“Again, kudos to the House for passing a Bears/megaprojects bill. It wasn’t easy by any means. As with the Senate’s mass transit bill last year, it was one of those ‘whatever it takes’ tasks. And it was a good time for House Speaker Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch to start conditioning his members to vote for some tough bills as the session progresses. On all that, Welch succeeded.”

This plan ensures utility companies and contractors can access service lines located on private property at no cost to the property owner. It also expands who can authorize and perform the replacement.

State Sen. Robert Martwick told the Illinois Senate Revenue Committee it is time for businesses to pay high taxes just like his neighbors do to fund public education. “Can’t you just do the same thing? Can’t you invest in my children’s education?” Martwick said. Martwick said Illinois is not properly funding education because it is crushed under massive pension debt.

To address the long-term issues the state faces, there are different approaches lawmakers can take. One solution is to reign in spending on initiatives not core to the function of the state, and bringing more legislative focus to economic growth and development, according to Paula Worthington, senior policy advisor for the Civic Federation. Another possible path forward is to again increase the tax base significantly by making changes to the core state taxes, like the 2018 increase.

State Sen. Don DeWitte said Illinois would face penalties due its error rate for missed or mistaken payments. “Do you have any idea what that payment is going to cost the state of Illinois? I have the answer for you. It’s going to cost the state of Illinois $700 million,” he said. DeWitte said Illinois’ error rate of nearly 12 percent has not changed.

The bill was filed last year after an incident in Taylorville where a 10-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by a 14-year-old male student on the bus, who then chased the girl from the bus stop and raped her. The student was removed from the school for the rest of the semester but later returned. State Sen. Steve McClure said similar incidents have happened in other districts, including an assault on a 4-year-old girl by a 15-year-old boy in western Illinois. The issue, he said, is that state law lacks clear guidelines on what schools should do with sexual assault

“While Northwestern president, Schapiro pandered to the left and showed little support for free speech on campus…. Now the mob has come for Schapiro.”

The youngest juvenile arrested this year in Springfield was an 11-year-old boy charged with aggravated battery with the use of a weapon. Other reported cases in the new report range from weapons-related charges to criminal damage to property costing more than $500.

With long-living smoke detectors on the market and required to be installed in Illinois, public safety officials want cheap, less reliable devices off retailer shelves. A previous law, passed in 2017, changed the requirements for what smoke detectors could be installed in homes and buildings. A smoke detector must be hard-wired to a home and have a tamper-proof battery with a 10-year lifespan.

“The desire to preserve the look and feel of a neighborhood is understandable, but property rights have been trampled in the process, resulting in little construction for the neighborhoods most in need.”

The city is in a tough spot, and it’s a warning sign for other cities that could be on the brink of the same. The state must provide cities the tools they need, not stand in the way.

The least popular option is the one reports suggest Illinois leaders are considering, offering the Bears a deal with more public funding than that proposed by Indiana. Interestingly, these results hold throughout the regions of Illinois with one exception: Chicago residents want the Bears to stay at Soldier Field far more than other residents.