“Even 10 years is too long. We need to change as soon as it can happen because this is going to impact my generation,” said a city resident during a public hearing last week before the Chicago City Council on the lead pipe problem.
“Pritzker ought to explain why the state is backing down in federal court, unless he’s too embarrassed now by his role in this cautionary tale of Democratic overreach.”
“The FY2024 CTA operating budget is balanced with $472.5 million in federal COVID relief funds, representing approximately 23.7% of the entire operating budget. The FY2025 projected budget gap of $481.2 million will also be balanced with federal relief funds. However, those funds will be exhausted in the following year, forcing the CTA to balance its projected FY2026 budget deficit of $576.9 million by securing new additional revenue sources, making severe service cuts or utilizing some combination of both strategies.”
Johnson said during his campaign that “a Johnson administration would not end selective enrollment at CPS schools.” Now, his board of education is pushing forward a plan to end selective enrollment and force students to attend their neighborhood schools.
The appeals court criticized Judge Jennifer Bauknecht for giving a lengthy and biased commentary about the wisdom of Illinois’s recent bail reform. “The wisdom of legislation is never a concern for the judiciary,” justices said. “As judges, our role is not to choose the law but to faithfully apply it; that is, in fact, the sole object of our oath. Where a law is passed by the legislature and upheld by our supreme court as constitutional, the role of the judge is to apply the law as it is, not as the judge might wish it to be.”
“Tensions came to a head in Chicago Thursday after Mayor Brandon Johnson blocked an advisory ballot referendum that would have given city voters the chance to weigh in on whether Chicago should remain a sanctuary city.”
“…(P)olice must be more effective. Low arrest rates for shootings and homicides drive retaliatory violence. Police must boost clearance rates, so victims have more confidence in our justice system, and accelerate reforms to rebuild trust.”
The promise of robust manufacturing tax credits prompted companies to announce a flurry of new projects, including several that have drawn the ire of local residents and elected Republicans for their connections to Chinese firms. Gotion, an American subsidiary entirely owned and controlled by China-based Gotion High-Tech, wants to build subsidized manufacturing facilities in Michigan and Illinois. Gotion High-Tech has extensiveconnections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and local residents in Green Charter Township,
“This plan would destroy one of the city’s best ways of helping Black and Latino families forge strong educational pathways for their children,” Matt Paprocki, president and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute, said. “The schools provide a refuge for poor and minority families confronted by failing and Chicago Public Schools neighborhood schools. By pushing this resolution through their allies on the school board, the Chicago Teachers Union confirms again they care more about power and control than students’ best interests. The implication is cruel for low-income families who can’t afford any other options.”
“This conundrum actually creates an opportunity. After living for generations with flawed tax policies that force Illinois to underfund core services, lawmakers can use the need to solve the pending Tier II fiscal crisis as an impetus for reforming state tax policy to work in the modern economy, finally allowing Illinois to make adequate and sustainable investments in the core services that build better communities.”
The proposal, which would add “vacant or commercial storefronts” to an existing ordinance regulating vacant buildings, would require working burglar alarms for storefronts which are vacant for six months or longer. In addition, vacant storefronts also would have to be registered with the city for a fee of $100.
Kwame Opam now deputy managing editor for news at the Sun-Times and and previously the strategy and operations deputy for the breaking news teams at The New York Times: “I’ve been inculcated in the profession’s articles of faith. believe in comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, telling truth to power, and finding beauty and relief in a good yarn…. I’m lucky. Seriously, I can’t tell you how lucky I am. I’m up to my ears in good writing about Chicago and surrounded by journalists committed to telling its story every day.
Under a new law in 2024, nearly all workers in the state of Illinois will officially be guaranteed at least one week of paid leave, but things are different for those who live in Chicago and Cook County.
“The Chicago Department of Public Health has a team dedicated to detecting and responding to reportable communicable diseases in shelters and other congregate settings. Cases of varicella have been reported in new arrivals, and in response the team has consulted with shelter managers and other facilities to provide infection control guidance,” the statement said.
Jim Dey: “In their motion for delay, ComEd defense lawyers argued ‘the Supreme Court will rule definitively’ on the interpretation of a federal bribery statute about ‘what conduct is criminal’ and what is not…(former Republican Portage, Ind., Mayor James) Snyder’s case involves his acceptance of $13,000 from a business after the mayor steered contracts worth more than $1 million to that business.”
Is it “too early to tell” the long-term impact, State’s Attorney John Milhiser said, but he collected statistics that show Sangamon County judges are agreeing with prosecutors almost 70% of the time when the State’s Attorney’s Office has requested detention. The rate is similar to numbers released Dec. 11 by the state administrative court office, which is overseen by the Supreme Court.
The city said there are nearly 14,000 migrants in 27 active shelters. About 186 people were still waiting for placement at a shelter at O’Hare International Airport. Organizers Saturday wouldn’t say where they were taking migrants but confirmed they were headed for shelters.
Migrants have repeatedly complained about the conditions at shelters, saying they’re too crowded, don’t offer enough privacy and the quality of the food is poor. “Give us papers. Let us work,” said Kevin Aleanyer Perez Suares, speaking in Spanish. “We’re human, and without money for food or a home, people are getting desperate. You want to send us to a shelter? Why? Just give us work so we can live.”
The CTU even opposes opening alternative charter high schools to help older students who dropped out or have been in the criminal justice system. This is egregious, considering about 45,000 teens and young adults are not in school and are unemployed.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, and Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois, will soon introduce legislation — the SALON Stories Act — that would incentivize all 50 states to implement what has worked so well in theirs. The bill provides grant money to states that require aspiring cosmetologists to take a domestic violence prevention training course to obtain their licenses.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, said city officials found migrants in various locations around the city Friday — City Hall, Christkindlmarket and Union Station. She suspects bus drivers drop off migrants at train stations outside of the city and buy them train fares to get downtown. “Bus companies are facilitating their transfer into the city. It sends us scurrying.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, hundreds of millions of dollars in rental assistance has been disbursed in Illinois, with over 100,000 Chicago and suburban Cook County residents receiving aid. Yet, attorneys say rental assistance is good for people experiencing short-term crises but not necessarily for those who are chronically unable to pay rent.
In the past decade, the private Illinois school has created nearly 400 new administrative and support staff positions while also adopting a policy to hire more “diverse” staff. Meanwhile, its student enrollment numbers remained relatively stagnant.
“Nothing illustrates the perversity of the ‘equity’ agenda and its hostility toward the exceptional and exemplary quite like progressive officials’ efforts to cut overachievers down to size for the imagined benefit of everyone else. Chicago’s chief social engineer, Mayor Brandon Johnson, is only the latest to join that crusade.”
If Matt Hall “manages to beat Wilhour, a shockwave will reverberate through the far right of the party. But, if nothing else, a barrage of union money aimed at Wilhour could divert Eastern Bloc resources away from their hoped-for battle against Rep. Severin.”
A city ordinance that passed on Wednesday allows for Johnson to impound and tow buses that don’t deliver asylum seekers to designated “landing zones.” Johnson said the ordinance is in response to actions at the U.S. southern border.
An effort to protect the Great Lakes from an invasive species hit a milestone recently with the harvesting of some 750,000 pounds of invasive carp from the Illinois River.
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