The Illinois Senate and House have approved 308 pages of amendments to the SAFE-T Act. They’ve unmade several messes of their own making, but the bill is still fundamentally flawed and threatens the public interest.
Now, beginning in January, the city will be required under state law to replace lead service pipes every time there is a break or leak in a water line. That will force the city to replace what’s estimated will be at least 4,000 lead lines a year, perhaps 5,000.
Illinois lost out to Michigan in its efforts to become the new Midwest representative among the first five states in the process to select a 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, based on the recommendation of a party committee and President Joe Biden.
Christian County Sheriff Bruce Kettelkamp said his concerns with the SAFE-T Act include the trespassing bill and the new training standards for officers,because training is a financial burden on the department and takes officers off of the streets. “It just bothers me that the legislators make these laws and they have no clue what goes out on the streets…They don’t get out on the streets and actually do the enforcement.”
To save the most, you may want to head to Wisconsin where the combined state and average local retail tax rate is just 5.4 percent, compared to Illinois’ 8.8 percent. And if you’re willing to cross into neighboring states for gas, you may want to stay for your holiday shopping. Illinois has the eighth-highest sales tax in the nation, and ranks as the only Midwestern state in the top 10.
Ayanna Nesbitt worked as a retirement clerk handling pension payments for the CTA. She allegedly created and approved 43 fraudulent requests for death benefit payments and refunds on pension contributions, according to the federal charges.
The city welcomed 20 new migrants from Texas on Thursday, bringing the total number of asylum-seekers to more than 3,700 hundred.
The amount of money involved here is not small – it amounts to nearly $400 for each kid. The state says most of the money actually went out in October. But some families are reporting that they’re just getting the benefits now.
Illinois is home to several EV-related companies. Rivian Motors manufactures electric pickup trucks in Bloomington-Normal, Canadian-based Lion Electric Co. received a $7.9 million tax credit to build electric buses and trucks in Joliet, and TCCI in Decatur recently retooled its plant in order to make EV compressors. The Belvidere Assembly Plant near Rockford is slated to build electric versions of the Dodge Charger, Challenger and a crossover beginning in 2024.
Illinois Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Jim Kaitschuk said law enforcement were already gearing up for the Pretrial Fairness Act before the changes lawmakers approved. Adding to the pressures in the final weeks of the year is a lawsuit dozens of state’s attorneys and sheriffs have against the law’s implementation to be heard next week in Kankakee County. “The judge will make a determination the following week,” Kaitschuk said. “I don’t now what the process will be moving forward.”
Illinois’ Office of Executive Inspector General received a record-high 3,075 complaints – over 700 more than the prior year – covering employees who ultimately report to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, including allegations about misuse of public funds and conflicts of interest.
Illinois lowest on the list of states.
“One of the problems the super-majority Democrats have in both chambers is that when they know their bill is going to pass, they usually don’t take the Republicans’ objections seriously enough to fully engage with them.”
The bill, known as the Money Laundering in Real Estate Task Force Act, “urges the pension funds and retirement systems established under the Illinois Pension Code to divest their holdings in any companies that are domiciled in Russia or Belarus and that are on the list of restricted companies developed by the Illinois Investment Policy Board.”
Motor vehicle theft reports, which do not include carjackings, are up 96% citywide compared to last year and up more than 100% compared to 2020, 2019, and 2018, according to CPD statistics.
Said G.H. Merritt, chairwoman of the grassroots organization New Illinois, “An urban area versus a rural, small-town suburban area, has different needs, interests, cultures and economies. And so if all the legislation going through is in the interests of the densely populated urban area, and it’s imposed on the entire state, eventually the people realize they are not being represented.”
“We’re walking into a headwind,” said Akele Parnell, a 38-year-old Black entrepreneur in Chicago. His company, 11th Level Inc., last year was granted licenses to grow and sell cannabis in Illinois. A legal challenge to the state’s program kept all work on his company and other minority-owned enterprises in the state frozen until June. Now he is struggling to raise the $8 million to $10 million he said he needs to set up a grow operation and dispensary.
In the Senate, sponsoring Sen. Robert Peters, a Chicago Democrat, recalled that Atticus Finch, the color-blind defense attorney in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, said that courage is knowing “you’re licked before you begin … but you see it through.” Peters continued, “We’re seeing it through no matter what. Illinois on Jan. 1, 2023, will make history — civil rights history.”
The University of Chicago will work with the top science organization in France to create a research center in Hyde Park.
In stark contrast to Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s promise during election season, most residential properties saw tax increases — while most commercial properties saw decreases. In the city alone, taxes went up by about $468 million with homeowners picking up about 60% of it.
Via 39 individual campaign contributions from 14 companies he owns, Carmen A. Rossi, a registered city lobbyist, city contractor, restaurateur and nightclub owner who holds the liquor license for the Lollapalooza music festival, didn’t make any of the contributions to Lightfoot in his own name.
Lawmakers finally offered amendments to the controversial criminal justice “reform” bill just one day before the end of the Illinois state legislature’s fall veto session. After harshly vilifying SAFE-T critics who called out the Act’s problems, now in the 11th hour they’re in effect admitting major missteps.
Crime is getting all the attention these days, but add the inability to compete on jobs to Chicagoland’s long list of failures. Chicagoland was ranked 4th-worst in the country among the nation’s biggest metropolitan areas. With an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent, only the MSAs of Las Vegas, Cleveland and Memphis did worse.
Ted joined Jeff Daly of WZUS Decatur to talk about the limited changes happening to the SAFE-T Act, why the Governor’s ‘monumental’ repayment of the unemployment fund is little more than political theater, why Illinois hasn’t created a net new job in the last 20 years and why Amendment 1 has turned the private sector into second-class citizens.
Matt joined Steve Cochran to discuss the proposed changes to the SAFE-T Act that lawmakers debated on December 1, the language that still needs to be changed and whether or not any of this will make a difference. Getting rid of the 48-hour free roaming pass for EM defendants, making more crimes detainable and restoring the community violence standard is a start, but much more has to be done.
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