-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin had declined to call for embattled Sen. Bob Menedez to step down during a television interview Sunday, but changed course Wednesday after 22 Senate Democrats called for Menendez to leave office.
The Equity Fund Taskforce, founded in 2021, consists of 50 members charged with advising on strategic countywide investments to address historic disparities and disinvestments in Black and Latino communities. Combined with other equity-focused initiatives, Cook County will invest roughly $120 million in FY21 and FY22.
“We are a sanctuary state. We are a sanctuary county, a sanctuary city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “You know, this is a dynamic that we’re all working to solve. And you know, the political dynamics that have provoked this moment, it’s incumbent upon all of us to continue our work and the sacrifices that we all have to make to ensure that families get a chance to resettle and really experience comfort here.”
Pilsen Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez said in a statement a warehouse at 2241 S. Halsted St. will become a temporary shelter. Other shelters on the Southwest Side include Richard J. Daley College, 7500 S. Pulaski Road in West Lawn, Gage Park’s namesake park field house at 2411 W. 55th St. and Little Village’s Piotrowski Park field house, 4247 W. 31st St.
Some doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, social workers and other health care workers have waited nearly a year for license approval from the state. “In other states, the average wait time is 30 days,” said Susan Swart, of the Illinois chapter of the American Nurses Association. “In some states it is as quick as two weeks. So, I tell you, if other states can do that, I do not understand why Illinois can not.”
The Chicago and Cook County Coalition for Humane Migration Management is calling on Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to personally ask President Joe Biden for $300 million in federal money to move the migrants to more suitable shelters, considering winter is coming soon.
In the most serious cases involving child death, injury, malnutrition and sex abuse, DCFS is required to notify local police authorities within 24 hours. The agency failed to do so 20% of the time, in some cases waiting up to 43 days, according to the audit.
“You got to believe that even buildings that are transacting are going to transact for thousands and millions of dollars less, which is going to create a situation where the assessor is going to have to reassess the value of properties and you are going to start losing tax dollars across the board,” said Corey Oliver, of the Community Venture Investment Corporation.
In 1960, Chicago’s poverty rate was 12% when fewer than 110,000 Chicagoans were estimated to be living in poverty. Today, the poverty rate sits at 17.2% and more than 450,000 Chicagoans live below the poverty line. National poverty rates have consistently hovered between 11% and 15% for decades. No meaningful progress has been made.
Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin rank in the top 10 most expensive real estate taxes when compared to monthly and annual payments toward the mortgage. In Aurora, Elgin and Naperville, real estate taxes take up roughly 30% of payments toward the home. In Ann Arbor, MI, that figure is 28%, and in Madison and Joliet, it’s just over 27%.
The Republican leader said he’s spoken to CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures exchange, about relocating to the Lone Star State. CME and other Chicago-based trading firms have complained about a pickup in violent crime since the pandemic as well as potential tax increases floated by the mayor. “I actually have approached the CME,” Abbott said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York. “There are some businesses in Chicago that are fed up.”
Lawyers will argue to state officials that the trash facility should be blocked. The site is “being promoted as beneficial to the broader, whiter and wealthier region,” said Robert Weinstock, director of Northwestern University’s Environmental Advocacy Center. “This is a textbook example of structural environmental racism.”
“His (Mayor Brandon Johnson’s) administration has proposed new levies, including higher real estate transfer taxes and a financial transaction tax, prompting a reaction from Chicago’s trading community to push their case to the city. Their argument is simple — the derivatives industry currently employs some 59,100 people in Illinois, the majority in Chicago. Employment grew 17% over the past decade, outpacing the state’s overall growth of 5.9% in the period, according to the US Labor Bureau of Statistics.”
“One other subject should worry Biden and the Democrats: Urban crime. Crime has exploded in the large Democrat run cities, especially those like Chicago that elected George Soros backed prosecutors like Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who campaigned on not putting violent criminals in jail…But on Tuesday on the respected and important crime website CWB Chicago, there was a story of a man savagely beaten and robbed while walking in the Bucktown neighborhood. They ran up behind him. You could hear him scream.”
Ald. Bennett Lawson asked why representatives of the Chicago Police Department were not slated to be part of the working group, and Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez promised to consult CPD members when necessary – but made it clear the group would focus on crafting a program to respond to 911 calls that did not involve armed law enforcement agents. Rodriguez Sanchez has not identified a way to pay for the expanded alternate-response program or to reopen the clinics.
Right now at least 1,600 families are staying in police stations across the city. In total nearly 9,000 migrants are staying in 21 temporary shelters. They’re also living at O’Hare and Midway airports. “This is not what a sanctuary city looks like and how do we make this something that is the vision of what we want Chicago to be for the future? I don’t think this is the best we can do. I really hope it’s not,” said Annie Gomber, lead volunteer for the 15th District Police Response Team.
Snelling is a 30-year member of the Chicago Police Department and currently serves as the Chief of Counterterrorism for the Chicago Police Department.
The Illinois Auditor General has found issues at several state-run agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Board of Education and the Department of Public Health, among others. Violations at the Department of Corrections included a failure to notify victims and local law enforcement after releasing sex offenders, including those who committed a predatory criminal sexual assault of a child.
House Bill 4148, creating the Legislative Employee Labor Relations Act, comes in response to a monthslong effort by Democratic staff in the speaker’s office to unionize and negotiate wages, hours and other working conditions. It would establish an Office of State Legislative Labor Relations to represent the General Assembly in collective bargaining with legislative staff.
“(Mayor Brandon) Johnson’s actions and rhetoric and that of his supporters during his first 100 days in office signal little hope for structural reform. Recently, the mayor’s new floor leader made it clear even effort by aldermen to provide the Council Office of Financial Analysis and the Legislative Research Bureau with more resources and staffing to improve transparency and the capacity for independent analysis ‘is simply not a priority from his colleagues.'”
“The Chicago area came to represent the urban American dream. It was popularized as a haven for families, home to the Griswolds of Vacation fame, the Winslows of Family Matters, the Portokaloses with their Big Fat Greek Wedding, and the McAllisters from Home Alone. By the time Ferris Bueller took his intrepid day off, Chicago’s reputation as a melting pot was already part of the American landscape. Illinois is no longer the place to be. It’s third in the country for outbound moves, behind just New Jersey and California.”
“… (T)he National Association of Scholars’s John Sailer found hundreds of university job postings that require DEI statements, including jobs at the University of California, Berkeley, Ohio State University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and more.”
This past month, in Englewood alone nearly 3,000 customers received disconnection notices and over 500 were disconnected outright. “My bill is going up, but my paycheck ain’t going up,” resident Valerie Caroll said. “So how do I make that work?”
For the third month in a row, home prices grew faster in the Chicago area than in any other major U.S. metro area, according to new data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices released this morning. Chicago-area single-family home values rose 4.4% in July compared with the same time last year.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker promised to cut property taxes in 2020, part of his State of the State speech. Nearly four years on and he’s done nothing for homeowners. In fact the pain has only gotten worse. Illinois falls dead last nationally when it comes to home value appreciation since 2000 – worse even than Michigan.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about how half of Chicago’s 911 calls had no police available to respond in 2023 so far, why the Safety Act will reduce the number of criminals in jail, why Gov. Pritzker is calling opponents of the Gotion deal “xenophobes,” the latest dismal student outcomes at CPS, and more.
‘Active warzone.’ Fox News Reporter Gianno Caldwell assailed the Chicago crime epidemic in the New York Post this week. One damning Wirepoints statistic: Chicago has led the nation in murders for last 11 years, despite having just a third of the population of NYC.
“Major U.S. cities have moved beyond mayor-centric governance models, and Chicago must follow suit. It starts with genuine transparency and accountability in finances and program management.”
“A lot of states have major issues. Illinois is dealing with refugees and wanting to provide health care for them,” said Beverly Bunch, a professor at the University of Illinois Springfield and author of the report. “That’s coming at the same time that some of these federally funded programs are being exhausted, and that makes it even more challenging.”
Comment: This is about the Gotion electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan, which is nearly identical to the recently announced Gotion plant for Manteno, Illinois.
“…(T)hat’s what we have been doing for the last eight years with the Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, a $1.5 billion investment fund providing capital to Illinois companies that are innovating and creating well-paying jobs…More than 42% of capital has been invested with diverse-operated investment managers, with 356 investments in diverse-owned businesses.”
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