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Top Illinois Stories
At least 27 questions on whether to increase property taxes will be on ballots in Illinois, whether by authorizing a property tax levy increase or approving an entirely new levy. A new 1 percent sales tax will be on the ballot in Adams, Lake and Tazewell counties.
Pritzker is taking out $40 million from his vast personal wealth to boost candidates in contentious races — and building coalitions with Democrats across the country, including in 2028 early primary states. “It’s a terrific strategy,” says former presidential candidate Howard Dean.
The technical term for this is transit-oriented development, or TOD. But the NITA Act goes further by granting power to buy and develop land for reasons unrelated to transit, says Yonah Freemark, an expert on the method at the Urban Institute. “There are some provisions that give NITA substantial power for undertaking transit-oriented development projects itself that virtually no other transit agency across the country has,” he says. “This could be a potentially massive change.” More Highlighted Illinois Stories
The investigation was sparked by an anonymous complaint alleging Office of Employee Services Manager Jerry Mathis conducted personal business on the taxpayer’s dime. During the investigation, it was found that Deputy Director Kimberly Bates, hired in 2020, had approved extra-duty pay for both herself, Mathis, and other DCFS staff, without approval or knowledge of the Department of Central Management Services, between 2020 and the 2025 complaint.
Beyond the symposium, Harper’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion oversees several campus initiatives, including a Cultural Center, a Social Justice Leadership Certificate Program, faculty fellowships, and a Social Justice Studies Distinction.
State Rep. Will Guzzardi said small, independent businesses need state support to grow and expand into communities that lack grocery stores and pharmacies. “We're going to help you make that investment. We're going to lower your tax payments. We're going to provide you this incentive to go grow in a neighborhood that needs your business,” Guzzardi said.
"I believe being spared that Sunday gave me a responsibility to speak out against the hatred that almost killed my family. I refuse to let that hatred dictate how we live or worship."
Ted Dabrowski, of Fight for Illinois, explained, "We need to go on offense… today, sadly, we’re happy when we block a tax hike… but that’s not what we want. We actually want tax cuts. We want tax relief… we haven’t figured out how to go on offense yet."
Annette Johnson — then-president of the District 131 Board and current board member serving on the district’s finance and personnel committee — is accused of accepting a $1.3 million payment from one of the private companies she worked for in exchange for using her position to push the district to make a $2.7 million purchase of wearable air purifiers from a reselling company.
According to the Local News Initiative’s 2026 report, Illinois has lost more newspapers and journalists than any other U.S. state since researchers at Medill started tracking that data in 2005. Now, a team of veteran journalists from the Illinois Press Foundation, Capitol News Illinois and Southern Illinois University’s Charlotte Thompson Suhler School of Journalism and Advertising are launching Southern Illinois Source, a nonprofit newsroom.
The effort draws on a process outlined in Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, the same provision invoked when West Virginia became a state in 1863.
The evidence shows the program attracts money and erects buildings more reliably than it lifts the people already living there, and it’s performed especially unimpressively in Illinois.
"Here we are again, Frankfort residents. Four years later, another government taxing district is asking property owners to reach deeper into their pockets."
To find otherwise, the justices said, would limit governmental transparency, make it harder for taxpayers to know how the public funds are being spent, and potentially allow government officials to spend money on projects or programs that differ from what was promised, outside of the public eye.
Kimberly Bates, then deputy director of the department’s Office of Employee Services, received some of the $52,000 extra pay she awarded to herself while she was on leave, the report said. Bates said that was a period when she was recovering from “brain surgery.” She has also filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against DCFS, she said.
"Since taking office, the Trump administration has attempted to assert federal executive control over our nation’s elections. This has led my office, in partnership with other state attorneys general across the country, to file lawsuits challenging the administration’s unlawful actions and has generated news headlines that range from confusing to alarming."
Thirty-seven-year-old Matthew Unglesbee, of Quincy, has since 2009 been convicted of threatening a public official, impersonating police and sexually assaulting a minor, then violating the sex offender registration laws. Now, he's facing his first federal charge after the FBI said he admitted sending threatening envelopes to four Illinois members of Congress.
A planned race-restricted event at a public park in Geneva is raising questions about anti-discrimination policies. Former Illinois state representative and Breakthrough Ideas CEO Jeanne Ives is urging local officials to examine whether such gatherings comply with the law after an LGBTQ organization postponed a bonfire advertised for Black, Indigenous and other people of color.
Choate will still lose around 250 positions, but IDHS says the state is bringing 410 human services jobs to southern Illinois, including 87 at Choate, and intends to offer all qualifying affected employees new jobs.
ComEd, in cooperation with Illinois and federal regulators, has sought to weed out speculative requests that drive up energy demand prices by requiring deposits for large customers and requiring them to sign long-term contracts known as transmission security agreements, or TSAs, that require customers to provide a line of credit guaranteeing payment of transmission rates for 10 years, even if the project does not materialize. Of the total $1.6 billion in planned transmission costs, ComEd has $1.1 billion protected through transmission security agreements.
The rules do not prohibit individual municipalities from providing their own tax incentives for data center projects. Residents in Chouteau, Granite City, Nameoki and Venice townships are set to vote on advisory measures in November, asking whether data center development should be allowed in their communities.
Illinois also maintains the lead in pumpkin acreage with 14,800 acres in 2025.
Prosecutors said former Riverdale Mayor Lawrence Jackson and his wife were listed as the owners of Centennial Holdings, a trucking company, but businessman James Bracken actually financed and ran its operations. Bracken also was behind Riverdale Materials, a waste and recycling business that received village approval. The case also examined Bracken’s role in connecting Jackson with Flood Brothers, which handled Riverdale’s 2018 spring cleanup.
Eleven counties are set to vote on non-binding referenda this year to secede from Cook County. If all 11 vote to leave they would join 33 counties that have already approved similar measures.
State Senator Sue Rezin has proposed Senate Bill 4203. “My bill currently adds a community benefits agreement, a CBA that allows a negotiated agreement between the data centers and the local municipalities to put a certain amount of money to then be reimbursed directly to the property taxpayer that’s affected in the area,” Rezin said.
An average home cost roughly $230,000 in 2021, but is now around $300,000. The study also found that five-year annual mortgage costs for a typical home increased around $11,444, and buyers would need to earn nearly $40,000 more in annual salary to afford such a home at today’s prices.
In its request is an additional $14 million to replenish foregone revenue from the state-mandated waivers, including teacher special education, veterans’ grants and scholarships, children of employees, ROTC and the Department of Child and Family Services.
The question relates to a state law signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2015 that prohibits pension funds from investing in companies that are in a boycott of Israel. In April, hundreds of voters opposed putting the question on the ballot at a passionate and heavily attended Oak Park Township Annual Town Meeting. But an organization called Oak Parkers for Free Speech gathered over 3,500 signatures in an effort to have the question placed on the ballots in November.
"Most notably, (Gov. JB) Pritzker, early in his tenure, appointed a property-tax commission to study the issue and make recommendations for change. The commission never met. That about says it all when it comes to taking on this vexing issue."
“We ought to use tariffs in a strategic and tactical way to go after bad actors, China, Russia, North Korea, rogue nations like that,” U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood said. “But we shouldn’t be putting tariffs or blanket tariffs on our allies.” LaHood said reducing some tariffs could benefit agricultural producers and manufacturers, both important sectors in Northern Illinois.
Top Chicago Stories
"Roughly 40 percent of Chicago’s local budget has been eaten up by debt and pension obligations in recent years. Ninety-three percent of all property-tax collections are dedicated to either pension or debt. The Reason Foundation has declared Chicago 'the single most stressed major city in America' and 'the epicenter of fiscal stress.' ... As Alderman Scott Waguespack said after Johnson’s budget proposal, 'you can’t run a city government on ideology.'"
Alderpeople Pat Dowell, Scott Waguespack and Nicole Lee want to compel Mayor Brandon Johnson to use the $75 million up-front payment from Stonepeak they negotiated in the parking meter deal without the mayor’s help to be applied to the 2026 city budget as an extra payment that chips away at the city’s $36 billion pension crisis. Without consulting the City Council, Johnson earmarked the $75 million windfall to help defray the cost of the $363 million pension advance for 2027. That’s not what the Council intended, nor was it required by the ordinance, which passed 46-3.
At the first of nine City Council hearings aimed at popping the hood on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $17.6 billion 2027 budget, aldermen today encountered an unusual degree of candor from the mayor’s finance team.
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Response times have suffered most in South and West Side police districts where violent crime has traditionally been highest. Ald. Timmy Knudsen complained, too, that the number of officers assigned to the Near North and Town Hall Districts is down “quite significantly. ... It’s really hard to compete with the demands of downtown in the south part of my ward. And up north, there’s nights where officers will be all around Wrigley Field and we can’t get one patrol car down to the north part of my ward,”
There are more than 1,500 vacant positions in CPD, records show. The number of sworn officers has dropped less than one percentage point in the past year and 2.5 percent since May 2023, when Brandon Johnson took office, according to the records. Approximately 20 percent of CPD’s members do not have police powers.
The performance on the evening of Oct. 6 was hosted by Northwestern Hillel and dramatized verbatim testimony from survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. Producer Phelim McAleer, said someone pulled the fire alarm with about 20 minutes left in the play. “I've spoken to police. They've asked for our footage of the night, etc., so they are taking it seriously,” McAleer said.
"On the issue of pensions, the budget proposal notches its only passing grade. This budget includes the City’s full $363 million advance pension payment, which is a supplemental amount beyond the statutorily required payments to four City of Chicago pension funds."
Carlos Rivas Jr., who represents the Northwest Side District 3b, is trying to fend off challenger Jason Dónes, who is backed by the Chicago Teachers Union. While on the board Rivas has taken a fiscally conservative approach to the school budget. He was one of six school board members who voted against passing a budget that included uncommitted revenue from the state.
The Department of Justice has announced it intends to file suit against any jurisdiction that moves forward with paying reparations for slavery. "Government programs that dole out money based on race are illegal," a White House spokesperson said. "Chicago would be better served if Mayor Johnson focused more on lowering his city’s homicide rate instead of advocating for divisive, unconstitutional government action."
“The way that this individual is spending — we do know the outcome that manifests as a result of his vision for Black and Brown communities. … Now, that would be monstrous and scary. That is something to boogie away from,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.
"We still don’t know what led an FBI agent to fatally shoot a man in Pilsen on Monday, but one thing is certain: the FBI and its own Inspection Division cannot, under any circumstances, conduct a thorough, credible investigation of itself," Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez said.
Sources emphasized that the deadly encounter in Chicago was not connected to an immigration enforcement operation. The FBI agent was off duty when he encountered Corrales, and the shooting was described as an unrelated incident.
“I would highly suggest that we engage with an actuarial firm that can do analysis and probabilistic projections of what this looks like. Our sister agencies, Cook County, has been doing that for 15 years,” Chief Financial Officer Ashlee Gabrysch said. “If we want to start budgeting differently, I think we need to start analyzing the numbers differently.”
In the 2024 school board election, the union funneled $2.8 million to candidates. While there’s still time for CTU to donate to its chosen candidates, its leadership got a wakeup call earlier this year when members resoundingly voted down a dues hike primarily intended to fund CTU’s political agenda.
While the podcast was billed as a tool to strengthen community ties, available metrics suggested it struggled to attract the level of audience participation seen in some smaller suburban police podcast efforts.
Federal officials said Tuesday that Oscar Corrales, 27, originally from Venezuela, had been stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border in October 2023 but was released into the country. He had previously been arrested in California, but was again released after local officials declined to honor an ICE detainer. Chicago and Cook County officials also do not honor ICE detainers, and so Corrales was released from local custody following his May arrest at Nordstrom. Six days later, Corrales failed to appear for his next scheduled court date, and a warrant has remained active ever since.
The work — paid for by state transportation and local TIF funds — is set to begin in late fall 2027, according to the CTA.
The government says migrants paid Parth Nayi between $5,000 and $30,000 for each fake robbery. He hired the robbers, coached the fake victims on how to report the crime to police, and then helped them apply for the visa, which is open to victims of certain crimes who cooperate with law enforcement and can lead to permanent residence.
“I am hopeful we can agree that we should not have Jim Crow decide elections in the South and also that we should not have billionaires decide them in the North,” CTU chief Stacy Davis Gates wrote in a May letter that she circulated among union members.
The city’s Office of Inspector General discovered more than $57 million in the dormant Community Catalyst Fund earlier this year. Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday he would repurpose $20 million into the Building Up Independent Local Developers fund to support entrepreneurs, developers and small businesses with below-market loans and vacant parcels.
"Chicago doesn’t just need to negotiate a few concessions from its municipal unions. It needs a fundamental transformation in the way it spends taxpayers’ money, manages its workforce, and delivers basic municipal services. In short, it needs a productivity renaissance. And unless that happens, the city is going to continue down the road toward fiscal catastrophe, taking its taxpayers and businesses along for the ride."
The motion to dismiss lands a little more than two months since the CTU named the Liberty Justice Center as one of a group of co-defendants, who are accused of allegedly waging a years-long campaign to allegedly slander the CTU and make the controversial and powerful labor union politically "toxic." The LJC notably is representing CTU members in a lawsuit claiming the CTU has violated their members' rights by refusing to release years' worth of financial audits.
The data posted on George Cardenas's website included voting histories and personal addresses for what appears to be every registered voter in Chicago, including Gov. JB Pritzker, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cardenas himself. The data also included the addresses and voting histories of judges whose personal information is protected under a state privacy law.
"In Chicago, one of America’s prized and wealthiest cities, only 23% of its fourth graders scored proficient or higher in reading on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress ... I see the damage from this illiteracy epidemic on the South Side of Chicago every day. I see young people who cannot fill out a simple job application. They come by my church for help. ... I have even had to help people who graduated from high school without being able to read and cannot read a lease or understand a text message from a supervisor."
Officials said the paperwork error - a result of accidentally counting some capital expenditures twice - does not mean D65 has more money to work with; Without the $20 million structural deficit reduction plan (budget cuts, staff layoffs, eliminating School Age Child Care, and closing two schools), District 65 would run out of its fund balance by FY’30.
Movement leaders say while the 2015 ordinance legalizing street vending in Chicago marked a major victory for local vendors, the law still requires food to be pre-cut and pre-packaged in a licensed commercial kitchen . They say the law prevents vendors from preparing or seasoning food to order and subjects them to citations and potential immigration enforcement.
Judge Rivanda Doss Beal ordered Obon Akpan, 34, of Park Forest, detained while the charges are pending.
Officials did not immediately say whether anyone was else injured or provide details on what led up to the shooting. People who live nearby say they heard several gunshots and saw several officers rush to the area.
"Collective bargaining agreements for most unionized Cook County and city of Chicago workers expire next year. Add that to the stakes
"Johnson’s budget has done little to address the spending commitments expanded with the COVID money that has dried up, as he again calls for taxes he can falsely package as an attack on wealthy corporations. After all, the city budget has grown by over 60 percent since the pre-COVID era."
Wirepoints Research and Commentary
Among the consequences of economic growth that badly lags national averages are billions of lost revenue every year. Yet denial reigns in Illinois, fueling the vicious cycle of demand for higher taxes. SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
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To top it off, Stratton is funded mostly by Gov. JB Pritzker, who has long purported to be a rock solid supporter of Israel's right to exist. El-Sayed is anything but. 
What Pritzker doesn't tell you that it cost taxpayers billions, not millions, in higher taxes to get those upgrades, vastly exceeding the savings. 
Wirepoints will be complementing their mission however we can.
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