-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
For Chicago families craving additional space, a tree-lined community with an easy commute to downtown is the new hot spot. It isn’t Lincoln Park or Lakeview or even Bucktown. It’s Lincoln Square.
“Unfortunately, this is the cycle that we continue to see in the city of Chicago, where violence is so rampant and parents aren’t being held accountable,” said Pastor Corey Brooks.
Overall, the state’s education budget grew from $10.8 billion in fiscal year 2025 to almost $11.2 billion in 2026. ISBE officials said Thursday the budget requests from the public for fiscal year 2027 amounted to $748 million in new money.
“Thank you,” Cook County Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez replied to the prosecutor. “I understand your position, but I can’t keep everybody in jail because the State’s Attorney wants me to, but I understand and respect your position.”
In the new filing, the energy companies say the city has no legal or constitutional basis to attempt to use an Illinois state law or Chicago city ordinance to extract payouts from the energy producers or dictate national energy and emissions policy far beyond the city’s and state’s borders.
The Cook County Board of Review typically gives taxpayers in townships a 30-day filing window for appeals. But “unprecedented circumstances” following a four-month delay in mailing second installment bills has led the Board to reopen the window in every closed township.
Despite the smooth budget negotiations, Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who is running for reelection, warned dark days are ahead. The financial future of Cook County Health, which is largely funded by the federal government as part of Medicaid, is particularly bleak.
Johnson said his administration is eyeing changes to address housing and mental health, but stopped short of committing to deploying more officers on the CTA, or efforts to ensure fewer unhoused users riding the CTA only for short-term shelter. “I think it’s too early to speculate about what that absolutely looks like, but again the funding from Springfield is the most important thing. Without that funding, then none of this would be visibilized,” the mayor said.
Twenty-two candidates that have filed to get their party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Springfield Democrat Dick Durbin. Petition objections are being considered for six of the 14 Democrats running. Two of the eight Republican candidates face petition objections.
The report author, Reason Foundation Director of Education Reform Aaron Garth Smith, said teacher pension debt has caused a sharp increase in benefit spending, and empty school buildings are also a structural problem. “Since the pandemic, public schools have lost nearly 1.2 million students, but they haven’t closed schools to keep pace with this. This spreads resources thin,” Smith explained.
While DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said the operation is “ongoing,” there is evidence that it quickly wound down last week, with Greg Bovino leaving Chicago for North Carolina and taking many of his agents with him. However, the reprieve may be short-lived. It has been reported that as many as 1,000 agents could hit the streets in March — four times the amount in town over the past two months.
A federal appeals court has blocked a Chicago federal district judge’s order restraining ICE and Border Patrol officers from responding to and protecting themselves riotous responses to immigration enforcement operations, saying the Obama-appointed judge trespassed the constitutional separation of powers and went too far in entering an order that attempted to control virtually “all law enforcement officers in the Executive Branch,” including the President of the United States himself.
“The level of accountability that has to happen in this moment, I trust that the federal level will do its part,” Johnson said, before stressing, “All I can say is that as awful and as horrific as this tragedy is, this is an isolated incident. As we continue to invest more in our public transportation system, we want people to feel safe as they ride.”
“Claytons’ Law” comes in the wake of the recent deaths of Coles County Board Member Mike Clayton and his wife Gail Clayton. Edwin Pacheco-Meza, who is not in the country legally according to ICE, is accused of causing the crash and faces several charges including reckless homicide and aggravated DUI.
This includes: creating more housing and entertainment options, a future CTA Madison Pink Line station on the Near West Side, a new office of nighttime engagement to energize Chicago after dark and repurposing vacant and underutilized sites downtown to accommodate more than 100 million square feet of new construction with the goal of creating over 50,000 new jobs.
“When the stock portfolios of members of Congress regularly beat the S&P 500 and members leave the office with vastly higher net worths than when they arrived, the public is right to be alarmed,” U.S. Rep. Mary Miller said.
As president of IFT, Stacy Davis Gates now leads the union’s affiliates in at least 200 other districts in Illinois while also maintaining her role as CTU president. The two entities will be practically inseparable, with CTU’s agenda becoming the IFT agenda.
Federal leaders made business tax cuts intended to boost the economy, but Illinois state lawmakers are undoing those savings so they can keep $234 million – and potentially strain Illinois’ already sluggish economy.
“When we finished our reassessment of Chicago, homeowners would have had actually two percentage points less of the burden than they started with … ” Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi said. “But these values were cut at the Board of Review by nearly 20 percent for commercial properties, whereas only 1 percent for residential properties. That shifted about half a billion dollars of the burden, according to the treasurer, onto homeowners.”
“Black leadership that does not prioritize economic infrastructure, such as schools, banks, construction companies, grocery stores, businesses and skilled trades, will continue to oversee poorer and economically fragile communities. We celebrate the historic number of Black elected officials, but without any real tangible progress for the Black community, there is no reason to party. “
“The EY report, written in dry consultant language, makes clear what most Chicagoans have long suspected: There is massive waste in Chicago government. After all, overall spending (appropriations) has grown by about 40 percent in the past five years, far outpacing the rate of inflation.”
Foreclosure activity across the U.S. ticked up from the previous month and remained elevated compared to a year ago. States with the worst foreclosure rates: Florida, South Carolina, Illinois, Delaware, and Nevada. Illinois was third worst.
“Chicago is already burdened with massive pension liabilities, high borrowing costs and fragile investor confidence. Politicizing the city’s most essential financial safeguards only puts taxpayers in greater jeopardy.”
“In trying to score points with Chicagoans understandably frustrated by the financial state of the city, the officeholders choosing to verbally trash the one Big Tech player that has planted a significant flag here in order to force through an unpopular agenda is … well … stupid.”
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