“Democratic legislative leaders — unofficially — are scheduled to release a first version of the new political maps this week. That’s why Springfield is overwhelmed with rumors about the lengths the super-majority party intends to go to make Republicans even more of a super-minority party.”
Bill Ingold said of Paxton, “The pandemic shutdown was a strong punch but not a knockout blow. As our merchants worked to provide other ways to deliver goods, our community rallied and… gave great support to our businesses. This was not only financial support but an huge emotional lift.
“We are wasting time. This is not a process that has been transparent,” said Sen. John Curran “And, with two weeks to go, the matter is now critical.”
The database would include both sustained and dismissed complaints, all of which are already public records and can be obtained by making a Freedom of Information Act request. However, that process can be cumbersome, confusing and rife with delays.
“Our advice is that settings that don’t want to check vaccine would continue to require masks in indoor settings,” said Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. “Again, it’s not a mandate. It’s an advisory.”
Michael Jacobson, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, is asking Mayor Lori Lightfoot to earmark $75 million of the $1.9 million avalanche of federal coronavirus relief on its way to the city to help Chicago hotels staff up for a full reopening. That’s roughly $1,500-per-room at every city hotel. To provide that same help to hotels outside Chicago, Jacobson is urging Gov. J.B. Pritzker to set aside $250 million in federal relief.
Mark Konkol: “On Twitter, Pritzker touted the coronavirus cash earmarked to use SHIELD tests in state middle schools and high schools as evidence he’s ‘taking every step to help students get back into the classroom.’ What the governor doesn’t mention is why one of those steps is earmarking federal cash for the U of I test at a time when school districts officials across Illinois and the nation are debating whether testing asymptomatic students and staff — many who have been vaccinated — will be necessary in the fall.”
The Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools has released policy recommendations calling for better benefits and more lenient certification in an effort to reverse the trend.
Sen. Karina Villa argued, “In the digital age, the internet has become the primary public square. Young people consume, create and share news throughout digital media. They debate and discuss social issues, politics and civic issues in online spaces. They’re also vulnerable to persecution and misinformation.”
“How could the governor and his team have allowed this to happen, knowing that our veterans were at risk prior to this pandemic?” said state Rep. David Welter. “The question will continue to haunt the families of the heroes that we lost at the LaSalle home and our other veterans homes across the state.”
The National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Optimism Index rose to 99.8 in April, an increase of 1.6 points from March, but a record 44% of owners reported job openings they could not fill.
Said Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, “As long as we are celebrating and using tax dollars to give people the day off to honor, to give homage, to someone like Christopher Columbus, that’s a failure of our political system.”
Businesses in this part of Illinois feel they’ve been stuck with the short end of the stick compared to their counterparts in Iowa – only minutes away – in terms of the pandemic response.
The teams say the arrangement is only temporary, since Illinois is scheduled for a full reopening June 11.
Voter turnout is traditionally rock-bottom, at 16%. And among superintendents hired by these boards, fraud, embezzlement and outright stealing aren’t uncommon.
Chicago will no longer require masks for fully vaccinated people in most settings following similar changes from the state of Illinois and new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Masks will still be required for all residents, regardless of vaccination status, in health care settings, schools, correctional/congregate settings, and on public transportation.
President Joe Biden’s top environmental official told Lightfoot in a letter that he has major reservations about the metal shredding plant moving from Lincoln Park to the Southeast Side, raising civil rights concerns about the move from a predominantly white neighborhood to a mostly Latino community.
In accordance with current local public health guidance, full COVID-19 vaccination or negative COVID-19 test results will be required to attend Lollapalooza 2021. For patrons who are not fully vaccinated, a negative COVID-19 test result must be obtained within 24 hours of attending Lollapalooza each day.
Those seven states are: Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, West Virginia and Washington.
“I don’t want scholarships to go away at all,” Gov. Pritzker said Monday. “What we’re trying to do, two things, one is we introduced a budget that is balanced in a pandemic, and one of the changes that we proposed making is to rely on federal tax benefits and tax deductions rather than state tax credits.”
Gov. Pritzker explained, “I also support the choice of individuals and businesses to continue to mask out of an abundance of caution as this pandemic isn’t over yet.”
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski appeared on Fox 32 Chicago to talk about the expanded child tax credit subsidy and why it is detrimental to the workforce which is currently yearning for workers.
“The negotiations are playing out against a complicated backdrop: the corruption scandal engulfing utility ComEd that led to the replacement of longtime powerful state House Speaker Michael Madigan; the hemorrhaging of the state’s nascent solar industry since incentives ran out last year; and the promise of clean energy-related infrastructure spending from the federal government.”
Sen. Dick Durbin: “I introduced the Retaining Educators Takes Added Investment Now (RETAIN) Act … which creates a fully refundable tax credit for teachers in Title I schools….In order to ensure that we incentivize experience, the tax credit increases at key inflection points in an educator’s career — points where they are more likely to leave… By year 10, a teacher could receive more than $11,000 back in tax credits.”
Two new pieces, one from Pew and one from Illinois’ official number crunchers, provide more evidence that the federal government’s $350 billion bailout to state and local governments earlier this year was entirely unnecessary.
Far from lacking cash, most states had billions of extra dollars to draw on to cover pandemic costs. From Pew: States’ Total Rainy Day Funds Fall for First Time Since Great Recession:
The total amount set aside in state rainy day funds fell for the first time since the Great Recession as lawmakers in fiscal year 2020 filled budget gaps driven by the pandemic’s
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times Monday, Gov. JB Pritzker intends to keep expanded unemployment benefits, unlike 18 states that have curtailed them to get people back to work.
Pritzker made only two points, according the the article.
First, “There are people who are afraid to go back to work … and those are legitimate reasons people might want to remain on unemployment,” Pritzker said. “I don’t want to pull the rug out from under people who have certainly legitimate reasons for needing unemployment.”
Does he think the vaccine is effective and safe or not? He claims
Even as one pandemic seems to be winding down, a Cook County a response to the next one is already on the table. “You’d be foolish not to be thinking about what’s coming next and we expect that there’ll be another pandemic,” said Dr. Claudia Fegan, chief medical officer for Cook County Health. “We expect that the next assault will also be some type of infectious disease.”
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