Margarito Flores developed a U.S. delivery platform for drugs. Now he advises police officers on dismantling gangs that operate like criminal versions of Amazon.

Gov. JB Pritzker said the City of Chicago, with some State assistance, is doing as good a job as possible in handling the migrant crisis, expecting both that and the crime problems to be well in hand during next year’s Democratic National Convention.

Last year, the Magnificent Mile district saw $3.8 billion in consumer spending, and it accounts for 17% of all Chicago jobs, according to the Magnificent Mile Association. But a new Harris Poll found that only about 53% of Cook County respondents said they feel safe downtown.

Co-founded by Arne Duncan, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Education and CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Chicago CRED primarily invests its efforts on the South and West sides, working with young people at high risk of being involved with gun violence. The program recruits participants through street outreach, offering therapy, life coaching, education and job training at eight sites across the city. A Northwestern study published earlier this month showed a 73% reduction in violence-related arrests for CRED participants who finished the two-year program.

“The practice appears to be a blunt tool that blocks and deters integrative affordable housing while going well beyond what is necessary to provide a forum for local concerns – in other words, precisely the sort of ‘artificial, arbitrary and unnecessary barrier’” prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court when it upheld the Fair Housing Act, according to the Oct. 24 letter from Lon Meltesen, the director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s region that includes Chicago.

‘What we’ve seen is a very raggedy form of right-wing extremism,’ the woke Mayor said. ‘Everyone knows that the right-wing extremism in this country has targeted democratically run cities and quite frankly and they have been quite intentional about going after democratically ran cities that are led by people of color.’

While the city has made some important progress on the expenditure side, the new mayor’s first budget didn’t make similar strides on the revenue side, according to Fitch Ratings, which upgraded Chicago’s general obligation debt to BBB-plus from BBB in October. For example, the budget didn’t include raising the property tax levy to account for inflation, which had been included under the previous administration. Fitch’s upgrade, which didn’t hinge on passage of the budget, cited “a decline in the city’s long-term liability burden stemming from steady growth in the economic resource base and improved debt management practices,” including making advance

“To do otherwise just seems like another page out of the Johnson administration handbook: stonewalling the public and elected officials while saying as little as possible and promising more details at a later date.”

Associate Pastor John Zayas said each church in the initiative will take in 20 migrants, and help connect them with social services and other resources to get them on the path to finding jobs and permanent homes. Churches participating in the program will supply food, hold winter clothing drives, and help with social services to find jobs and permanent housing. Zayas said various charity groups have committed $350,000 to fund the program.

Paper tax bills already show a breakdown of how much of your bill is funneled to each taxing body. But the new tool compares how much in total dollars each property’s bill increased or decreased for each of those taxing districts between 2021 and 2022. It also provides a link to that taxing body’s homepage.

“…Chicago has grown tired of his placing a racial frame around every issue he addresses. The public prefers competence among his advisers rather than hires who “tick the right boxes,” and is growing deeply distrustful of the mayor for consistently underreacting to violent crime enveloping the city. Moreover, Chicago residents are uneasy with the growing influence of the CTU over City Hall and distraught with the union’s appetite for power, domination, and control.”