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Todd Ricketts has been mentioned as a possible 2022 contender for an Illinois statewide office. He is bowing out of his RNC role before his term is up in 2023. This may free him to consider whether he has or wants a political future in Illinois.
Revenue from Chicago’s one-of-a-kind tax on cloud computing is about four times what it was five years ago, bringing in nearly $120 million last year, according to figures provided by the city’s Office of Budget and Management. The city’s tax on streaming entertainment has more than tripled over that period as consumers ramped up their subscriptions to services such as Netflix for video, PlayStation for gaming, and Spotify for music. The city collected more than $30 million in taxes on streaming services for the current year.
“We’re very, very interested in moving this process along as expeditiously as possible because, as you know, the revenue from that casino will fund our police and fire pensions and no time [like] the present for that,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday. Police and fire pension funds are hovering dangerously close to insolvency, and mounting police retirements are putting even more pressure on the police pension fund.
If all goes as planned, broadband internet access in a few years will be accessible everywhere in Illinois, just like electricity. There will be enough electric charging stations up and running to reduce or eliminate range anxiety, a major barrier to cleaner climate electric car sales. Water quality will be improved with the removal of lead pipes, a particular problem in Chicago and Cook County.
“So far, Chicago’s tax base is up about fifty percent because the assessments of large commercial properties downtown have gone up more than many homeowners’ assessments,” says Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi.
The photo comes as the Chicago police union continues its legal battle against the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate, which requires city employees to either receive COVID-19 vaccines or submit to twice-weekly tests for the virus. Cruz, who is vaccinated against COVID, has been an outspoken critic of COVID vaccine mandates.
Lawyers for GOP Leaders Sen. Dan McConchie and Rep. Jim Durkin, along with plaintiffs from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the NAACP in East St. Louis, told the judge they’ll submit “remedial” plans only in disputed districts. It isn’t clear exactly how many districts each group is challenging.
“Mayor Lori Lightfoot campaigned on a promise that she would create an independent commission to draw new ward boundaries to coincide with the 2020 census, but unfortunately that hasn’t happened,” South Side Weekly editor-in-chief Jackie Serrato said. “So I believe that the Black and the Latino caucuses are going to have to work together to figure it out.
Round Two of the Illinois Rental Payment Program will open on Mon, Dec. 6 instead of Nov. 8. IHDA said the delay is “due to a vendor needing additional time to ensure its application platform is functioning properly.”
A draft proposal from the Illinois State Board of Education Professional Review Panel set to be considered next month contemplates how to spend an additional $350 million from the evidence based funding model that lawmakers approved several years ago. “The education requirements and recommendations coming out of ISBE have been more and more progressive, more and more pushing a social agenda,” state Rep. Avery Bourne said.
State Sen. Robert Martwick is preparing to push legislation in 2022 to change eligibility restrictions for cost of living adjustments for police retirees, saying current law understates the impact of those costs. The new law would bring rules for police in line with firefighters, and make the city’s future costs more transparent, he said. Chicago officials oppose the measure, calling it a burden. The extra liabilities added would be “unaffordable,” said city Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett.
Mailee Smith, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “Proponents of Amendment 1 say a constitutional amendment would be about keeping right-to-work out of Illinois, but what it would really do is boost the power of government unions to make demands that state law couldn’t control, and taxpayers would be expected to fund.”
President Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal passed the House Friday, and Illinois will benefit from that massive bill in multiple ways.
The study examines eight major cities (Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco); In these cities, commercial real estate accounts for an average of 37% of property taxes. “Cities and their surrounding areas are key drivers of economic activity,” said David Merriman, of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at UIC. “The pandemic’s effect on working arrangements will have a long-term effect on the fiscal health of local governments.”
During a “Conversation of Understanding” Oct. 20, Sheila Caldwell, the school’s Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President for Antiracism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, argued that “it’s not enough to just not be a racist, but to be an anti-racist” — a notion popularized by Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi.
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