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“Under the lens of compare and contrast, then and now, one takeaway is this state’s breathtaking tolerance for corruption. It has settled into the system of governance and politics as its own permanent institution. Corruption is an expected byproduct of serving in public office, like wind makes waves.”
UIC labor professor Robert Bruno said a second CTU walkout on Lightfoot’s watch “would have not only prevented or delayed CPS from providing instruction to over 300,000 students but in the long run been disastrous. Being able to deliver instruction and educational services in the third largest school district in the country during a pandemic is an enormous logistical puzzle; trying to do so without the full support of her school staff is highly improbable.”
In Englewood, on the Fourth of July, Gunshots hit eight people, killing four of them; Jones was the youngest. The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward and urging even anonymous information that could help solve this case.
He is the latest politician to caught in a corruption probe involving officials allegedly profiting off of the red-light cameras that bedevil many a motorist. According to the nine-page, seven-count indictment against Presta, “Presta asked for and accepted benefits from representatives of Company A, including Individual A.”
Said University of Illinois Springfield politics professor Kent Redfield, “(T)his is territory nobody comprehended and it could be handled just by the Legislature, but the governor will have to get involved if you want the Legislature in session before the veto session and it may end up in the courts anyway, so it’s just one more wrinkle in a very strange situation.”
Under Pritzker’s new rules, mask enforcement would be directed at businesses – not individuals. The businesses would be punished if their customers or staff were not wearing a mask after repeated warnings. He acted in May to amend the Illinois Department of Public Health rules so business owners could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor for violating his closure orders.
Obed Ornelas and the land bank were in the process of finalizing his purchase of vacant lots in June 2018 when federal agents arrested him and 56 others in a massive drug bust. At his request, the closing on the land was handled via email so Ornelas, out on bail and wearing an electronic monitoring device, didn’t have to be there in person. The land bank is already under scrutiny by the Cook County’s inspector general for a questionable flip involving one alderman’s chief of staff.
“It’s a great vehicle for us to move forward with that structural change and it will then codify or put into action and put into our policies and procedures, all of the nice words that were in the resolution,” one alderman said. The council declined changes the mayor proposed before the vote, which recognized the NAACP Springfield chapter specifically.
Between March 1 and July 1, there were about 78.5 million calls to IDES. Of those, 393,000 were answered. That doesn’t even reach 1 percent of the calls coming in. Those in need of help are feeling the pain.
“We have done as much as 34 consultations in one day,” said Jeffery Leving, founder of the Law Offices of Jeffery M. Leving in Chicago. The norm is seven to 10 interviews a day, he said.
The new bill would seek restitution from ComEd, in addition to the $200 million fine the utility paid to the federal government. The bill would also include performance-based metrics for utilities and a repeal of ComEd and Ameren Illinois’ recent rate hikes.
Richard Porter: “Millennials are moving away from states that have more lawyers per capita (a proxy for regulatory burdens) and higher taxpayer burdens, both in terms of current taxation and expected future burdens based on indebtedness. They are moving to states with fewer rules and less-costly government. This result is consonant with common sense: People look for values in all areas of their lives. Why not with respect to governance as well?”
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said her office has worked to tackle violence with the help of federal partners from various administrations, and whether this effort will be more successful than past operations depends on strategy. “Having additional resources to look at gun prosecution, to look at gun cases is incredibly helpful,” she said. “But what we also know, however, is that this is a short-term triage.”
The counties now under a warning include: Cass, Coles, Grundy, Iroquois, Jackson, Monroe, Perry, Saline, St. Clair, Tazewell, Union, Williamson, Winnebago.
Around five months into the pandemic in Illinois, and with cases rising quickly in Chicago, public health officials are still hiring hundreds of contract tracers. So, after losing months of revenue during the statewide shutdown, business owners are figuring out their own ways to protect their employees and customers to try to prevent having to close yet again.
“CTA got about $817 million out of the allocation to this region and that has allowed us to make sure that we’re good for the rest of the year,” its president said. “But next year will be a different picture if we don’t get that additional funding and additional relief from Congress.”
After it was reported that multiple councils did not follow transparency rules around their police votes, including failing to post an agenda or meeting information so that the public could log in, Chicago Public Schools pledged to centrally track basic meeting information. But the district is only tracking dates and not collecting meeting times, agendas or links to virtual meetings that are essential to public participation.
The largest amount, $42 million, went to Harper College in Palatine for a one-stop admissions and campus student life center and related improvements.
The new rules could also apply to schools and child care facilities, but not individuals who violate the mask requirement. “This is a make or break moment for the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said.
Lynn Sweet: “Madigan clings to the role of the state party chairman because it helps him retain power in the state House. A candidate has to go through the state party to qualify for cheaper postal rates. With so many state House contests heavily using direct mail, Madigan controls state representatives with threats to strip them of their discount mail.”
The blame game may work, but that doesn’t mean the funding will come through.
This is correctly decided for reasons we wrote last year.
Illinois, the lowest-rated state at a notch above junk, pays the biggest yield penalty among states in the U.S. municipal bond market and an ensuing lawsuit is likely to pressure prices on its bonds.
The analysis also shows that changing Illinois’ flat income tax to one with higher rates for higher earners would increase consumer costs and lead to reduced household spending. “This independent study concludes what many of us already knew: this is the worst possible time for a $3.4 billion tax hike on Illinois families and businesses,” said Illinois Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Todd Maisch.
Richard Ingram, executive director of the $51.2 billion Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, Springfield, resigned Thursday, effective immediately. On July 31, the board of trustees unanimously voted to place Mr. Ingram on administrative leave “due to performance issues covered by his employment contract,” a news release from the system said.
Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey immediately joined the fray, saying the entire $926 million should be allocated “to critical needs — including housing supports for families teetering on the brink of homelessness and broadband devices for every public school child.”
Solidarity Street’s Instagram page, which has more than 1,700 followers, has a number of graphics that express the organization’s feelings toward law enforcement: “Cops are not workers. A worker is someone that sells their labor to make ends meet. Cops do not do this. They defend the interests and property of the wealthy…They are the armed wing of the American capitalist state.”
“When we are talking about a lot of conflicts that are being settled with guns, we’re not talking about large organizations protecting corners. We’re talking about a slight indignity that happened on Facebook or someone avenging a loss from a year ago.”
“Chicago has a lot of work to do to make remote learning work better, and much of the pressure will be on CPS teachers. We believe they are at least partially the reason Lightfoot decided this week, rather than wait until later this month, to stick solely with remote learning for now, though the mayor denies that. There’s no way the mayor failed to factor in the threat of a teachers’ strike. So now Chicago will be looking to those CPS teachers to lead the way in making remote learning really work.”
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