs were down in Peoria (-17.9%, -30,500), Decatur (-17.6%, -9,000) and Rockford (-15.6%, -23,600). Jobs were down -12.8% (-483,200) in Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights. Job losses occurred across all industries and there were no industry sectors that recorded job growth in a majority of metro areas.
Not seasonally adjusted data compares April 2020 with April 2019. The not seasonally adjusted Illinois rate was 16.9 percent in April 2020, a record high for the month of April, dating back to 1976. Nationally, the not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 14.4 percent in April 2020, also a record high, dating back to 1948. The unemployment rate identifies those individuals who are out of work and seeking employment.
The not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 15.9 percent in April 2020 from 4.4 percent in April 2019. The April 2020 unemployment rate is the highest April unemployment rate on record.
Total nonfarm employment decreased -3,900 compared to April 2019. The Leisure-Hospitality (-800), Manufacturing (-700), and Educational-Health Services (-600) sectors recorded the largest employment declines compared to one year ago.
Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, IL Metro Division
The not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 17.6 percent in April 2020 from 3.5 percent in April 2019. The April 2020 unemployment rate is the highest April unemployment rate on record.
Total nonfarm employment decreased -483,200 compared to April 2019. The Leisure-Hospitality (-200,500), Professional-Business Services (-64,700), Retail Trade (-47,000), and Educational-Health Services (-44,100) sectors recorded the largest employment declines compared to one year ago.
Elgin, IL Metro Division
The not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 16.6 percent in April 2020 from 3.9 percent in April 2019. The April 2020 unemployment rate is the highest April unemployment rate on record.
Total nonfarm employment decreased -38,200 compared to April 2019. The Leisure-Hospitality (-12,400), Educational-Health Services (-4,900), and Manufacturing (-4,500) sectors recorded the largest employment declines compared to one year ago.
Lake & Kenosha Counties, IL-WI Metro Division
The not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 15.1 percent in April 2020 from 3.7 percent in April 2019. The April 2020 unemployment rate is the highest April unemployment rate on record.
Total nonfarm employment decreased -53,900 compared to April 2019. Leisure-Hospitality (-19,500), Professional-Business Services (-10,700), and Retail Trade (-8,100) sectors recorded the largest employment declines compared to one year ago.
* Jennifer Smith Richards of the Chicago Tribune and Jodi S. Cohen of ProPublica Illinois…
After months of debate about schools’ use of seclusion and face-down restraints on children, Illinois lawmakers did not act last week on a measure that would have banned the controversial practices immediately, instead delaying the decision until the fall at the earliest.
Although Gov. J.B. Pritzker and state schools Superintendent Carmen Ayala have vowed to stop the practices of putting children alone in locked rooms and holding them down on the floor, the bill faced opposition from school groups that viewed oversight requirements as too burdensome.
Months of meetings among lawmakers, school lobbyists and advocates ended with broad agreement that schools should reduce their reliance on the physical interventions, used most often on students with disabilities, according to meeting participants. But a last-minute push from the school groups tabled the matter this session; they thought the bill asked too much of school workers, who would be required to hold debriefing meetings with parents or guardians every time a student is put in time out or is restrained.
A Chicago Tribune and ProPublica Illinois investigation last year, “The Quiet Rooms,” revealed widespread misuse of both practices in the state’s public schools.
New state rules adopted in April already significantly limit those practices and require state oversight for the first time, but advocates and lawmakers continued to push for a state law that would have superseded the rules and increased restrictions and oversight.
The most recent draft of the legislation would have made it illegal to put students alone in a locked room or in a room with the door blocked, and would have required that students placed in seclusion have access to food, medication and the bathroom. The bill also would have required school workers to meet with students and parents within two school days of each instance of time out or restraint and ordered the Illinois State Board of Education to develop plans within 90 days to reduce the use of restraint and seclusion in any form within three years.
“We’ve had all these meetings, all these meetings, and then at the eleventh hour, they come in and kill the bill,” Rep. Jonathan Carroll, a Democrat from Northbrook, said of the Illinois Statewide School Management Alliance, which lobbies on behalf of the state’s public school principals and administrators, school finance officials and school boards. Carroll, who has spoken about being secluded as a child and the harm it caused, sponsored the House version of the bill. […]
Phil Milsk, a legislative adviser for the Illinois Association of School Social Workers, said the organization opposed the legislation because it was not clear that it applied to all schools, including private schools and special education cooperatives. He said requiring two debriefing meetings after each time out or restraint was “excessive” and would be “a huge burden on staff” and families. […]
Kyle Hillman, director of legislative affairs for the National Association of Social Workers, which supported the measure, said he was disappointed that opposition derailed the bill after months of negotiations.
“We have said from the beginning that … ultimately the bad actors in this state are not willingly going to end this abusive practice,” he wrote in a statement. “We continue to hold out hope our elected officials step up and end this practice now before this becomes another Illinois tragedy story.”
* From Rep. Carroll…
I’m very disappointed that special interests put the protection of its members over what’s best for our most vulnerable children. I’m not surprised that the School Management Alliance did this because it’s what they always do, but I’m disappointed that other organizations would join in these efforts. Senator Gillespie and I are committed to ending these brutal practices and will continue pushing forth this legislation.
According to Carroll, the groups opposing the bill included the Statewide School Management Alliance, the Illinois Alliance of Administrators of Special Education, the Illinois Association of Private Special Education Centers, ED-RED, the Illinois Association of School Social Workers, LEND and SCOPE.
…Adding… Equip for Equality…
We are extremely disappointed that the legislature didn’t act on this critical issue. The sponsors spent months working with a stakeholder group primarily comprised of school associations and adopted many changes at their request. Despite this process, in the end, the school industry united and stopped the legislature’s reform effort.
It felt like déjà vu. Twenty years ago, after a television news expose by Dave Savini, we were able to pass a temporary law banning these practices, while ISBE developed rules to stop the abuses by schools. ISBE allowed school groups to dominate the stakeholder membership; our voice for student and parent rights was largely ignored. Schools continued to ignore the weak law, as this year’s exposé demonstrated.
It is shameful that Illinois statutes provide life-saving limitations on the use of restraint and seclusion on adults with developmental disabilities and mental illness, but not on vulnerable students with disabilities.
Unlike other states that are seeking to reduce and eliminate the use of these practices, and some states that have banned them altogether, Illinois’ school industry continues to be steadfast in its opposition to reform. The legislature has been all too willing to bend to their preferences. The schools blocked meaningful reform 20 years ago, and again last week. The legislature needs to stop giving in to the schools and take a more balanced approach that takes into account student safety.
Just days after a downstate judge granted him a restraining order exempting him from the extended statewide stay-at-home order, state Rep. Darren Bailey is asking the Illinois Appellate Court to vacate that order so he can file an amended lawsuit.
Bailey filed another lawsuit but the attorney general is attempting to move it to a federal court.
A Clay County judge who has repeatedly criticized Gov. JB Pritzker’s stay-at-home order again ruled against the governor on Friday, but stopped short of issuing a statewide temporary restraining order that had been sought by a downstate business owner.
James Mainer and HCL Deluxe Tan had filed a new lawsuit on Thursday, seeking to have the governor’s executive order declared null and void. At a hearing on Friday, Mainer’s attorney, Thomas DeVore, sought a temporary restraining order barring the governor from enforcing the order statewide, but instead Clay County Judge Michael McHaney granted an order only for Mainer and his business.
The temporary restraining order exempts Mainer and HCL Deluxe Tan from the stay-at-home order until June 5, when McHaney will hold another hearing on the plaintiffs’ bid for a permanent injunction.
“Waiting until such time as a hearing might be had on the determination on the merits of the injunction is too great a risk for James and HCL, given their freedom and livelihoods are being stripped away in violation of Illinois law every hour that passes,” McHaney’s ruling states.
IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIFTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT
JAMES MAINER, in his individual capacity and on behalf of all citizens similarly situated, and HCL DELUXE TAN, LLC, an Illinois limited liability company, on its behalf and on behalf of all businesses similarly situated,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v. GOVERNOR J.B. PRITZKER, in his official capacity,
Defendant-Petitioner.
CONSENT TO DISSOLVE TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER
The undersigned, being counsel for the Appellees hereby advise this Honorable Court the Appellees consent to the dissolution of the temporary restraining order entered by the circuit court in this cause as the Governor’s restore plan has remedied the injury to Appellee at least prospectively, and as such respectfully request an order entering dissolving the temporary restraining order and remanding this matter back to the circuit court to proceed consistent with said order.
Thomas G. DeVore
…Adding… Another attorney in a different case…
Tim Belz, an attorney representing the church, tells the @Suntimes, "my clients have never been interested in getting a pound of flesh out of this. They just wanted protection from the governor." With the new state guidelines announced yesterday, he said they got it.
Edwin Ramirez, the 15-year owner of 201 Stylez on Park Avenue [in New Jersey], has rolled out “Shields on Wheels” to help keep clients and their barbers safe during a cut.
Ramirez, who was forced to close his barbershop in March, came up with the idea for a plexiglass shield while working at a carpentry shop he also owns, Pix11 reports.
The shield contains a cutout large enough for the barber to fit their hands and tools through, and is on wheels, so the barber can work around a client’s head.
Ramirez is working on a concept for hair salons and has already been contacted by other barbers looking to order a set of shields.
A Dutch restaurant has come up with an idea on how to offer classy outdoor dining in the age of coronavirus: small glass cabins built for two or three people, creating intimate cocoons on a public patio.
Waiters wear gloves and transparent face shields, and use a long board to bring dishes into the glass cabins to ensure minimal physical contact with customers.
While the concept is currently being trialed only for family and friends of staff from the ETEN restaurant, which is part of the Mediamatic arts centre, it certainly looks glamorous, as diners enjoy candle-lit meals with a waterside view.
* The Question: Do you have any ideas to make public spaces and services more accommodating? They don’t have to be brilliant inventions. Just stuff you’ve noticed over the past couple of months that could be improved or changed.
* From Speaker Madigan’s chief of staff Jessica Basham…
Good morning, members –
Please see the information below, which I shared with staff just a bit ago.
Many of you have asked about suggestions and guidelines for the re-opening of your district offices. While your office may wish to mimic some of the guidelines I plan to put in place for the Office of the Speaker, your offices are each unique and also more public-facing. The following are some suggestions for your consideration:
· Regarding your staff, develop a schedule that blends in-office and remote work, in order to reduce the number of staff in the office at one time.
· Meet with constituents by appointment only, if a remote (video or call) meeting is not possible. Provide face coverings for members of the public who come into the office.
· Limit the number of public that can be in a waiting area at one time.
· Share information (on your website, social media, newsletter, and/or posting at your office) about your protocols regarding meeting with constituents.
· Refrain from inviting large groups to visit the office.
· Provide access to face coverings and sanitization products for staff, and add additional cleaning responsibilities to staff’s assigned duties.
As always, you will choose how and when to make operational changes for your district offices. The points above and below are suggestions for your consideration.
If you have further thoughts about these plans, or ideas that you’re developing for your offices, please share them. As we navigate these uncharted waters, I’m happy to share them with the whole caucus for further consideration.
Take care and be well,
Jessica
* Memo to staff…
Good morning, staff –
First, thank you to everyone for working almost exclusively remotely over these last many weeks. As the State enters into Phase 3 of the Governor’s Restore Illinois re-opening plan, the Office of the Speaker (the “Office”) has been reviewing the public health guidance to develop a plan for safely return to the workplace.
Beginning June 8, 2020, employees of the Office are directed to report to their offices in Springfield and Chicago on a limited basis, while continuing to work remotely for the remainder of the work week. Each staff member will be required to be in the office for 12 hours, unless otherwise directed. In the coming days, your supervisor will be in touch to discuss shift assignments. Shifts will be arranged in such a way as to minimize the amount of staff physically present in the office at any one time in order to facilitate social distancing.
The following safety precautions are being taken to support the work of the Office in this next phase of operations:
· A cloth face covering will be provided to staff members. Staff should wear a face covering at all times when coming within 6 ft. of another person, and at all times when coming to and from the office or walking around the office space (e.g., to and from the restroom or break area).
· Staff members should perform a daily temperature check before coming to work. Alternately, staff members may visit the on-site paramedic (Capitol Room 206, 8a-5p Mon-Fri) to have their temperature taken. Those with an elevated temperature or experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms should not report to work.
· The Capitol and Stratton Buildings will remain generally closed to the public, unless that person is accompanied by a state employee. Staff are discouraged from taking any in-person meetings; instead, meetings should continue to be conducted remotely whenever possible. If interaction with a member of the public is necessary (e.g., a constituent meeting), those should be done by appointment only.
· Only a limited number of people should ride elevators at once, to maintain social distancing. Guidelines, which may differ depending on the elevator size, will be posted at the elevators.
· The janitorial staff will be working additional hours to continue a robust sanitation protocol. They will be supported by the Secretary of State janitorial staff, who will be returning to the office full time beginning Monday, June 1.
· Additional hand sanitizer stations have been added to the buildings.
· Plans concerning the Bilandic Building are still under development; however, staff should anticipate a requirement to wear a face covering, as well as limitations on public access and elevator capacity.
· Staff members who report to the Bilandic Building and are reliant on public transportation will be eligible for reimbursement of parking expenses for their required shifts.
Next week, we will have an all-staff call to review more specific safety precautions and answer other operational questions.
Two weeks ago Peoria leaders introduced the Restore Heart of Illinois plan, made up of 11 counties in Central Illinois with the goal of reopening more quickly than the state wide plan allowed.
Now with phase three of the state plan, Restore Illinois, starting Friday those same leaders are now saying the Governor’s plan takes the lead.
Peoria officials said when they started working on their Restore HOI plan there was no guidance from the state. But now the Peoria Health Department said a lot has changed.
“As this moved forward and we were waiting for responses and then there was different executive orders and different discussions about insurance liabilities, professional regulations as well as even administrative code updates we never want to put any of our entities in a situation where they had to determine about their liability and risk and safe practices.” said Administrator Monica Hendrickson
She said much of Restore HOI has now merged with the Governor’s plan or includes compromises, such as the outdoor seating for food establishments.
“What Restore HOI initially did was to create that guidance. Since then restore Illinois provided guidance just this weekend and upon comparison we recognized that a lot of our feedback was actually implemented and so from a local health department perspective we are following restore Illinois.”
[Peoria City/County Health Department Admnistrator Monica Hendrickson] said the Restore HOI plan has now “merged” with the governor’s plan.
“I think people want to say Restore HOI was a failure or whatnot,” she said. “But really, it was a way for us to provide guidance and get people to think about what it was going to be like to reopen, as well as to help advocate and support our state entities as they were moving into a very much new phase of this pandemic, which was to start reopening and releasing restrictions.”
After nearly two hours of discussion, McLean County Board members voted 12-8 Thursday night to table a resolution to implement the Restore Heart of Illinois plan.
No date was set to take up the plan again.
Earlier in the day, Peoria County Administrator Scott Sorrell confirmed at a press briefing that Peoria, which developed the plan as an alternative to the state’s Restore Illinois plan, would not be bringing it to its own county board for consideration.
In fact, none of the other 10 counties included in the regional reopening plan has chosen to implement it.
McLean County Board Member Carlo Robustelli made the motion to table the vote. “The plan author has abandoned their plan,” he said. “A regional plan without the region all buying in and adopting it makes it impossible to do the regional metrics that have been laid out in it.”
[McLean County] Board members opposed implementing the Heart of Illinois Plan pointed to a letter from and a statement by McLean County Health Department Administrator Jessica McKnight, who said, “The health department does not have the capacity to fulfill our role in the implementation.” […]
Of seven public comments read into the record, only two supported implementation of the Heart of Illinois Plan.
In addition, Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner sent a letter to the board opposing immediate implementation of the plan. In his letter, Renner wrote, “I urge you to be prudent and wait until further plans are properly vetted and to operate within the framework established by Governor Pritzker.
Facing a barrage of legal challenges from churches, Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to remove a provision limiting the number of people who can attend in-person religious services when he signs a new version of his statewide stay-at-home order on Friday.
The move comes as the state moves into phase three of Pritzker’s reopening plan, with a wider range of businesses opening their doors for the first time in more than two months. On Thursday, the Illinois Department of Public Health issued new guidelines for houses of worship, hours before the state responded to the U.S. Supreme Court in a lawsuit by two churches seeking to block Pritzker’s stay-at-home order.
Pritzker’s extended stay-at-home order, issued April 30 and set to expire after Friday, added religious services to the list of “essential” activities for which residents are permitted to leave their homes but mandated that they be limited to 10 or fewer people.
In its Supreme Court filing, the state argues that the churches’ request is moot because Pritzker “has announced that after that date religious gatherings will no longer be subject to mandatory restrictions.”
“This is a total and complete victory for people of faith,” said Peter Breen, the vice president of the Thomas More Society, in a statement. “Illinois’ governor and his administration abused the COVID-19 pandemic to stomp on the religious liberty of the people of Illinois.”
Gov. Pritzker released the new guidelines during a news conference Thursday afternoon.
“We’re not providing restrictions,” he said. “We’re simply providing the best recommendations that we can for keeping people safe, so we hope the pastors will follow that guidance.” […]
The governor’s spokeswoman, Jordan Abudayyeh, warned that attending church is still a high-risk activity. She said the guidelines are new, but churches have always been allowed to do what they want.
But those who filed a lawsuit on the churches’ behalf see the new guidelines as a win for worshippers.
Today, the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association (ISA) filed suit against Governor Jay Pritzker and the Illinois De- partment of Corrections for their refusal to accept transfers of parole violators or convicted individuals from jails across Illinois.
On March 26, Gov. Pritzker unilaterally suspended all admissions to IDOC facilities in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the leaders at IDOC said they needed time to prepare and install proper intake procedures to reduce the spread of the virus from inmates transferred out of County Jails. However, no such preparations have been made or implemented, despite repeated discussions between members of the ISA and IDOC
Rather than working together with the Sheriffs to find ways to uphold the law while reducing the spread of COVID-19, IDOC has simply shut its doors.
This has left the Sheriffs to bear not only the burden of protecting their detainees and county-sentenced inmates from the threat of the virus, but also those who rightfully should be in the custody of IDOC at a time when space and inmate population are critical components to battling the spread of the virus. Jails continue to accept new arrestees and manage the spread of the virus simultaneously.
Since March 26, IDOC officials have repeatedly denied requests from Sheriff’s Offices to transfer individ- uals to the agency’s custody. Currently there are 100’s of individuals being held in jails across Illinois in- stead of a state correctional facility simply because Gov. Pritzker and IDOC have decided to wall them- selves off rather than work with their fellow law enforcement partners to address the issue.
The task of safely housing detainees amid this unprecedented pandemic is challenge enough for Illinois Sheriffs without having to also shoulder IDOC’s responsibilities as well.
* Gov. Pritzker today talked about tomorrow’s Phase 3 reopening, including this…
We will also be posting recommendations for houses of worship, providing more guidance for houses of worship in phase three. Having received many plans and ideas from responsible faith leaders, IDPH has reviewed many detailed proposals and has provided guidance, not mandatory restrictions for all faith leaders to use in their efforts to ensure the health and safety of their congregants. This includes suggestions on capacity limits, new cleaning protocols indoor gatherings of 10 persons or less a reduction of activities like sharing food, and the safe conduct of outdoor congregating. The safest options remain remote and driving services, but for those that want to conduct in person activities, IDPH is offering best practices.
That’s an interesting development, considering the US Supreme Court now has a case before it.
* Back to Pritzker…
Additionally with phase three, horse racing will be returning to Illinois tracks, boosting the industry in a key season, especially for thoroughbred and harness racing. The Department of Agriculture has worked with the IDPH with the Illinois racing board and industry leaders to develop guidelines for racing, allowing those whose livelihoods depend on these races to get back to work and allowing spectators to watch from home and place wagers online and over the phone.
And while it’s still at least a few weeks off, I want to affirm that the three metrics that have brought us from phase two to phase three will be the same as those that will move us into phase four. Just as this 28 day period of tracking started when we move from phase one to phase two on May 1, our next health metrics calendar will restart tomorrow and run for the same period, meaning that regions that meet the metrics could move into phase four possibly as early as Friday, June 26. That’s the earliest possible date and we will be watching the metrics closely in hopes that we will move forward expeditiously, but our goal is and always has been to keep people safe from this coronavirus while we restore more of our normal activities.
So it’s important that we remain careful about continuing to wear face coverings washing hands, maintain six feet of distance, wiping down surfaces using hand sanitizer and other mitigations. Let’s not move backward, but instead, let’s move forward together.
Please remember to pardon all transcription errors.
* Nursing homes…
Some long term care facilities opt out of the free assistance of IDPH response teams, sometimes because they choose to take their own specimens using IDPH swabs, or because they choose to work with their county or city health department instead. Others work with their local hospitals and health centers to source and conduct tests.
To date, we’ve sent about 45,000 test kits out in 200 shipments, up from 18,000 swabs to 68 facilities back in late April. Still others have declined the free visits, and even the free testing supplies from IDPH entirely.
As I’ve explained, these are largely private entities. And even as we work to ramp up regular testing of all our long term care residents and staff, my administration has received some pushback from owners and industry representatives, making it difficult to secure compliance across the board. […]
(L)ong term care residents are some of our most vulnerable Illinoisans. That’s why strong compliance from many isn’t good enough to counteract any heel dragging at any privately held nursing homes.
The Illinois Department of Public Health is today filing a rule requiring each facility to develop its own individualized testing plan and document an established relationship with a testing lab, whether it’s a commercial lab, a local hospital lab or our state labs. This new rule will require nursing homes to conduct testing, when experiencing an outbreak, when an outbreak is suspected. Periodic testing even when there is no sign of an outbreak in line with new federal guidance issued this week, or when directed by IDPH or their local health department to do testing. The rule also mandates compliance with infection control recommendations, at large test results should be used to identify asymptomatic cases to confirm infection in symptomatic cases to re evaluate quality indicators to follow up on infection control programs, and to support decision making.
To be clear, this rule doesn’t deviate from our existing priorities. But it gives IDPH, a regulatory agency, additional teeth in securing buy-in from these private entities administrators who declined to provide a testing plan will be found in violation of the rule. The challenge of protecting elderly Illinoisans who live in congregate settings, many of whom have underlying conditions is evident in the heartbreaking percentage of illness and death that have been seen nationally in LTC facilities. COVID-19 is unrelenting. And it has visited its worst effects on older Americans. But our state will continue to use every resource at our disposal, and the collective medical experience from across the nation to protect our seniors throughout this crisis.
In response to a question, the governor said violations would typically be a fine, but could involve licensure issues.
* Will you file another IDPH rule like the one you withdrew under pressure from JCAR?…
We’re continuing to look at that, but I will say that what we’ve been left with because of the inaction by the legislature is the removal of licenses, which is something we didn’t want to have to pursue.
* So as of right now if they don’t follow they could have their licenses revoked…
They could
* Is there any sort of metric of nursing home residents that have died of unrelated unrelated to COVID maybe from other illnesses that kind of were exacerbated by maybe lack of visitors or something like that?…
Dr. Ezike: When you’re dealing with this population that obviously has the major risk factor of being elderly and has the additional risk factors of having multiple comorbidities. It’s really hard. I don’t think there are any individuals in that group that don’t have 123 multiple of those high risk factors so I think all of those fatalities as unfortunate as they are would absolutely be COVID deaths. In terms of someone die of a broken heart. I don’t know how to assess that so I don’t really think there’s a metric that I could give that could really get to that. I just mean it’s being counted as it’s a separate subset of people who have died in nursing homes during this time of unrelated illnesses. I don’t think there are any that would satisfy that criteria where they had no other medical problem that they were completely healthy, and that, you know, this infection was just a coincidence and that there was not something related to the COVID I think all every one of these deaths had a direct tie to the COVID infection and that spurred on again, they had other conditions definitely but this COVID absolutely had some kind of contributory role.
* A Chicago Church has asked the Supreme Court to overrule your stay at home order, do you have any concerns about this action or the fact that churches continue to hold services with millionaires like Willie Wilson paying their fines?…
Well, multiple federal judges have reviewed and upheld the approach that we’ve taken with our executive orders with regard to houses of worship. So you know these courts have recognized that there’s a public health crisis that’s ongoing, and the need to take steps to protect public health, as we have, including as related to religious services I think we all are aware of circumstances in which there have been infections that have been spread during religious services that were held with many people packed together, the attorney general’s office will be filing a response as required in the case that you’re referencing.
* How will you protect and provide relief to workers who don’t feel safe returning to work next week in phase three?…
Well the first thing we’re doing is imploring and providing guidance to employers that the employees should look at to all of that is available again on our DCEO website and employees that find that employers are not following that guidance should report that their employers are not following it. And of course that should be reported either to the Attorney General’s workplace enforcement office or the Department of Labor, both of which had the ability to enforce it.
* For employees who just might not feel safe going to an office yet next week. What do you advise those? I know you said private businesses should use their discretion…
Private businesses need to use their discretion in fact, especially when it comes to the most vulnerable people who have pre-existing conditions employee should make those, you know, to the extent they are able to make those known to their employers so that their forbearance can be given to them for that. But you know it obviously what we’re looking for here is a common decency. That should come from employers, and then of course we’ll rely on enforcement wherever we need to.
* Some other states including somewhat Democratic governors are making deep budget cuts rather than counting on federal help. Why are you plotting a different course? Are you prepared to make more cuts in this budget if the only help you get is Federal Reserve loans that have to be repaid?…
So, you know, as I’ve said all along this is not a time for governments state governments particularly to be cutting services, especially a government like ours where agencies have been hollowed out over a number of years. As you saw, I’ve attempted heartily to try to build back up some of those agencies, but I’ve known and I think everybody else is known, it would be a multi year process to do that because it took many years to slash and burn those agencies. So, look I also recognize that if the federal government does not step up to the plate. Then we’re going to have massive cuts. Everybody understands that we will have to revisit this right, but the legislature will meet for sure in November for a veto session, and perhaps some time in between, and we’ll be evaluating whether or not the federal government did do what I think everybody hopes and expects that they will do. Again, we’re not in a unique position, and what other states have done, certainly is. Some states have put forward cuts that they might put into place. If they’re unable to get support from the federal government, what we’ve said is look we’ll be working very hard to do that. But our sincere hope is that making cuts now would be so bad for working families and for people who’ve been out of work now as a result of COVID-19 that what we’d like to do is maintain state government as it is. Again, still hollowed out to some degree, as it has been over the years and. And then we’ll manage through as the next month or so reveals whether the federal government will step up.
* The Restore Illinois website today says the central region is not meeting one specific metric for phase three reopening, which is the hospital admission change. Is that one metric alone enough to delay moving to a new phase does the state have flexibility in determining how to use those metrics?…
Actually the updated numbers from today’s numbers when those got added in I think in the last hour, you’ll find that as it happens, central region is now meeting all those requirements. But even if it had been the number from yesterday, it’s very, again that the idea here is stable, and you know when you talk about 2%, that’s stable.
* With the start of phase three coming tomorrow, how long will it take to gauge whether loosen restrictions lead to any increase in infections hospitalizations or deaths. How is IDPH prepared to respond if that occurs?…
Once again, the whole purpose of each phase and the reason there’s a 28 day period involved in each phase is to monitor when you make the changes. Yes, we all have to watch in one day, two days seven days even 14 days isn’t enough. We see that in other states it sometimes takes three weeks even more before you really start to see the effects of an opening up. So that’s why we have a 28 day period for each phase and a monitoring period of 14 days or seven days depending on which metric you’re looking at.
It’s possible that if we have a surge a spike, and we need to quell that spike, we might potentially have to move backwards in the phases. That’s not something any of us wants to do, but certainly wouldn’t allow a region of the state to move forward, if it wasn’t meeting the metrics.
* Could restrictions be loosened in between that next phase just as the restaurants and bars you offered up last week?…
That’s not our intention, but it always is true that more information becomes known and it allows us perhaps to make adjustments, and as we learned for example about outdoor dining, you know that if you maintain the social distance, and again this is from experience, also the advice of epidemiologists that as we’ve learned more, I’ve always said that we can change the playbook as we go. But it’s not our intention and when we think that the science is pretty good. That’s dictated where we have gotten to and where we’re going. And I would remind everybody that Illinois was just named as the only state in the United States that was meeting the guidelines that were set by the Federal plan for reopening that was put together by Dr. Fauci and presented as the federal government’s plan.
* Do you plan on eating outside at a restaurant this weekend, why or why not. And once again, are you going to be cutting your hair and going to a barber shop?…
You can tell I need to have my hair cut, that’s for sure. I don’t have any plans to dine outside over the weekend, although I did, my wife’s birthday was this last week and we have a little patio in our house so we did dine outside just our family together. I’m gonna get my hair cut at some point. I just, I don’t have an appointment yet and I understand that appointments are hard to come by at this point, so I’ll get to it as fast as I can.
* Is Friday going to be the last of the daily press conferences and are we moving to weekly next week?…
I don’t think we’ve made any decisions about that. I mean, our intention is to make sure that you are regularly updated and as you’ve seen I’ve been here every day. I think we’ve made one adjustment. And that was to allow all of you and all of my staff to have weekend days off, but we’re still providing the information that you’re seeking over the weekend. And again, we’ll always have press conferences when there’s a need to make sure that we get information out but right now the plan is to continue as we are.
* Today five churches in Lake County filed a lawsuit against your administration. [garbled] Christian Assembly of God says they run a food pantry out there, which gets state funding, 30 volunteers feeding 1200 people a week, but they can’t have more than 10 people on Sunday for phase three. How do you respond to that discrepancy which they say, just frankly is not fair to them?…
Well as regards of food pantry you know I was in East St. Louis yesterday at a food pantry and like many nonprofit organizations they’ve had to make adjustments in order to keep their patrons safe you know to keep the people who use the food pantry safe. I know that lots of organizations have made those adjustments, it isn’t. Nothing is directed here at at a religious organization that happens to have a food pantry it’s really the idea here for everybody for everything and food pantry specifically is just to make sure that those who get served are served in a safe environment so you know we provide guidelines for different kinds of food service, and organizations, you know in grocery stores and so on. So I think those would apply here too.
I’m sorry maybe the pastor is saying they have 30 people in working the food pantry. If they can have 30 people to work a food pantry, you’re going to find so they can only have 10 people in a service. Yeah, and the discrepancy there has frustrated the pastor…
Well, again, we have guidelines that are now available for the afternoon on the or will be this afternoon on the dceo website. And those are our best recommendations. We’re not providing restrictions. We’re simply providing the best recommendations that we can for keeping people safe. So we hope that the pastor will follow that guidance and those recommendations for his services his or her services
But if there’s no restrictions then you’re not going to be asking for any law enforcement?…
As you know, I have never encouraged any police enforcement or any other kind of breaking up of gatherings. What I have said is that pastors should use their judgment and the science and data, and should follow the recommendations that have been made, but I realized that some have ignored that.
* A couple of questions on IDES, Republicans, held a news conference today calling for an audit, the Auditor General to audit, what went wrong, your response to that?…
Well I think I’ve been very transparent about what the challenges have been and, indeed, if you look at virtually every state in the United States, you can look in the Midwest, Michigan and Missouri and Indiana and Wisconsin. I mean all have had the same challenges. T their challenges of staffing their challenges of the systems that were put in place. Nobody expected to have 10 or 20 times the number of filings that have been made, as have been made over the last two months. And again, we’ve been trying to build that ship and float that boat at the same time. And we’re doing the best we came in 1.2 million applications have been filed and. And those filings have gone through so there are people who remain there’s some people that need arbitrations there’s some people who have challenges because they put something wrong into the system they need to take out of the system. And you can’t make easy alterations once you’ve applied, you may have changed your name for some reason from the last time that you were receiving unemployment to this time. And so those are some specific circumstances that people have to talk to somebody about or use the chat bot that exists online.
You throw an audit though I mean is that a political move by there, I think, I mean I look I, of course that’s the right of anybody but I will just say that we’ve been very transparent about what the challenges are. If their goal is to figure out what didn’t work right. I have stood here, I don’t know how many times over the last two plus months and told people what hasn’t worked right and how we’ve been trying to address it. And again we brought in some of the biggest, most robust companies in America, to help us rebuild those systems, so that we could on the fly, make sure that we’re meeting the needs of people across Illinois, but there’s no doubt about it like many other states. Some people have. It has taken longer to file and get claims delivered upon than any of us would like
* What might reopening schools look like, what do you tell juniors who are going to enter the senior year and Greg Bishop wanted to know, how do you ensure parents that their kids are going to get a quality education?…
I have a junior in my own home and so this is a relevant question to to those of us who have a junior.
It’s unfortunate that we can’t see that far into the future with this virus. What we are trying to do is to set the foundation for any outcome. My hope and desire is for us to be to have all of our kids back in school in the fall and I know some schools have already chosen across the nation. Some states have chosen to do that, some are in the position that we are still considering you know whether it is safe for our kids. But the most important thing is the kids and the people who work with the teachers and the administrators and the paraprofessionals, we have to keep all of them safe and so to make sure that we have the right conditions for that is what we’re looking to do.
* A study by the University of Chicago [garbled] found that uninsured and undocumented residents are most likely to be in need of COVID-19 testing and yet there’s still a lag in testing in areas where they live. What is the state doing to remove testing ability for them, and your message to the undocumented people still fearful to be tested?…
I can’t speak to all undocumented communities, I mean I absolutely agree that we need to make sure that testing is available to everybody. First I would say all testing that we are involved with and I think we have over 260 sites across the state. All that testing is free.
So anybody who needs a test that meets the criteria can go get a test and then those criteria have expanded vastly, to be clear, an undocumented resident of our state has the ability to get a test there’s no citizenship requirement and you’re not required to fill out a form that reveals your citizenship. There may be some federally qualified health centers that have a form with that question on it, you’re not required to fill that out in order to get a test. So that’s one thing and then providing the health care that’s needed by undocumented residents is also something that we are doing in the state, making sure that people have the ability to get cared for if they get COVID-19
* There’s a huge gap in information about the types of workers getting sick with COVID-19 throughout Illinois. As public figures trying to contain the spread of the virus, how is this impacting the state’s ability to track and prevent more of the outbreaks. And does the state plan to do anything about this. Also, why is more information not made public?…
Is this a question about, I’m sorry about the careers of the people who are identified? Sounds like types of workers getting sick, types of workers? And we have a very good idea because we know that some outbreaks are taking place in certain work settings. For example, and you all have heard about, for example pork processing or other meat processing plants is one example.
Dr. Ezike: IDPH is a master collector of information. We have millions of pieces of data that come in to us every day from all different sources. In terms of the actual data regarding people who are being tested and people you know obviously some of those tested will then be positive. Again, whatever is put into our, our databases is what we have. And so I think it is imperative that everyone hears that those forms, whether there’s a form that an individual has to fill out whether it’s a healthcare professional that’s assisting with papers being filled out whether it’s in a doctor’s office, whether it’s in the drive thru sites like everything that’s put in there. And that’s what we have so if people just say I’m just going to write my name, and I’m going to leave off the date of birth or I’m going to leave off the address. Then when we’re trying to figure out who this positive case belongs to. We put it in this bucket that has no address until we’re able to chase down that information and we don’t know if this is belongs to one of the riffs, which of the Restore regions it belongs to or, you know, which county had this positive. So, again, all of that information is essential, the more information, we have, the more information that’s given to us, the more that we have to be able to put out in terms of identifying types of occupation, a location. We do know from some of our outbreak investigations that you know you have a specific location when you’ve gone through the, the contact tracing and the interviewing where you’ve tried to go back and think of all the places, work with the person to identify all the places that they’ve been. And then, you know, you would say maybe oh I went to, you know, I went to the grocery store on this day I went to a place of worship on this day I went to this health club, this place to get you know hair, nails massage. So when we get all that information. And then if you get a cluster of people that in that same timeframe all identify like a specific locale. That’s how we then can put things together like an like an investigator to say, Wow, there were around the same time, we have all these people that frequented this one location, and then you try to hone in, then you try to go to that location find other people who may have been there at the same time. So again, once we get the critical information that allows us to do further investigation to have more and then we have more data fields populated in our database and then we can put out summaries of more more intense information. So again, the data that we get is what we can give out and so we want to implore everybody to be very comprehensive in all the forms they’re filling in that involves individuals that involves local health departments that involves hospital personnel lab personnel everyone to work together so we can have as much data so we can answer all these questions.
Gov. Pritzker: The most important data, though, that we we nearly always get is, of course, how to contact the person with their test results
* Large office buildings, reopened after weeks standing by mostly idle, researchers are worried about the potential for bacteria that causes Legionnaires disease being in the pipes. So what guidance do you have for building managers and for people who are returning to work in those buildings?…
Well there are lots of buildings that you know that are in areas that have had legionnaires or Legionella detected in their pipes. You know, there’s one obviously terrible circumstance in Illinois of the Quincy Veterans Home where there are staff at that home too, so workplace where there’s Legionella. But in terms of dealing with Legionella, I mean this is a problem that the state has dealt with for many years. It’s not like we need new guidance about how to deal with legionnaires or Legionella. So it’s not really a new endeavor.
* Two very important metrics to get the state to phase four, even more widespread testing available to everyone regardless of symptoms and contact tracing on more than 90% of cases. To that end, she has two questions. What’s the next big testing metric? How will the state get there with federal support of the National Guard sites going away. Does the State have a large order of testing supplies or test machines coming in?…
We have, there are many testing machines that exist in the state and of course, as I’ve talked about before, contracting with the existing owners of those, they may be hospitals, they may be doctors or others, or commercial Labs is part of our effort to scale up, obtaining swabs. You’ve heard me say this over and over, how will we scale up. These are all the same things that we’ve been doing. But more and more and more in terms of what our goals are. We need to do many more than we are. I would point out that we’re currently as I’ve said many times we’re among the large states, second highest in terms of per capita testing. We’re the third highest in overall testing among the big states and so we’re gonna you know and again. The goal is to get to a much higher number and you’ve seen us do that. I mean, back when, at the, near early on when I talked about us needing to get to 10,000.
It took us a couple of weeks a few weeks before we were able to get from where we were to that 10,000 number, but we moved pretty quickly from 10,000 to 20,000, we’re averaging out about 23,000, a day but you’ve seen [garbled] hit 27 and 29,000 so you know we’re going to keep ratcheting that up. And the goal here is to make sure that everybody, whether it’s nursing homes at our priority locations gets tested on a regular basis, but also as we are reopening many businesses across the state that the businesses where there are more at risk, individuals that they also have the testing available to them, and then the doctors.
OK, how many people have been hired for contact tracing. How long will it take for them to be trained, will the state have enough people by the time by the end of June to move into phase four. So, just a clarification when we think about the metrics to move into phase four, they are the same metrics that we needed to graduate, if you will, into phase three. So, the information regarding the metrics around contact contact tracing. Those are, I guess, internal goals that we all know that we need to the more contact tracing the more aggressively we can identify cases and identify potential cases and have people stand down before they have the chance to infect others so that’s not what’s going to hold other people back. We’re working aggressively to get that online and to get people hired and to get the curriculum. We have some pilot, local, local health departments that we’re starting with first, and then we’re going to expand. So, we will not have the contact tracers in every part of the state next week, but we will branch out and keep growing until we get the full capacity that we need. But again, that is not going to hold the state back, but we know that that is an important part of the master plan in order to keep our state safe to be able to quickly rapidly identify people who are positive, and be able to identify their context so that they can stand down before they potentially infect someone else.
* An emergency rule filed May 22 suspends the 30 day time frame for an IDPH inspection that arises from a nursing home complaint, except for allegations of abuse and neglect. Why was this rule needed does it apply to inspections by local health officials?…
So at the state level, I think the feds understood that, in the midst of this pandemic that we were going to be focusing on COVID response and trying to address the nursing homes as they are clearly the highest risk setting for the entire state for the whole country for the whole world. And so they wanted us to focus on the COVID response, but of course made that exception for things that would be considered an immediate jeopardy. So for things, essentially it means some offensive so egregious that you could immediately have to suspend a license. So, other things have been put on the back burner. As we progress that that might be loosen but again we’re following the federal, the federal guidelines.
* Governor we’ve heard from people who say they’re not going to return to restaurant or bar jobs but stay on employment until something else comes along. Well, those who make that decision run the risk of losing their unemployment benefits…
Well that’s a decision the federal government would make. There are regulations around that. You know it’s able and available I think is the standard here. That’s not really a decision that will make at the local level.
* Churches gyms theaters, they all seem to think they can operate in a way that’s safe. To what extent are you rethinking one to let them open to more people and customers instead of just 10 people?…
Theaters and gyms you’re throwing those together, well those are a bit different, gyms tend to be smaller. Although I know there are some that are quite large. And we have provided guidance for certain activities at gyms and fitness centers. But theaters, I think there’s a common belief that the experts seem to tell us anyway that it would be difficult for us to open theaters in the near future in phase three.
* How are malls moving forward during phase three and will business in malls operate differently than other businesses?…
Dr. Ezike: So most of the guidance, were thinking of businesses as solitary individual businesses. And so the the rules that applied in terms of capacity. How many people could be in the store how many people per 1000, square feet? So those I think would continue to apply for individual stores.
And then if they happen to be within the context of a law I don’t think the rules change. So I think it’s still the rules that are prescribed in the guidance, I should say, the guidance that is prescribed for individual businesses, whether it’s a personal care facility, the same rules would apply in terms of what services can be done. I think some of the things that might be hard to implement would be some of the recommendations surrounding like extending the hours so that you have lower population density, if you will, in any one establishment at the time. Your ability maybe to flex the hours might be limited by the by the hours of the mall in general, but otherwise I think the individual facilities and businesses follow the same rules that are prescribed on our website.
* Governor there’s been a growing COVID-19 outbreak at the Pulaski County Jail which also serves as an immigration detention center in rural Southern Illinois. Recent reports from ICE state now 29 detainees have tested positive for the virus. This is in a county with multiple challenges in regards to access to health care. In response, there have been calls from advocates and public health professionals for IDPH to inspect detention centers and ensure the health of those who are held by ICE, how do you respond?…
Dr. Ezike: That is a federally run facility but in Pulaski County, the local health department has been involved with that. We have offered consultation. We have reviewed the methods that have been employed surrounding that outbreak. We actually did see that they have taken the appropriate measures to mitigate the outbreak, so we are partnering with our local health department. Obviously anything that happens within our state affects all the residents of the state in terms of the employees that work there and go home every returning to their communities. And so we have been partnering again with the local health department’s. We feel that a lot of the measures and steps in the mitigation strategies that have been employed have been appropriate. And so we continue to follow that outbreak.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,527 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 104 additional deaths.
Coles County: 1 male 80s
Cook County: 2 males 40s, 2 females 50s, 3 females 60s, 7 males 60s, 1 unknown 60s, 8 females 70s, 10 males 70s, 7 females 80s, 7 males 80s, 9 females 90s, 6 males 90s, 2 unknown 90s
DeKalb County: 1 female 70s
DuPage County: 1 male 60s, 1 male 70s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 90s
Kane County: 1 male 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 70s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s, 1 male 100+
Kankakee County: 1 male 90s
Lake County: 2 females 60s, 2 males 60s, 1 male 70s, 4 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Macoupin County: 1 male 80s
McHenry County: 1 female 80s
Sangamon County: 1 female 80s
St. Clair County: 1 male 60s, 1 male 70s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
Tazewell County: 1 male 90s
Union County: 2 males 70s
Whiteside County: 2 females 90s
Will County: 1 male 50s, 1 female 70s, 1 female 80s
Winnebago County: 1 female 90s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 115,833 cases, including 5,186 deaths, in 100 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 25,993 specimens for a total of 829,966. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from May 21–May 27 is 8.3%
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. Information for a death previously reported has changed, therefore, today’s numbers have been adjusted.
* Dr. Ezike…
As of midnight, 3649 individuals were hospitalized with COVID-19 and of those 1,009 patients were in the ICU and 576 patients were on ventilators
…Adding… Dr. Ezike…
Among those that have passed associated with COVID, almost 44% of those were in long term care facilities.
* I asked yesterday if you were planning to eat at a restaurant soon. Are there any other public activities you plan to do when the state moves into Phase 3 tomorrow?
By the way, I checked with the governor’s office today and all regions are still on track.
…Adding… The governor just confirmed that all regions are on track.
Thursday, May 28, 2020 - Posted by Advertising Department
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An Illinois Republican who plans to retire from the legislature and run for statewide office threatened a lawsuit to take down a personalized video message recorded by former Governor Rod Blagojevich.
When state Representative David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) found out that a video of Blagojevich wishing him a happy retirement was making the rounds in statehouse circles in March, he sicced his lawyers after the online celebrity shoutout company Cameo to take it down.
Court records filed in Cook County show attorneys for Baron App, Inc., which does business as Cameo, appeared in court to respond to McSweeney’s filing on April 3rd. The video has since disappeared from the company’s popular website. […]
John Bambanek, a Champaign Republican who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Illinois state Senate in 2012, purchased the video and authored the script. […]
The letter from McSweeney’s attorney suggests he suspects House Republican Leader Jim Durkin or his inner circle may have had some role in sponsoring the video message. The cease and desist letter instructed Bambanek to preserve any documents of communications he may have had with Durkin, Rep. Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville), and four other legislative and political staff members.
“I’ve never had a conversation with Jim Durkin in my life,” Bambanek said on Wednesday. “Nobody put me up to it.”
Bambanek is described in the article as “an online provocateur,” but he’s also one in real life. I doubt he was put up to this.
Currently, more than 30,000 people in Illinois suffer from kidney failure; IKCA’s mission is to connect these patients with the resources they need and to fight for them when policy changes are necessary. IKCA’s strength comes from its membership, consisting of health advocates and professionals, community groups, providers, and businesses focused on raising awareness about kidney disease. The addition of IHCC brings another strong advocate to the team and will provide additional resources for the group as it continues to expand.
Democratic Sen. Michael Hastings is pushing back against Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Restore Illinois plan. Hastings wants to open up gyms and fitness centers —operations considered “high-touch” — ahead of Phase 4. Finding the right “balance” between health and economy “is a daunting task,” he says in a two-page memo to Pritzker. “Fitness and health club professionals agreed that while distancing may be a part of our new normal, wellness and connection remain more important than ever.” Page 1, Page 2 … Asked if he was a gym rat, Hastings told Playbook: “I have a lot of constituents who are gym-goers and friends who are gym-owners. They’re all struggling in their own way.” The Democrat from Frankfort says Pritzker’s team has “committed to me that they will be working on my recommended solutions.” Until now, it’s been Republicans who have led the political charge against the governor’s stay-at-home order.
Such melodrama. Hastings isn’t leading the charge against the order. Here’s what he told me yesterday…
I have been in close communication with the Governor’s office regarding this issue. They have been extremely understanding and are very engaged regarding this issue. I am hoping for positive news in the future.
He’s gonna have to wait, though. From the governor’s office…
Health clubs and gyms are high risk environments that public health experts have recommended fully re-open in phase four of the Restore Illinois plan. In phase three, accommodations were made to allow outdoor fitness training in groups of 10 or fewer and one on one training. As the state’s health metrics continue to improve and the virus is further under control, the health experts suggest we can move forward with reopening health clubs and gyms in phase four with proper health protocols in place. Illinois has proven that a data driven approach works and we will continue to follow the plan laid out by the experts.
* Bruce Rushton of the Illinois Times checked out the legislative protest last week…
You can’t believe everything you see on TV — I would talk to people and find a voice of reason. I started with folks who had just finished speaking with another reporter.
“I’m asthmatic and pushing 60; if I catch the virus, I’m at greater risk,” I began. “None of you are wearing masks. This is my job. I have to work. What do you say to someone like me?”
“Stay home!” people yelled. And worse. The crowd around me grew larger, and closer. A few pulled masks from pockets to prove that they were equipped and responsible. One man drew near and asked why, if I was so worried, I stood within six feet of all these protesters. It seemed pointless to point out that I wasn’t the one who’d advanced. Nor did I bring up a recent National Institute of Health study showing that droplets from loud talk can remain airborne for 14 minutes. There was plenty of shouting all around, with no discernible wind.
“I’m not a bank robber, I’m not a kid,” someone yelled into a PA system. “I don’t need a mask.” I spoke with a maskless woman who asserted that she could just as easily get the virus standing in this crowd as at the medical lab where she works. She didn’t want to discuss precautions taken by her employer.
Illinois’ struggling horse racing industry could be back off to the races as soon as next week without any spectators in attendance, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he’s not quite ready to pick up the starting bugle just yet.
The governor’s office said Wednesday evening it was in the home stretch of implementing a plan to resume fan-free operations at the state’s three racetracks, with health protections in place for workers.
Hawthorne Race Course had already bolted from the starting gate, though, with the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association announcing the track in west suburban Stickney will reopen June 6 for drivers and trainers, but not railbirds.
They could be off and running even sooner at Fairmount Park in downstate Collinsville, where the Illinois Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association says they’ve gotten clearance for thoroughbred racing to “resume as early as June 1.” […]
“I don’t think it’ll restart on June 1. I think live horse racing will restart. I can’t tell you what date, but again, it will be like other spectator sports where it would have to run without spectators, at least to begin with,” Pritzker said.
Rivian has reopened its Normal plant and says it remains on track to deliver its first electric vehicle order by 2021.
The plant was temporarily closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, although some contractors remained on site to work on projects related to updating the former Mitsubishi auto plant.
Ford Motor Co. temporarily paused production at its stamping plant in Chicago Heights on Wednesday for sanitation after an employee at the facility tested positive for COVID-19. […]
It is the automaker’s fourth plant that has faced disruption tied to the coronavirus since the company resumed production last week.
At least, that is what tourism officials and experts say could occur this year as travelers look to destinations within driving distance amid continued concerns over the coronavirus.
This could bode well for centers of tourism and hospitality in Illinois looking for a comeback this summer to make up for spring losses.
“I think we’re going to see a lot of people traveling regionally, so being able to drive places and not having to go through the process of flying and everything that might come with that additionally,” said Nick Thomas, director of the School of Hospitality Leadership at DePaul University. “So being able to go places in close proximity, two-, four-, six hour range, which for places like Chicago, that’s great, because we have so many people that live in the kind of that driving time zone.”
A survey recently commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association found 68% feel safest when traveling in their car. About 45% said they are more likely to travel by car after COVID-19 has passed. Nearly one-third said they would be willing to drive up to 300 miles to reach their vacation destination.
[Choose Chicago, the organization charged with boosting Chicago’s image] is now throwing its efforts into showcasing Chicago as a safe place where reopening protocols are based on public health and science, says board chairman Glenn Eden, an executive vice president with the public relations firm Weber Shandwick.
Its new campaign, called “Tourism & Hospitality Forward,” encourages hotels, restaurants, museums and other attractions to pledge to keep “socially responsible” health and cleanliness measures top of mind for both visitors and employees, and to prominently display that info on websites and other communications.
Unlike some places that have hurtled toward a rapid reopening with a patchwork of measures, Chicago wants to be viewed as an intelligent destination that visitors can trust, Eden says.
Coronavirus tab for Chicago Public Schools now up to about $44 million
CVS opening hundreds more drive-thru testing locations
COVID-19 spurs union pushes among Chicago-area essential workers. ‘We’re not just burger flippers. We’ve been essential.’
Illinois stores everywhere but Chicago can start reopening Friday. Here’s what to expect in phase 3.
Legal marijuana was supposed to help communities hurt by the war on drugs. But COVID-19 may crush efforts to diversify Illinois’ largely white weed industry.
2 Cook County judges diagnosed with COVID-19
Coronavirus economic toll mounts: 41 million have sought jobless aid
As non-COVID-19 patients return to Chicago-area emergency rooms, doctors see skyrocketing blood pressure and other side effects of delays in care. ‘It’s terrible, and it’s frightening.’
Staffer at Springfield convention center where state House met tests positive for COVID-19
Illinois’ coronavirus death toll passes 5,000 as US tops jarring milestone of 100,000 fatalities
What’s the recovery rate for COVID-19 in Illinois? That number is now available. But it’s complicated.
Chicago restaurants test COVID-19 surcharges as costs mount, but customer backlash forces one to retreat
Chicago to allow “shared streets” program for residents to walk and bike in neighborhoods
Roughly 2.1 million people applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, a sign that companies are still slashing jobs in the face of a deep recession even as more businesses reopen and rehire some laid-off employees.
About 41 million people have now applied for aid since the virus outbreak intensified in March, though not all of them are still unemployed. The Labor Department’s report Thursday includes a count of all the people now receiving unemployment aid: 21 million. That is a rough measure of the number of unemployed Americans. […]
In Illinois, 58,359 people filed for first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week, down from the 72,780 filings a week earlier. Since mid-March, nearly 1.1 million Illinoisans have filed for jobless benefits.
First-time applications for unemployment aid, though still high by historical standards, have now fallen for eight straight weeks. In addition to those who applied last week, an additional 1.2 million applied under a new program for self-employed and gig workers, who are eligible for jobless aid for the first time. These figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal variations, so the government doesn’t include them in the overall data.
*** UPDATE *** IDES…
The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) today released new statewide data showing the department processed 58,263 new initial claims for regular unemployment benefits during the week ending May 23. The department has now processed 1,302,154 claims for unemployment benefits from March 1 through May 23. This amount is nearly 12 times the number of claims the department processed over the same period last year, when IDES processed just 102,000 claims for regular unemployment benefits.
The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program has processed 88,965 initial claims in its two weeks. PUA provides 100% federally-funded unemployment benefits for individuals who are unemployed for specified COVID-19-related reasons and are not eligible for the state’s regular unemployment insurance program, the extended benefit (EB) program under Illinois law, or the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program (PEUC), including independent contractors and sole-proprietors. Up to 39 weeks’ worth of benefits are potentially available under the program for COVID-19-related unemployment claims.
IDES processed 39,414 Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation claims (PEUC), which provides up to 13 weeks’ worth of 100% federally funded benefits to individuals who have exhausted their regular state unemployment benefits. PEUC is potentially available for weeks beginning on or after March 29, 2020 and continuing through the week ending December 26, 2020.
The Clean Energy Jobs Act, which was a premiere piece of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Covid-derailed budget, still remains popular among the electorate, according to a new poll. The proposal, which would convert Illinois to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, has the support of 82 percent of Illinoisans, according to a survey conducted by Global Strategy Group for the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. Rep. Ann Williams, who plans to introduce the bill again later in the year, says it would put “thousands of people who have permanently lost their jobs back to work — we can no longer wait to act on climate change.” The poll shows 98 percent of Democrats support the idea, 60 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Independents. The proposal has high support in Chicago, 93 percent; and Cook County, 85 percent; and then declines some in outlying areas. Northern and central Illinois show 71 percent support; and southern Illinois has 76 percent. The survey was conducted May 18-21 by interviewing 600 residents statewide by landline, cell phone and text and has a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percent.
Toplines are here. Let’s go through some of them. I’ve left out the Lori Lightfoot responses because the MoE was just too high. But you can see them for yourself.
* Favorability…
JB Pritzker 53% Favorable 43% Unfavorable
Democrats in the state legislature 45% Favorable 44% Unfavorable
Donald Trump 39% Favorable 59% Unfavorable
Republicans in the state legislature 37% Favorable 46% Unfavorable
* Job approval…
JB Pritzker 56% Approve 40% Disapprove
Democrats in the state legislature 45% Approve 43% Disapprove
Donald Trump 39% Approve 60% Disapprove
Republicans in the state legislature 38% Approve 47% Disapprove
* Job approval for handling the coronavirus pandemic…
* Who do you trust more to deal with the coronavirus?…
Pritzker 63%
Trump 37%
* In thinking about the impact of the coronavirus on you, which are you more worried about?…
You and your family’s health and well-being 69%
You and your family’s financial situation 31%
* In thinking about the impact of the coronavirus on the country, which are you more worried about?…
The impact of the coronavirus on the economy as a whole 55%
The impact of the coronavirus on people’s health 45%
* As you may know, there is some discussion about beginning to re-open Illinois, where some, but not all, restrictions and guidelines are loosened. Generally speaking, do you support or oppose beginning to re-open Illinois within the next few weeks?…
Strongly support 37%
Somewhat support 31%
Somewhat oppose 21%
Strongly oppose 11%
* Which of the following two factors contribute the most to the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic?…
People ignoring social distancing guidelines 68%
Federal government reacted too slowly to stop the spread 64%
Too many people without adequate health care 31%
State government reacted too slowly to stop the spread 31%
High levels of pollution which make people more susceptible to coronavirus 4%
Burning fossil fuels which makes people more susceptible to coronavirus 2%
An Illinois church has filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court, challenging Gov. Jay Pritzker’s closure of houses of worship during the coronavirus crisis a day after another congregation in California made a similar move.
The case will be handled by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, based on geography, and he has asked the opposing state officials to respond by Thursday evening, just as Justice Elena Kagan asked of the California church that filed an emergency request on Tuesday.
Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church and the Logos Baptist Ministries filed the emergency order citing precedent in a 1947 Supreme Court case “Everson v. Board of Education.” In that case, the Court wrote that “Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church… Neither can force nor influence a person to go or remain away from a church against his will.” […]
Both Kagan and Kavanaugh alone can decide these cases, or refer them to the full court.
Three decisions,from the Fifth and Sixth Circuits,have enjoined such orders as unconstitutional, see First Pentecostal Church of Holly Springsv. City of Holly Springs, Mississippi, No. 20-60399, 2020 WL 2616687 (5th Cir. May 22, 2020); Roberts v. Neace, No. 20-5465, 2020 WL 2316679 (6th Cir. May 9, 2020); Maryville Baptist Church, Inc. v. Beshear, No. 20-5427, 2020 WL 2111316 (6th Cir. May 2, 2020), and two decisions,from the Seventh and Ninth Circuits, have denied injunctive relief, see Order, Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church v. Pritzker, No. 20-1811 (7th Cir. May 16, 2020) (“Circuit IPA Order,” attached hereto as Exhibit A); South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, No. 20-55533, 2020 WL 2687079 (9th Cir. May 22, 2020).1Thesedecisions also differ as to whether such orders trigger strict scrutiny under Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah,508 U.S. 520 (1993), and Emp’t Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990). These contradictory decisions demonstrate serious confusion exists within the federal courts as to the correct constitutional standards to apply to emergency executive orders restricting religious worship. Thus,this application presents important questions of federal law which have divided the circuits and should be settled by this Court.
As southern Illinois prepares for Phase 3 of the state’s reopening plan, COVID-19 cases in Jackson County are on the rise.
Bart Hagston, administrator of the Jackson county health department, said most of the cases are connected to a local church that has been holding in-person services in defiance of public health orders.
“We have seen an uptick in the number of cases over the last several days. Most of those cases are tied to an outbreak associated with a church in Jackson County,” he said.
The name of the church is not being released to the public.
A Republican lawmaker says he will try to put something on this fall’s ballot that has never been there before: a referendum giving Illinois voters a chance to fire their governor.
Governor JB Pritzker seems unconcerned, perhaps because there is not much time left to meet all the requirements for a first-ever recall election in Illinois.
After the arrest and impeachment of Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois Constitution was amended to allow voters to throw out a governor in the middle of his term. An outspoken critic of Pritzker wants him to be the first ever.
“Not much time left”? Time has nothing to do with this. The recall process is not tied to the November election. If Rep. Skillicorn can convince 30 legislators, at least 15 of them Democrats, to sign an affidavit and can then obtain 636,825 valid petition signatures within 150 days, the State Board of Elections sets the date for a special election, which would be “not more than 100 days” after the petitions are certified. It’s all right here in the state constitution.
Skillicorn is unlikely to get any Democratic buy-in from his colleagues in the legislature, but even Republicans are loath to sign the petition. So far, Skillicorn confirmed he has signatures from State Reps. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville), Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) and Darren Bailey (R-Xenia), who was voted off the House floor — with help from 12 Republicans — during lawmakers’ first day of special legislative session last week for not wearing a mask.
A GOP source who asked not to be named pointed out that Bailey has introduced more than 100 bills during the current General Assembly and has passed none of them.
“Allen’s energy would probably be better spent in his district this summer,” the source said. “He hasn’t had much success passing a bill so I don’t think he will be able to build a coalition on this issue.”
Even if he were to get past the affidavit stage, gathering 636,825 signatures within 150 days would be an enormous challenge, especially as social distancing measures to defeat Covid-19 are still ongoing. Former Gov. Bruce Rauner was able to gather 591,092 petition signatures for an ultimately unsuccessful ballot measure for legislative term limits while he ran for governor in 2014, but Rauner had spent lavishly on the effort using his personal wealth.
Skillicorn described his effort as “grassroots” and said he’s “only worried about the 30 legislators at this moment,” saying thinking about gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures was “premature.”
Halbrook, Wilhour and Bailey? That’s not even the entire Eastern Bloc, for crying out loud.
