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“Instead of electing officials empowered to manage government, voters in Illinois elect officials who, in daily choices as well as with vital trade-offs, can manage only with union approval. As Mayor Lori Lightfoot put it, ‘They’d like to take over not only Chicago Public Schools, but take over running the city government.'”
Endorsements could provide a critical boost in the crowded field, with the election coming up Feb. 28.
“I thought she’d govern like she campaigned, and we didn’t get that,” said North Side resident Cassandra Kaczocha, adding, “We got a very dictatorial style of governing, just like we did with Rahm, and it’s disappointing.”
Amy Morton, owner of two downtown restaurants, said, “We all desperately believe that workers need to be treated fairly,” but the city is bogging businesses down “with so much red tape.”
NASCAR’s study — conducted by Frisco, Texas-based CSL International — also expects tourists to book 24,000 hotel room nights in Chicago and generate $8.9 million in city, county and state tax revenue. Those bookings would be a boon for Chicago’s hotel industry, which typically sees a hotel occupancy rate below 50% on the first weekend of July.
While it’s unclear where statues of Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan could potentially go, a new statue of Martin Luther King Jr. could soon be on its way in Springfield. Governor Pritzker signed a bill that would allocate half a million dollars towards the project.
Illinois loses grant money every single year since the state isn’t in compliance with the federal Sex Offender Registry and Notification Act, or SORNA. But every year, Illinois turns around and gets it back – claiming it needs every federal dollar to get into compliance. More than 10 years later, and with a total of $2,757,692 having been reallocated back into the state’s pocket, Illinois still isn’t there yet.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he loves the Bears, but it is a private business. “I am of the opinion that it’s not our obligation as the state to step in and provide major funding, and I certainly don’t want to burden taxpayers with major support for a private business.”
Gun rights advocate Todd Vandermyde said he’d revisit the issues with state lawmakers. “I have some mixed feelings about it but if they want to sit down and have an honest conversation, we can have that, I just don’t think they are going to like what they hear. You have the court of appeals following New York down to the letter and saying you can’t do this.”
Gov. JB Pritzker said it’s important for him to telegraph Illinois’ values to the rest of the country. He also said Illinois voters should know there are “racist” and “anti-LGBTQ” groups out there recruiting for school board or library district races. “And they’re trying to take over at a local level and build up candidates at a local level that they can then run for the state legislature.”
Comptroller Susana Mendoza cautioned lawmakers not to use the current surpluses to enact new, permanent programs that would obligate the state to fund long into the future: “What I would be opposed to is seeing new funding items – unless you can really sell that this is an extreme necessity for the state at this time – we want to stay away from funding new programs that are going to have to be funded year to year.”
At about $9.9 billion, the state’s GRF pension payment was its single biggest expenditure for the current year, topping the $9.8 billion spent on K-12 education. And yet unfunded pension liability grew to $139 billion last year, despite the state having upped its pension contribution by $500 million beyond required levels over two years, including $200 million in the current year.
Restaurants serving the Loop reported 1.2 crimes per licensed retail food establishment in 2021 and 2022, the most in any region along the Red Line. Specifically, the Grand Station near Navy Pier saw more than double that rate: 2.34 crimes per eatery. Rrestaurants serving South Chicago ZIP codes from the Harrison Station down to 95th Street reported 19 crimes for every 20 restaurants, and restaurants on the northern stretch of the Red Line saw even less crime: 31% less than their peers to the south.
Super Bowl betting will likely be a $1 million-plus revenue stream for a third consecutive year in Illinois. If the wagering projection is correct, the revenue could top $2 million on Sunday.
“Our schools can become sanctuaries for our kids – a place for them to go where they can be safe and secure and where they and their families can access the additional resources they need,” Vallas said, noting that outside community groups and the park district could run programs during non-school hours.
“While the COVID stimulus payments were a great help for so many during the pandemic, many hardworking residents were left out of this critical resource,” said Brandie Knazze, the city’s commissioner for the Department of Family and Support Services. “The Resiliency Fund 2.0 is designed to help those who had to navigate the pandemic without such resources.”
Matt Paprocki, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “The primary aim of the Chicago Teachers Union is no longer the teaching of children, but rather political power for the union’s leaders and their ideas. Since a leftist group called the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators, or CORE, took over CTU in 2010, both student proficiency and enrollment have dropped. The more power the group has secured, the harsher the impacts on students.”
“The states heavily relying on POBs (which are borrowed money to fund pensions) are Michigan, Illinois, Arizona, and California.”
Justice Robert McLaren wrote, “Simply put, plaintiffs do not own the funds that the Act requires to be transferred to the new statewide police and firefighter pension investment funds. The Act does nothing more than require one type of government-created pension fund to transfer assets to another type of government-created pension fund.”
Illinois chipped away at its long-term obligations in fiscal 2022 with healthy tax revenue growth and federal funds allowing the state to halt a decade long dive deep into negative territory, according to a recently published interim audit.
“’That gives Democrats an opportunity—if we can seize it,’ says Ramirez, who will respond to the president’s State of the Union speech on behalf of the Working Families Party… At a time when there is a great deal of pressure on Biden and party leaders in the House and the Senate to veer toward the center, Ramirez and the WFP see a future for a left-leaning Democratic Party that is engaged with the real-life issues that matter for working-class Americans.”
First lady Jill Biden also announced her list of guests, including Rolling Meadows High School 10th grader Kate Foley. The first lady met Foley in November during a visit to her high school to emphasize the need to build pathways from high school to good-paying jobs through career-connected learning.
Juan Giron’s Spanish-language bookstore has served Pilsen for nearly 40 years. He imports books from Mexico and Spain and sells them across the country to mom-and-pop shops and big online retailers like Amazon. He keeps the storefront for his neighborhood. Giron’s property tax bill jumped from $26,000 a year to $44,000 a year, and that’s after he says he appealed it down from more than $80,000. “It is telling us move on, get out, you can’t pay this,” he said.
The new Megasites Investment Program will use money from the Rebuild Illinois capital improvement bond issue. It will offer grants of up to $5 million for costs typically incurred early in a project, such as site acquisition and cleanup, and road and utility improvements. Sites that could be eligible for the grants include 415-acre lakefront site of the U.S. Steel South Works plant and the 232-acre former Allstate headquarters in Glenview.
Joseph Epstein: “For the most part the candidates spoke what I have come to think of as sociobabble, the political equivalent of psychobabble…. If three hours of talk among the mayoral candidates decided nothing, neither, I suspect, would 30 hours. The sad truth is that one can’t talk candidly about such matters as crime and public education without being accused of racism, misogyny and the rest of the woke menu of social felonies. To be beset by major problems and denied the right to talk earnestly about them is at the heart of much that has gone wrong in American
Police found checks, money orders, stacks of mail, computers, piles of fake identification cards, stolen ID cards, DNA tests, and key-cutting equipment in an 18th floor room at the Virgin Hotel, 203 N. Wabash, a CPD report said.
“Providing financial assistance to relatives of fatal shootings and those who have been injured in them is crucial. But the end goal is to stop the shootings from taking place in the first place.”
“What the ordinance does is it would require every single person who provides human services, you know a million to a million and a half people every year in the city of Chicago, to sign a Labor Peace Agreement with the unions, whether or not we’re unionized. The reason we’re concerned about that is cause it does nothing to actually increase worker wages or benefits, it adds cost and complexity, but in the absence of more funding, we can’t do anything, and the only way that we could respond to do more for the workers, would be to spend less
Jim Dey: “Illinois is betting a significant part of its financial future on an expansion of legalized gambling — everything from more casinos to sports wagering and video-gambling machines in gas stations, bars and restaurants. But it’s still the old-fashioned Illinois State Lottery that brings in the most tax revenue — $833 million in the 2021-’22 fiscal year. That’s roughly 40 percent of the state’s total gambling revenue of $1.885 billion for that 12-month period.”
At the end of last month, there were about 2,500 calls a day to the state’s unemployment office. A total of 88 call-takers were active – 75 of them handling help calls; The state hasn’t addressed how many of those callers needed help with the tax form. But for perspective, at this time last year, there were about 7,179 calls a day. 241 people handling them, and about 10,000 backlogged calls for 1099 issues.
Chicago’s structural budget problems and the city’s deeply underwater pensions should be a big deal this mayoral election, but they haven’t been and they won’t be. Tax coffers are overflowing right now as a result of the billions in federal Covid aid that’s come into Illinois, and that’s allowing the city’s fiscal mess to go largely ignored.
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