Monday was the initial deadline to submit proposals to develop the much-vaunted project — but after few bidders appeared interested — the city pushed back the deadline to the end of October.
In the heavily vaccinated suburbs, some school district employees don’t believe the mandate is that big of an issue. “Honestly, I haven’t heard anyone grumble even before this,” said Andrea Ciavarella, a lunch recess supervisor in Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54.
While the Chicago Teachers Union seemed to fight tooth and nail when Mayor Lori Lightfoot issued a similar vaccine mandate for city employees, but both the Illinois Education Association and Illinois Federation of Teachers are supportive of the Governor’s action.
“Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the police union are needlessly at loggerheads now over her announcement earlier this week that all city employees must be vaccinated for COVID-19 by Oct. 15. Lightfoot says that would include police officers, and Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara — as usual — reached into the nut bag to find the words to express his displeasure.”
The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Markham Mayor Roger Agpawa may remain in office despite a 1999 federal mail fraud conviction – reversing a lower court ruling.
The Sweet and Savory Spot located in Westmont is the latest businesses to lose customers over enforcing the mandate inside the dining room. “We suffer because we follow it,” said Danielle Kirin. “It’s hard to be consistent when there are so many changes and everyone kind of doing their own thing on top of it.”
One CPS educator said she’s a part of a group of more than 130 CPS teachers who say they’re opposed to the vaccine mandates. “It’s taking away some of our civil liberties. I feel like we are having less and less of an option to choose what we would like to do with our bodies, and what we do with our health choices.”
Roberto Valdez of the Latino Policy Forum urged lawmakers not to vote on any new maps before the general public has had a reasonable amount of time to review any new proposal. “It would be ideal to have a minimum of 30 days, again, not only to conduct the analysis, produce a map, but also try to conduct discussion groups with our community-based organizations.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s will require all employees of state-operated nursing homes, too, to be vaccinated by Oct. 4. This has caused some push back from unions. A statement from AFSCME Council 31 said they oppose “rigid, universal vaccine mandates that effectively threaten employees with termination if they do not get vaccinated.”
“The fact that we are only opening a couple locations around the state and not all of them is just mind boggling at this point,” said state Rep. Joe Sosnowski. “I know there were concerns with COVID and safety, but the Secretary of State proved back last year that they could open safely and deal with thousands of customers and do it efficiently and help serve the general public.”
Recently, Illinois lawmakers have asked Gov. Pritzker to call the legislature in for a special session to share elected leaders’ input on the COVID-19 mitigation strategies. Pritzker, when asked today about a special session, said he is always open to input on how to bring down the spread of COVID, but declined to call a special session.
In the 2020 Census, Hispanics bypassed Blacks, becoming Chicago’s largest minority. The Hispanic population increased by 5.2%, or 40,656 people — to 819,518. Chicago’s African American population dropped nearly 10%, by 86,413 people, to 801,195.
With Lightfoot this week announcing that all city employees will be required to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by Oct. 15, Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara said that the mayor had “lit a bomb underneath the membership” and began comparing the order to actions by Nazi Germany. “We’re in America…We don’t want to be forced to do anything. Period.”
About 85 percent of the city’s ICU beds are in use, but fewer than 10 percent of ICU beds are filled with a COVID-19 patient, according to the city health department. In contrast the state’s Region 5, which covers southern Illinois, is the least-vaccinated part of Illinois, and there is only one ICU bed available there as of Thursday.
Senate Bill 1646 removes the pension cap for summer schools that happen between May 1 and September 15. It also allows public schools to hire teachers with private school experience.
Cook County is working with the Bureau of Technology and the County’s Information Security Office, the Circuit Court Clerk’s Office with the ongoing investigation.
There were 18,426 claims filed in Illinois during the week of Aug. 9.
First doses of the vaccine are required by Sept. 5 for health care workers, including nursing home employees, K-12 educators and support staff and higher education teachers, staff and students. Those who don’t comply will have to undergo weekly COVID-19 testing.
While Illinoisans are distracted by mask mandates, critical race theory, the delta variant and more, Illinois politicians continue to do what they do best – run up the bill on taxpayers.
The simple fact is that local control is fine with Pritzker only as long as officials decide to obey him.
Pritzker created a company to fund half the salaries of some of his top staffers, and that will include state Sen. Andy Manar. The new job pays $278,000.
Jim Dey: “Are they (the GOP) raising legitimate constitutional criticisms? Or is their rhetoric just so much sound and fury signifying wishful thinking? Vikram Amar, dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, opts for the latter. ‘No one thinks the Republicans’ challenge is going anywhere,’ said Amar.”
Illinois employers will need to begin auditing and potentially modifying their compensation practices immediately to obtain an equal pay registration certificate, which must now be submitted to the Illinois Department of Labor between March 24, 2022 and March 24, 2024.
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