* Gov. Pritzker was asked today about the state’s progress at attracting electric vehicle-related factories and plants on top of the recent successes with Stellantis and Gotion…
And you’ve just seen recently the announcement of a big battery factory in Manteno, a battery factory and an assembly plant coming to Illinois as a result of the settlement of the UAW strike and the work that we’ve done with Stellantis.
I can tell you that we have literally a dozen more that are in the category of electric vehicles along with a dozen more on top of that in other categories.
“We have a robust pipeline we continue to work on,” said his spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh when asked for clarification.
Pritzker also disclosed that he owns a Rivian.
* More from the governor…
These kinds of incentives really are effective. And, just to be clear to everybody, it’s not like we need to do something that other states don’t need to do. We’re just becoming competitive for the first time with other states that have already been providing these kinds of incentives. I want to be best in the nation, but I don’t want to spend taxpayer dollars attracting companies if we don’t need to do that to be competitive. The truth is that Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, you know, we can name a lot of states that have closing funds and incentives that we didn’t have in place. And now we do and the General Assembly deserves a lot of credit here, the result of which already, we’re seeing coming up on 10,000 new jobs as a result of the companies that have committed to come to Illinois. And I think the number is now $8 billion of investment in the state just from the initial results. And as I say, there are others that are in the pipeline.
…Adding… A few more business-related stories from Isabel…
* BND | Illinois 3 connector plan good for freight-hauling industry, bad for family business: Plans for a new highway connector from Illinois 3 in Fairmont City to Illinois 203 near World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison are designed to improve traffic flow for tractor-trailers and other vehicles and help with the region’s logistics and industrial development. But a family that owns three trucking-related companies says the Illinois Department of Transportation’s “preferred” route, which was formally unveiled last week, will have a devastating effect on their business.
* Inside Indiana | Ameristar Casino owner plans new casino in Illinois: Las Vegas-based Penn Entertainment Inc., the parent of two Indiana casinos, has broken ground on a $360 million casino in Aurora, Illinois. The new Hollywood Casino Aurora will be located about 60 miles from Penn’s Ameristar Casino in East Chicago. Penn currently operates Hollywood Casino Aurora at on the Fox River in downtown Aurora. The move inland is the result of a law passed in 2019 allowing for riverboat casinos to move on land.
* Bloomberg | Citadel and its peers are piling into the same trades. Regulators are taking notice.: Multimanager funds like Griffin’s Citadel have come to dominate the hedge fund industry, riding a steady run of outperformance to oversee more than $1 trillion, including a healthy dose of leverage. But the explosive growth has led the industry giants to pile into many of the same trades. That has built unease among regulators, investors and traders over these so-called pod shops. And while Citadel’s billionaire founder has vocally opposed any notion that his firm and rivals pose systemic risks and need more regulation, even he acknowledges that crowded trades could lead to widespread losses if all of them head for the exits at once.
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* Press release…
Following a thorough review by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) of the Brighton Park environmental report, the State of Illinois will not proceed with an asylum seeker shelter at the 38th and California site. IEPA cited concerns related to insufficient soil sampling and remediation. Given the significant time required to conduct additional sampling, to process and analyze results, and to implement corresponding further remediation, the State will work with the City to identify alternate shelter options.
The State is expediting efforts to launch the previously announced brick-and-mortar shelter site in Little Village with plans to have 200 beds available to families and people with disabilities. Since the City of Chicago selected the Brighton Park site, the State has requested alternate sites from the City as any additional shelter will operate as part of the City’s current shelter system. The State is also working with the Archdiocese of Chicago to explore additional options for brick-and-mortar shelter sites.
“My administration is committed to keeping asylum seekers safe as we work to help them achieve independence,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “We will not proceed with housing families on a site where serious environmental concerns are still present. My administration remains committed to a data-driven plan to improve the asylum seeker response and we will continue to coordinate with the City of Chicago as we work to expand available shelter through winter.”
“IEPA would not approve the proposed Brighton Park site for residential use, based on our regulatory standards for remediation of contaminated properties,” said Illinois EPA Director John J. Kim. “The well-being of residents and workers at the site is our highest priority, and current and planned site conditions do not adequately reduce risks of human exposure to known and potential environmental conditions.”
IEPA conducted a thorough review of the Environmental Investigation and Corrective Action Summary prepared for the City of Chicago and identified several concerns with the sampling and remediation work performed at the Brighton Park site. IEPA found:
• The limited nature and insufficient number of soil borings conducted at the site does not provide a comprehensive assessment of environmental conditions across the site.
• Additional soil sampling is needed to further determine if there is additional contamination at the site and to fully investigate potential sources of contamination that were identified from historical site use.
The remediations implemented thus far do not satisfy IEPA standards and are insufficient. At a minimum, an expanded engineered barrier between contaminated soil and human exposure would need to be installed to address exposure concerns. Further investigation might also identify additional contamination that would require additional remediation.
Using IEPA’s Site Remediation Program guidelines, the insufficient sampling and remediation at the Brighton Park site does not meet State cleanup standards for residential use.
…Adding… The mayor responds, but the city actually chose the site…
…Adding… Sun-Times…
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), chair of the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, welcomed the state’s decision to halt construction.
“This is why, for months, I’ve seen saying we should have been purchasing, leasing and fixing buildings as opposed to going through this base camp strategy. ,,, I’ve never thought that would be the way to go because they’re tents in the winter in the city of Chicago. That’s enough problems as it is,” Vasquez said Tuesday.
“It makes sense to find the safest way possible because we don’t want situations where, years from now, we find out people are ill — especially when you’re talking about kids that are on that site. It makes sense to do all our due diligence to treat people the way we would all want to be treated in that situation,” he added.
* Tribune…
Reaching for comment Tuesday, local Ald. Julia Ramirez, 12th, said she was relieved at the news but hopes the Johnson administration learned a valuable lesson on responding to environmental concerns before proceeding with any construction.
“For us, it was a concern that they were constructing even before the environmental report,” said Ramirez, who long opposed the city’s rollout of the now-scuttled base camp. “What’s really important is that when they’re looking at other lots … that we would have done this over what a month and a half ago, two months ago, and have that conversation, done the environmental report, before proceeding with any other work.”
…Adding… NBC 5 has the mayor’s comments…
Johnson said “discovering toxicity [at the site] wasn’t a surprise], but said “the contract that the state of Illinois went into with Gardaworld, as they continued to build out on this site, there was no indication throughout this entire process, that a standard or a different methodology was preferable by the state of Illinois.”
“There was no additional information that was provided that would have led us to believe that this particular report that has been validated to be safe by third parties, that somehow that operation will be halted,” Johnson said.
Johnson acknowledged alternate locations are being explored, but did not specify which could be a likely backup.
“I’ve been planning for Plan B, C, and D, and E and F, from the very moment that I became the mayor of the city of Chicago. And so whether it’s 115th and Austin, or 38th and California, or any other brick and mortar location that we’ve identified, that can serve the purpose of this mission, know that my administration is planning ahead,” he said.
…Adding… City points finger at state…
After announcing last month its intention to support the city’s humanitarian migrant shelter mission, the State of Illinois entered into an agreement, leveraging its original contract with GardaWorld, to construct and operate a basecamp at a site previously identified by the City at 38th and California. Shortly after entering into its agreement, the State instructed GardaWorld to proceed with construction of the base camp simultaneous with the performance of the environmental assessment and remediation work previously contracted by the City.
The City contracted Terracon Consultants, Inc. to conduct a field investigation under a sampling plan that was developed for this specific site in accordance with an emergency response protocol under the Illinois Emergency Management Act. The investigation included soil sampling, groundwater sampling, and soil gas sampling which yielded soil analytical results, groundwater analytical results, and soil gas analytical results. Per the findings, the City conducted remediation work which included both the removal of contaminants and the introduction of new materials to eliminate safety risks for individuals who would reside in temporary residential housing.
Despite being made aware of the above assessment and remediation process, the State provided no additional guidance on its preferred methodology or assessment criteria, nor raised any concerns about its own decision to move forward with construction prior to the release of Terracon’s report.
The City’s goal has been and continues to be to move with urgency in providing shelter for new arrivals currently sleeping on the floors of Chicago Police Department district stations, airports and sidewalks. We have been planning for both the present and the future of the new arrivals mission by standing up nearly one temporary shelter a week and reducing the number of new arrivals sleeping at emergency staging areas and outdoors from nearly 4,000 to approximately 600.
Between November and December of 2022, a total of eight buses arrived in Chicago from the Southern border. In November of 2023 alone, 79 buses arrived in the city from the Southern border. We have received clear signals from Texas officials that the number of buses will continue to increase, so the urgency of the moment remains. We will continue partnering with stakeholders in meeting the moment and providing for new arrivals.
We look forward to partnering with the state on finally standing up the CVS shelter site through its contract with GardaWorld and we will work collaboratively to achieve the state’s expressed commitment to fund additional temporary residential shelter for new arrivals as winter and more buses arrive.
…Adding… Right back atcha…
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* Block Club Chicago…
Fewer than 500 migrants were still in police stations as of Monday, officials said. That’s down from a high of about 3,300 Oct. 16.
That’s also down from the 877 the city reported Friday. Progress is being made.
More from the story…
A little over 13,400 people are staying in the city’s 26 shelters as of Tuesday. That’s nearly double the 6,600 in shelters Aug. 31.
More…
If people show up at a closed police station seeking emergency shelter, they’ll be directed to a district station still accepting people, May said. Once all the stations are cleared, meals and service requests for temporary shelter placement won’t be provided, she said.
The city said people will need to make shelter requests at the new “landing zone” — the area near Downtown where most buses carrying migrants drop them off. The same goes for migrants who reach the end of their 60-day shelter limit, a rule Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration rolled out last month. […]
[Emily Wheeling, a project manager for the Faith Community Initiative] tried asking the city to create some kind of fact sheet so migrants know exactly what they’re getting when they go into a city shelter, but she was told not to assure people of anything since there’s inconsistency around what each shelter offers, she said.
There’s some complaining in the story about the disruptions caused by moving people out of police stations, but it simply has to be done. And it’s not like their lives were stable at the stations, or during their journeys here.
* This is an idea that I’ve pushed here before. Give them something to do…
Fresh off the trucks, pallets packed full of fresh and frozen food piled up outside a full-service Northwest Side shelter.
But, not for long. Newly-arrived migrants made quick work, taking freezers and shelves from empty to fully-stocked.
“They’re boots on the ground. They just want to do something,” said Yolanda Peña, co-founder of the Life Impacters Foundation. “There’s an assembly line. They know what to do. They take leadership.”
Peña’s organization led the charge to open the pantry in the Hermosa facility just last month. Two floors up from the pantry, 50 migrants, families and couples, have made themselves a temporary home.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository said right now, one in five people in the Chicago area struggle just to put food on the table. But here, asylum-seekers help fill the grocery carts of people who have now become their neighbors.
It’s good for the community and it’s good for them, in many ways.
*** UPDATE *** Background is here if you need it. From Gov. Pritzker’s press conference today…
Q: Is the state willing to keep filling in the gaps for feeding the migrants if the city of Chicago can’t come up with a comprehensive plan on their own?
Pritzker: Well, the city should be able to come up with a comprehensive plan on its own. And you know, the state has stepped in for the last two and a half months. And thank goodness for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, an independent nonprofit organization that has come up with $2 million of philanthropic support for at least half of the month of December, when the city wasn’t able to cover the month of December. And the state is putting up the other two million. So I believe that over this four weeks, that’s time enough for the city to be able to complete its procurement process which started a few months ago to make sure that it’s in place beginning January 1st.
* From Isabel…
* Governing | How One Chicagoan Helps Migrant Kids With Disabilities: “On a good day, the district struggles with responding to neurotypical, developmentally delayed children. Everyone is drowning,” Otts-Rubenstein said. After submitting a request with CPS and waiting weeks with little to no update on when the migrants’ plans would move forward, Otts-Rubenstein decided to schedule her own evaluations. She was told by city employees that the meetings couldn’t happen at a city-run shelter, so she arranged for them to take place in her wife’s office at Two Prudential Plaza in the Loop. When Otts-Rubenstein asked city officials to foot the bill for transportation, they refused. Migrants pushing wheelchairs had to walk almost a mile. Temperatures were freezing that day.
* Sun-Times | Suit to stop Brighton Park migrant tent site dismissed, for now: However, Judge David Atkins ordered the city to alert the plaintiffs — a group of Southwest Side residents — if construction resumes and said the motion could be reintroduced then. “That’s the appropriate remedy here since there is no construction going on at this time,” said the circuit court judge.
* Block Club | Brighton Park Tent Encampment Construction On Hold For At Least A Week, City Lawyer Says: Atkins also denied the city’s effort to dismiss the lawsuit Monday. Attorneys have until the early next week to file a formal motion to dismiss, but Atkins said it’s unlikely he would rule on that until January because the court won’t be in session much during the holiday schedule.
* Center Square | Pritzker says feds must ditch work fees for migrants: Gov. J.B. Pritzker said on Monday that he is working to remove the costs. “Every time I see White House personnel or the President, I have raised this issue and others related to the asylum seekers coming to Chicago,” Pritzker said. “This waiver of those fees is very, very important.”
* Tribune | State drafted, but never sent to Texas, flyer aimed at discouraging migrants from coming to Chicago: The aborted flyer, drafts of which the Tribune obtained through an open-records request, also highlights the simmering tensions between Democratic-run Illinois and Chicago and President Joe Biden’s White House over the migrant crisis, with state officials saying they were encouraged to create the document by the federal government.
* NBC Chicago | New migrant shelter in Portage Park to house up to 350 people: The new location, part of an initiative from faith groups to help provide housing for migrants as the winter season draws near, was selected after negations between the City of Chicago and the Archdiocese of Chicago, the release said. According to Cruz, the shelter plans to host migrants as early as mid-January of 2024. The Department of Family and Support Services staff are expected to manage the shelter’s operations while accommodating between 300-350 people, the release said.
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