The short-term future of Arlington International Racecourse rests in the hands of the Illinois Racing Board, which on Tuesday plans to press parent company Churchill Downs for answers about its long-term plans for the storied racing mecca. […]
The board a week ago delayed its annual vote on racing dates after leveling criticism at Churchill for its decision not to apply for long-sought slots and table games at Arlington. Revenue from those casino-style games would help boost declining horse race purses and, supporters believe, resuscitate Illinois’ declining horse racing industry. […]
[Churchill Downs] also hasn’t committed to racing at Arlington beyond 2021.
The Illinois Racing Board voted unanimously today to award 68 racing dates next year to Arlington International Racecourse, erasing concerns that last week’s races may have been the last in the storied track’s history.
The 9-0 vote comes a week after board members lambasted track owner Churchill Downs over its decision not to seek a casino license that had long been hailed as a lifeline for the struggling racing industry. […]
In the 9-0 vote to award race dates to Arlington from May through September, board members said they didn’t want to disrupt the upcoming racing season.
Churchill argued that not granting the 2020 racing dates would have meant an immediate loss of jobs, an argument that ultimately won over racing board officials.
Tony Petrillo, senior vice president of Churchill Downs, read a letter from Arlington Heights village President Thomas Hayes at today’s meeting, in which he noted the roughly 4,000 people who work at Arlington each season. […]
Brad Blackwell, senior vice president and general counsel of Churchill Downs, told the board today that they “did not say we would not race past 2021. In fact, we didn’t mean to say anything about that at all” in a recent statement, but he did not elaborate on the company’s future plans regarding gaming at the site. “We’re still trying to figure this out.”
* Just about everyone, from Gov. Pritzker on down, has said that consolidating the 600+ local first responder pension funds would be a good thing. It would save on administrative costs and perhaps improve investment returns. But the group that represents those funds is, unsurprisingly, opposed. Press release…
Illinois Public Pension Fund Association (IPPFA) President James McNamee issued the following statement regarding the imminent release of the Governor’s Pension Consolidation Task Force report. The report will soon be available for review, and McNamee is urging careful study of each of the report’s recommendations before any action is taken:
“We caution against a rush to push through any possible changes in the local control of police and fire pension fund assets based on this report. Pension fund board members are local volunteers who are responsible for the management of their local funds and the setting and awarding of benefits to police officers and firefighters who have earned those benefits in their communities. This gives pension recipients a direct link to the people managing their money. Any suggestion of moving that control to the state needs to be thoroughly vetted, studied, and absolutely must include input from the police officers and firefighters whose hard-earned money is at stake.
“The IPPFA has commissioned independent, outside studies that have shown that the downstate police and fire pension funds are well managed and meet or exceed their investment benchmarks, so if it isn’t broken, why fix it? What does need fixing is a key restriction for local police and fire pension funds with less than $10 million in assets that limits their investment power. If that restriction were eased, and the police and fire pension funds could operate by the same rules as the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, the higher returns they could generate means it wouldn’t cost taxpayers extra to keep these pension funds healthy.”
Those “local volunteers” are required to complete 32 hours of training every year. Here’s one session to be held October 1-4 at a popular Wisconsin resort…
For over 30 years the IPPFA has offered Public Pension Trustees the best and latest in trustee training. With the recent far reaching changes in pension law and with the difficult challenges yet to come, the IPPFA strives to prepare pension trustees for the future. Please join us for training in Ethics, Investment Procedures, Fiduciary Responsibilities, Legal and Legislative Updates, and much, much more and all with nationally renowned speakers.
The Trustee Workshop will be offered on Tuesday, October 1st. It is designed for those trustees that need a refresher or for those who are new to their board. Additionally, the Heroes Family Fund Charity Golf Outing will be held on October 1st, before the conference.
After a busy day attending the conference, enjoy one of the many recreational facilities the Grand Geneva has to offer or dine, relax, and network at one of the several restaurants and lounges on-site. Need to get out? Drive less than 10 minutes to one of Downtown Lake Geneva’s many restaurants.
Pretty sweet, especially if your expenses and time are being reimbursed by your local government.
Robert Hunter, the poet and writer who provided the Grateful Dead with many of their vivid and enduring lyrics, died Monday night. He was 78. No cause of death was provided.
“It is with great sadness we confirm our beloved Robert passed away yesterday night,” Hunter’s family announced in a statement. “He died peacefully at home in his bed, surrounded by love. His wife Maureen was by his side holding his hand. For his fans that have loved and supported him all these years, take comfort in knowing that his words are all around us, and in that way his is never truly gone. In this time of grief please celebrate him the way you all know how, by being together and listening to the music. Let there be songs to fill the air.”
Considered one of rock’s most ambitious and dazzling lyricists, Hunter was the literary counterpoint to the band’s musical experimentation. His lyrics — heard in everything from early Dead classics like “Dark Star” and “China Cat Sunflower” and proceeding through “Uncle John’s Band,” “Box of Rain,” “Scarlet Begonias,” and “Touch of Gray”— were as much a part of the band as Jerry Garcia’s singing and guitar. […]
Hunter’s work didn’t end with Garcia’s death. In the years after, he wrote songs with Elvis Costello, Bruce Hornsby, country singer Jim Lauderdale and Dead drummer Mickey Hart. His best-known collaborator after Garcia, though, was Bob Dylan. Starting with “Silvio,” the two co-wrote many songs on Dylan’s Together Through Life in 2009.
* He deserves a much better sendoff than this, but I’m just so distracted with breaking news and other stuff right now, so this will have to do for today…
Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell
* As we’ve already discussed, statute requires that the state develop procedures to move tens of thousands of foster kids into Managed Medicaid programs in consult the Child Welfare Medicaid Managed Care Implementation Advisory Group, which hadn’t yet met, even though the state will begin the transitions on November 1st.
With six weeks left until 17,100 children in Illinois’ foster care system and 18,800 former foster kids are slated to move into Medicaid managed care, stakeholders were finally invited to three statutorily mandated meetings last week — on two days’ notice.
Dozens of members who months ago were appointed to a working group to oversee the transition of those in foster care into Medicaid managed care finally met — mostly via phone conference — Friday morning for the first of a trio of one-hour meetings mandated by the law that set the transition into motion. The deadline for the transition is Nov. 1.
The Child Welfare Medicaid Managed Care Implementation Advisory Group will also meet Wednesday and have its final meeting Oct. 1, The deadline to complete the plan to transition the nearly 36,000 children and young adults into the care of Medicaid managed care organization IlliniCare is Oct. 4. […]
“I think they’re very much following the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law,” [Illinois Collaboration on Youth CEO Andrea Durbin] said of the three meetings. “A one-hour meeting on a topic of this magnitude is not enough to provide meaningful input.” […]
Friday’s meeting lasted approximately 80 minutes, including 20 minutes of introductions, and staff informing group members that they must complete Open Meetings Act, Ethics Act and sexual harassment training becausethe working group is a public body. DCFS Deputy Director Debra Dyers-Webster thanked group members for “rearranging your schedules” to make the call.
Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday he is “monitoring” efforts to transfer 17,100 foster children and 18,800 former youth in care from traditional Medicaid to Medicaid managed care, but didn’t commit to delaying the change. […]
After the Sept. 10 DCFS hearing held by the House Adoption and Child Welfare Committee and the Appropriations – Human Services Committee, the chairwomen of those committees said they would send a letter to Pritzker to ask for a delay.
State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) told The Daily Line on Monday that she and State Rep. Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston) are planning to meet with DCFS officials on Thursday and make a final decision on whether to officially seek a delay afterward.
“They were reminded that they had an advisory group that they completely ignored and they’re hustling the meetings,” Feigenholtz said of DCFS’ sudden call for meetings of the Child Welfare Medicaid Managed Care Implementation Advisory Group. “They should probably be a little more sensitive and empathetic to the concerns we have and not dismissive. We’re talking about a pretty serious transition.” […]
Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert told The Daily Line Monday he’d rather see a pilot program instead of rolling out IlliniCare for the approximately 36,000 foster children and former foster children.
Governors own. And this governor will own this rollout if it is botched.
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker (D) September 2019 Porker of the Month for signing a $40.1 billion budget without any spending restraints and $1.4 billion in pork-barrel projects.
Illinois currently has a $223.9 billion shortfall, which breaks down to a debt burden of $52,600 per taxpayer. The state has $6 billion in unpaid bills and the lowest credit rating of any state in the country. Its unfunded pension liability tops $130 billion. Illinois taxpayers are so saddled with debt, taxes, corrupt local government, and dwindling middle-class jobs that 157,000 residents have left over the past five years.
Gov. Pritzker claims his budget deal means “a new era of fiscal stability has arrived in Illinois” and called it a “watershed moment for Illinois.” On the contrary, his budget contains tens of billions in new spending, including $1.4 billion for pork projects like pickleball courts, dog parks, snowmobile paths, school playgrounds, swimming pools, and arts grants. It also included a controversial $1,600 pay raise for state legislators. Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) said, “The Pritzker policies of higher taxes, out of control state spending and legislative pay raises will be very harmful to Illinois citizens. Republican insiders who supported the Pritzker budget should be ashamed of themselves.”
CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Gov. Pritzker might think that his budget will somehow bring ‘fiscal stability’ to Illinois, but the deal will create an even higher debt burden per taxpayer. State officials and Gov. Pritzker have made financial decisions that will continue to devastate the state’s economy. Illinois residents should be outraged that their governor is ignoring the state’s fiscal failures. Gov. Pritzker’s reckless budget treats taxpayers as a bottomless piggy bank and is disastrous to Illinois’ fiscal sovereignty.”
They seem to be confusing the operations budget with the capital program. And that $1.4 billion number comes from the Illinois Policy Institute. Both groups are part of the State Policy Network.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced $4.2 million is now available for Small Business Development Centers in Illinois.
The funding supports universities, community colleges and business focused non-profit organizations to provide small businesses with support services through the operation of a Small Business Development Center.
“Illinois is home to more than a million small businesses that create good jobs and provide needed services and goods in their communities,” says Gov. Pritzker. “My administration is committed to making sure that these small businesses can thrive and get access to the support and resources they need to keep creating good jobs and growing our state’s economy.”
There are 35 Small Business Development Centers. Applicants could receive up to $500,000 in funding.
* We’ve seen a lot of “woe is us” news coverage lately about the state’s plan to add more casinos. But, Rockford has three major companies bidding to own its casino. Presentations were heard last night…
“I think this is gonna be an amazing project,” the Rockford native [Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen] said after ripping into quick renditions of “Hello There” and “I Want You to Want Me” on one of his trademark checkered Flying V guitars. […]
In the ensuing and decidedly less raucous presentation by Hard Rock, executives for the Florida-based corporate casino heavyweight flaunted a $310 million development plan that includes a 64,000-square foot gaming floor, a 1,600-seat Hard Rock Live concert venue — and a 110-foot guitar beckoning gamblers from the front of the building. […]
Two miles north, a group branded as Forest City Partners — which includes Chicago consultant Henry Leong, who according to a professional biography has served as a marketing specialist for a handful of gambling companies including Trump Casino — wants to bring a 136-acre entertainment complex to an undeveloped plot bordered by farmland and a residential plot near Spring Creek and Lyford roads. […]
Besides a 60,000-square foot, 1,200-gaming position casino, the [third plan by Wisconsin real estate development firm Gorman & Company] includes a rock-themed bar and restaurant with a 300-to-500-seat concert hall, a bowling alley and bocce ball court, plus an aquarium with virtual reality exhibits and “touch tanks” for kids.
As with the cannabis legalization plan, the complaints about expansion are coming mainly from incumbent license-holders. Some reporters (not all) have started to catch on to this with the medical cannabis companies, but it’s probably going to take more public hearings like Rockford’s to convince them the same thing could be happening with existing casino owners. I mean, of course they’re unhappy. As the constantly changing Las Vegas skyline shows, gamblers love new venues.
Look, maybe the existing casino owners are right and these new plans are doomed. But Rockford’s site is sure attracting a whole lot of deep-pocketed potential investors for a proposal that’s going nowhere.
[Olympia Fields trustee Cassandra Matz], who worked as [Sen. Michael Hastings’] chief of staff from 2015 until he fired her in October 2018, claims in her suit that Hastings [D-Tinley Park] paid her less than her predecessor, criticized her writing and manner of speaking, and treated her differently than his other employees.
When Matz, who is black, complained to Hastings that his treatment of her amounted to harassment, the senator, who is white, placed her on paid leave and referred her complaint to the Office of the Senate President for investigation, her suit claims.
Senate officials investigated Matz’s claims, but were unable to corroborate them, documents show, citing the “limited information available” to them as a result of Matz’s inability to be reached for an interview.
Upon the conclusion of the investigation, Hastings asked the legislative inspector general to investigate Matz for “conducting a private real estate business during state compensated time while misappropriating state resources,” records show.
* I’ve been hearing multiple credible reports this morning of a raid on Sen. Martin Sandoval’s offices, so I sent a friend over to the Statehouse and she reports that his office suite is blocked off and that a state officer claimed the feds are present.
Sandoval is not responding and neither is his district office. None of the legislative assistants in that suite are picking up their phones.
Stay tuned.
…Adding… From a close pal…
I’m on the phone with a secretary from the Capitol. She says there are ‘lots of suits’ in Marty’s Capitol office.
I’m told all the legislative assistants in that wing are in the elevator area, which would explain why nobody was answering their phones.
* Mary Ann is on it…
Breaking: appears to be coordinated search at @SenatorSandoval Cicero and Springfield office underway, witnessed 2 law enforcement officers leaving Cicero office, would not ID themselves, told more agents search his Capitol office (he is in Spkr Madigan’s district) pic.twitter.com/jCNZWPhjcU
…Adding… Several folks I know are claiming that the G is also at his house. We’ll see…
///BREAKING/// Feds this morning are raiding the Springfield and Cicero offices of longtime Illinois state Sen. Marty Sandoval, per sources. Story to come.
At least eight men carried cardboard boxes, brown bags labeled “evidence” and what appeared to be a desktop computer out of the Senate Democratic office suite and into 2 SUVs outside the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/3bOZk8dEVh
*** UPDATE 2 *** The presence of an IRS agent at his house is definitely not a good sign…
The agent I encountered Earlier identified himself as a part of the IRS criminal division. There were several others dressed in dark suits wearing no obvious ID. They took off with some plainclothes guys an hour ago. Several others remain inside. Those inside say contact the Feds pic.twitter.com/PUkFXoezr2
Agents from IRS Criminal Investigation were seen outside Sandoval’s political office in Cicero as well.
…Adding… They took a computer from his house? Oh, man…
Four agents just left the home carrying boxes and a computer. One told reporters that Sandoval wasn’t at home during the raid. pic.twitter.com/2CVDT2Um37
This year most suburbs and city neighborhoods have seen home sales droop or prices weaken—and in many cases both. But in Flossmoor the number of homes sold is up (by 23 percent, to a total of 159 this year at the end of August) and so is the median sale price (by 2.5 percent, to $210,000). Homes are selling a smidgen faster, in an average of 130 days compared to 132 in the comparable period in 2018. […]
No other suburb in the four counties has such vigor in its year-to-date sales data. Western Springs comes close, but its inventory hasn’t been slashed as much, and in several other suburbs—Alsip, Glendale Heights and Zion among them—the decline in inventory is slight and largely mathematical. (CAR and MRED provide data for only these four counties. Crain’s leaves out of the analysis any suburb where fewer than 25 homes sold during the period, because small sales figures result in skewed percentages.) […]
As in most parts of south Cook County, Flossmoor homeowners pay far higher property tax rates than their counterparts in western and northern suburbs. The current rate, released in June by the Cook County clerk, is nearly 18 percent of a home’s taxable value. (Taxable value is a fraction of the home’s market value, typically about one-third, which would mean property taxes in Flossmoor are about 6 percent of the home’s value.)
The article claims the main reason for all this activity is the local school quality. Good schools cost money to operate, which is one reason (of several) why their property taxes are so high. Click here to compare rates.
There were two more pension setbacks last week, this time associated with local communities’ often underfunded fire and police pensions. Slowly, the noose is tightening around the necks of taxpayers and public officials statewide, proving once again that ignoring pension woes won’t cause them to go away but, instead, to get worse.
For starters, the city of Peoria, being crushed under the pension costs for firefighters and police officers that are eating up virtually all of its property tax levy, passed a special three-year tax to raise money to cover pension costs. It’s akin to similar action taken in Danville.
Property owners are now scheduled to receive a bill in October that will generate $1.2 million for police and firefighter pensions. Patrick Urich, Peoria’s city manager, said the costs of employee pensions are the fastest-rising portion of the municipal budget.
To raise the money needed to make the required contributions, city leaders implemented a new public safety pension fee in their 2019 budget.
Like many cities, Peoria ignored its unfunded first responder pension liabilities for far too long. They subsidized other spending by accumulating pension debt, but now they have to pay up. Nobody is happy, but anyone who wants to just come right out and say “Slash pension benefits for retired and/or current firefighters and cops who put their lives on the line for their local communities!” can be my guest.
The bills have to be paid somehow. Wishing on a star won’t make that happen.
Today, Representative John Connor announced his candidacy for the November 2020 election for Illinois Legislative District 43 in wake of Senator Pat McGuire’s announcement to not seek reelection.
A resident of Lockport who was born and raised in Joliet, Representative Connor spent nearly 20 years serving Will County as a criminal prosecutor in the State’s Attorney’s office, including indicting Drew Peterson and being on the team that tried and convicted him in 2012. In the Illinois House of Representatives he has put his legal background to use serving on the Judiciary Committee among others.
Representative Connor’s tenure in the House of Representatives has focused on supporting progressive issues like creating good paying jobs, ensuring Illinoisans have access to quality, affordable healthcare, and broadening the opportunities students have for higher education. Most recently Representative Connor worked on preventing the Fairmont area’s water system from being privatized, expanding broadband access throughout Illinois through his seat on the Governor’s Broadband Advisory Council, and chairing an Election Cybersecurity subcommittee to examine the state’s election security in advance of the 2020 election.
The 43rd Legislative District is located primarily in Will County with a small portion of DuPage County and includes the communities of Bolingbrook, Channahon, Crest Hill, Elwood, Fairmont, Ingalls Park, Joliet, Lockport, Preston Heights, Rockdale, Romeoville, and Woodridge.
Connor was appointed to the seat in June of 2017. The other House member in the district is Rep. Larry Walsh. But he has built up some seniority and chairs a prime committee (Public Utilities). House members lose their seniority when they move to the Senate.
In April’s non-partisan Joliet City Council elections, incumbent Larry Hug captured 65 percent of the vote in his race against challenger Marc Ragusa. Hug’s was the largest margin of victory of the five contested council races. On Monday evening, Hug confirmed to Joliet Patch he “is about 95 percent sure” he will run for the seat of State Senator Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant.
Bertino-Tarrant is the Shorewood Democrat who has already announced she is running for Will County Executive. She is hoping to replace Elwood Democrat Larry Walsh Sr., who will not seek a fifth term of county government office in 2020.
Joliet Patch contacted Hug after several sources indicated Hug was contemplating a run for state senate. Hug confirmed he has obtained the candidate nomination petitions, that he has talked with his wife and two college-aged children about running for state office, and he is now in the process of establishing a committee of campaign volunteers.
Hug said he would run as a Democrat. Hug works in the insurance industry. His wife is a special education teacher in the Plainfield School District. Hug grew up in the Lincoln Way area. His Joliet City Council district represents the Plainfield area.
A memo popped up Monday reminding that Mayor Lori Lightfoot is popular, no matter what the critics (media) might say about the challenges she faces maneuvering in Springfield.
The memo, though, is dated Aug. 30. It details a poll conducted Aug. 19-22 that shows Lighfoot was seen favorably at the time by 61 percent of 800 likely 2020 voters. And 77 percent at the time considered her “an honest person.”
“The public’s impressions of Lightfoot are better now than they have been at any time since we began polling her standing back in May of 2018,” the poll memo states.
“The data speaks for itself,” adds Jason McGrath, VP at GBAO and chief pollster for Lightfoot. He also wrote the memo. “Nearly eight of 10 people think she’s doing a good job. She’s still seen as an antidote to the status quo and voters seem to have more optimism about the direction of the city,” he told Playbook.
The story quickly glosses over the main take-away. Yes, she’s very popular, and yes, pols of every stripe need to keep that in mind. But according to this poll, Lightfoot’s election produced a fundamental change in the way Chicagoans view their city…
You just don’t see right track/wrong track numbers completely flip like that every day. Chicagoans appear to believe they’ve given their city a chance to succeed by overwhelmingly electing Lightfoot.
I do not know how long that attitude will last once she finally starts tackling tough issues with potentially unpopular solutions, but I do know I’d much rather start from her position than the jaded, cynical alternative.
Moody’s has issued a new report noting that new climate data measuring U.S. county heat stress based on projected relative increases in extreme temperatures, extreme heat days and energy demand indicate the Midwest and Southeast are more exposed than other regions. Roughly $190 billion (21%) of the outstanding $895 billion in debt for all Moody’s-rated local governments has been issued by entities in counties with high or very high exposure to heat stress, according to our analysis; nearly 80% of this amount is in the Midwest and Southeast combined. While heat stress is a credit risk, local governments’ economic and fiscal strengths will help manage exposure to public health, infrastructure and other threats.
The data was gathered by climate intelligence firm Four Twenty Seven, which is majority-owned by Moody’s.
The report’s highlights include:
Counties in central Midwest states will experience the greatest increase in extreme temperatures. Four Twenty Seven projects that the greatest rise in extreme temperatures among US counties will occur in large parts of the Midwest, particularly Missouri (rated Aaa/stable outlook) and western Illinois (Baa3/stable), based on comparisons between the projected 2030-2040 period and a historical period of 1975-2005. Counties in the Southeast will continue to experience a greater number of extreme heat days, but will likely be better prepared given their acclimation to high temperatures.
Outstanding debt of local governments with high projected heat stress is concentrated in the Southeast and Midwest. The Southeast, especially Florida (Aaa/stable), has the most outstanding debt exposed to elevated heat stress, followed by the Midwest, largely in Illinois. Several Northeast states with large amounts of debt outstanding have low exposure to heat stress, notably New York (Aa1/stable) and Pennsylvania (Aa3/stable).
Economic and fiscal strengths support credit quality for many local governments with high or very high exposure to heat stress. Heat stress threatens to cause local governments to pay unanticipated costs for emergency response, infrastructure repair and adaptive strategies. Nevertheless, the Southeast and Midwest each have various strengths that provide a comparatively strong cushion: the Southeast with large tax bases and growing populations and the Midwest with its healthy cash balances and median family incomes.
Well, we do have decent median family incomes, but not so much on the healthy cash balances part.
* Map…
* This is local government debt exposed to high or very high projected heat stress (in billions)…
* Today, three high school students testified before an Illinois House committee in favor of a ban on flavored e-cigarettes. At one point in the hearing, Rep. Michelle Mussman (D-Schaumburg) asked what the students themselves were doing to help stop vaping at schools. Were they putting up fliers? What actions were their student councils taking? And this is Mussman’s conclusion…
I guess I’m questioning whether you’re capable of being a partner with us in trying to save your peers.
Yikes.
* Glenbard North High School student Arsema Araya responded…
I would just like to say I spent my summer with [Rep.] Deb Conroy working against this, so I think that makes me pretty dedicated. But if that isn’t enough, we have all proven that we are willing to, for lack of a better word, go against our student body and show their wrongs. … I don’t think there’s any better solution, because you guys have had time to come up with one and I haven’t seen one to make this go away.
So you’ve had your time, and now we’ve had to skip our school day to come tell you what we’ve seen in our school because nothing has been done.
Whatever you think of her position on this topic, that was a solid retort to a totally uncalled-for attack.
I started working at a very young age. At 21, I became the [executive director] of a non-profit, and all that people asked me was my age and questioned my capacity based on my age. And we were sometimes the most knowledgeable people because we were the most directly impacted by the issues. So I want to personally thank you and tell you just how much I appreciate that you are here. … And sometimes we just don’t listen, so we need to hear you practically drop the mic, if you’re able to drop the mic. So thank you for that.
The microphones are attached to a bendable arm, so there is no possibility of a mic-drop moment. But that’s as close to one as I’ve seen in a while.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker supports a ban on flavored e-cigarettes and is urging residents to stop vaping while authorities investigate a series of serious respiratory illnesses linked to electronic cigarette products.
Pritzker’s office issued a statement Friday in which the governor said he supported legislation in the upcoming veto session to stop the sale of flavored vaping products in the state. Flavors such as cotton candy and mango, among thousands of others, have been blamed for huge spike in the number teenagers vaping.
“There is much more research needed to understand the short and long-term health effects of using e-cigarette products,” Pritzker said in the statement. “During this investigation into recent respiratory illnesses associated with vaping, I am urging Illinoisans to avoid using these products.”
The number of those impacted by a mysterious respiratory illness linked to vaping continues to grow. As of Friday, 69 cases of have been reported in Illinois, including one fatality, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. Another 13 potential cases are still under investigation. It’s unclear whether e-cigarettes containing nicotine or THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, are to blame.
* Press release…
The Smoke Free Alternatives Coalition of Illinois released the following statement in response to recent proposals to ban flavored e-cigarettes statewide.
“Banning flavored vapor products would greatly hinder adult smokers’ attempts to quit traditional cigarettes. Our customers have been clear: being able to choose flavored products are crucial in helping them quit for good, and studies have shown that flavored products are directly related to the reduced smoking rate amongst adults. Instead of passing legislation that would drive adults back to traditional cigarettes, we urge lawmakers to push for solutions that would prevent youth access to these products,” said Victoria Vasconcellos, President of the Smoke Free Alternatives Coalition of Illinois.
For the past three years, the vaping industry supported a licensure bill that focused on keeping vapor products out of the hands of minors. The proposal included strict penalties for sales to minors and required proper labeling and marketing of these products.
Flavored vaping products are one of the most effective smoking cessation tools on the market. Recent studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals have found that vapor products are nearly twice as effective at helping adults quit smoking than any other nicotine replacement methods, and that users of non-tobacco and non-menthol flavors are significantly more likely to have quit smoking.
In addition to making it more difficult for the nearly 1.5 million adult smokers in Illinois to quit traditional cigarettes, such a ban would have a meaningful adverse economic impact on an industry that contributes more than 7,000 jobs and has a total economic impact of $1.1 billion on the state economy.
* The Question: Should the state ban flavored e-cigarettes? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
Last Friday at 5pm, the Illinois EPA released several decisions paving the way for Sterigenics to resume emitting cancer-causing ethylene oxide into southeast DuPage and southwest Cook Counties.
It has been a tortured and tumultuous year for Willowbrook and area residents who have been fighting to prohibit further emissions into their community. In fact, in the heat of the 2018 election season, nearly a year ago to the day, Christian Mitchell, now Deputy Governor, launched a tweet as he campaigned for then-Candidate Pritzker, criticizing Governor Bruce Rauner for allowing Sterigenics to continue “pouring cancer causing pollutants into the air.” Mr. Mitchell requested at that time that members of the community affected by Sterigenics join him outside the Thompson Center for a press conference denouncing the corporate polluter and then-Gov. Rauner’s failure to act.
Now as Deputy Governor, Christian Mitchell oversees the Illinois EPA. Yet, this past Friday, Sterigenics was granted a construction permit by the IEPA which puts them on a clear path to reopening.
Citizen groups have led the charge since learning about this toxic chemical and its links to the cancer clusters in their area. Citizens continue to fight and urge the administration to leave the politics out of this issue.
After legislation passed last session, dubbed the Matt Haller Act after a local young father who died from stomach cancer believed to be caused by Sterigenics, that legislation failed to protect the local citizens (evinced by the current posture of the permit and the recent settlement reached between Sterigenics and the AG and the DuPage County State’s Attorney). For months, the citizens of the affected areas have been battered around like a political ping pong ball. Between Gov. Pritzker, Deputy Governor Christian Mitchell and local representatives including House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and State Senator John Curran, there have been countless press releases, public statements, and even letters back and forth obtained through FOIA. These communities deserve better than the current climate.
Today, residents from Cook, DuPage, and Lake Counties join together with environmental and social justice organizations and challenge Governor Pritzker to stand by his commitment to pass the strictest legislation on ethylene oxide. Their bill, HB3888, filed by Representative Rita Mayfield of Waukegan and supported by a broad bi-partisan coalition of legislators, calls for the phase out of emissions for sterilization plants and hospitals, and places caps on other forms of emissions in densely populated areas and near schools.
Additionally, HB3885, filed by Leader Durkin, provides home rule municipalities with the abillity to ban ethylene oxide within their boundaries. As has been quipped, if a town can ban smoking or adult entertainment venues, it only seems fair to give towns the ability to ban a substance that their constituents see as a killer.
“Protection from toxic, cancer causing emissions is a human right. It is a protection that every resident of Illinois deserves. We call upon our leadership in the administration to pass HB3888 and HB3885 and stand with us in declaring that the health and safety of all comes first,” said Gabriela Tejeda-Rios, a member of Stop Sterigenics.
The legislation is expected to be heard during Veto session this October. The community groups plan to be in Springfield during the process to ensure their voices are heard, even late on a Friday night.
As I told subscribers this morning, the tactic worked. Nobody covered the IEPA permit decision.
* Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot answered “Yes” to this Active Transportation Alliance question during the campaign…
The Metra Electric District line connects people to jobs and opportunity all along Chicago’s South Lakefront and into the South Suburbs. Currently, outside of rush hour Metra Electric trains run only once per hour south of 63rd Street, where many of the region’s most economically depressed are located. Do you support increasing the frequency of Metra Electric trains (every 15 minutes or less) on the full Metra Electric District line, with a discounted fare transfer to CTA buses?
County Board President Toni Preckwinkle cemented a [three-year pilot] plan to lower fares and increase service on both the Metra Electric and Rock Island train lines at the center of a racial equity agenda presented to the City Club of Chicago earlier this week — saying the effort would help ensure South Side and south suburban residents have better access to transit. […]
Lightfoot’s not convinced. The fare reduction plan would have “a dramatic effect” on the Chicago Transit Authority, the mayor told reporters Wednesday.
“I’m not in favor of it based upon the analysis that we’ve done,” Lightfoot said. “I’ve spent some time talking with (CTA President) Dorval Carter about it, and it looks like it is essentially a transfer of CTA passengers to the Metra line.
* The Active Transportation Alliance is not happy…
Yesterday Active Trans spokesman Kyle Whitehead criticized Lightfoot’s position in a statement. “The region has come too far with this plan for it to fall apart at this stage,” he said. “Politics and inter-agency competition shouldn’t get in the way of delivering better transit service to the people of Chicago’s South Side and South Suburbs.”
“Southland residents are better served by fast, frequent, and affordable Metra Electric service than buses that aren’t given any priority on city streets,” Whitehead added. “Leaders are working to reverse bus ridership declines with upgrades like bus lanes and traffic signal priority, but we’re a long way from system-wide improvement. This Metra Electric pilot can deliver benefits now.”
There are lots of reason why if, assuming the initiative results in more convenient, shorter, and more affordable transit trips for South Side and Southland residents, including many lower-income and working class people, it shouldn’t matter whether the CTA loses ridership. For example, as it stands many South Siders currently opt to ride buses to the Red Line to get downtown, rather that take much faster, more direct Metra trips, due to cost and schedule issues. That’s a major waste of their time, and it makes it more difficult for them to access job and education opportunities in other parts of the city.
And if the CTA loses lots of bus riders because of the shift, it’s a relatively simple matter to move buses around.
A similar test has worked well at New York’s Long Island Railway, says [Preckwinkle transportation chief John Yohan]. Even if people only go downtown to transfer to get to jobs elsewhere, “let’s give it a try. Fixing the public transit we have is the top priority for this region,” he says, and that means getting Metra and Pace and the CTA together. […]
Chicago is one region. Can we finally end the mayoral campaign?
* Back when I had interns, we’d have a general news roundup every morning. I don’t do that any longer, but here are a few stories that I’ve read but decided not to blog about for one reason or the other…
* Prime lakefront real estate—that seems impossible to fill: Boat trailers, new-car fleets, urban farms, self-storage: These are just some of the ways this firm is trying to fill thousands of square feet of unused space in the garages beneath Millennium Park.
* Lawmakers: SIU ‘test case’ for stricter presidential severance laws: “What governing boards are saying is … we have to give tenure otherwise they won’t come,” Finkelstein said. “That may be true. It’s certainly been the practice across the country, but is it good public policy? There are no other public executives in any state that get tenure. ”
* Enrollment Exodus: How Private Colleges and Universities Are Meeting Enrollment Challenges
Lipinski is no stranger to either primary challenges or opposition from sitting Democrats. In last year’s primary, two veteran Illinois Democrats — Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutiérrez — bucked their colleague to endorse Newman.
In what might be a sign of shifting political dynamics in a presidential cycle, however, Schakowsky has so far declined to pick a side in this year’s contest. And Rep. Jesús Garcia (D-Ill.), a liberal freshman who replaced the retired Gutiérrez, said he’s “not in a hurry” to jump into the race — and suggested he won’t do so.
“I serve with him on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and at least three subcommittees,” Garcia said of Lipinski, “so I really haven’t given that much thought.” […]
“I know Marie and like Marie, but there’s also something to the fact that [Lipinski’s] a current member and that mutual respect,” Rep. Robin Kelly, another progressive Illinois Democrat, told The Hill. “I don’t agree with all of his stances, but you know how you respect the office, like we say about the president?”
Discussions about whether to allow recreational marijuana sales in the suburbs have ramped up in the last two weeks, and more suburbs are leaning in favor after early negativity this summer.
Elburn has voted to allow marijuana sales, and village boards in South Elgin, Pingree Grove and East Dundee plan to do the same after they decide on zoning regulations.
Arlington Heights, Elgin, Buffalo Grove, Lake in the Hills, St. Charles, Bartlett, Lombard, North Aurora, Island Lake and Wauconda have leaned toward “yes” to sales in their discussions so far. […]
There’s also the question of whether to allow marijuana “lounges,” or places where people can consume marijuana on premises. Elgin and South Elgin don’t want lounges, but East Dundee is OK with them.
[Sen. Heather Steans, Deputy Gov. Christian Mitchell and Sen. Jason Barickman] were in general agreement that “the law is the law,” and any other language involved in a trailer bill would be mostly technical in nature. For Mitchell, that means “not relitigating” issues already decided in the initial passage of the bill.
The deputy governor added industry concerns regarding advanced licenses for some existing medicinal marijuana dispensaries were clearly addressed in existing legislation. Mitchell also said concerns raised by municipalities regarding the enforcement of home-grown marijuana plants, which medicinal patients are legally allowed to possess, were also unlikely to be addressed in a trailer bill.
“What we have said to everyone is that the trailer bill for veto is going to be highly technical stuff that needs to change in order to ensure a smooth roll into January 1, (2020). It is not a forum to relitigate issues on which folks lost out negotiations,” he said.
* Bruce Rushton recently visited his father in Tacoma, Washington and filed this report…
The surest sign that pot is here to stay came when I spotted a flier at my father’s house advertising a medical marijuana tour that included lunch and a 10 percent discount for ladies. My father will be 86 on Sunday.
Instantly, I suspected dope pushers at the local senior center, and, sure enough, I was right. It turns out that the Tacoma parks department, which purports to care about old people, organizes annual tours of pot shops aimed at folks like my dad, who could just as easily could be your grandfather.
When she isn’t taking seniors to pot parlors, Bonnie Elliser, Fifty And Better recreation specialist for Metro Parks Tacoma, told me that she sets up bingo games as well as classes on jewelry making and painting and how to negotiate Medicare. The annual marijuana tour, she says, was a case of being asked by seniors she sees on a regular basis. “They didn’t want to go on their own,” Elliser tells me. “They just felt uncomfortable. There are a few that do have medical marijuana cards. The majority just want to get rid of their aches and pains.” Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked for my dad, who remains a poster child for proper Oxycodone use.
The historic hub of black culture on the south side of Chicago called Bronzeville bears the marks of disinvestment, white flight and redlining common to many of the city’s black-majority neighborhoods.
Along the expansive South Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, lines of greystones alternate in and out of disrepair, and many of the district’s blocks that were once home to vibrant institutions — earning it the name “Black Metropolis” — are now mottled with overgrown, vacant lots. A census tract within the area is one of the poorest in the city.
But for Seke Ballard and Seun Adedeji, the area is ripe for reinvestment because — not in spite — of it being disadvantaged.
In late June, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law legalizing the recreational use of cannabis that lowers the barrier of entry to the industry for places like Bronzeville and its residents who have been disproportionately harmed by past cannabis laws and poverty. It takes effect Jan. 1.
Come Jan. 1, it will be legal to purchase and possess recreational marijuana in Illinois. And as the new year gets closer, several Chicago cannabis startups are beginning to imagine what the future holds for them under the new law. […]
Chicago startup Fyllo recently raised $16 million to grow its business, which helps cannabis companies deliver ad campaigns that are compliant with state and federal regulations.
Other Chicago cannabis startups whose business is likely to grow once recreational marijuana is legalized in Illinois include CannaFundr, an online investment marketplace for companies in the weed industry, and Leaf Trade, a B2B SaaS enterprise software startup for cannabis companies.
“[Legalizing recreational marijuana] is going to be great for not only the individuals, but the small businesses,” said Gavin of CannaTrac. “These [companies] are going to have the ability to do stuff that they couldn’t before. They’ve been waiting a really long time to make money.”
* Pittsfield council approves 3% cannabis tax: “Whether we allow it to be sold here or not, somebody is going to allow it, and somebody is going to be selling it,” [Pittsfield Mayor John Hayden] said. “It is still going to end up here. We might as well benefit from the sale of it.”
Sarah Frey, a family pumpkin farmer whose distribution deal with Walmart propelled her company to nationwide fame and impressed the likes of academic experts at Harvard Business School, is quietly growing support in the early stages of a 2020 primary contest to replace outgoing U.S. Representative John Shimkus in the 15th Congressional District.
Republicans in Washington, D.C., are “looking for a woman in that seat,” according to two sources close to the party’s effort to recruit candidates for the open seat. The focus on recruiting a female candidate could help the Illinois GOP address a gender deficit on Capitol Hill. All five Republicans currently serving in Illinois’ Congressional delegation are men.
The push to recruit a female could also be interpreted as an early snub to State Senator Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville), who has not yet officially announced a campaign, but immediately started seeking support from state party officials after Rep. Shimkus announced he would not seek re-election.
Sarah was raised on a small, 100-acre farm in southern Illinois, where at age eight, she and her mother would buy watermelons from local farmers and then go store-to-store, making deliveries to local grocers during the summer. At age 16, Sarah bought a truck and took over the distribution, and it wasn’t long before she grew the client list from 12 stores to more than 150. In fact, she purchased the family business when she was 18 years old. […]
Tsamma (pronounced Sah-Mah), is the first and only bottled watermelon juice produced in the U.S. Sarah created Tsamma after noticing a gap in the variety of flavored juice and sports drinks offered to consumers. Seizing the opportunity to fill a market void, Sarah launched Tsamma in June 2014 and within two months secured product distribution to more than 1,500 stores nationwide.
According to the New York Times, she also grows more pumpkins than anyone else in the country. Sen. Plummer could have his work cut out for him if they both decide to run.
* Meanwhile, Cal Skinner reports on a new poll from the Evelyn Sanguinetti congressional campaign…
The first [push question] had to do with Sanguinett’s Hispanic background and her being the first such Lieutenent Governor in the United States.
The second claimed that Sanguinetti “spent ten years fighting Mike Madigan,” while (apparently because of contributions from the same union source) Jeanne Ives “is Mike Madigan’s favorite Republican.”
Bruce Rauner, you will recall, used that exact same attack on Ives during the 2018 primary.
Jeanne Ives, Republican Candidate for Congress (IL-6), has been endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund.
The SBA List, which is nearly a million members strong, supports candidates committed to defending life at all stages and to promotion laws that save lives.
The SBA List described Ives as “a bold pro-life leader who will fight to protect unborn children in Congress,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Illinois recently passed one of the most extreme abortion laws in the country – legalizing abortion up to the moment of birth, allowing non- doctors to perform abortions, and even repealing the state’s ban on gruesome partial-birth abortions. As a state legislator, Jeanne worked hard to oppose laws forcing taxpayers to fun abortion. Illinois citizens deserve a passionate pro-life advocate like Jeanne will stand up to the extreme abortion lobby in Washington.”
* Related…
* Trump’s takeover of GOP forces many House Republicans to head for the exits: Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), another retiring member, declined to say whether he had any problems with Trump. “The president is the de facto head of the party by definition, but the party for me is less government, individual responsibility, lower taxes, more personal freedoms and liberties,” he said. “People come and go. Personalities are personalities,” he added.
I will not run for re-election in 2020. I will serve out my current term which ends in January 2021.
Representing the people of District 43 is an honor. We have accomplished a lot, and I look forward to accomplishing more in the next 15 months.
Sincerely,
Pat McGuire
McGuire took office in 2012 and now chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee. On a personal note, Pat knows more about music than just about anyone I know.
McGuire becomes the second Democratic Will County state Senator to forgo a reelection bid. Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant is giving up her seat to run for Will County Executive.
AI is empowering each candidate to present themselves as if that candidate were speaking to us one-on-one. This has always been possible in small groups or at political rallies. But no politician in history has had the ability to speak to every individual voter one-on-one. Human politicians still can’t, but their AI-generated political avatars can. And frighteningly, these AI-generated political avatars know more about our real hopes and dreams than any human candidate ever could. […]
Whenever you interact with an app (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google) or website or any other online data aggregator (Nest, Alexa, Waze, your smartphone), you are creating two sets of data. The first set of data is the data required to enable the technology you are using to work. This might include the location of your device, if you’re using Waze or your smartphone. Or the current temperature of your home, if you’re using a Nest thermostat. Or what you are interested in at the moment, if you are using Facebook, Amazon, Google, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
But you also create a second set of data. Sometimes referred to as “surplus data,” these data are not specifically required to achieve your immediate objective – for example, your location when you tap a like button, or the time of day you are usually in your home when you adjust your thermostat, or the kinds of images that get your attention when you stop scrolling on a social network.
Surplus data are collected with the explicit purpose of improving the engineering of bespoke online environments and messaging that you will find irresistible. Said differently, these are the data used by algorithms to feed your social media addiction. […]
To customize messaging for multi-issue voters, behavioral data are fed into algorithms designed to score those behaviors and then predict what attributes should be crafted into the customized persona of the particular candidate. You can call it “pandering at scale.” While this technology is table stakes in best practices digital advertising, dynamic apps, and websites, it is relatively new for politicians. They may be late to the game, but they are now using the schooling they received in 2016, and we’re about to get an up close and personal view of the unintended consequences of the lessons learned.
* New Illinois Law for AI in Job Interviews: The Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, House Bill 2557, requires companies to notify the applicant when the system is being used, explain how the AI works, get permission from the applicant, limit distribution of the video to people involved with the process and to destroy the video after 30 days.
A coalition of mayors from mostly African American south suburbs are calling on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to reconsider a key portion of the state’s new gambling law, which they say gives the house edge to owners of a combination horse racetrack-casino over majority-black towns vying for a separate casino license nearby.
Not only would the two new full-blown gambling dens compete with one another for customers in a saturated suburban market, but the law also potentially allows the racino owners to block a traditional casino from setting up shop in the first place. That “11th hour” provision to the gaming bill only benefits “a wealthy, white track owner,” according to Matteson Village President Sheila Chalmers-Currin.
First of all, the south suburbs isn’t currently saturated with casinos. The south suburbs have been trying for years to get a casino, now they’re getting two and possibly a third in the form of a racino.
And as I told you then, this criticism was based on a misreading of the new state law. The statute only allows current track owners to veto the location of a new racino, not the south suburban casinos. The Matteson mayor even acknowledged her mistake to the Sun-Times in a follow-up article…
The Matteson mayor acknowledged the misreading, saying she and other south suburban leaders have since “gotten some clarification on that” from state Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, an architect of the casino expansion.
* And then the Matteson mayor and others held a press conference over the weekend to repeat their initially false claims…
A group of south suburban mayors claims the recently passed gaming bill has a bias against their communities.
Matteson Mayor Sheila Chalmers-Currin said south suburbs are being short-changed in their effort to build a casino. […]
Chalmers-Currin said the gaming bill gives the horse racing industry full control of where any future casino will be located.
“This proposed law appears to allow two casinos, but we know this will never happen and the favored track owner will have the only gaming property in Cook County.”
Whatever else you may believe, you have to commend Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot for trying to live up to her campaign promise of making sure that new economic development isn’t concentrated in the city’s downtown business district.
Her city casino proposal didn’t include a downtown location because she said she wanted the development benefits to target an outlying area. Her adult-use cannabis plan also forbids retail sales downtown, for partially the same reason: Let the neighborhoods benefit.
No Chicago mayor since perhaps Harold Washington has made such a public priority out of spreading the wealth into the city’s neighborhoods.
The problem is not the mayor’s stated intent. The problem is how these moves are being perceived by state legislators at a crucial time in the city’s history.
The Chicago casino legislation was supposed to help the city make its pension payments. The cannabis bill was seen, partially, as a potential boon for the city’s cash-strapped budget.
Both of those industries are consumer-driven, and both have great potential for attracting tourism and commuter dollars. It’s a generally accepted fact that the more money the city can extract out of fun-seeking visitors, the better.
So at a time when the mayor is asking the state for help filling its nearly billion-dollar budget hole, it’s probably not a good idea to look like it’s leaving money on the table.
I don’t think anyone would dispute that a downtown casino would rake in more money than one in a neighborhood — any neighborhood. And convincing tourists to leave the area near their hotels for the still-uncommon opportunity to purchase and consume legal cannabis products won’t be nearly as successful if the shopping experience is more inconvenient.
Not to mention that a casino would be of dubious economic value to a neighborhood except for its proximity to any employees who might live nearby. Gamblers don’t usually leave until they’ve spent their money, which means they won’t be spending money outside. A casino could have the opposite effect of the mayor’s intent.
And walling off downtown to cannabis sales is a good idea only if the mayor’s real intent is to wait until the social equity participants are eventually allowed to open their shops later next year and then give them the first crack at the lucrative downtown tourism market. But it’s impossible to tell for sure if that’s what’s happening, and Lightfoot probably couldn’t admit it even if it was her intent because she’d be inviting lawsuits.
To most eyes, though, it just looks like she’s once again passing up an opportunity to snatch up tourist dollars.
It’s not that legislators don’t necessarily want to help Chicago with its budget mess (although many, if not most, don’t want to help at all), it’s that they’ve already handed the city some potentially lucrative life rafts and many of them are sitting unused. It’s human nature to be skeptical of someone asking for help when the person hasn’t taken full advantage of the assistance already given.
”I really like her, but I feel like she needs to start taking more of what’s offered,” one suburban Democratic state senator told me last week.
”We shouldn’t,” said one prominent House Democrat when I asked him if the state should help the city when it isn’t apparently maximizing the existing help that’s been offered.
”The casino has to be somewhere where tourists can easily go,” insisted one top House Republican. “I completely do not understand anybody thinking otherwise.”
I’m told the mayor has a meeting with the House’s gaming point person, Rep. Bob Rita (D-Blue Island), in early October to talk about her veto session agenda. Among other things, she wants a lower tax rate on a casino, which is seen by some as yet another example of the city turning up its nose at revenue opportunities.
That may not be a fair assessment because the tax rate set by lawmakers is astoundingly high and a consultant hired by the state did say the rate would make it nearly impossible for an operator to earn a profit. But there’s little doubt that her stance feeds into the broader perception that the city is looking too many gift horses in the mouth.
Lightfoot’s people say she has not totally ruled out a downtown location. She should make that position better known.
Some of the criticisms may not be fair, and some may not even be accurate. But they’re impossible to escape. And you don’t want to give legislators easy excuses to vote against you.
Following legislation passed by the General Assembly to impose the nation’s strongest controls on ethylene oxide emissions, the Illinois EPA has issued a construction permit to Sterigenics U.S., LLC. The permit is the first step in a lengthy process and allows the company to begin construction necessary to ensure the facility complies with a strict new state emissions law that requires demonstrating 100 percent capture of all ethylene oxide emissions.
“The Illinois EPA is committed to protecting the health and safety of Illinois communities to the strongest extent possible under state and federal laws,” said Illinois EPA Director John Kim. “This construction permit is a direct result of legislation passed by the General Assembly and will allow Sterigenics to attempt to bring the facility in line with the nation’s strongest emissions control law. This is the first step in a lengthy process, and only following strict testing and monitoring requirements would the facility be permitted to operate. As we move forward, the Illinois EPA will continue to provide technical guidance to legislators as they draft further legislation to strengthen their initial law.”
The construction permit allows Sterigenics to make significant emissions control changes only to the Willowbrook I facility and ensures the company will not operate prior to installing these new controls and demonstrating the ability to meet the new limits established in the permit. Required improvements include installing a permanent total enclosure, capturing all ethylene oxide emissions from Willowbrook I, and installing additional air pollution controls to reduce emissions by 99.9 percent or to 0.2 parts per million. In addition, the permit goes beyond the requirements of the Matt Haller Act by limiting annual ethylene oxide emissions from the facility to just 85 pounds. In conjunction with the permit, Illinois EPA is also issuing, pursuant to the Act, a certification that the facility’s emission control system uses technology that produces the greatest reduction in ethylene oxide emissions currently available.
This permit action by the Illinois EPA follows action by the Pritzker Administration to seal the Sterigenics facility. After passage of the Matt Haller Act by the General Assembly, the State of Illinois and DuPage County State’s Attorney reached a consent order to ensure the toughest requirements of the new Act, as well as additional controls, would be applicable to Sterigenics’ operations in Willowbrook.
Sterigenics is prohibited from using ethylene oxide at Willowbrook I until the facility complies with the new law, the consent order, and the construction permit. This means that before resuming operations, Sterigenics must:
• Submit a stack test protocol for emissions testing for Illinois EPA’s review and approval including written notification of the expected date of the testing, description of the specific procedures to be utilized during stack testing (including how the entire batch sterilization process shall be tested, who will be performing the sampling and analysis, the specific conditions under which testing will be performed and why those conditions are representative, the specific determinations of emissions and operations intended to be made, the specific test methods to be used, and any changes from standard methodology to accommodate specific testing circumstances), a proposed schedule that provides for stack testing within 14 days after any restart of operations, and the submission of the results of such testing (including a summary of the results, a description of the test methods and conditions, and all relevant data and calculations);
• Submit an ambient air monitoring plan for Illinois EPA’s review and approval. This plan must include a description of the process that will be used to collect and analyze air samples, the schedule for implementing the air monitoring plan, and details to demonstrate how the company will comply with the requirement that the results of such testing shall be provided to the Illinois EPA no later than 30 days after the samples have been collected;
• Submit a plan to continuously collect emissions information for the Illinois EPA’s review and approval;
• Complete installation of permanent total enclosure system;
• Demonstrate that the permanent total enclosure system captures 100% of all ethylene oxide emissions;
• Perform stack testing and submit results for Illinois EPA review. These results must demonstrate to IEPA that the company has reduced the emission of ethylene oxide from the exhaust point by at least 99.9% or 0.2ppm;
• Complete installation of continuous emissions monitoring system;
• Submit a construction completion report for Illinois EPA’s approval; and
• Be able to provide certification to the Illinois EPA by the supplier of a product to be sterilized that sterilization by ethylene oxide is the only available method.
Prior to permit approval, the Illinois EPA took written comments on the draft permit for 30 days and held a public meeting on August 1, 2019 to afford concerned citizens an opportunity to provide oral comments. After careful review and consideration of over 500 comments, the Illinois EPA made numerous changes to the draft permit. The Agency concurrently issued a responsiveness summary to lay out its responses to the many comments received – this extensive document may be found on the Illinois EPA’s Ethylene Oxide webpage. A copy of the final construction permit, responsiveness summary, memorandum on technology certification and memorandum supporting modeling are available on the Illinois EPA’s website at https://www2.illinois.gov/epa/topics/community-relations/sites/ethylene-oxide/Pages/default.aspx.
That link is broken. Trying to get a better one. Link is now fixed.
Some heads are gonna explode in the Willowbrook area.
This post will likely be updated with responses.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Press release…
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) released the following statement on the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to approve the Sterigenics construction permit application:
“The IEPA’s approval of the Sterigenics construction permit is disappointing, discouraging and downright wrong. Our fight is not over – we will continue working to pass new legislation in veto session that will allow municipalities to ban the use of ethylene oxide within their boundaries.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Sen. John Curran (R-Downers Grove)…
The Illinois EPA’s approval of Sterigenics’ permit is disappointing, but not unexpected. Since the beginning of this public health crisis I have stood with the residents of Willowbrook and worked with them to ensure this facility never again reopens. Today’s decision will not deter us from continuing the fight to close this facility and rid our communities of ethylene oxide. I look forward to working with all of those interested in the General Assembly dedicated to keeping our communities healthy and safe.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Governor’s office…
Today, Illinois has the toughest regulations on ethylene oxide in the nation, but Governor Pritzker is calling on the General Assembly to pass even more stringent restrictions in the veto session to protect residents’ health. Upon taking office, Governor Pritzker’s administration shut down Sterigenics. During the shutdown, the Governor asked the General Assembly to pass the strictest possible law on ethylene oxide emissions. It’s clear now that the legislation was insufficient, so during the upcoming veto session, the Governor expects that the General Assembly will strengthen the law they passed this spring. He is committed to signing the measure and the administration will strictly enforce it.
The former state of Illinois employee who successfully challenged the payment of forced union dues by public workers was back in federal court Friday to ask a judge to force his former union to return about $3,000 in dues he paid while working for the state in a case that could have wider implications for public workers nationwide.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that requiring state employees to pay union dues was a violation of Mark Janus’ First Amendment rights.
The former state child support specialist was in federal court Friday in Chicago seeking reimbursement for some of the union dues he previously paid.
“it’s just a simple matter of, they took the money and I want it back. That’s all there is to it.” Janus said comments outside of a federal courtroom in Chicago.
In court, Janus’ legal team argued that the dues were collected illegally and that he was entitled to receive about $3,000 back from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees’ Union.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that Janus was not entitled to the dues collected while he was contesting paying them to AFSCME. On appeal, Janus’ lawyer, Bill Messenger, attorney at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, argued that the money was collected illegally. […]
Diana Rickert, vice president of the Liberty Justice Center, said a favorable ruling could cost public employee unions about $100 million to $150 million dollars. She said the legal process could take years to play out.
*** UPDATE *** AFSCME Council 31…
Courts have repeatedly ruled in this and similar cases that in setting fees for representation provided to non-members, AFSCME acted in good faith based on a US Supreme Court ruling in place since 1977 and repeatedly affirmed in the ensuing decades. When the 2018 Supreme Court ruling overturned that previous decision, AFSCME immediately halted all fees. Consequently we have a very strong case, which we made to the appellate panel today.
Mark Janus received wage increases, health insurance coverage, vacation time and other benefits that the union negotiated during his tenure in state government. He never once failed to accept such improvements in his working conditions, nor did he ever object to paying the related fees—until he became the plaintiff in Bruce Rauner’s court case against AFSCME. This prolonged litigation is nothing but another political attack on working people, and on Janus’s part, a greedy grab for more.
* Staff memo from Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Chief of Staff Melissa Coultas…
Please be aware that Alan Lowe is no longer in the service of the State of Illinois. I will remain in close contact with the Governor’s Office until a new Executive Director is identified. In the interim, all issues that would normally go to Alan will be handled by Toby Trimmer, Dave Kelm and me.
I’m told he was walked out of the building by a deputy governor.
Lowe came to Illinois from the George W. Bush Presidential Library Museum a few years ago.
Trimmer and Coultas were both hired just last month, so there’s not much institutional knowledge at the top. Kelm, the general counsel, was hired last year during the Rauner administration. He’s worked for Jim Edgar and House GOP Leader Jim Durkin.
I’ve been promised a response from the governor’s office.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum again has gotten cozy with conservative talk show personality Glenn Beck.
Mercury One, a Texas nonprofit founded by Beck, boasts on its website that the ALPLM was a partner in a recent weeklong exhibit on slavery at the institution in Irving. Other partners included the African American Museum of Dallas, the Dallas Historical Society and Frontiers of Flight Museum.
It’s not clear what artifacts, if any, the ALPLM might have loaned. Last year, the museum sent the Gettysburg Address and other artifacts to Mercury One for display with less planning and fewer safeguards than had been employed in past instances when the copy of Lincoln’s famous speech, valued at $20 million, left the building.
*** UPDATE *** From the governor’s office…
The administration terminated Mr. Lowe’s employment today. We cannot comment further on personnel matters. We look forward to working with the team of museum professionals, historians and librarians at the ALPLM to ensure that the institution is meeting its high standards.
A possible auction of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia displayed at Illinois’ presidential museum in Springfield is being put off due to an apparent uptick in fundraising, according to the private foundation that owns the artifacts.
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Last year’s threatened fire sale by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation shocked the history world. Facing an October deadline, the group was about to sell off some coveted historical artifacts because it was having trouble paying off a $9.7 million loan balance left from the original purchase of the items.
A spokesman for the foundation, which purchases Lincoln artifacts for the presidential museum, attributed the change of heart to a less dour financial picture than what the group foresaw last year.
“I am pleased that our fundraising is going very well,” Nick Kalm, a vice chairman of the foundation’s board, told WBEZ in a statement.
In Illinois, when people have their firearms owners identification cards revoked, they’re supposed to turn them in to law enforcement and surrender their guns. But that only happened less than half of the time in the metro-east and statewide during the last four years.
In St. Clair County, FOID cards were returned just under 36 percent of the time after they were revoked from 2015-18, according to Illinois State Police data obtained by the Belleville News-Democrat.
Madison County was a little better, at 41 percent, while statewide cards were turned in 37 percent of the time during the four-year period.
Police in suburbs that cut a wide swath from North Shore communities like Wilmette and Glencoe, to Oak Brook and Naperville out west, and Palos Heights and New Lenox farther south, have been warning residents for years about the importance of locking cars to prevent vehicular thefts and burglaries. Flyers have been distributed at Fourth of July fireworks displays, roadside electronic message boards erected and cautionary statements delivered to the press, but authorities express frustration at how some suburban residents remain undeterred.
“On any given night, I can head out to Oak Brook, Hinsdale or go up to Lake Forest, and drive off with an unlocked Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes or, if I’m lucky, a Maserati,” said Steven Stelter, president of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the police chief in west suburban Westchester.
Stelter was for years a member of a state auto theft task force. The task force, which Stelter said was funded by grants from insurance companies, was eliminated during state budget cuts a few years ago.
“People just don’t accept responsibility today,” Stelter said. “They ask, ‘Why are there not more police around?’ When the real question is, ‘Why didn’t you take your keys with you and not leave them in an unlocked car?’”
* The Question: Do you lock your car at night? Explain.
Illinois has not been necessarily a gambling industry-friendly state. You never know what the hell is going to happen. You know, we’ve been [fighting expansion for] 15, 20 years, and it finally got done. But you never knew when it was going to happen, or what it was going to look like from year to year.
* James Marter of Oswego has announced he’s running for Congress against US Rep. Lauren Underwood. First, though, he has to win a Republican primary against a host of opponents [fixed reference]. Illinois Review posted his kickoff video, and I thought you might want to rate it…
Marter got thumped by US Rep. Adam Kinzinger in the 2018 GOP primary and scored less than 30 percent against Sen. Mark Kirk in the 2016 GOP primary.
Hey, it’s Friday and it’s a slow news day so far. Have at it.
One of the great environmental crises today — and there are many — is the loss of biodiversity on planet Earth. Human actions have lead to an extinction rate higher than anything seen on Earth in the last 10 million years, as a sweeping UN report recently explained. It’s estimated the average vertebrate (bird, fish, mammal, amphibian) population has lost around 60 percent of its individual members since the 1970s.
Scientists keep telling us that something is going devastatingly wrong in the natural world. Today, a study in Science focuses on the birds of North America, and the results are again eye-opening and grim.
A team of scientists at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, in collaboration with the US Geological Survey and several conservation groups, have estimated North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970. That’s an estimated decline of 30 percent in the total bird population. In other words: More than one in four birds has disappeared from American skies in the last 50 years.
A 30 percent population decline since I was eight years old. Wow.
Jim Herkert, executive director of the Illinois Audubon Society, has been studying data for our state that further confirms the Cornell study’s findings: “Over the past 10 years, my estimate is that Illinois is losing about 1.4 million birds per year,” Herkert says. That’s a decline, he points out, that is continuing. And though it’s a small percentage of a large population of birds, “it’s big. And it’s certainly not a sustainable rate of decline.” […]
[Doug Stotz, senior conservation ecologist at the Field Museum], who has spent years in the agricultural zones of Illinois documenting bird populations, says the shift to industrialized agricultural starting around the 1970s is a major habitat change for birds that has undoubtedly had an impact on the decline. “The intensification of agriculture doesn’t leave a lot of room for anything else out there.” […]
“Fifty years ago, if you went out into the agricultural fields in Illinois, a lot of the grassland birds were still in them,” says Stotz. “Today, if you go out there, there’s nothing.” […]
Though it seems counterintuitive, “cities can be a refuge for wildlife,” says Stotz. Chicago’s backyards, lakefront and network of forest preserves have helped to nurture wildlife for decades and continue to provide habitat for species such as raptors, a group of birds that rebounded after use of the pesticide DDT was discontinued. “There’s habitat in cities,” Stotz says, “and there’s potential for a whole lot more.”
This week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed that marijuana dispensaries be allocated throughout the city, except not in downtown.
In explaining her decision, Lightfoot said she wants to keep the center of Chicago “family friendly.” The mayor also wants to assure that entrepreneurs from communities throughout the city, including the West and South sides, benefit financially. Lightfoot’s deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development, Samir Mayekar, told the Tribune, “From a public safety standpoint as the industry develops, it was best to exclude (downtown) from operations.” […]
The family-friendly vibe Lightfoot seeks to protect won’t be jeopardized by a small number of new legal businesses that aren’t so different in principle from liquor stores and bars, some of which operate on sidewalks. The city is careful about permitting liquor stores downtown rather than banning them. It can apply similar prudence to marijuana dispensaries. As for the mayor’s office’s broadly stated concern about public safety, that’s an issue across the city for different reasons in different neighborhoods. It’s hard to see how highly regulated cannabis sales exacerbate the challenges. […]
Certainly the idea of newly opened purveyors of sativa buds and the like might be jarring at first. Recreational marijuana sales will mark a new chapter in the city’s evolution. Chicago will need to find its comfort zone. Downtown should be part of the mix.
This is the same Tribune editorial board that complained constantly about how the cannabis legalization bill should be slowed down and saved for another time. Now they’re all about putting weed shops downtown.
New research shows crime rates dropped substantially in areas with marijuana dispensaries, running counter to fears that pot shops drum up crime.
The mayor is either getting some very bad advice, or her gut is just wrong on this one.
* Related…
* Greg Hinz: Downtown is a Chicago neighborhood, too: Though Lightfoot may be tempted to forget it, downtown Chicago is home to 200,000 residents and the city’s jobs engine. Shorting those folks is a bad way to help needier areas of the city.
While the [Illinois] opioid death rate for white people dropped 6.5 percent between 2017 and 2018, opioid deaths increased among African Americans by 9.1 percent last year and by 4.3 percent among Hispanics according to IDPH data..
“In 2018, opioid deaths among Illinois residents decreased for the first time in five years with a 1.6 percent drop from 2,202 in 2017 to 2,167 in 2018,” IDPH Director Ngozi Ezike wrote in a letter accompanying the report, released earlier this month. “However, this decrease was driven primarily by a decline in deaths among non-Hispanic whites. Deaths among non-Hispanic black and Hispanic residents continued to increase between 2017 and 2018, illustrating a persistent disparity.”
The opioid death rate is highest among Black Illinoisans, where there are an average of 32.8 opioid deaths per 100,000 Illinois residents. Whites have the second-largest death rate — 16.8 deaths per 100,000 Illinoisans — and Hispanics have 9.9 opioid deaths per 100,000. […]
Regionally, opioid deaths are decreasing in Cook County and suburban collar counties, according to the IDPH data. Deaths are also on the decline in Illinois’ rural counties. However, 2018 was the first year in which counties classified as “urban” surpassed Cook County in opioid overdose mortality rates per 100,000, according to IDPH.
That racial disparity tracks with national trends, Hannah reports. Turns out that whites are more likely to obtain prescriptions for buprenorphine, which decreases opioid cravings.
East St. Louis this week became the fourth Illinois city to have its public safety pension fund ask Comptroller Susana Mendoza to withhold state money from the city and instead send it to East St. Louis’ chronically underfunded firefighter pension fund.
Officials from East St. Louis’ firefighter pension fund pointed to the city’s failure to pay an actuarily required $2.2 million into the fund in 2017 and 2018, and noted the fund is only 11 percent funded as of January 2018, according to documents obtained by The Daily Line.
Fund officials are attempting to trigger Illinois’ pension intercept law, which allows Mendoza’s office to seize money a municipality receives under the state’s Local Government Distributive Fund, and direct it to the underfunded pension fund. […]
The East St. Louis firefighter pension fund has approximately 90 beneficiaries, according to a recent report on the funding condition of Illinois’ 641 police and fire pension funds. As of 2016, the most recent year included in the COGFA report, The market value of assets within the fund was $7.5 million, versus its $59.8 million in total actuarial liabilities.
The unfunded liability for that one pension fund works out to be $1,962 per city resident.
The trouble began when police officers showed up at Ellen’s house late one night.
He contacted police and requested a wellness check on their young daughter. But police didn’t find anything wrong with the girl, said Ellen.
But then, she said, he became obsessive. He continued requesting wellness checks on the little girl even though police never found anything wrong. In a court filing, Ellen said he would call and text so much — he even started sending letters to her house every day — that she felt like she was being stalked. (WBEZ is identifying her with a pseudonym for her family’s safety.)
She said even the cops eventually got sick of coming out and suggested she get a restraining order against her ex.
With the order of protection in place, Ellen said she also changed her cell phone number and email address. She even bought a new car with a new license plate — all to make it harder for her troublesome ex to contact her.
But a few months later, Ellen’s ex obtained all that information — and much more — without her knowing.
That’s because he opened a court case to which Ellen wasn’t even a party, then subpoenaed the Illinois Tollway for I-Pass transponder records that would show her movements on the state’s tollways.
The tollway complied with that legal request, and also turned over information about Ellen’s new cell phone number, email address, credit card and license plate. Ellen’s ex-boyfriend also requested similar private information about her parents, and the tollway turned all of it over — without ever notifying Ellen or her family.
Only a portion of her credit card number was released, but still.
* Sen. Sue Rezin’s US Rep. campaign about a fellow state Senator’s new poll…
Today perennial candidate Jim Oberweis released a poll his current campaign for Congress conducted that shows him losing to incumbent Lauren Underwood, 47 to 38 percent. Yes, that is correct—Jim Oberweis’ own campaign has publicly released a poll showing him losing yet another campaign in a head to head matchup between incumbent Congresswoman Lauren Underwood and himself.
Oberweis has run for Congress, US Senate and Governor six times and lost six times. He has a virtual PhD in losing elections.
Oberweis’ news release says fellow Republican State Senator Sue Rezin will need a million dollars to catch up to him in name I.D. for the primary election. But the fact is Sue Rezin needs no lessons from Oberweis about how to win elections. Rezin has won five out of five elections—three of them “Tier One” state legislative races. It is Rezin’s legislative record that will appeal to general election voters. For instance, earlier this year she sponsored a bill on preexisting conditions and succeeded in getting the State Senate to pass it unanimously. That was the key issue in the last election. The appeal of Rezin’s legislative record is one her Republican primary opponents simply cannot match.
Again, Oberweis has lost six out of six races for Congress, US Senate and Governor. Oberweis can watch, wait and learn about how Rezin’s effective campaign will surge past him because Sue Rezin has done so again and again and again and again in highly competitive legislative campaigns.
Oberweis’ pollster maintains that if voters are told a series of negative things about Underwood that they will reverse their original position against Oberweis and end up supporting him, but that is nothing more than wishful thinking. It has never worked in any of Oberweis’ previous campaigns for high office.
Oberweis’ pollster is one of the least credible in Washington, DC. In a June 13, 2014 article in The Hill newspaper, the article begins by saying: “National Republicans are warning candidates to stay away from (former) Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s pollster, who predicted just weeks before Cantor’s loss that he was up by a huge margin.”
The Hill article went on to say: “Two weeks before the majority leader’s stunning 11-point loss on Tuesday McGlaughlin’s poll showed Cantor with a 34-poit lead over professor Dave Brat.” That means Oberweis’ pollster was wrong by an astounding 45 percentage points.
The article in the Hill goes on to detail other McGlaughlin polling results that were released publicly and proved to be wildly inaccurate.
Jim Oberweis can dream about the 7th time being the charm but Republican voters would be reckless to bestow a nomination for Congress that is critical to earning back the U.S. House majority on a candidate who has blown more elections for high office than anyone in the State of Illinois.
Just like she did in her first state legislative election, Sue Rezin has what it takes to defeat an incumbent Democrat representative while Jim Oberweis’ epic series of lost elections AND his own poll just released today are the clearest indicators that he would blow this election as well if he somehow became the Republican nominee.
More info on the poll is here. The Republican head-to-head, which has Oberweis leading potential primary opponents by a wide margin, is of just 200 voters. I can’t recall any congressional candidate ever releasing a poll with that small of a sample size.
A new two-year audit of the Illinois Department of Corrections found employee misuse of sick leave, vacation time and overtime, something that a prison watchdog said not only hurts taxpayers, but can put inmates and employees at risk.
The audit showed that the department made some improvements, including establishing a grievance system, but some findings have dogged the state agency for decades. For example, the audit noted the department still doesn’t have an automated payroll or timekeeping system, a finding repeated since 1998.
As has been reported since the Fiscal Year 1998 examination, each correctional center in the Department continued to maintain a manual timekeeping system for several hundred employees. Correctional center employees signed in and out, and these sheets were sent to the timekeeping clerk. Other information, including notification of absences and call-in reports, were also forwarded to timekeepers. […]
Due to the lack of an automated timekeeping system, the Department had encountered significant timekeeping and payroll weaknesses.
Out of a sample of employees, auditors found 20 percent used a full day of leave at least once during the year the same day they worked an overtime shift.
Department management stated generally the reason for employees taking paid leave time and working overtime on the same day is due to competing priorities and employee oversight.
The financial advantage of this practice from the employee’s perspective is that the employee is paid for the leave time shift at the usual rate for that day and then also paid for the overtime shift at 1.5 times the usual rate of pay on the same day. The financial effect on the State, however, is that not only does the State pay the employee at the overtime rate for the shift worked in addition to the regular rate for the leave time taken, but the State must also pay another employee overtime to cover the shift for which the leave time was used. This type of abuse of leave time may be an example of “shift swapping” in which employees knowingly use leave time and swap shifts in order to gain a financial advantage.
The review found the department spent nearly $2 billion in fiscal year 2018, or nearly $700 million more than the year before. The inmate population declined from 45,817 to 41,704 over two years.
Nick Sauer, the former state legislator facing criminal charges alleging he posted lewd images of two former girlfriends online without their consent, is being sued by one of those women.
Attorneys for Melissa Sue Kreithen, who dated Sauer in 2016, said in a statement Wednesday that the ex-lawmaker’s actions were humiliating, degrading and emotionally and mentally damaging to their client.
“She looks forward to her day in court so that Nick Sauer may be prosecuted civilly for the damages he has caused her,” the statement from the Chicago law firm Levin, Riback, Adelman & Flangel reads.
Daniel M. Locallo, who is leading the legal team representing Sauer in the criminal case, did not return a call for comment Wednesday.
Chicago’s newest federal judge has been tasked with handling one of Chicago’s most politically explosive legal actions, brought by [Alaina Hampton] claiming Illinois Democrats, led by House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, blackballed her after she complained a Madigan operative sexually harassed her.
On Sept. 16, Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, chief judge of the Chicago-based U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, announced the lawsuit brought against Madigan and the Illinois Democratic Party, among others, had been among more than 340 other cases transferred to new U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger. […]
According to a release from the Northern District announcing his installment as judge, Seeger earned his bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College and his law degree from the University of Michigan. After law school, Seeger clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle, a Reagan appointee, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, before Sentelle was succeeded as that circuit’s chief judge in 2013 by Judge Merrick Garland. […]
Alaina Hampton says she is finally starting to heal emotionally, but she still wishes she could afford therapy. And she’s struggling to find work. […]
Hampton grew up downstate near Springfield and moved to Chicago for her first job. A child in a family of lifelong Republicans, Hampton started her career as a staffer for the Democratic Party of Illinois.
Soon, the then-23-year-old campaign staffer began working on underserved, low-income communities. She said she hoped by working to get good people elected she would be able to help improve the circumstances of those communities.
“I’m a political consultant,” she said. “But ever since all of my story became public, it has been obviously very difficult to get work. I spent a lot of time last year traveling and taking care of my mental and emotional health. And now, with campaign season starting, I might do a little bit of political work again, but I also bartend.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot [yesterday] doubled down on her opposition to allowing stores that sell cannabis products downtown, indicating that in her view pot stores more properly belong in outlying neighborhoods.
In questioning after today’s City Council meeting, the mayor said that while keeping shopping streets such as Michigan Avenue “family friendly” is on her mind, she’s more concerned with ensuring that the new wealth the legalized sale of recreational-use marijuana will create gets distributed fairly across Chicago.
Um, the city’s neighborhoods aren’t “family friendly”? Also, every time I’ve walked down Michigan Avenue in the past few years, it smelled kinda skunky. Perhaps the mayor might want to take a stroll herself.
And even if you want to exclude the Magnificent Mile, why should the untold hordes of blotto late-night partiers within the proposed “family friendly exclusion zone” on Hubbard Street be shielded from these alleged reefer horrors? It makes no sense. Take their money.
The Merchandise Mart, though, falls outside the exclusion zone and presumably would be a possible location for a pot shop.
The Merchandise Mart isn’t family friendly??? Paging Chris Kennedy!
* The mayor’s argument is principally about helping neighborhood communities create jobs and businesses. It’s a strong argument. It will help. Legalization is a net good thing if properly handled.
But Ald. Brendan Reilly told the Sun-Times that making people travel to the Fulton Market area (where families apparently don’t exist) to buy cannabis isn’t about neighborhood equity, as the mayor claims. “It’s simply making [hundreds of thousands of commuters and millions of tourists] travel further outside the central core to access it.” Yep.
A well-placed City Hall source who’s already gauged interest among aldermen in Lightfoot’s proposal says the mayor doesn’t have the 26 votes needed to pass the ordinance as it’s written.
I doubt, however, that there’s 26 votes to pass anything specific right now.
Whatever happens, the mayor should stop needlessly stigmatizing this soon to be legal product.
* By the way, I instantly thought about former Gov. Pat Quinn when I saw the mayor’s “family friendly” comment. Remember this?…
Quinn has said that he worries the 366-acre state fairgrounds in Springfield will become less family friendly if gambling on slot machines is permitted for most of the year, as Senate Bill 744 would allow. […]
But William DiMondi, general manager for the Delaware State Fair, said the casino there has not been a detriment to family fun in Delaware.
I asked at one point if Quinn had ever been to a state fair beer tent at night, because there wasn’t a whole lot of family friendly activity going on.
It’s official: the 2019 Illinois State Fair is the most successful in state history with over $6.5 million in estimated revenue. This year’s all-time record exceeds revenue brought in for the 2018 fair by approximately $750,000 and surpasses the previous record of $6.4 million set in 2013.
“I’ve had more fun at the state fair than almost anything else I’ve done in the past eight months, and I’m proud that so many families enjoyed everything the fair has to offer – and it’s no wonder this fair is one for the history books,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “This fair brought in record-breaking revenue of over $6.5 million, highlighted our tremendous agriculture industry and supported incredible small businesses from across the state. I’m grateful to our hardworking team at the Department of Agriculture for making this possible and already looking forward to next year’s fair.”
“The success of this year’s Illinois State Fair is a testament to the hard work of our staff, not only during the fair but throughout the whole year,” said John Sullivan, Director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture. “The buildings and grounds crew made the fairgrounds look more beautiful than ever and State Fair Manager Kevin Gordon came up with new ways to bring more people back to the fairgrounds. After a lot of hard work, Illinoisans have a lot to celebrate.”
Today’s revenue announcement comes on top of a record-setting year at the grandstand with 63,633 tickets sold, bringing in a record $2.3 million. Estimated attendance totals of nearly 509,000 were 37% higher than 2018’s projection of just over 370,000, making it the largest attendance since 2014.
This data represents conservative estimates, with the final numbers being released for 2018 and 2019 in the auditor’s report in October or November.
Amazon plans to sign a pledge to meet the goals of the Paris Climate agreement by 2040 and be net carbon neutral 10 years ahead of schedule, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said on Thursday. […]
Bezos said Amazon was placing an order to buy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian Automotive LLC and to use 100% renewable energy by 2030, up from 40% today. Amazon and Ford Motor Co are among the investors in the EV startup. Amazon will also invest $100 million to restore forests and wetlands.
At a press conference in Springfield, Illinois Governor Rauner Bruce Rauner fired off harsh words at automotive startup Rivian.
“That plant should have well over 1,000 people today. And that plant should have brought hundreds of millions of dollars today,” said Rauner, in response to a reporter’s question.
Contradictory to Rauner’s comments, Rivian appears ahead of schedule to employ 400 people across the country by the end of the year. The company is also ahead of their employment objectives at the facility in Normal. AdaptBN learned last week that Rivian already employs north of 325 people across the country and is still on track for production in 2020.
This isn’t the first time Rauner has made confusing statements surrounding Rivian’s involvement in the state. In an interview earlier this year Rauner stated, “No auto company wants to invest in Illinois because of Madigan’s power, because of regulations and the taxes.”
Last week, Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes and Budget Director Alexis Sturm issued a directive that, among other things, ordered department heads to find “operational efficiencies” that would total 6.5 percent of their current budget. […]
The Hynes/Sturm memo attributes the unpaid bills to those left over by former Gov. Bruce Rauner. But let’s all remember that the level of unpaid bills stood at $6.8 billion when Rauner took office in January 2015.
That was a fairly common mid-year spike. In the preceding July (just after the end of Fiscal Year 2014), the backlog had been brought down to $4.60 billion. The backlog at the end of Fiscal Year 2015 (before the impasse began) was $5.03 billion. A 30-day payment cycle would leave about a $2.5-3 billion backlog or so (maybe even higher). So the real backlog at the end of the last Pat Quinn budget was about $2 billionish, mainly because the 2011 income tax partially rolled back in the middle of the 2015 fiscal year.
A month after he filed controversial murder charges against five teens whose friend was killed during an alleged burglary, Lake County’s top prosecutor has decided to drop them for lesser charges under an agreement with the families of the suspects. […]
The teens were charged with murder in the shooting of one of their friends by an Old Mill Creek homeowner, who told police the group was in his driveway near one of his cars in the early morning hours of Aug. 13.
The homeowner involved told police that when a member of the group began moving toward him with something in his hand, he fired shots, striking 14-year-old Ja’quan Swopes in the head and killing him. Authorities said a knife was found on the driveway in the area in which the homeowner said the teens were. […]
While Illinois law allows authorities to charge suspects with murder if someone dies during the commission of a felony, Nerheim’s decision to charge the teens with the felony murder of one of their group shot by someone else resulted in a backlash from activist and advocate groups.
* Excerpt from the state’s attorney’s press release…
Let me begin by saying the safety of our community and the enforcement of the criminal laws is paramount. Justice requires that all offenders be held accountable and appropriately sentenced for their crimes. The circumstances and facts outlined in my statement support the charge of Felony Murder. However, after full consideration of all the evidence, mitigation presented by defense counsel as well as the wishes of the victim’s family, my office has entered into an agreement with defense counsel for the five offenders. This agreement ensures all offenders will be held responsible and face appropriate sentences.
Diamond Davis, 18, of Chicago, is expected to appear in Lake County bond court at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, where she will be formally charged with a class 4 felony of conspiracy to commit burglary and a class A misdemeanor of criminal trespass to a motor vehicle. Davis is expected today to waive her preliminary hearing, then plead guilty to the two charges next week. The preliminary charge of felony murder will be dismissed today. The case will then be scheduled for a sentencing hearing after she pleads guilty.
The cases against the four juvenile offenders are moving to juvenile court, and the charge of felony murder will be dismissed. However, due to strict laws governing juvenile courtroom proceedings, my office is unable to give details regarding the charges involving the juveniles going forward.
The state’s executive inspector general has found Springfield lawyer Don Tracy, when acting as chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board, engaged in prohibited political activity by making campaign contributions. But Tracy is protesting the finding, calling it “an inflammatory political report based primarily on speculation and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.”
And because the report alleges contributions made by Tracy’s wife, Wanda, during his tenure on the gaming board were done under his direction — and because she was never interviewed by investigators — Tracy calls that allegation “unprofessional, unnecessary, unsubstantiated, baseless and insulting.”
Tracy takes issue with the idea that any political contribution is prohibited by the Riverboat Gambling Act — he said he made a $200 donation before his first board meeting in 2015, about the time he heard contributions should not be made. He said he made none after that — and said some listed in campaign records as coming from him while he was on the board were in error because they also came from his wife.
Part of Tracy’s response to the finding, released with the report, is a letter from Wanda Tracy, who says she wrote campaign checks “of my own free will,” and described her own political activity over the years, including circulating nominating petitions, hosting fundraisers and organizing political parade walkers.
The full report, including a long response from Tracy, is here.
The 12-page report focuses on 30 contributions from Tracy and his wife, Wanda, from the time he became Gaming Board chairman until Oct. 29, including eight contributions totaling $7,600 from Wanda Tracy to Rauner’s campaign fund. Most of the checks were written from the couple’s joint account, though Don Tracy’s name was crossed off on many of them, the report says.
The report says that from 1998 until his appointment to the Gaming Board, Don Tracy made 210 contributions to 67 political committees. Over the same period, Wanda Tracy made only one, a $5,300 contribution to their sister-in-law Jil Tracy’s failed 2014 bid for lieutenant governor.
Given that history, “it is not credible” that Wanda Tracy began writing so many campaign checks “without any direction from her husband, or even discussion with him about it,” the report says.
Tracy dismissed the inspector general’s conclusion as “a bit sexist.” He said the inspector general’s office never spoke with his wife during its investigation.
Tracy — a Springfield attorney who previously made failed bids as a Democrat for the state Senate and as a Republican for lieutenant governor — said he doesn’t think Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office was out to get him. But he hinted it could be tied to his vocal — and financial — support for Rauner over the years.
“A lot of people around here hate Rauner,” Tracy said by phone from his Downstate office.
But the report comes from the office of Susan Haling, who was appointed executive inspector general by Rauner in March 2018.
State law defines political activity as “any activity in support of or in connection with any campaign for federal, State, or local elective office or any political organization.” Members can be removed by the governor “for engaging in any political activity,” the law states.
The inspector general’s office recommended Governor J.B. Pritzker take action he deemed appropriate. Tracy says Pritzker didn’t ask him to resign. The governor’s office had no comment.
* Tracy sent me this response…
The Facts
1. Don Tracy was appointed Chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board on February 2, 2015 by then Gov. Bruce Rauner. Don’s first official meeting and actions as Chairman occurred on March 25, 2015, when the Gaming Board held its first 2015 meeting.
2. Without holding a hearing or other due process, the OEIG accuses Don Tracy of engaging in “political activity” while serving as Chairman of the Gaming Board. The Illinois Riverboat Gambling Act prohibits Gaming Board members from engaging in “political activity”, but does not expressly or specifically define “political activity” to include the mere making of a campaign contribution.
3 Without citing any legal authority, the OEIG has interpreted this ill-defined ban on political activity to preclude Illinois Gaming Board members from making any campaign contributions (even to local and federal candidates) while off duty, off state premises, without using any state resources, while not acting in any state capacity, and without any appearance of quid pro quo or impropriety; and, notwithstanding US Supreme Court rulings that political contributions are a form of free speech and therefore vaguely defined bans on political contributions, like this OEIG interpretation, are unconstitutional.
4 Don was not made aware of this “interpretation” until shortly before or after his first day on the job, March 25, 2015. From and after that time, and until on June 14, 2019, when Governor Pritzker accepted Don’s resignation from the Gaming Board, which Don offered on November 30, 2018, Don did not engage in any “political activity” except for: (a) voting and (b) loaning or contributing $400 to his inactive independent expenditure political committee, Central Illinois for Responsible Government, to pay maintenance expenses including bank account fees and a Board of Elections fine for a late 2014 report.
5 Based only on speculative assumptions, including the false and speculative assumption that Don’s wife Wanda is his political puppet such that she could not have possibly made political contributions to Republicans from their joint account without Don’s consent or direction, and without even interviewing Wanda as Don suggested they do, the OEIG has falsely accused Wanda Tracy of making political contributions under Don’s direction. This is not only sexist and insulting; it also implies that women/spouses are incapable of making campaign contributions without being directed by a man.
6 Illinois has had a long and well-known history of public corruption. Instead of doing the hard and detailed work it takes to root out corruption, the OEIG has in this case wasted limited taxpayer money on an unconstitutional wild goose chase and falsely accused a part-time dedicated public servant of engaging in significant “political activity”” while serving on the Gaming Board. No wonder many good and honest citizens are reluctant to engage in public service.
