-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Part 1 of an extended interview.
The levy increase covers $22.9 million for the automatic escalator tied to the consumer price index; $25 million to bankroll the 2022 installment of Lightfoot’s $3.7 billion capital plan; and $28.6 million captured from “new property.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot moved up her 2022 budget address by a month to coincide with the unveiling of her plan to spend the $1.9 billion avalanche of federal stimulus funds on its way to Chicago. That’s where much of the action will be during this year’s budget hearings as aldermen continue to push back against Lightfoot’s plan to use a financial shell game of sorts to get around the U.S. Treasury Department’s ban on using federal COVID-19 relief funds to retire debt.
Cook County Public Guardian Assistant Deputy Janet Barnes has long been sounding alarms about this problem. The office’s latest data shows the number of children stuck in these psych facilities for weeks, because there aren’t enough residential beds, continues to rise. From 75 kids in 2014 to 314 in 2020 and to 356 children this year.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch said the effort to target gun cases at the federal level has intensified in recent years as violence in Chicago continues to draw national attention. “I do think we see our criminals in Chicago and our other large cities, frankly, more emboldened, and I think one of the reasons is, I think they don’t see consequences from their actions, so they don’t feel the consequences.”
The proposal moved from the City Council’s Rule Committee to the Public Safety Committee Friday. If the ordinance passes, the ACLU says every single lawsuit in which a gang member is sued will be contested.
Mirroring several other cases in the past week, attorney Thomas DeVore argued successfully for a temporary restraining order against the district enforcing mask mandates. He has said state law is clear that masks are a medical device used in quarantine and that requires a quarantine order from the county health department.
Boeing has announced it will build the MQ-250 Stingray unmanned aerial refueler at a nearly 300,000 square foot facility at the MidAmerica Airport in Mascoutah. The Navy intends to procure more than 70 Stingray aircraft and a majority of those will be built at the new facility.
House Bill 25 would set up a government task force to oversee and determine if there are any issues for immigrants when seeking help from a lawyer. Senate Co-Sponsor Celina Villanueva said that the biggest problem for immigrants facing legal issues is the overall price of immigration lawyers.
Despite meager growth in payrolls during the month, Illinois’ unemployment rate did fall from 7.1% to 7% in August. However, the state continued to fall behind the national recovery, as the national unemployment rate fell from 5.4% to 5.2%.
In a bylined article, Jeremiah A DeBerry, partner and director of diversity and inclusion at Mayer Brown, explains the steps that his firm is taking to combat challenges standing in the way of truly inclusive working practices.
Welch called the $700 million subsidy for Exelon a “reasonable number,” spoke with confidence that the legislative maps will withstand scrutiny, and listed his priorities for the October veto session.
At least one person was arrested at Michigan Ave. and Walton Street. No other arrests have been reported.
The high court heard oral arguments Thursday morning in Springfield in Thomas Brown v. the Illinois State Police, a case in which Brown is seeking to have his FOID rights restored despite a 2001 conviction in California on a “misdemeanor offense of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse” that he did not disclose on his FOID application.
“Precedent is a slippery slope,” attorney Kevin Nelson said. “The governor shutdown indoor dining at restaurants for more than three months in Kane County and that has not been declared improper and then from there, because he thinks he can do that, then he launches into other various things that go further such as mask mandates in schools to who knows about vaccines.”
Missing the Sept. 6 deadline to repay the federal loan to the state’s unemployment insurance fund leaves Illinois taxpayers on the hook to pay $60 million in annual interest. Business leaders warn a failure to repay the debt would result in automatic tax hikes on Illinois’ employers starting at $500 million, further waylaying the state’s stagnant job recovery.
The mayor said the hurdles the measure has already encountered had not prompted her to rethink her demand that the Chicago City Council give the city’s Law Department the authority to sue the leaders of Chicago’s gangs and “go after their blood money…People are afraid. They’re afraid of gangs. We have to do everything we can to address those fears.”
“This is not a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ but a pandemic that affects everyone as emergency and routine health care collapses for a region,” said a statement released Tuesday by the group Illinois Medical Professionals Action Collaborative Team, known by its acronym IMPACT.
A spokesman for Treasurer Michael Frerichs’ Office confirmed Dennis Rendleman’s withdrawal in a statement that read more like a vote of confidence in the nominee, who apparently was serving in the position on an interim basis.
Adrianne Toomey, who teaches freshman biology at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, previously heard from students things like, ‘well, they’re wearing scrubs, they must be a doctor.’” With the new Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, students learn strategies like “lateral reading” — where students open a new tab and leave a video to find out more information about the source.
The Dan Ryan Expressway has seen the most shootings with 52. The Eisenhower has seen 36, the Bishop Ford Freeway, 28, the Stevenson 16, and the Kennedy has seen six shootings this year.
John R. Daley — the son of Cook County Commissioner John Daley and a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley — is working as a lobbyist for the White Sox as the team pushes for the Chicago City Council to allow sports wagering facilities at or near Chicago stadiums. John R. Daley’s first cousin Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson represents the family’s political base, the South Side’s 11th Ward that’s home to the Sox ballpark, Guaranteed Rate Field.
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