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Despite records alleging Jenny Thornley sent First Lady M.K. Pritzker a text message in February 2020 saying “I need JB to know,” the governor Thursday denied knowing anything about it. “Nothing other than what I read in the newspaper about it,” he said. “The truth is, if somebody committed workman’s comp fraud, they should be held accountable.”
Zoning Committee Chairman Tom Tunney explained, “There’s a lot of alderpersons who feel they haven’t been paid much attention to in regards to their needs of their individual wards. There’s a lot of acrimony in the council. … People need to work together. We all need to compromise. … It’s got to happen in the mayor’s office. It’s also got to happen in the aldermanic offices.
Vohra, a pediatrician and healthcare policy expert who holds degrees in both law and public policy, officially took over the role, which was formerly held by Dr. Ngozi Ezike.
Early childhood education chief officer Leslie McKinily says there are still 4,000 open seats for full day pre-school, and about 1,000 open slots for half-day program.
Illinois is one of 20 states set to hold sales tax holidays this year. For 10 days, the state sales tax on school supplies drops from 6.25% to 1.25%. State officials say the tax holiday will save Illinois families $50 million.
The Illinois Department of Human Services is restrained from relying on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 executive orders limiting transfers from county jails inmates deemed unfit for trial.
David Greising, of the Better Government Association: “Pritzker’s exuberance over the deal to sell the Thompson Center is well earned. But giving credence to his effort to persuade us that Chicago is experiencing a tech-led economic renaissance requires a big set of blinders.”
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said she sees no reason to talk with State’s Attorney Kim Foxx about the departures.
“…(T)he Plan Lightfoot advances contains no measurables, timetables, persons or groups to be accountable for reaching any of We Will Chicago’s goals. Regrettably, many of the stated goals are amorphous; other objectives directly contradict one another. In one instance, one objective calls for the removal of “barriers and constraints to participating in the workforce and accessing good quality jobs.” A target so vague it loses all content, the goal makes no reference to any hurdle to a jobseeker attempting to enter the labor market. “
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has entrusted much of the city’s $400 million violence-reduction strategy to a new city office created to coordinate a holistic approach to attacking “decades of disinvestment and systemic racism at the root of the problem.” The center is promoting walking trails, supporting block club events and pressing other city agencies to fulfill their responsibilities to plant trees, clean up vacant lots and be more responsive to complaints piling up in the 311 call center.
Run for Something established its Clerk Work project with the goal of electing clerks, election supervisors, registrars, recorders and other local officials charged with running elections. The PAC says it will promote thousands of election administrators in the years ahead. But for 2022, it reports endorsing 11 candidates competing in races in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Chicago’s Charles Lipson: Sites “like Substack, host hundreds of serious columnists, including some, like Bari Weiss, who was driven out of the New York Times newsroom for apostasy. John Kass, until recently the Chicago Tribune’s most prominent columnist, left the paper for similar reasons and started his own website. Weiss and Kass are hardly alone…. The days of general-interest local papers like the Memphis Commercial-Appeal are gone. Those of big-city papers like the Chicago Tribune are fading fast.”
According to his plea agreement, Lavdim Memisovski allegedly conspired with two property owners, identified only as Individual A and Individual B, to accept rewards in exchange for influencing the assessment process on properties they owned in Cook County;Memisovski also agreed to use his position to help lower assessments for properties owned by Individual A’s family. At the time of the alleged fraud, the assessor’s office was led by Joseph Berrios, the then-boss of the Cook County Democratic Party.
Built in 1929, the Morton Salt Shed is familiar to anyone who has spotted it just off the Kennedy Expressway on the Near North Side. But the real attraction is the new outdoor concert venue on a four-acre site along the Chicago River across from Goose Island. Around it, there is a kind of fairground atmosphere with shops and bars along the midway.
Roughly 1 in 10 Illinois adults is a member of an Illinois pension system. Their retirements are hurt by legal, but corrupt, rules and practices created by recently indicted former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and other Illinois politicians.
“In Illinois, where plaintiff Mark Janus worked as a state employee, government unions have seen a 9% drop in membership — more than 38,000 workers — between 2021 and 2017, the last full year of data before Janus. To put it in perspective, that is equivalent to a sold-out baseball game at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Though union membership is shrinking, the voices behind the megaphone keep getting louder. Those voices are
Jim Dey: “A Bailey supporter who was not specifically backed by the Bailey faction is former state Rep. Jeanne Ives of Wheaton…Ives downplayed the conventional wisdom that Bailey was interested in electing a committee majority in an effort to shape the GOP into a more conservative mold. She suggested some committeeman candidates were more interested in getting Bailey’s endorsement than Bailey was in giving endorsements.”
According to the Brennen Center for Justice, Illinois is the only state that has a Supreme Court appointment system to fill an interim court vacancy; It allows justices to choose their own replacement – with confirmation from the rest of the court – to serve out the rest of their term before the replacement must face a competitive election. Currently, six of the seven justices now serving on the court were initially appointed.
“Facebook Live videos have been been integral part of Bailey’s communications strategy during and even before his run for governor, allowing him to speak directly with his supporters. It’s certainly a change of pace from the slick television ads cut by his campaign, those of his Republican primary opponents earlier this year and, now, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s team. “
In your mailbox, within the next few weeks, you will receive what is probably the most preposterous thing you’ve ever seen from the State of Illinois.
A strategy to “support and finance a cynical political strategy to support pro-Trump candidates in Republican primaries, on the theory that they would be easier for Democrats to beat in the fall general election” is being widely used by Democrats around the nation. That includes Illinois, “where Democrats were able to help a far-right Republican candidate for governor win his primary over a more moderate opponent backed by the G.O.P. establishment…. President Biden and party leaders should renounce this repugnant and risky strategy.”
“Crime on CTA is relatively low … ” said Carter, “one crime is one too many, but as a statistical matter, you’re relatively safe on CTA.” Carter said the CTA is also supplementing police forces with more than 200 unarmed security guards in an attempt to support customers and mitigate crime.
According to two sources, prosecutors at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office refused to charge the men for any crime, including aggravated discharge of a weapon. Officers at the scene said they found two guns and more than 20 shell casings. “There’s video, witnesses, everything,” one source said, adding that the security officer personally identified two of the men.
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