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“I still have a role to play. Just one. To make my life relevant somehow. The thought that I can still be of service to my students, touch their lives and make a difference in their lives.”
Republicans complained that the bill, introduced about one hour before committee debate, gave Republicans, judges and the general public virtually no notice about legislation that would create new subcircuits in Sangamon, Madison and DuPage counties and make changes to how some circuit court judges are elected in the Chicago area and other downstate communities.
However, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown didn’t present clear plans to address the city’s surging violent crime or the department-wide staffing woes while giving the directive, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the high-level meeting at Public Safety Headquarters.
Lightfoot has repeatedly blamed her disputes with the teachers union on electoral politics, noting CTU leaders backed her opponent in the 2019 election and have been recurring critics of her administration. She complained in a national interview that the union wants to “take over running the city government,” for instance, and told an alderman that the union will badmouth her “until I beat them again in the next election.”
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the county’s 13,000th death due to COVID-19 on Wednesday. The medical examiner’s office also confirmed 254 coronavirus deaths for the week of Dec. 27, 2021, which is the highest total since December of 2020.
“What, 11 business days where they’re on break? Come together!” Fletcher Bremer’s two daughters idled again as kids almost everywhere else are in school. “Throughout the pandemic, Catholic schools, Montessori schools, suburban schools and schools around the country have been able to do this well,” Bremer said.
“I’ve been walking around downtown every once in a while and it’s pretty quiet,” said Andy Challenger, with Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “It felt like things were really starting to come back for a while and now it feels empty….Companies set their date every quarter when everyone is expected to come back into the office, even if it is a couple days a week, and that goal line keeps getting moved.”
Deidre Silas, 36, was attacked around 4 p.m. as she was checking on six children, ages 1 to 7 , in a home in Thayer. None of the children were injured. Benjamin H. Reed, 32, who lived in the home, was arrested just before 6:30 p.m. and was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
According to a press release, the close contact occurred Tuesday. Pritzker, who has received both doses of the COVID vaccine and a booster shot, plans to take meetings virtually through at least Sunday after the contact, officials said. New guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not require quarantine for individuals who are vaccinated and boosted.
On Wednesday night, CTU members traveled down Washington Boulevard near Union Park in solidarity with their decision to vote for remote learning before driving collectively to city hall to voice their opinions to Mayor Lori Lightfoot. “We are very clear in what we are requesting: safety to stay open,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis-Gates said.
After a lunch break and before oral arguments on a temporary restraining order against the mandates, Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow said she was being inundated with emails. “They’re also calling and emailing my assistant and sending emails to her expressing their opinions on this case, so I felt I must disclose this to everyone,” the judge said. Grischow said she will disregard the emails and will only rule on the law.
Illinois has held down the 49th or 50th spot on the U-Haul Growth Index since 2015.
State Rep. Patrick Windhorst said one of the reasons crime is on the rise in Illinois is because criminals don’t fear the consequences. “We have see basically for the last 5 or 6 years a stripping away of the tools of the criminal justice system that make crime unattractive.”
Students ultimately pay for canceled classes through diminished academic achievement. Chicago students can’t afford poorer performance. Chicago schools continue to underperform the state academic achievement benchmarks year after year. Nearly 1 in 4 CPS students don’t graduate high school.
The Jan. 5 walkout marked the third disruption in CPS classes from a labor dispute in 27 months.
Traditionally, the major reasons Illinoisans are choosing to leave are for better housing and employment opportunities, both of which have been made worse by poor public policy in Illinois. Nearly half of Illinoisans have thought about moving away, and they said taxes were their No. 1 reason. Population decline also contributes to the lower economic prospects of the state.
Jim Dey, channeling Howard Cosell: “If only his (Madigan’s) priorities had included sound public policy, perhaps Illinois would not now be the equivalent of a punch-drunk pugilist trying to bob and weave his way back to an unachievable condition of fiscal sobriety.”
CTU President Jesse Sharkey said CTU leadership has set a target date of Jan. 18 for a return to in-class instruction. But he added: “We’re going to have to assess this thing as we go along.”
“We did enact local ordinances, which follow the state rules, which are still in effect, the state rules are completely in effect as well,” Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe explained. “We could send police or code officers out to businesses and start enforcing, making sure that everyone has a mask on. What we’ve tried to do really though is working with our businesses, our restaurants, especially our small businesses and employers who all want their employees and customers to be safe.”
State Rep. Jaime Andrade said, “17th District needs more police officers. We need to enforce the laws that we have. The judges can’t be afraid to sentence these criminals. We have to prosecute these cases.”
The use of electronic monitoring devices has increased dramatically since 2017, when Evans reshuffled the roster of judges handling bond hearings and issued a mandate that prioritized limiting the number of inmates awaiting trial at Cook County Jail by assigning affordable bail amounts and increasing recognizance bonds and electronic monitoring.
“Until the Biden administration decides to address inflation with something other than a shoulder shrug, expect high inflation to stick around. Until then, know that our flat state income tax has inflation indexing already built-in. Small consolation in the grocery check-out line, but consolation nonetheless.”
In the latest results, New Jersey, Illinois, New York, Connecticut and California were the five states with the highest outmigration. All five of these states rank in the bottom 10 states based on Truth in Accounting’s “Taxpayer Burden” measure of state government financial condition.
So far leaders from Orland Park, Niles, Morton Grove and Lincolnwood have chosen to not enforce the vaccine mandate in their towns.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza said with the loan now paid off, Illinois taxpayers will save $82 million in interest payments. “With this early repayment, we take another important step toward restoring fiscal stability and predictability to Illinois. I can’t stand seeing taxpayer money wasted on interest – that’s why paying off this loan early was so important for me.”
CTU’s current refusal to work in person while under a contract with CPS could be considered an illegal strike. Teachers who participate could be disciplined by the school, including loss of pay. On the other hand, CTU can discipline members who don’t participate. It did so following the 2016 strike, which was also determined to be likely illegal.
Along with other demands, CTU wants all students, faculty, and volunteers to provide a negative COVID test before returning to school, which only a handful of districts in Illinois have done. They also want to reinstate a health measure that triggers a district-wide closure based on citywide positivity rates.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss how Illinois and Chicago leaders have bastardized the prosecution process, bastardized policing and more.
If protecting hospital capacity was a real goal, then one of the big questions today for the governor has to be this one: Why has he let the supply of ICU beds collapse by nearly 1,000 beds since July of 2020?
A statement released by CPS said, in part, “Despite six months of active, good-faith discussions with the CTU, despite the fact that more than 90 percent of our staff is vaccinated, despite proven and implemented COVID-19 safety measures, and despite little evidence of in-school transmission, our teachers are not willing to report to work.”
The city’s quarantine advisory now includes 49 states and four territories after Montana and Guam were added to the list.
Care centers in Will and Kankakee counties were stretched thinner than in any other region of the state, with ICUs at 98% capacity. COVID patients are taking up enough beds at the AMITA Health St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet and AMITA Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee that some emergency room patients are receiving care in the ER lobby instead of a room
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