-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
“The back-handed compliment comes from top ethics officials in a city notorious for public corruption where a parade of aldermen have gone to federal prison. It’s yet another slap at the widely-ridiculed, six-month lobbying ban approved by the Illinois Legislature in response to the Commonwealth Edison bribery scandal.”
“That the deals would prove lucrative enough to stand up against the ravages of a global pandemic, while the city has its hand out looking for revenue, is another bitter reminder that selling off city assets is usually just a terrible way to pay the bills.”
Masks will still be required for everyone, even vaccinated people, on public transit, at the airport, and in schools, hospitals and other congregate settings. The state is now adjusting guidelines for outdoor mask wearing at schools, dropping the requirement in most situations.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown addressed the city’s gun violence: “Much of the violence we see in Chicago is about the gang cultures revenge, retaliation and street justice. Street justice will never yield peace.”
“We’re directing violence interrupter money to get to immediate causes of violence,” House Majority Leader Greg Harris said. “But we’re are also trying to put a lot of money into community mental health, into trauma-based care, into special programs for high school-aged youth.”
“During debate over the budget, Sen. Elgie Sims, D-Chicago, boasted that it funded the Democrats’ agenda ‘because we are fighting for individuals who cannot fight for themselves,’ according to the State Journal-Register. But the state’s history with the disabled population tells a very different story about how the state serves the most vulnerable.”
“To me, this is making a bad law more implementable,” said Jim Kaitschuk, Executive Director of the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association. “But, it doesn’t change the basic undertones of the tenets from which the original law was established which are still problematic for us.”
Metra said it has 16-17% of its ridership compared to this time in 2019, meaning about 48,000 rides a day instead of 287,000 despite running 61% of its pre-pandemic train schedule. They are hoping to get to 30% by year’s end.
The delay is needed “in view of the numerous changes to the processing of appeals and the administration of the justice system in Illinois necessitated by (the new judicial map),” according to the order. That includes changes to e-filing and case management systems, redistribution of staffing and judicial resources, training for judicial stakeholders and education of the public and members of the bar.
“We need the Chicago business community to feel ownership for helping to get this done, because that’s how great civic projects in Chicago — like Millennium Park, like the Art Institute — that’s how we’ve historically gotten things done,” President Obama said. “I hope this will be no different.”
The proposed restrictions on in-state college gambling include only being able to bet on team performances and not on any player performances. The bill also would require Illinoisans who wish to bet on an in-state school to do so in a licensed Illinois facility.
There are emails forwarded to Fauci by his staff from Chicago’s public health director asking about coordination with federal officials in the early weeks of the pandemic.
Earlier last week, Pritzker acknowledged they’re still waiting on the full Census data due sometime this summer. “I think there will be Census data that comes out and there may need to be some adjustments made as a result of that Census data.”
Though the state is expected to fully reopen June 11, the village of Oak Park said that hosting large events is still “not recommended.”
A Labor Education Program study found 40% of working moms in Illinois lost jobs or had to reduce hours when schools switched to remote learning, and child-care centers closed as the pandemic began spiraling in March 2020. “A lot of those child-care slots are not coming back,” said University of Illinois Professor Robert Bruno. “It’s a big problem and we shouldn’t ignore it.”
Elizabeth Bauer: “To start with the basics, the Chicago Park District is a separate entity than the city of Chicago, although its commissioners are appointed by the mayor. Its liabilities are not included in the city’s accounting; if they were it would be a small sliver, only 3%. But that’s still over $800 million in debt. “
Springfield lawyer-lobbyist Eric Madiar is representing former state Rep. Michael Fortner in a newly filed class-action lawsuit that aims to win back cost-of-living pay raises lawmakers had previously voted to block. State lobbying records show that Madiar is a contract lobbyist for Exelon Generation, and that Madiar previously served as Senate parliamentarian and chief legal counsel to former Senate President John Cullerton.
By charter, Chicago has a “weak mayor” system wherein most of the power lives within the City Council – at least, that’s how it is on paper. But in practice, throughout the city’s history, Chicago’s mayors have had enormous power and political sway — making city government function in essence as if it were a “strong mayor” system.
The cell phone video is all over social media.
The fact that Illinois is letting so much money sit in the bank, even when it has a long list of pressing financial needs, has a lot to do with the rules the federal government wrote for how states can use the Rescue Act money. For example, states can’t use it to pay down their pension obligations. For Illinois, that means it can’t chip away at its $141 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.
David Guenthner of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy: “At best, the American Rescue Plan Act was unnecessary. A worse and more likely scenario is that larding hundreds of billions of federally borrowed dollars onto state governments will enable ill-conceived spending that costs taxpayers twice.”
New Illinois homebuyers, particularly at the low-cost end, may end up realizing that they bought into a surge created artificially and temporarily by the Fed. When the Fed’s largess ends, Illinois’ traditional problems and their impact on home prices may return with a vengeance.
“But as a recipient of tax dollars, Navy Pier Inc. should be forced to open its books. Instead, it has spent years fighting an effort to do just that…Navy Pier Inc. doesn’t have to reveal who it contracts with, what those contracts are worth or how it spent the $2.48 million Payroll Protection Program loan that it got in 2020 as part of Washington’s COVID-19 relief package. Or what it did with the $115 million in taxpayer money that McPier handed it years ago.”
Results of the latest audits were provided by attorney Clint Krislov, director of IIT Chicago-Kent’s Center for Open Government Law Clinic: “These sales of assets have already cost the city $5 billion to this point and will, over the course of the deals, deprive the city of two or three times that. Cash the city needs and could have had for itself. That’s the most infuriating part. The city could have hired the same people to do this for them and financed the improvements itself.”
Eli Steele: “There is little doubt that the defenders of CRT will passive aggressively claim that it is only a theory and that its critics are overreacting. But this theory ceases to be a theory the minute it crosses the threshold into a school.”
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