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A spokesman for the secretary of state said there are about 500,000 holds on licenses over traffic debt, although one person can have multiple holds. State officials could not immediately say how many individual drivers have lost their licenses.
“People have been locked up, their liberation has been at stake since the coronavirus hit early last year,” said Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans. “We’d like to be able to resume jury trials and bench trials where we can institute social distancing, where we can provide adequate [personal protective equipment], where we can show the potential jurors how safe they would be.”
The Ethics Board ruled in September 2019 that aldermen face “diverging interests” when they represent a client charged with a crime based on evidence developed by Chicago police officers. Aldermen “owe 100 percent of their allegiance to the city and its taxpayers,” according to the board’s opinion.
“This is certainly positive news for three regions of the state, but we still have a long way to go until we get all of our student-athletes back to being active,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said. “High school student-athletes are hurting from a mental, physical and emotional standpoint, so we hope this is the first step toward getting that back to some normalcy.”
“The rules are lopsided against restaurants,” chef Brian Jupiter of Frontier and Ina Mae Tavern & Packaged Goods told the Tribune. “In December, we saw shopping malls bursting at the seams and that wasn’t an issue. We are sanitizing the living s— out of everything. Wearing masks. But we still can’t operate.”
“All politics is local. In Illinois, government isn’t a pompom for cheerleading. It’s a hammer.”
“What you have to understand is that you can’t run the schools without the people who work in the schools, and right now, individual educators are looking at the situation and saying, ‘I’m being told to choose between my life and my livelihood,’” union president Jesse Sharkey said. “And as this continues, it’s not a way to build trust with the public or build trust with educators. It’s going to get worse, not better.”
“The governor continues to hope for magic money from Washington to exempt him from the responsibility of responsibly balancing the budget,” said Illinois Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods. “But even President Biden is unlikely to hand us a blank check. It’s time to actually buckle down and start the hard work that he’s avoided to date.”
Chicago residents are on the hook for nearly $45 billion in pension debt, which is more than the total pension debt held by 44 U.S states. The firefighter pension fund is in the worst shape, with only 18% of the money on hand needed to pay promised future benefits.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot emerged from the Illinois General Assembly’s abbreviated session bruised by new legislation that will worsen the city’s financial woes and weaken her hand with public-sector unions. One bill passed in the session sweetens Chicago firefighter pensions, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the city’s pension tab. Another gives the Chicago Teachers Union, already one of the sharpest thorns in the mayor’s side, bargaining powers it lost in 1995. And leaders in the Illinois Senate are committed to taking away her power to appoint school board members even though the effort is delayed for now.
Bill Dwyer, former newspaper reporter, doesn’t spare words when it comes to Emanuel “Chris” Welch, the new Illinois House speaker.
“He’s the worst of the worst when it comes to crony politics,” says Dwyer, who lives in the Chicago area.
The measure proposes $350 billion of emergency aid to states and local governments, enough to more than cover the immediate budget shortfalls caused by shutdowns to contain the virus.
“Although COVID-19 caused real gross economic output to decline in the second quarter of last year by 30.6 percent, annualized, what’s concerning are the pre-pandemic cracks that left Illinois extremely vulnerable to a downturn and its most vulnerable citizens even worse off…. During the State of the State, Pritzker needs to bring these reforms as his economic glue pot. Just chasing a bigger money pot will only widen the cracks.”
Kenneth Elmore was in court Thursday to face felony charges of possessing a stolen motor vehicle and resisting police along with two misdemeanors. “It looks like you like to commit offenses, but you don’t like being arrested for them,” Judge Charles Beach told Elmore.
“The passage of a sweetened pension deal for Chicago firefighters is a set piece that rather neatly captures our current predicament…. We may have a new speaker presiding over our House of Representatives, but in all the ways that really matter, nothing much has changed in Springfield.”
In Chicago, 560 officers retired in 2020 in a police department that had about 13,100 sworn officers as of March, records show. That’s about 15% more cops retiring than during the previous year, when the number of retirements rose by nearly 30%.
The prospect of more aid once Biden takes office and Democrats control the Senate was welcome in the municipal-bond market…The extra yield that investors demand to own the bonds of some of the most financially strained borrowers — including Illinois, New Jersey and New York’s MTA — has dropped, indicating that investors are pricing in less risk.
“(C)oncerns about the incident led at least one House Democrat, Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), to withhold her vote for Welch and call for a full investigation…“This isn’t a simple situation–and it should not be dismissed as such by any of us. It is my fervent wish that these allegations will be vigorously reviewed so that we can move forward as a unified caucus embracing this historic moment.”
Thomasboro Mayor Tyler Evans, who has faced calls to resign since he posted the video, issued a statement Thursday apologizing for his comments and condemning the violence at the Capitol. He said he made it as far as the Capitol steps and saw very little evidence of violence, and that some people told him they’d been allowed into the building.
“In a pandemic, we cannot say to parents you have options, and say to teachers you have no options,” said Reverend C.J. Hawkings of Arise Chicago. “Teachers are telling us that they feel as if a knife is being held to their throat.”
The coalition is pledging what it calls a responsible, 25% reduced capacity, socially-distant indoor experience, which runs afoul of state-mandated Tier 3 mitigation rules. In its online statement, the group said in part, that all four restaurants “… have great respect for the safety-first approach each of our businesses have taken from the very beginning.”
“Illinois Secretary of State Capitol Police, along with other law enforcement agencies, are fully aware of possible marches on state capitols,” the Illinois Secretary of State’s office said in a statement. “The Illinois Secretary of State Capitol Police remain vigilant to ensure the Illinois Capitol Complex is safe and secure.”
Region 1, including counties in Northern Illinois, Region 2 including counties in North Central Illinois , and Region 5 including counties in West Central Illinois, have met the criteria to move to less restricted gatherings and business operations.
The district says there have been some reported cases of Covid, but there has been no outbreaks and no reason to pause in-person learning. The district also made good on its promise to cut off access to remote learning and dock pay for teachers, refusing to go back to their schools teach.
The Illinois National Guard won’t disrupt protesters. Guard members will help local authorities in enforcing street closures and designated perimeters, according to the governor’s office.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker could delay the $313 million in raises state workers have yet to receive, but instead he’s considering taking $75 million from their paychecks and leaving taxpayers without their services.
For some, reopening doors has caused them to fear for their safety. For others, it’s been a relief, injecting some normalcy into difficult times. Interviews with families and educators on the ground reveal a mix of emotions and experiences that are intensely personal and also framed by race, class, and the COVID-19 rates of various neighborhoods.
The Office of Emergency Management and Communications said its officials aren’t “aware of any actionable activity being planned in Chicago.”
Illinois (-2%) and New York (-.3%) also saw population losses in the last few years, with both states’ 2019-2020 population loss marking their highest such decrease in the last 30 years.
She said the borrowing of $2 billion from the federal government at a 3.5% interest rate was extremely important because COVID-19 is causing the state’s revenue to go way down. “Every penny is being used for Medicaid bills that give us a 56 cent on the dollar back, so that $2 billion turns into more like $3.5 billion when we’re all said and down. I’m going to use that to pay off our healthcare bills, then when we’re done paying all our healthcare bills, we’ll go ahead and put some of that towards bills that are accruing late payment interest
“We’re disheartened by what occurred,” said Crystal Lake Chief James Black, who’s also president of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. “We will continue to move forward and we will obviously work to make sure that we are in compliance with the provisions of the state statute, but I just think that, unfortunately, it’s going to be our communities and crime victims that are going to be the ones that bear the burden.”
“I was in the Marines and I took an oath to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and there’s no expiration date on that,” Ald. Gilbert Villegas said. “And so I’ve turned in my M16 rifle that I used to defend this country for a pen as a legislator and this is going to be my way of trying to defend against a domestic enemy.”
Tragedy should beget solace, but not silence.
“Life in a pandemic is hard for everyone, and it’s hard for all of our kids, whether or not they play sports. That doesn’t make it any easier, but we really are all in this together,” Pritzker said.
“I’m grateful to see President-elect Biden’s serious and effective plan for bringing this pandemic to a close with the urgency Illinoisans deserve,” Pritzker said. “The American Rescue Plan promises to match this moment of national crisis. As I’ve said from the beginning, it is the responsibility of government to deliver real relief when our people are hurting.”
Hotels continue paying property taxes even if they’re closed. Some downtown spots cough up more than $30,000 a day, $11 or $12 million a year. “If it weren’t for the hotel tax revenue, each Illinois household would pay $1600 more in taxes each year,” said Michael Jacobson, President and CEO of the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association.
Some support bringing students and teachers back to Chicago classrooms. Many question whether it’s safe. Some note the Chicago Board of Ed is still meeting virtually.
He has called the case his way of standing up for all of the others dealing with issues. Unfortunately, he said the fix IDES made to his claim seemed only to help him. “The system that they have in place to solve problems is broken,” John White said. “Period.”
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