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“No amount of sugarcoating can change what Illinoisans are seeing with their own eyes: Shootings and other violent crimes are up. Carjacking is rampant, and criminal mob actions are plaguing our cities.Illinois’ law enforcement community is demoralized and police officers are retiring in droves.”
“For far too long, our country has been all too happy to obscure or ignore the low moments in the histories of BIPOC Americans, opting to illuminate only the palatable, honorable, unobjectionable instances in our nation’s timeline.”
The rebates were the result of the Illinois Family Relief Plan, passed by the General Assembly and issued to more than 5.1 million qualified taxpayers, totaling $1.042 billion, according to Gov. JB Pritzker’s office.
Illinois schools beat the national trend which showed a 2.4% decrease in freshman enrollment at public universities. Nine out of the 12 public universities in the state reported an increase in freshman enrollment.
According to the state’s news release, the tax credit available to Illinois car manufacturers that retain employees as they switch to EV production is increased to 75% of their state income tax. That rate would increase to 100% of their income tax if the company operates in an “Underserved or Energy Transition Area.”
The latest annual population estimate from the U.S. Census is expected Thursday. The Small Area Income and Poverty estimates report released by the U.S. Census earlier this month showed in 2020, poverty edged upward from 11 percent to 12.1 percent.
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi often points to Springfield as the only place where true property tax relief can be delivered. He was backed up by his predecessor James Houlihan, who said the “long-term solution is to [make] education less reliant on property taxes” by diverting more sales tax revenues to schools. Cook County Commissioner Anthony Quezada similarly said the county’s “unstable property tax system” is in need of “comprehensive reform at the state level.”
Winnebago County is one of eight Illinois counties where volunteers will note the names of the judge, the name of the accused, case number, race, gender and charges, if a detention hearing was requested and granted and whether the accused was placed on electronic monitoring, as well as if all the participants were comfortable with the new proceedings, what went well and what did not go so well. Their findings will then be sent to the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts.
The $5 million fund will award grants for projects located within city limits in three categories, all involving permanent, climate-related infrastructure investments (not business operations or staff costs): renewable energy and energy efficiency systems for existing buildings; electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and green infrastructure.
With a sudden influx of temporary federal, state and philanthropic pandemic relief funding came an opportunity to move away from an already-stressed emergency housing system to what advocates say is a more dignified and effective one. Those same advocates, however, say the new system is on the edge of a fiscal cliff as federal COVID-19 response funding dries up.
From fast-casual to sit-down, the lunch business at downtown restaurants has not recovered from the pandemic. Operators are constantly calculating if staying open for lunch is worth it, and the math doesn’t look great.
When Illinois made recreational cannabis use legal as of January 2020, it immediately granted licenses to existing medical marijuana sellers, including large, publicly traded operators. Smaller, minority-owned businesses were due to get licenses in May of 2020, but the process was frozen by a state judge after some business owners sued over what they called an unfair application process. The stay was lifted in June, allowing companies such as Mr. Jackson’s to start work on their locations. By then, a head start for the large companies that was supposed to last a few months had stretched out
A detective, Krista Chasen, told the Civilian Office of Police Accountability that she would “copy and paste information her supervisors directed her to use for all the mass arrests,” whether or not they actually reflected what happened.
“It makes life so much easier when the city and the team and the team owner get along,” sports and stadium consultant Marc Ganis said. “And it makes things infinitely more difficult when they do not, and especially when they do not in a public manner.”
Ted was on Chicago’s Morning Answer with Dan and Amy to talk about the latest developments regarding the lawsuit against the SAFE-T Act, why minority communities want more and better policing, the madness that is Chicago’s gun violence victims fund and the importance of the school board elections coming in April.
Ted joined Scott Slocum of WJOL to discuss Gov. Pritzker’s issuance of his 37th Emergency Covid Declaration, the fact that the governor has the power to reinstate the most draconian restrictions if he wanted to and the negative impact of keeping so many Illinoisans dependent on government through Medicaid and food stamp benefits.
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