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Raoul, a Chicago Democrat, maintains that the new bail provision will be effective in all 102 Illinois counties Sunday. But his office has acknowledged that — at least until the suit concludes — it’s up to judges in the counties that are party to the suit whether they set cash bail.
“We don’t want to move. We want to stay. With these taxes, we can’t,” said Pilsen resident Laura Paz.
Woodlawn neighbors worry that adding more people to the community will lead to resources being spread thin in the area, where residents are already fighting for access to food and transportation, Ald. Jeanette Taylor said. “If they (city officials) don’t move the Jan. 6 date back, when my community is outside protesting, I’ll be right out there with them.”
“And as a constitutionally elected sheriff, I feel that it’s important that the county board and myself show our constituents that we respect and honor their constitutional rights, and feel that they should be allowed to continue to have a second amendment right,” said Dewitt County Sheriff Mike Walker.
He said, “And I think even more significantly…is that 20% decline in shootings is also significant. That’s around 800 fewer people shot. I think, number one, it’s the brave men and women of the Chicago Police Department raised their level of policing. Not just enforcement, but community engagement.”
Chicago police will deploy an extra 1,300 officers over the weekend, to ensure neighborhoods and high-traffic areas are safe, CPD Superintendent David Brown said Friday morning. Officers will be visible in retail corridors, and CPD will expand its presence on the CTA.
“School choice programs such as the Invest in Kids tax credit scholarship program could improve the academic declines facing Illinois and the achievement gaps between demographic groups. Milwaukee Public Schools serves as an example.”
As Chicago looks to a new year, still grappling with inflation and fears about public safety, it’s with a sense of hope for stability that 2023 is the comeback from the bounce-back year.
“Aurora, for example, covers four different counties, two of which have filed and two of which have not,” said said Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz. “There are other places where it would be extremely chaotic to have two different systems.”
The Chicago Business Barometer, a regional manufacturing index also known as the Chicago PMI, rebounded to 44.9 in December from 37.2 in the prior month, which was the lowest reading since the 2007/2008 financial crisis.
“The FAA tests included only able-bodied adults younger than age 60, ignoring the millions of Americans like me who live and fly with a disability or other mobility issues. Ignoring older folks, who may take a little longer to get down the aisle but who fly regularly. Ignoring young children and infants, who rely on Mom or Dad to get from point A to B. And ignoring anyone who might struggle to understand flight attendants’ instructions, including those who don’t speak English fluently.”
But for how long the new method will remain in place is unclear, growing murky after a Kankakee County judge this week ruled the elimination of cash bail and other pretrial reforms passed by the Illinois General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker were unconstitutional. If the court makes no decision to pause matters by Sunday, counties that were part of the lawsuit could remain under the traditional cash-bail system, while others that weren’t part of the litigation — including Cook, DuPage and Lake — could move to the new pretrial-detention process.
The report from the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center noted hate incidents increased by 71% in Chicago, and the main targets were Jews and African-Americans.
The plan could include safe drug consumption sites. “We care about you no matter what, and if you’re consuming substances you can do things such as not use alone, you can take a test to make sure you’re not consuming fentanyl and what you’re consuming is what you think,” said Dr. Juleigh Nowinski-Konchak from Cook County Health.
We need a retrospective and accountability at the state level, too, for the simple reason stated at the end of the Homeland Security Committee’s report: If we fail to address these issues, we will remain unprepared for the next public health crisis.
Ted joined Jeff Daly of WZUS Decatur to talk about Illinois’ dismal 2022 Census results, why residents are fleeing this state, why Florida and Texas gained hundreds of thousands of people, and the worries that migrants might bring their politics to the states they are moving to.
Are Illinoisans leaving because of a toxic combination of high taxes, few opportunities and poor policies or is bad weather more to blame? Are states like Texas, Florida and Georgia really the free and prosperous places they claim to be? Is Illinois really all that bad a place to live? And is there really a “Great Re-Sorting” going on? All that and more was covered in Part 1 of Ted’s debate with WVON’s Matt McGill.
Cook County plans to spend $12 million on medical debt relief and expects to erase debt for the first batch of beneficiaries by early January, funded by President Biden’s trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan. “What we need in this country is universal health care, clearly,” Toni Preckwinkle, the president of the Board of Commissioners in Cook County, said. “But we’re not there as a nation yet, and so those of us who are responsible for local units of government have to do everything we can to make health care available, accessible to people.”
Chicago will end the year with at least 723 people murdered, a 13% decrease from last year but still more than any other American city. Overall the number of reported crimes has risen by more than 12% from last year, unnerving residents, sending some businesses packing and complicating the city’s efforts to recover from the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak.
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