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Greater Chicago Food Depository tries to set the record straight (Updated)

Friday, Jan 26, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller

* City of Chicago…

Today, the City of Chicago and the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) are announcing the conclusion of the Request for Proposals (RFP) process to find a new food service provider for city-run shelters for New Arrivals. DFSS is pleased to announce that two local agencies, Seventy-Seven Communities and 14 Parish, were selected.

Seventy-Seven Communities will serve as the food provider for shelters in the North Region of Chicago and 14 Parish will serve as the food provider for the New Arrivals shelters in the South Region.

* Block Club Chicago…

Seventy-Seven Communities is a suburban-based company created in October, according to state filings. It’s run by leaders at the popular and rapidly expanding Italian beef franchise Buona Beef as well as its sister company, Beyond Catering.

Seventy-Seven Communities’ executive director is listed as Joe Buonavolanto Jr., one of the sons of Buona Beef’s founders and an owner of Buona Beef, LLC, according to state filings. Mike Iovinelli, program director of Seventy-Seven Communities, is also listed as vice president of catering at Beyond Catering — whose parent company is Buona Beef.

The city’s press release did not mention Buona Beef or Beyond Catering. Officials said Seventy-Seven Communities had “decades” of experience in food service, even though records show the company has only existed for four months. It does not appear to have a website.

* Back to the city’s press release…

The goals of this RFP were to increase food quality for all New Arrivals shelters and to decrease the cost of the Meals Program for the City. Both Seventy-Seven Communities and 14 Parish have demonstrated that they can provide high quality and culturally congruent meal service to all shelters for $15-$17 per person per day. This is a significant decrease from the $21-$23 the City has been spending on food per person per day prior to this contract. Additionally, both agencies have demonstrated that they have many partnerships with local and minority-owned restaurants, including local Venezuelan restaurants, who will be assisting in creating menus and preparing food that fit both the nutritious and cultural needs of shelter residents.

* NBC 5…

Through these new vendors, the city of Chicago reported that the new direction in food servicing is proving to be cost efficient. The new price the city will pay for providing to the shelters is $15-17 per person. Prior to the new contract the price per person was $21-$23 with Greater Chicago Food Depository and Open Kitchens.

* The Greater Chicago Food Depository was the previous vendor. I reached out for comment today. A spokesperson noted that 1) The state government and private donors, not the city, paid for the meals; 2) Because of the private donations, the actual costs were well below the price claimed by the city; and 3) It was working with 17 minority-owned food businesses…

The Food Depository has never received any funding from the City of Chicago for our work over the last 8 months to provide food for new arrivals at their shelters, so the implication that we produced meals at a rate of $21-$23/person using City funding is wholly inaccurate.

The Food Depository’s work to provide meals at new arrival shelters was supported by private donors and funding from the State of Illinois. This detail is important for us to clarify as we have a responsibility to our donors and the state who gave generously to support this important work to know that their contributions were utilized responsibly.

Our price per meal was far more efficient than what is quoted in the City’s release and every dollar we spent on new arrival meals went toward food costs, with $17 million invested in local restaurants and caterers who partnered with us in this work. We essentially paid 17 minority-owned food businesses to prepare and deliver the meals as a way of supporting food vendors in historically disinvested communities.

…Adding… The city says its dig was at a different vendor, not at the Food Depository. NBC 5 reported this week that the Food Depository was one of the two vendors.

4 Comments

Getting into the weeds of an outdated report

Friday, Jan 26, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller

* This article from Capitol News Illinois stirred up some controversy…

State law currently says that by the 2025 delivery year, one-quarter of electricity purchased by the state must come from renewable sources. Goals laid out in CEJA are even more ambitious, requiring the state’s energy production to be carbon-free by 2045.

But the Illinois Power Agency – which handles energy procurement for the state’s utilities – reports that the state is lagging far behind its goals. In its current long-term plan for renewable purchasing, which was published in May, the agency projected that by the 2025 delivery year, only 8.1 percent of electricity will come from sources that qualify as renewable under state law.

“Achieving these goals would require a substantial increase in new renewable energy generation,” according to the agency’s report.

The federal Energy Information Administration, which uses a slightly different method to calculate its figures, reports that 15.4 percent of Illinois’ electricity generation came from renewables in October. That lags the state’s statutory goal for this year of 22 percent and behind the nation’s average renewable electricity generation of 22.3 percent.

* The governor’s spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh, tweeted in response, “IL isn’t behind in our energy goals and I wouldn’t use a report from May of last year to make that point. … Carbon-free is different than renewable energy and IL will rely heavily on nuclear to reach our carbon-free goals.”

Carbon-free is hugely important in the mix because the state gets more than half of its electrical power from nuclear plants.

* Since numbers from the Illinois Power Agency were used in the news story, I reached out to the agency to get their perspective…

Hi Rich,

We were not contacted by CNI on this story, so we can’t speak authoritatively on from where CNI pulled this information. It’s possible that the “May report” in the article refers to the Modified 2022 Long-Term Renewables Procurement Plan, but RPS [Renewable Portfolio Standards] goal/target data contained is indeed approximately two years outdated (as that Plan was originally filed with the ICC in January 2022). So, assuming that CNI used this document to inform its article, the Governor’s Office is correct that this information is outdated.

To the broader question, our 2022 Annual Report includes data on the overall nameplate capacity amount of installed renewable energy generation physically located in Illinois. The 2022 Annual Report shows the total installed percentage of renewable capacity at 18.6%, with the percentage of megawatt hours from renewables at 12.4%. These are percentages out of all electricity generation in Illinois, as opposed to all electricity consumed in Illinois—if the latter were used as the denominator, then these percentages would be higher [about 17 percent, as it turns out], as Illinois is a net exporter of electricity.

The Agency’s next annual report is due out on February 15 and will be published on the IPA’s website. I will make sure we send you a copy of the report when it’s published.

Setting aside the issue of outdated data, conflating RPS progress with overall share of electricity from renewables statewide is a common area of misunderstanding—people often reference the former while meaning the latter. To address this concern, CEJA (through changes to Section 1-125 of the IPA Act) now requires the IPA to report on items including “the percentage of installed and scheduled renewable energy generation capacity as a share of overall electricity generation capacity physically located in Illinois” through its annual report. We’d be happy to follow up with our latest copy of that report when it becomes available.

…Adding… CNI has now corrected its story.

7 Comments

Report: White Sox likely want to empower the ISFA to extend bonds or issue new bonds

Friday, Jan 26, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Crain’s has a story about Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter’s support of a new White Sox ballpark in the South Loop…

The Sox organization may be trying to whip up as much support as it can before it meets with Pritzker and has to answer the biggest remaining question about the stadium proposal: Who would pay for it?

Reiter would say only that he was told “no new taxes built in . . . and right now that property isn’t generating nearly the amount of revenue as it would if it were fully developed.”

Sources familiar with what the team is planning, but who say they are not free to speak about the deal, have told Crain’s that the White Sox are likely to ask state legislators to empower the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority to either extend or issue new bonds backed by the existing 2% hotel occupancy tax currently used to satisfy the bonds issued to pay for Guaranteed Rate Field.

While that would not raise a new tax, because the hotel occupancy tax is already in place, state legislators may still turn up their noses at extending or issuing new bonds, or providing any public dollars to help build a stadium for a team whose value is measured in billions.

Thoughts?

…Adding… With a hat tip to a commenter, this is from the Bond Buyer last fall…

The ISFA owns, operates and issued $150 million of bonds in 1989 for Guaranteed Rate Field where the White Sox play, and issued $400 million of 2001 bonds that financed the renovation of the Chicago Park District-owned Soldier Field, home of the Bears. About $416 million of debt is outstanding, nearly all of it for the 2003 Soldier Field renovation.

39 Comments

Here we go again

Thursday, Jan 25, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller

* ABC 7…

The girlfriend of a Joliet area murder suspect looked distraught and emotional as she appeared in court Thursday morning.

Joliet police said 21-year-old Kyleigh Cleveland-Singleton made statements in an attempt to stop police from arresting her boyfriend, Romeo Nance, before he was found dead in Texas.

Cleveland-Singleton was taken to the Will County Jail, as she’s charged with obstructing justice. […]

A Will County judge said Thursday the SAFE-T act forced the court to release her from custody.

Police said Cleveland-Singleton lied to them on Monday by saying she didn’t have Nance’s phone number.

* From the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice…

Cleveland-Singleton has not been accused of any violence, her offense is the lowest class of felony, and she is caring for a three year-old son who just lost numerous members of his family to violence.

Importantly, the old money bond system also did not allow judges to deny someone release for obstruction of justice, a non-violent Class 4 felony. Before the Pretrial Fairness Act took effect, Ms. Cleveland-Singleton would have been ordered released — either with or without payment of a money bond. The court now retains the power to set numerous conditions of release that do not involve paying money. And though Ms. Cleveland-Singleton was ordered released today, she must remain on electronic monitoring. Moving forward, should Ms. Cleveland-Singleton violate the conditions of her pretrial release, the court has the power to take her into custody.

All emphasis added.

…Adding… From comments…

It’s almost like the entire Will County legal system needs to take a remedial class.