-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
“The Postal Service is not reliable,” Tracy Reed-Bowers said. “I mean, you might as well do the Pony Express they did back in the day.”
Here, “…police leaders have pulled several hundred cops from local districts to form a ‘Community Safety Team’ that’s supposed to build relationships with citizens. But the move has left local districts grossly understaffed, driving up response times when people are in their greatest need.”
In a video posted to Facebook, CTU president Jesse Sharkey touched on his concerns. “Last year we had six feet, this year they’re refusing to even say they’ll enforce three feet,” he said, adding that class sizes need to be smaller.
The union said it has no plans to block school from opening next Monday. But it has not ruled out future action if an agreement with CPS cannot be reached.
That announcement, which is planned for Thursday morning, comes just two days after Pritzker sidestepped questions about extending a vaccine mandate to all state workers.
“We’ll match whatever the federal government does,” Jordan Abudayyeh, Pritzker’s spokeswoman, said. “… Pending any changes, we’ll adjust as we need to.”
He said, in part, “Am I really going to do that? Yes, we are really going to do that. And, yes, by the way, many school districts are heeding our call to have mask mandates in their schools so they are reversing their position.”
Gov. JB Pritzker has been steadily acting on more than 660 bills sent to him by the General Assembly this year ahead of a weekend deadline for bill action. Thus far, the governor has issued three vetoes and two amendatory vetoes, including one on the budget bill that needed the amendatory action because of omitted effective dates.
“I’d like to be able to tell the story to taxpayers as to how their money is working for them, or perhaps not working for them, and that should be the way that we invest taxpayer dollars moving forward,” Susana Mendoza said.
Joint Committee on Administrative Rules member and state Sen. Don DeWitte said the bipartisan committee of 12 called for ISBE to testify at the committee’s meeting last week, but the agency was a no-show. “We just want to engage in a conversation to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing and under what authority they believe they have to be able to do this.”
Jared Brunk, of Illinois Correctional Industries, said the DOC has reevaluated the business model and decided to change the focus of the program from contract work to vocational training.
According to Wirepoints, reducing Illinois’ $16,200 per student spending to Florida-like levels of $9,600 would mean a reduction of $12.8 billion in education spending per year, which would be equivalent of a 40% property tax cut.
Pritzker justified raising taxes and fees by saying they would balance state budgets and fund his $45 billion infrastructure plan. The balance has never materialized.
The environmental challenges have spiraled into what the group Centreville Citizens for Change says is a crisis, prompting the federal government to step in twice this month and more than two dozen residents of Cahokia Heights to file a federal lawsuit alleging that “decades of government failure to ensure basic sewage and stormwater services … have created an environmental injustice for this Black community.”
Their goal is to look at how other states regulate the sale of body parts, and come up with a set of rules and regulations for the industry.
The bill will mandate sellers take further steps to make sure buyers are 21, including requiring online orders be paid through a credit card or check in the buyer’s name. The sale of e-cigarettes that contain specific harmful chemicals and additives will also be prohibited by the bill.
“The speculation I am hearing within the real estate circles is that due to a very bad office, hotel market in the Loop, it is possible that the state is not getting the number of proposals they want or the price point they want,” said Lisa DiChiera of Landmarks Illinois.
East Moline has about $18.3 million in unfunded pension liability for its firefighters and $22 million in unfunded pension liability for its police officers. That means the pension liability is about 55% funded as of Jan. 1 of this year.
The labor dispute began nearly three weeks ago with workers at the Nabisco bakery in Portland calling a strike. The strike has since spread, with workers in Chicago joining the labor action on Thursday and workers in Norcross, Georgia, following suit on Monday.
All of the ideas are long shots. The state has wanted to sell the building to raise cash for its depleted coffers since Gov. Bruce Rauner was in office.
The governor said the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) will impose sanctions, including the loss of state funding, ineligibility for state-sanctioned sports, and the loss of state recognition of graduating seniors’ diplomas.
“I can’t keep a building if the taxes are the same amount as my income. I don’t know what doesn’t really actions I have to, you know, sell it, you know, demolish it. I’m not really sure,” one River West building owner said.
Said Mayor Lightfoot, “…(W)e have decided to join other municipalities and government agencies across the nation, including the U.S. military, who are making this decision to protect the people who are keeping our cities and country moving. We have also been in close communication with our partners in the labor movement to create a vaccination policy that is workable, fair and effective.”
Illinois went the opposite direction and in June passed tax increases of $655 million that specifically hit job creators. The latest unemployment numbers show Illinois holding steady at 7.1% unemployment since March, while the rest of the nation is recovering.
Jim Nowlan: “Illinois should be an economic dynamo. As I keep quoting successful friend Jim Schultz of Effingham, in each of the five R’s critical to economic development — rails, roads, runways, rivers and routers — Illinois ranks among the top three American states. And we are located right in the middle of the world’s largest market! Yet, Illinois is ‘the sick man’ of Midwestern states, the only one losing population. Shame on our ‘leaders.'”
The burning batteries had to be smothered with 28 tons of cement – an unconventional and possibly unprecedented tactic – because using water or firefighting foam could have caused the batteries to explode.
Located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, the county lost 36.4% of its residents between 2010 and 2020, Census Bureau data released this month shows. No other county lost more than 30%.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer. They discussed how Illinois is losing students to other states, the CDC squelching of its study on masks, and more.
“(L)lately, the park district seems intent on lousing up everything it has going for it, from its abysmal handling of a female lifeguard’s complaints of sexual harassment by Oak Street Beach lifeguards, to the agency’s nutty decision to allow Amazon to install huge retail lockers in city parks. Add to these unforced errors a general slippage in parks maintenance and upkeep — in landmark Jackson Park, for instance — and patron-unfriendly moves such as surge pricing for parking on holidays.”
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