-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
“The cases of Solis, Burke and Madigan were extreme examples of undue influence in city government. They provided a backdrop for a more prosaic case, revealed this week, of Ald. Walter Burnett Jr.’s reversal on the issue of affordable housing requirements for a high-rise development in his ward.”
“It’s too soon to declare a renaissance for nuclear power but keeping minds and options open makes sense for Illinois right now. Let’s cross our fingers that Pritzker’s $700 million payoff at least delivers the juice.”
The decision to exempt at least 11.5% of the Chicago Police Department from her vaccine mandate will mean Lightfoot will not have to ask Chicagoans for a second term in office while moving to fire thousands of Chicago Police officers at a time when polls repeatedly show public safety is voters’ biggest concern.
Several GOP lawmakers removed their names as cosponsors after a late amendment was filed to appease crime victims groups and the American Civil Liberties Union. The amendment changed a part of the bill to identify ringleaders of organized retail crime rings, creating bigger penalties for them than for lower-level thieves who steal from stores and may be victims of human trafficking.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski worries such programs at taxpayer expense will do more harm than good. “People should be incentivized to go look for work, not to not look for work. This kind of thing I think is destructive, it puts people out of the workforce if they become reliant on it.”
IDOC was one of the last holdouts of state employees Gov. J.B. Pritzker mandated last fall to be vaccinated as a condition of employment. The 46 employees who filed suit in Christian County Circuit Court work at 18 different correctional facilities run by the state of Illinois.
City leaders are considering borrowing: selling 20-year pension obligation bonds. Trouble is, taxpayers usually lose that gamble, the Government Finance Officers’ Association points out. Pension obligation bonds place taxpayer money at risk and often leave governments with more debt rather than less because they often fail to earn a high enough return.
Membership in teachers unions has decreased nearly 10% since 2017, when public educators gained the right to stop handing their pay to unions. Public school employees choose to stop paying money to unions for different reasons, but many educators believe teachers unions don’t represent the best interests of students or teachers.
Emily Landon, a UChicago health bureaucrat and one of the architects of UChicago and Chicago city COVID policies, recently stated that perpetual booster shots should be as routine as taxes.
“But is this really good government? I’d prefer using all that extra revenue to further shore up the state’s pension funds. The state is missing out on a huge opportunity. Then again, I don’t have to run for reelection this year.”
Federal funds have been critical in maintaining transit service in the Chicago region. These funds will be exhausted in 2024. If revenues and ridership do not rebound by that time and funding rules aren’t changed, the CTA may be forced to make some difficult financial decisions.
“I don’t expect retailers to disclose profit margins, and I don’t scrutinize every receipt. Yet while property tax bills are extremely informative, everyday receipts seem intentionally devoid of details. We’d all be much better informed by knowing, to the penny, how much of each purchase goes to each jurisdiction.”
“While the prospect of reelection is much more imminent for Lightfoot than where the Bears end up, any signs that she is relenting to Arlington Heights would be the death of her political career.”
For districts with the most low-income students, ESSER lets them spend on things needed before COVID hit as long as the investment is tied to responding to the pandemic, such as improving air quality. This flexibility is a boon for administrators but presents a quandary, too: Money spent on fixing infrastructure, for example, is money that doesn’t go toward addressing learning loss, which was among the most serious impacts of the pandemic on students.
House Bill 4580 requires CPS to evaluate all schools’ enrollments every five years and determine whether their attendance territories need to be changed. The bill awaits Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature. The bill was in part spurred by North Kenwood residents who, in some cases, live just a few blocks from Kenwood Academy but have to test into its magnet program or commute a couple miles to Dyett High School.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement that Solis should be “held accountable” for violating “the public trust in profound ways, not the least of which was by monetizing his position as Zoning Committee chairman for the benefit of himself and others, likely for years…No one is above the law and Chicago residents expect that their elected officials will be held accountable.”
Nearly 96% of the bets were placed online, boosted by a change in state law March 5 that allowed online sportsbooks to acquire new customers remotely. It was legal to bet on Illinois college teams in person for the first time, but analyst Joe Boozell said it didn’t have much of an impact.
If signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, emergency dispatchers would qualify for extra medical benefits, mental health benefits, and extra funding for the industry.
“Legislation that won wide bipartisan support is headed to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk. It requires local taxing bodies to review and report on their efficiency every 10 years and consider whether consolidating operations with another unit of government would achieve greater accountability and cost savings to taxpayers.”
The sale is targeted to pump $46.2 million into the police pension fund and $46.1 million into the fire fund.The city owes approximately $55 million to the police pension and $54 million to the fire pension.
The drivers are not seeking money damages but want to compel Chicago to consider competitors.
“From San Francisco, where voters ousted several left-wing, union-endorsed school board members in February, to Chicago, Massachusetts, and other blue enclaves, parents are demanding reform.”
Traditional media beclowned itself last week at a Chicago conference on “disinformation.” That’s a story in itself, but the bigger story is how they covered up even that story, peddling disinformation about a conference on disinformation. The guilty include Illinois media, which is further guilty of still suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story that is part of what sparked the fireworks at the conference.
During a segment about the 2023 budget, Ted Dabrowski told Mary Ann Ahern of NBC 5 that the 2023 budget does nothing to fix Illinois or reverse the flow of residents out of the state, yet lawmakers still decided to give themselves a near-$3,000 pay increase.
We’ve said it for a long time. Illinois’ one-year budgets mean nothing in a state that continues to be inhospitable to far too many people. Forget them. Illinois needs a multiyear restructuring plan to keep residents from fleeing.
“That means that the city and its agencies and officials are not, sort of, entitled to the benefit of the doubt in the public view. People suffer from a sort of lack of confidence that the city of Chicago and its government are working in their best interests,” said newly appointed Inspector General Deborah Witzburg, 38.
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