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“I wish CPS and CTU would come together and work together on behalf of the families and the students,” said Beth Van Opstal, a mother of three district students, including a pre-kindergartner.
Katie Kautz laid off all her servers as well as two cooks and a dishwasher early on, and fears she’ll have to make cuts again. “I’m totally angry with the government. We’re doing our part as restaurant owners. We’re taking more precautions than most other industries. I don’t see Jewel or Wal-Mart or any other of those places closing.”
The $1.7 billion proposed refinancing and restructuring will involve several complicated steps that Ald. Michele Smith compared to refinancing a mortgage and then taking out a second loan. “It’s like refinancing your mortgage and taking the savings and using it to finance another component of a mortgage,” confirmed CFO Jennie Huang Bennett. To which Smith replied: “To pay for the furniture?”
Lightfoot has called the $94 million increase “modest” because it will cost the owner of a home valued at $250,000 only $56 more each year. But Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett acknowledged the actual annual increase would be $112 when property taxes for Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges and Cook County are factored in.
At the upper end of that that average is a modest house on West Cortland in Bucktown. Where, since 2000 property taxes have increased. From about $2800 to more than 19,000. That is a 573% increase. In Ravenswood, one home has had a 563% increase in property taxes since 2000.
Paul Vallas: “Empowering parents and the community by providing them real choices is a direct threat to the union. However, they would be an effective way of ensuring that decisions better reflect the needs of the children and their communities.”
“Pappas, in a first-ever report, calculated that homeowners and business property owners have seen their tax bills increase 99% in the past 20 years, far outstripping both inflation (36%) and wage growth (57%). The increased tax burden — a result of state and local government’s irresponsible spending habits — is putting some taxpayers in the dire situation of not being able to pay their bills, Pappas warned.”
The slide states other examples of “anti-blackness” include “assuming that violence is deserved,” “the belief that Black people are dangerous” and “anti-black institutions and policies.”
“It is inherent to my identity as a Jew to stand with oppressed peoples,” Katsnelson said during the meeting. “It is also inherent to my identity as a Jew to stand with the Jewish people and support the Jewish homeland … This resolution provides me and other pro-Israel Jewish students with a Hobson’s choice,” said student Ian Katsnelson
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) projects that if Congress or the administration do not provide additional emergency federal transit funding, six in 10 public transit agencies will have to consider service cuts or other cost-cutting measures.
“You are supposed to be our leader. You are supposed to be the one on the front lines coaching us on how we will get through this crazy year and survive this virus rather than hide from it. You are supposed to be lifting our spirits with hope and a sense of community, rather you instill fear and neglect our rights as human beings tearing us apart.”
“There’s not a lot of good choices,” she said Monday. “If somebody’s got a better idea on how to close a $1.2 billion dollar budget deficit that doesn’t hurt our economy and doesn’t decimate city services, we’re open to it.”
The governor also said that MetroSouth Hospital is being “kept warm” as a potential option for state health officials to use in the event that hospitals near Chicago become overrun with coronavirus patients.
Woodstock Mayor Brian Sager won’t support Madigan because he said it’s time for new ideas: “The second aspect of it is, let’s be just blunt, and that is that there’s a strong shadow cast over the speaker at the present and given the long tenure, given the shadows which are there, I think it is time for Speaker Madigan to gracefully step back.”
A representative with IDES said the department plans to investigate the “unusual” matter.
A spokesperson for the Illinois State Police said it continues to work with local health and law enforcement officials when requested and there were no citations referencing COVID-19 over the weekend.
A Michigan economic development group is rolling out a package of incentives—including $15,000 cash, driving range memberships and free passes on commuter rail—for Chicagoans who move to its slice of southwest Michigan.
The Move to Michigan offer includes a grant of up to $15,000 to people who buy a home for $200,000 or more in selected ZIP codes that cover Bridgman, St. Joseph, Berrien Springs and a few other towns.
“[Sunday] the state reported over 4,000 new cases of COVID-19 in a 24-hour period. The numbers are very concerning and a wake-up call as we head into colder weather, flu season and the holidays,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said in a statement. “We are all experiencing COVID fatigue, but we must remain vigilant.”
“You’d think Amazon coming would lift people’s spirits, but we’re still feeling a sense of depression,” said Theo Brooks, the lone University Park trustee to vote against the deal. “You come home to a majority Black town, and there’s no grocery store, no life in the town center and crumbling streets. Amazon isn’t putting more police officers on the street. Amazon isn’t helping me with my taxes.”
“When the city’s numbers begin to spike, the working class people who keep industries running are being affected at a disproportionate rate,” said Antonio Santos, co-founder of the Gage Park Latinx Council. One in every 18 Southwest Side residents has had a confirmed case.
State Sen. Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, warned, “I think the fact the governor has chosen to take such a hard line in this process, I believe we’re going to find out how harsh those ramifications against the governor and his administration will be. I hope we don’t get to the push-shove measures, but we may very well in this situation and I hope we can avoid it.”
While other regions have come under added restrictions after passing the sate’s “failsafe” level, officials said suburban Cook County will be the first to see them imposed after passing the limit based on days with a “sustained increase” in both positivity rates and hospitalizations.
The owner states in an affidavit that a temporary shutdown of all indoor dining and drinks at FoxFire for more than a few days will lead to an “insurmountable” loss of income, putting the restaurant out of business along with countless others. The suit states that Pritzker has exceeded the emergency powers that were given to him.
“It’s not really about the bottom line anymore,” one Wicker Park restaurant owner said. “It’s about humanity. This is the side of history we want to be on.”
“A rollercoaster strike that featured personal attacks but ended with a historic contract should have seen both the union and district move toward a productive relationship. Yet with a deadly pandemic that requires more cooperation than ever, the memories of a bruising contract fight have lingered, hindering any agreement over a potential school reopening even as districts and unions across the country have resolved their differences.”
Which amendment should be on the ballot, the progressive tax increase or pension reform? The silence of Fair Tax supporters tell us why they aren’t asking.
The study’s primary point is to show how property tax increases have eclipsed the rate of inflation, but it also shows how the overall growth in property taxes has outstripped earning power. During the 20 years that taxes increased by nearly 100%, average wages in the county increased by 57%.
Ezike said she’s received hundreds of email since the news conference, and that “it sounds like everyone needed to have that release together….It’s incited some feelings, some PTSD-type feeling as we think about starting round two, just remembering how difficult round one [was].”
The victims include a 3-year-old girl who was shot in the wrist Saturday on the city’s South Side.
The new $36 million case management system allows the public and court personnel to file, search and review court filings. Brown told the chief judge’s office Thursday she planned to move forward despite the office’s concerns that expanding the system would be “significantly detrimental to the administrative, operational needs of the court” and would cause “irreparable harm to the court’s ability to administer justice,” according to the filing.
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