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The House and Senate plan in-person sessions beginning Tuesday, but various COVID restrictions will remain in place.
Comment: This is a particularly informative, up-to-date column on the availability of antibody treatments and other COVID therapeutics.
The lawsuit, which asks only that the statue be erected once again, was first filed by the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans last July against the Chicago Park District alleging that officials breached an agreement from 1973 to display the statue in Chicago’s Little Italy.
The new legislation lifts a previous City ban on sports betting and allows for a 2% tax on gross sports betting revenues. It also allows for the opening of sports betting locations (also known as “sportsbooks”) in and around five of the City’s sports stadiums, among other locations.
By state law, Illinois was required to disperse up to 60 new craft marijuana growing licenses by Dec. 21. But at least 13 applicants filed suit challenging their disqualifications during the process. The appeal sought to announce the winners of 47 licenses, leaving 13 to be named later. The court did not comment on the request beyond stating that it was denied.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said collaboration would not be possible until Evans acknowledges the courts “part in making Chicago neighborhoods less safe…The mayor believes that the Cook County criminal courts’ current practices around electronic monitoring and violent, dangerous offenders make our residents less safe and totally erodes confidence in the criminal justice system.”
The data from the ALPR’s will also be used to track down victims and witnesses. “It’s given us an opportunity that municipal (departments) sometimes have over the state police because we don’t have people sitting on their front porch, we don’t have ring doorbell cameras, so the ALPR project is giving us those things that are gravely needed to further the investigations,” Major Matthew Gainer said.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said the data show there are far greater risks to that age group than COVID-19. “That would imply that there’s a lot of deaths of despair. Opioid deaths, violence, etc., as a result of COVID [policies], because that’s a very large increase.”
DCFS Director Marc Smith said caseworkers use one criteria when determining whether to remove a child from a home. “Making sure that we make decisions for every individual child that we come in contact with based on one thing, are they safe?”
“Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says that Chicago’s epic violence – 836 homicides in 2021 and starting up again strong in the new year – is due to “historic disinvestment and marginalization.” She’s got it backwards. Residents and merchants leave neighborhoods and the city because of the violence. It’s the law-abiding, the vast majority of Chicagoans, being “marginalized” by miscreants who are rarely even arrested for murders and shootings, much less tried and sentenced. “
Theft reports are up 56%. Motor vehicle thefts are up 37%. Burglaries up 13%. Aggravated batteries and criminal sexual assaults are both up 12%. But not everything is horrible on the latest CompStat report. Murders were down 16% during the first 23 days of January compared to last year.
Jim Dey: “‘Are we at that point in Illinois where we’re going to say that that’s an ordinary expense of holding public office?’ (Justice Michael) Burke asked during last week’s oral arguments. The question may be theoretical to some. But it’s a real-world issue for prominent public officials who either are under investigation or already have been indicted.”
In a January survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association, more than three quarters of Illinois restaurateurs said revenues were lower last year than in pre-pandemic 2019. Declines have accelerated since the omicron COVID-19 variant hit in December, with 97% of Illinois restaurants reporting lower indoor dining demand in recent weeks.
“We started calling this crisis back in ‘17, when we started our first formal studies. So ‘17, ‘18, and ‘19, we saw it as a crisis. And now I’m starting to say that the crisis has become a cliff,” said Mark Klaisner, president of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools.
Families, employees, and veterans themselves will now be able to send direct complaints and recommendations about state veteran facilities. The complaints would then be sent to the Executive Inspector General’s Office.
While Michelle Obama and Hadiya never met, the former first lady attended Hadiya’s funeral, and has become friends with her mother, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton. “I immediately understood the extraordinary power and potential that lay inside of this young woman, a potential that was stolen from us by the tragedy of gun violence,” Mrs. Obama said.
“In nearly three years marked by a pandemic, soaring rates of violence and frequent labor battles, Ms. Lightfoot has shown herself to be a blunt orator and an unflinching negotiator. But her lofty campaign promises to “bring in the light,” reduce violence and overhaul governance in America’s third-largest city have repeatedly run up against an overwhelming news cycle, decades of inertia and her uncanny ability to make political enemies.”
“The state has done a lot in recent years to right its fiscal ship,” said Amanda Kass, associate director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois in Chicago. “Is that a blip in a long-term trend or is this the start of an upward trajectory in the state’s finances?”
“Discussing a student’s transition with their parent or guardian without the student’s explicit consent is not permitted,” reads one of the slides. “Disclosure of this kind can create an unsafe situation for the student. This is both a legal and safety concern, and there is no age restriction on this guidance.” The notes add that “[p]arental consent is not required for a student name, gender marker, or pronoun change.”
Comment: Our own column on this and on a pending, similar enhancement for Chicago’s police pension is linked here.
Pending in the House—and on a “short debate” fast track to passage—is a measure sponsored by Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Highwood, that would renew a pilot program in which retirees covered by Illinois’ four big retirement funds can cash out early, taking a lump sum up front in lieu of either their entire pension or, more typically, annual guaranteed 3% compounded cost of living increases.
Illinois State Senator Robert Martwick (D-Chicago) is pushing ahead with legislation that could increase Chicago’s police pension obligations by another $3 billion. It’s a repeat of a similar bill Martwick championed for the Chicago firefighters’ pension, which was signed into law by Gov. JB Prtizker in April.
Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans explained, “It’s not the charge that decides who is released, based upon the pretrial. It is the due process that includes the evidence. And I hope before they conclude that the judge did something wrong they can take a look and see whether there is evidence to show that the person did what the person is accused of doing.”
The Cook County assessor cut values based on jobs he thought neighborhoods would lose due to the pandemic. It was a wild miscalculation that worked out well for some, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot, not so well for residents of a poor South Side neighborhood.
Several school districts have said if the judge blocks the mandate, they may have to go into remote learning out of concerns of spreading COVID-19. Other districts have had mask optional policies all school year with little disruption. Schools without mask mandates face penalties from the state education board.
“Wholesale power prices started rising sharply in the second half of 2021, following a surge in the cost of natural gas, the fuel for many power plants. Long-term efforts to curb global warming are likely to push electricity costs even higher…. States where electricity costs less will have an edge over those where watts are pricier…. As Illinois drifts toward the latter category, there’s one more reason to ask the question so many in our state ponder during these frigid winter days: Why are we here?”
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