chicagotribune--2020-12-31--Mayor Lori Lightfoot was told by staff in November 2019 that Anjanette Young raid was ‘pretty bad’

“ While it ’ s clear that I focused my response to this information on the policy change we unquestionably @ @ @ @ @ paused to ask more questions about Ms. Young ’ s well-being and the video itself @ @ @ @ @ I didn ’ t do that then , and I ’ m committed to doing @ @ @ @ @ to righting the wrongs Ms. Young experienced .
Now is the time for meaningful change @ @ @ @ @ t rest until we can be sure that what happened to Ms. Young never happens @ @ @ @ @ .

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was told in November 2019 about “a pretty bad wrongful raid” in which police handcuffed social worker Anjanette Young while she was naked, newly released emails show.
A top aide’s characterization of the botched raid and detailed description of how she was treated by Chicago police officers were among 153 pages of emails disclosed Wednesday as City Hall continues to deal with what has become a major crisis for the first-term mayor.
Advertisement
Lightfoot initially said she had only learned of the February 2019 raid, which occurred before she was mayor, earlier this month after WBBM-Ch. 2 aired police body camera footage that showed Young repeatedly telling officers who barged into her home that they had the wrong place.
Soon after, the mayor acknowledged that members of her staff told her about the raid via emails in November 2019, as Ch. 2 was reporting on search warrants being served at the wrong addresses. She also said she had no recollection of the emails.
Advertisement
“It was literally somebody saying, mayor, here’s another one, (some) words to that effect, I’m paraphrasing, and I said let’s talk about it, let’s get (former chief risk officer Tamika Puckett) involved, and there was a subsequent email from her because I was pushing her on what are we doing, where are we on revising the search warrant protocols, and she gave a detailed update,” Lightfoot previously said, summarizing the exchange.
The emails released Wednesday spell out what Lightfoot was told.
An email from Mayor Lori Lightfoot to former Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Susan Lee. Lee informed her of the botched Chicago police raid on the home of Anjanette Young on Nov. 11, 2019.
In an email sent on Nov. 11, 2019, former Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Susan Lee forwarded a summary of CBS’ reporting on the case to Lightfoot and said, “please see below for a pretty bad wrongful raid coming out tomorrow.”
The summary said Young was handcuffed by police, and officers “allegedly left her standing for 40 minutes handcuffed and naked while all-male police officers search her apartment.” The email noted that Young had been asking for the body camera footage but hadn’t heard back from police.
Half an hour later, Lightfoot responded to the thread by adding Puckett. Chief of staff Maurice Classen and communications director Michael Crowley also received the email.
“I have a lot of questions about this one,” Lightfoot said. “Can we do a quick call about it? Is 10:00, ie 10 minutes from now possible?”
A day later, Puckett emailed Lightfoot, Classen and Lee with an update on the city’s reforms to search warrants, including increased training for cops who have applied for search warrants twice or more within the past 18 months.
“We need to escalate the training for the 2+ search warrant affiants,” Lightfoot responded. “We cannot afford any additional hits.”
Advertisement
In a statement Wednesday, Lightfoot expressed regret about her response.
“While it’s clear that I focused my response to this information on the policy change we unquestionably needed, I should have paused to ask more questions about Ms. Young’s well-being and the video itself. I am sorry that I didn’t do that then, and I’m committed to doing all that I can now to righting the wrongs Ms. Young experienced. Now is the time for meaningful change, and I won’t rest until we can be sure that what happened to Ms. Young never happens again,” Lightfoot said.
Newly released emails also show that city officials planned to release the body-worn camera footage of the incident to Young, but the Chicago Police Department decided not to after officials with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability said it would impede their investigation on the incident.
Public officials often cite an exemption in the state’s open records law that allows them to withhold records if they’re the subject of an ongoing investigation. But officials are often accused of abusing the rule and also applying it inconsistently. Young’s attorney, Keenan Saulter, previously noted that city officials often rush to release video even if there’s an ongoing investigation if it suits their purposes.
“The problem in this instance, in my opinion, is when the city decides that a body camera or dash camera video supports their narrative, they release it, sometimes immediately, and certainly it’s not a prohibition to release it then because something is still under investigation,” Saulter said.
Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
Advertisement
The controversy erupted earlier this month after Lightfoot’s Law Department attempted to block CBS from airing the body camera footage of Chicago police officers mistakenly raiding Young’s home.
Lightfoot’s office later disclosed that it failed to give Young’s attorney all of the body camera footage of the wrongful police raid on her home, a recurring problem for the city’s Law Department.
The Law Department’s top attorney, Mark Flessner, resigned over the scandal, and two of his high-ranking staffers also left.
In response to the controversy, several aldermen requested an investigation by city Inspector General Joe Ferguson. Lightfoot said she is supportive of such an effort but also asked former federal Judge Ann Claire Williams to review the case and its handling.
COPA is looking into the Police Department’s handling of the raid, but Lightfoot has been critical of the agency for being too slow in completing its investigation. A city spokesman previously said 12 Chicago police officers involved in the botched raid of Young’s home have been placed on desk duty.
Video of Young’s ordeal angered residents and activists. But the Lightfoot administration also has faced criticism for how it handled the recording and its release.
Advertisement
City lawyers initially filed a request to have Young sanctioned for allegedly violating a confidentiality order on the video, though the city later said it only wanted her lawyer sanctioned, before filing paperwork seeking to drop the matter altogether.
A federal judge rejected the Lightfoot administration’s unusual request to prevent a television station from airing a news report. The courts long have ruled against efforts to prevent news companies from publishing reports, saying it’s an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.
Lightfoot has criticized the Law Department for taking the action and denied knowing about it beforehand.
The mayor also angrily disputed that the city declined to give Young a copy of the video in her incident before later acknowledging she was wrong.
Lightfoot’s email release so far is limited to the events leading up to, and following, Lee’s email notifying the mayor about the raid.
But the emails also offer a window into how Lightfoot officials managed a situation that would later become a national scandal.
Advertisement
On Nov. 8, 2019, former deputy press secretary Patrick Mullane emailed Puckett, top Lightfoot press aides and the Police Department’s spokesman with a summary of the incident provided by CBS that said Young was handcuffed while naked. He also asked a CBS producer when the Freedom of Information Act request was filed by Young.
Days later, on Nov. 11, the city’s prosecutor, Natalia Delgado, sent Mullane and other press officials a denial of CBS’ FOIA request and said there are people watching the videos without identifying them. “They are currently working on reviewing and redacting the video to be released to the subject,” Delgado said.
Pete Edwards, the commanding officer of the Police Department’s FOIA section, said he would work on getting the video “completed” for release by Nov. 12.
Also included in the emails is a note from Fred Waller, the former chief of operations, to then-Superintendent Eddie Johnson and City Hall officials telling them that no evidence was recovered from the raid. The email noted, “Ms. Anjanette Young” was on scene but doesn’t say anything about how she was treated.
On Nov. 18, Edwards said the video already had already been redacted as he forwarded an email from COPA asking for the videos to be withheld due to their ongoing investigation.
Jason Szczepanski from COPA told Edwards and other FOIA officials that the case is under investigation and the file is exempt from release because it would interfere with their investigation.
Advertisement
Delgado emailed Mullane and other Lightfoot press workers to tell them COPA said release of the videos would “impede” their investigation. No one appears to challenge the rationale.
On Dec. 3, 2019, Lightfoot forwarded a CBS story to herself headlined “Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul Calls Wrong Raids By Chicago Police ‘Disturbing.’”
She then sent it to Puckett, Flessner, Lee and Classen to ask for an update on a new protocol for the execution of search warrants. Puckett responded with a series of possible reforms.
On Jan. 13, Mullane reached out to Puckett and other officials to talk about press strategies for rolling out the department’s new search warrant policies. Days later, Mullane emailed Puckett and said they’re thinking about giving the news to CBS, “preferably later in the week when (Lightfoot) is in D.C.”
Then, in February, police spokeswoman Margaret Huynh emailed Chicago police leaders to note CBS would soon air a story with the interview.
“So much for them forgetting about it,” wrote back Michele Morris, the department’s director of risk management.
Advertisement
gpratt@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @royalpratt


chicagotribune--2020-12-31--The Spin: Pandemic, politicians make Jan. 1 reset difficult |  An ‘inflection point’ for police refo

The Spin: Pandemic, politicians make Jan. 1 reset difficult |  An ‘inflection point’ for police reform? | Illinois’ minimum wage goes up $1 next month

Next year : State and local government leaders will make their case to a new administration after failing to win @ @ @ @ @ around .
President Trump and other Republicans balked at the aid , saying Democratic-led states @ @ @ @ @ a bailout after years of fiscal mismanagement .
Mayor Lightfoot says the pandemic erased $ @ @ @ @ @ year , and the bulk of the $ 1.2 billion deficit she had to close @ @ @ @ @ budget is tied to projected shortfalls as the pandemic wears on .
For his part @ @ @ @ @ announced a $ 700 million round of spending cuts to begin dealing with a $ @ @ @ @ @ 2 billion of it tied to lost tax receipts during the pandemic .

Thousands of people protesting against Chicago police in Chicago Public Schools and against acts of violence by police against citizens march from Lincoln Park to the Chicago police training academy on June 4, 2020. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
That take-a-breath, start-a-diet, pause-the-boozing, figure-out-a-way-to-make-some-money New Year’s reset we’re all looking for feels lost to a pandemic and the exhausting partisan bickering in Congress over aid to Americans feeling the financial toll of a virus that has shattered the economy.
Elected leaders — both Democrats and Republicans — have pointed to the tragedies and controversies of 2020 as an “inflection point” that will echo next year and beyond. So for The Spin’s final edition of 2020, here’s a look at some of the big events in politics that likely will spill into 2021.
Advertisement
Most obvious is the intersection of COVID-19 and the fallout from the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, which underscored not only the country’s unrelenting racial and socioeconomic divide, but also a demand for change that has caught the attention of politicians.
The November election may have handed a victory to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office Jan. 20, but President Donald Trump has not relented on his claims that the election was stolen from him. We’ll have barely rung in the new year when the Jan. 5 special election in Georgia will be upon us, determining not only which party has control of the U.S. Senate but also how far Biden might be able to advance his agenda.
Advertisement
What’s certain: State and local elected leaders such as Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot will now have someone in the White House with whom they can communicate — not just trade barbs. Biden already is saying state and local governments should get more COVID-19 relief money.
The ComEd bribes-for-favors scandal that surfaced this year brought new focus to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s iron grip on power in state government. He hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing. In a few weeks, Madigan’s colleagues in the chamber will decide whether it’s time for new blood or let him continue in a post he’s had for most of the past four decides — one that gives him continued power over what legislation lives or dies.
Happy New Year.
Chicago Department of Public Health nurse Anna Esquivel, left, gives the COVID-19 vaccination to Chicago health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady at Malcolm X College in Chicago on Dec. 29, 2020. (Youngrae Kim / Chicago Tribune)
At the start of the month, the nation collectively celebrated news that a vaccine was ready. But in mid-December, Gov. Pritzker offered the first bit of news here that the federal government could be sending fewer vaccines than expected. As it turns out, the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed will fall short of its stated goal to inoculate 20 million people by year’s end, to the frustration of states and health officials trying to schedule the shots, The Associated Press reports.
Wait and see: President-elect Biden, who takes office Jan. 20, has pledged “100 million shots in the first 100 days.”
Chicagoan Rochelle Sykes told CNN she worries her West Side neighborhood — a grocery and pharmacy desert in a time when chain drugstores will take a central role in doling out inoculations — will be left out when the COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available next year.
Sykes’ big-picture take should leave elected leaders, business owners who’ve enjoyed government tax breaks and everyone else a little sheepish about the will — or lack thereof — to address long-standing inequities plaguing poor communities: “If you can come up with a vaccine in a year, why are we sitting in a community where there is no grocery store with fresh fruits and vegetables?” Read the story or watch the video here.
Today: Illinois is reinstating federal jobless aid programs as part of a $900 billion pandemic relief package, the Tribune’s Abdel Jimenez reports.
Advertisement
Today: Push for $2,000 checks appears dead in Senate after Mitch McConnell adds poison pills: Read The AP story here.
Next year: State and local government leaders will make their case to a new administration after failing to win federal government relief this time around. President Trump and other Republicans balked at the aid, saying Democratic-led states and cities were looking for a bailout after years of fiscal mismanagement. Mayor Lightfoot says the pandemic erased $800 million in revenue this year, and the bulk of the $1.2 billion deficit she had to close in next year’s budget is tied to projected shortfalls as the pandemic wears on. For his part, Gov. Pritzker recently announced a $700 million round of spending cuts to begin dealing with a $3.9 billion deficit — $2 billion of it tied to lost tax receipts during the pandemic.
Data points: More than 126,000 vaccinations had been administered in the state, Illinois public health officials announced today, while 7,374 new COVID-19 cases had been diagnosed in the last 24 hours with 178 additional deaths.
Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
Chicagoans vote for mayor and members of City Council on Feb. 24, 2020. (Anthony Souffle, Chicago Tribune)
This year’s election cycle delivered electoral victories to Biden on the national stage and locally to Marie Newman, who bested U.S. Rep. and fellow Democrat Dan Lipinski in the March primary.
Newman takes the reins as the congressman for the 3rd District, which stretches from Chicago’s Southwest Side to the suburbs, on Sunday when the new Congress is sworn in. But Trump continues to suggest he’ll fight Biden’s win, calling on his supporters to “never give up” and protest in Washington, D.C., Jan. 5, the same day a joint session of Congress holds a ceremonial count of Electoral College votes to cement the election results.
Advertisement
It also saw Republican billionaire Ken Griffin prevail over billionaire Gov. Pritzker in the push to overhaul Illinois’ tax code. The governor was pushing a constitutional amendment to get rid of the state’s flat income tax and replace it with a graduated income tax that he said was aimed at making wealthier residents pay more.
Pritzker and Griffin dumped millions into their respective pro and con campaigns. While ads in favor of the measure said it was a more equitable way of taxing residents, Republicans billed it as another money grab by fiscally irresponsible Democrats.
Now Pritzker is leaning on Republican legislators who fought the measure to come up with a way to mop up the river of red ink that began spilling long before he took office and was exacerbated by the pandemic. The spring budget session should be a brawl.
With Pritzker halfway through his first term and Mayor Lightfoot hitting that mark in May, we may see their first challengers for a second term come out of the woodwork.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police Superintendent David Brown listen in as U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush speaks during a news conference at City Hall on June 11, 2020, on how Chicago police officers made popcorn and coffee in Rush's office while nearby businesses were being looted. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
The death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in May — captured on video and beamed across the world — felt like a turning point in a country where a disproportionate number of African American people have been killed by law enforcement. In Chicago and elsewhere, largely peaceful protests followed Floyd’s death, but so did unrest and looting in business districts as calls for defunding the police and reforms grew louder.
Issues of racial justice flared anew in recent weeks here in Chicago after video was made public of white officers mistakenly raiding the home of a Black social worker — shown naked, handcuffed and distraught as she told them 40-plus times they had the wrong home. While the raid happened before Lightfoot took office and she hired Superintendent David Brown, her administration’s Law Department tried to stop CBS-Ch. 2 from airing the raid footage and attempted to sanction the social worker, Anjanette Young, over the video’s release. The administration filed paperwork urging a judge not to impose sanctions on Young or her attorney.
Advertisement
Just released emails from the mayor’s office show Lightfoot was told by staff in November 2019 that the Young raid was “pretty bad,” the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt report is reporting. He notes, “The mistaken raid on Young’s home in February 2019 has become a major crisis for Lightfoot, who initially said she had only learned of it earlier this month after CBS aired police body camera footage that showed Young, who was naked and handcuffed, repeatedly telling officers who barged into her home that they had the wrong place.”
Lightfoot’s already facing scrutiny on police reform. As the Tribune’s Dan Hinkel reported over the summer, City Hall missed more than 70% of its deadlines during the first year of the court-overseen process of overhauling the Chicago Police Department. A watchdog report detailed the city’s sluggish progress in enacting the consent decree, a wide-ranging court order aimed at forcing reforms to training, discipline and supervision in the troubled department.
It was born of the November 2015 release of video showing white police Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting Black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.
U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, a Chicago Democrat, sent a letter in recent days to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler requesting hearings to examine “civil rights abuses perpetrated by police departments across the country and the Chicago Police Department, in particular.”
“While we are fortunate that Ms. Young was not killed in this case, her treatment is, nonetheless, demoralizing and the trauma she, and people across the country, feels is equally raw,” Rush wrote, pointing to the 1969 police killing of Fred Hampton during a raid at his home. Rush and Hampton were fellow members of the Illinois Black Panther Party.
Workers tend to plants in growing room at Cresco Labs in Joliet on Dec. 17, 2019. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
The Sun-Times Tom Schuba writes: “Nearly a year after the legalization of recreational marijuana in Illinois, the state has failed to meet its promised diversity goals for the businesses licensed to be part of what’s expected to be a billion-dollar industry.”
Advertisement
To wit: “Not one social equity license has been issued and there’s still not one licensed cannabis busi
ness in the state with a majority owner who is a person of color,” Ross Morreale, a cannabis entrepreneur, attorney and consultant, writes in a just-published Tribune Op-Ed.
Pandemic, legal issues cause delays: The Pritzker administration has indefinitely delayed the issuance of licenses for 75 new recreational marijuana retail stores, due to be awarded May 1. The pandemic played a role in that. Then in September, the governor’s office announced just 21 applicants received perfect scores to qualify for a tie-breaking lottery to award the licenses, my colleague Robert McCoppin wrote.
But some included politically connected or wealthy white owners, though the law was meant to encourage social equity applicants from areas hardest hit by the war on drugs. Lawsuits followed.
The money: The combined recreational and medical cannabis sales in Illinois are likely to exceed $1 billion in the debut year— with $100 million-plus in tax revenues, the Tribune’s McCoppin wrote in a piece earlier this week.
The state is approaching $1 billion in sales, with $100 million-plus in tax revenues pouring in: As the Tribune’s Robert Channick writes, “The year 2020 dawned with thousands of people lined up, some overnight, waiting to be among the first to buy legal recreational marijuana in Illinois.
Advertisement
“As the long, strange year comes to an end, people are lined up at food banks, to get coronavirus nasal swabs and, in some cases, to be among the first to receive a vaccine that may mark the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Read the rest of the story here.
Illinois Supreme Court to decide fate of last contested medical marijuana growing license in state, Robert McCoppin and Sarah Freishtat report in the Tribune.
The Illinois State Capitol building in Springfield, Ill., is seen on Thursday, April 11, 2019. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
From the Tribune’s Jamie Munks: “The Illinois House will reconvene in Springfield starting Jan. 8, for the first time since May and as Speaker Michael Madigan’s continued leadership over the chamber hangs in question.”
Context: “The return to Springfield ahead of the Jan. 13 inauguration of the next Illinois General Assembly comes as a group of 19 House Democrats have come out and said they won’t support” Madigan’s bid for another term as speaker. The defections leave him short of the 60 votes he’d need to retain the post. Read the rest of the story, which notes the Senate also may be eyeing a return, here.
New year, new laws including insulin price caps, minimum wage hike: The Tribune’s Munks and Dan Petrella write, “One of the side effects of the coronavirus pandemic was a drastically shortened spring session of the General Assembly, which means far fewer laws taking effect on New Year’s Day than in a typical year. But some new laws including caps on insulin prices and a $1 hike in the minimum wage kick in Friday. More here.
Chicago’s new speed limit law kicks in: My Tribune colleague John Byrne notes, “With 2021 upon us, Mayor Lori Lightfoot will soon end Chicago motorists’ carefree days of driving up to 9 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.” You’ll start getting warnings on Jan. 1, but city officials aren’t saying when tickets will start being written.
Advertisement
Programming note: The Spin will take a brief New Year’s hiatus and return on Monday. See you then.
Thanks for reading The Spin, the Tribune’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons. Have a tip? Email host Lisa Donovan at ldonovan@chicagotribune.com.
Twitter @byldonovan


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Illinois House set to reconvene in January for the first time in months; state senators asked to res

Illinois House set to reconvene in January for the first time in months; state senators asked to reserve time

The return to Springfield ahead of the Jan. 13 inauguration of the next Illinois General Assembly comes as a group @ @ @ @ @ come out and said they won ’ t support Madigan , who has been speaker @ @ @ @ @ of two years in the 1990s , for another term as speaker .

The Illinois House will reconvene in Springfield starting Jan. 8, for the first time since May and as Speaker Michael Madigan’s continued leadership over the chamber hangs in question.
Madigan’s chief of staff sent a memo to House members Wednesday afternoon telling them to plan for a session similar to the May pandemic-driven special session that looked drastically different from normal.
Advertisement
The return to Springfield ahead of the Jan. 13 inauguration of the next Illinois General Assembly comes as a group of 19 House Democrats have come out and said they won’t support Madigan, who has been speaker since 1983 with the exception of two years in the 1990s, for another term as speaker.
Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
Advertisement
Madigan needs 60 votes to continue his tenure, and the 19 defections leaves him short, after he was implicated in a federal investigation in which utility Commonwealth Edison agreed to pay a $200 million fine and cooperate with prosecutors for its involvement in a yearslong bribery scheme to gain favor with Madigan by offering jobs and contracts to his allies.
Madigan has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged. His close ally, former lobbyist Michael McClain, pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the investigation.
The only lawmaker to publicly announce a bid to challenge Madigan as speaker is Democratic Rep. Stephanie Kifowit of Oswego, but she has not received any significant public support.
Illinois state senators have been asked to hold the dates from Jan. 8 to Jan. 13 open for a possible return to the Capitol.
The lame-duck session comes amid a worsening economic picture for the state amid the pandemic. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has forecast a $3.9 billion deficit for the budget year that ends June 30 with about half the shortfall due to tax receipts affected by COVID-19 business restrictions.
Pritzker has proposed $711 million in cuts, mainly in freezes on purchasing, hiring and grants. He wants lawmakers to enact additional cuts but has stopped short of asking for an income tax increase — something that lame-duck legislators have enacted in the past.
During the May special session, House members were spread across the convention center floor of the Bank of Springfield Center, seated at individual desks and wearing masks for that four-day session. The Senate, meanwhile, met at the Capitol with limited numbers of people in the Senate chamber at any given time.
jmunks@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Legendary pitmaster Mike Mills was an ambassador for barbecue, southern Illinois and the aroma of li

Legendary pitmaster Mike Mills was an ambassador for barbecue, southern Illinois and the aroma of life

“ Mike is one of the most genuine , warm , caring people you would ever meet .
Despite his @ @ @ @ @ no idea of any of that when you met him .
He never let any @ @ @ @ @ his head .
He was still the same great , humble guy from southern Illinois @ @ @ @ @

Restaurateur Danny Meyer, right, tastes baby back ribs from the cooker of Mike Mills, center, of the 17th St. Bar and Grill in downstate Murphysboro, at the second annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, in New York City in 2004. Mills, who smokes his baby backs over apple wood from the orchards near his home, once made an emergency delivery to Air Force One when Bill Clinton needed a quick rib fix during a visit to Illinois. (RICHARD DREW / AP)
Mike Mills was an award-winning hall of fame pitmaster, a restaurateur who became a worldwide ambassador for barbecue, the southern Illinois region and the role that cooking meat slowly over a smoky fire plays in restoring the soul.
Mills, 79, who founded 17th Street Barbecue, turning a century-old building in downtown Murphysboro into an internationally known restaurant with a clientele that included top chefs and former President Bill Clinton, died Tuesday, his daughter and restaurant co-owner Amy Mills said.
Advertisement
Mills had reportedly been in ill health in recent months. No cause of death was given by the family, but Amy Mills said it was not COVID-19 related.
In one of two books he cowrote with his daughter, “Praise the Lard,” named after an annual cook-off he founded in Murphysboro, Mills wrote about what barbecue meant to life.
Advertisement
Mike Mills, owner of the 17th Street Bar & Grill in Murphysboro. (Gerry Dawes)
“Barbecue is America’s original comfort food. It feeds the soul. Magic happens around the fire. Time stands still. People talk and share stories, ideas, hopes, dreams,” he wrote. “Tending a pit is intentional and methodical, slow and steady, stoked by conversation or contemplation. You can taste that in the meat.”
Mills opened his restaurant in 1985, looking to create a comforting place for people to hang out, have a few cold beers and enjoy the kind of barbecue his father, Leon, would make, recalling that he could smell it from his crib as an infant.
Within the next few years, Mills cofounded a competition barbecue team named Apple City Barbecue, a nod to the city’s annual apple festival and the town’s CB radio handle.
The team went on to become one of the most successful in the history of the national barbecue circuit. Mills became a four-time World Champion and three-time Grand World Champion at Memphis, otherwise known as the Super Bowl of Swine. He is also the 1992 Grand Champion of the Jack Daniel’s World Invitational Barbecue cooking contest and he won the Jack Daniel’s sauce contest that year as well.
During a 1995 visit to the region, Clinton had been scheduled to eat at the restaurant but his trip was cut short, requiring Mills and his staff to gain security clearance to board Air Force One at Southern Illinois Airport to prepare food from the restaurant. In the back of the Murphysboro restaurant, a black and white photo hangs of Clinton and Mills aboard the presidential aircraft.
In 2007, Bon Appétit magazine named Mills’ ribs the best in America and the same year Restaurants & Institutions magazine called him America’s most-revered barbecue restaurateur. His food was named Best BBQ in America by Travel and Leisure magazine in 2009 and four times his grillwork was featured in Vogue. In 2010 he was inducted into the Barbecue Hall of Fame.
In 2011, Michael Symon, a James Beard-award winning chef who received the Iron Chef designation on television’s Food Network, featured Mills’ ribs on the network’s “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.”
Symon referred to Mills nickname in barbecue circles, “the legend,” on Twitter to mourn the death.
Advertisement
“Lost a friend, mentor and one of the greatest humans I have ever met ... it is a sad, sad day,” Symon tweeted. Mills, he said, was a “very special person who inspired, taught & shared the love with so many.”
Mills also became a regular feature at the Illinois State Fair. Joe Khayyat, who helped lure a skeptical Mills and his barbecue to the fair to help promote its Conservation World section two decades ago, became close friends.
“Mike is one of the most genuine, warm, caring people you would ever meet. Despite his success … you would have no idea of any of that when you met him. He never let any of that success go to his head. He was still the same great, humble guy from southern Illinois,” Khayyat said.
“He grew up poor but always said his mom made sure they had something good to eat and clean clothes. He never lived large, didn’t care about the trappings beyond that. He measured his success or richness in his family and friends across the country and knew that good barbecue would always bring everyone together,” he said.
Mills was an inveterate storyteller, spinning tales like the aroma that wafted over his smokers and offering advice, even to competitors, that went far beyond cooking to include guidance on life. One of his favorite quotes was, “Life’s too short for a half rack.”
He expanded from his original restaurant in Murphysboro to open one in Marion. He also was a founding partner in two Memphis Championship Barbecue restaurants in Las Vegas and was the barbecue guru at, and a partner in, Blue Smoke restaurant in New York City.
Advertisement
At the same time, 17th Street Barbecue began mail-order of its food, sauces and books as well as a key ingredient, Magic Dust, a rub concocted of 18 spices. Recently, its three sauces have become available in Whole Foods stores in the Chicago area.
His first book, co-authored with his daughter, was nominated for a 2006 James Beard Foundation award and received the 2006 National Barbecue Association Award of Excellence.
“I’ve come to realize that barbecue offers people salvation and a way of assembling their own congregations. I’ve seen barbecue revitalize towns and rehabilitate men,” Mills wrote in their second book.
“I’ve had thousands of visits from and conversations with people from all over the world who are drawn to the fire and smoke at 17th Street and who, having partaken of communion from our bar, are now part of our extended barbecue family,” he wrote.
Survivors include his daughter. Services were pending.
rap30@aol.com
Advertisement
Twitter @rap30


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Illinois’ largest rodents are in city lagoons, rivers and streams. Now, they’re on Instagram.

Illinois ’ largest rodents are in city lagoons , rivers and streams .
They ’ re on Instagram and TikTok @ @ @ @ @ and at other times a welcomed presence , beavers have found respite all over the @ @ @ @ @ when they were wiped out by hunters by the early 1900s — and a sign @ @ @ @ @ possibilities have long been on the upswing .
Now they ’ re making their last @ @ @ @ @ in to shore up their lodges and stock up on food .

Among the more humble recipients of our longer walks and affinity for nature during the pandemic: beavers.
On recent mornings, shortly before and after sunrise, small groups of people have traveled to a bridge on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston. Some leave willow branches. For the beavers.
Advertisement
“They’ve got this whole following,” said Tamar Selch, who stops by regularly with her husband, Zach. “They’re very cute. And how often do you really get to see beavers out there?”
A beaver swims through a lagoon on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston on Dec. 24, 2020. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
Illinois’ largest rodents are in city lagoons, rivers and streams. They’re on Instagram and TikTok. Sometimes a nuisance, and at other times a welcomed presence, beavers have found respite all over the state, a switch from when they were wiped out by hunters by the early 1900s — and a sign that water quality and habitat possibilities have long been on the upswing. Now they’re making their last push as the cold sets in to shore up their lodges and stock up on food.
Advertisement
And offering another reminder of what we notice when we spend more time outdoors.
“When I was a kid, the idea that I would see a wild beaver on my walks in the morning was unheard of,” Zach Selch said. “So it’s sort of cool to have them right here in the middle of Evanston.”
The Selch family posts about the Northwestern beavers on social media, sometimes LinkedIn. They’ve enjoyed identifying who’s who in the family. And there is a certain cuteness to appreciate.
“They pretty much stand on their hind legs and pick up the food in their hands and then they chew it, and it’s like you would expect,” Zach Selch said. “Click click click click click click click click. So it’s pretty fascinating to watch them.”
Scientists describe the four-legged engineers as smart, tenacious, usually busy. They leave behind a scent that smells something like vanilla, and their teeth are sharp enough to cut through a willow tree in a minute. They never stop growing and can top 70 pounds — enough to take out a small car.
“There’s so much wildlife that people are just not aware of because we’re not looking for it,” said Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River. “And so many people during this pandemic have been out in nature in a way that just wasn’t happening.”
One of the first spots Frisbie clocked evidence of beavers was at Bubbly Creek, a branch of the Chicago River that runs through Bridgeport and was the Union Stock Yards’ dumping grounds. Once described as a sewer, the South Fork of the South Branch is the recent recipient of federal funds nearing $12 million to cover a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers restoration study and assessment project.
“It’s just going to be transformative,” Frisbie said. “People’s perception of it is it’s just this foul place. But if you went there right now you would find wildlife.”
Advertisement
By the turn of the 20th century, beavers were nearly wiped out in Illinois, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources. It’s likely they were extinct throughout almost all of the state at one point.
Starting in 1929, beavers were reintroduced to various counties, and in later decades some beavers in booming populations were trapped and released to help bolster others. In the lower Great Lakes basin, beavers really returned in the 1970s, said Chris Anchor, a wildlife biologist with the Cook County Forest Preserve District. The passage of the Clean Water Act helped make habitat more welcoming.
“The water quality in general has improved dramatically in the last 40 years,” Anchor said. “So because these species are generalists, it has improved their ability to live amongst us, and they took advantage of it.”
This year, we’re noticing.
Two members of a family of five beavers in a lagoon on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston on Dec. 24, 2020. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
“The number of people using the forest preserves has absolutely exploded,” Anchor said. “So there’s just a lot more eyes out there seeing things they normally don’t see.”
An “extreme uptick” in reported beaver activity hit the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County in the last two years, said Dan Grigas, a district ecologist. District officials expect it’s either from an increase in overall population density, or more attention paid to the rodents, or a combination of both.
Advertisement
“There’s hardly ever downtime in a beaver’s life,” Grigas said. “They’re always doing something.”
As temperatures drop or severe storms arrive, the semiaquatic, sociable experts at hunkering down and making it through a tough winter will head inside their dens, or lodges. One option involves burrowing into a bank, so the beavers can swim down and then come up into one big room above the water line. “Like a studio apartment, basically,” Grigas said. The other is the recognizable mound of sticks and mud.
The season is usually “easy living for a beaver,” Anchor said. They’ll rely on their food cache — a “magnificent” one can currently be seen at Powderhorn Lake on the city’s Southeast Side.
The Cook County Forest Preserves sometimes helps to move beavers around, or steps in if dams lead to health or safety issues. Gnawed trees spotted near the Montrose Beach dunes earlier this year caused some concerns. Stewards said they had a U.S. Department of Agriculture biologist check out the site, but the peripatetic rodent seemed to be on its way.
When beavers find a partner, they tend to stick together for as long as the natural world allows — although research suggests they may be “opportunistically promiscuous.” They create family units, called colonies, and breeding starts in the new year. Baby beavers — kits — start to appear after a few months. After sticking around for a few years, the kids have to strike out on their own; males are usually kicked out first, Grigas said.
Area beavers don’t have many predators. But otters have cleaned out some young beavers.
Advertisement
“Otters are actually the Vikings, the Goths, the Lombards, the Vandals of the aquatic world,” Anchor said. “They come through and they let their presence be known.”
If beavers can skirt predators, and avoid wreaking havoc on private property, they can help ecosystems. They were once literally parachuted into Idaho to help with flooding; the test beaver was reportedly named Geronimo. In more recent years, they’ve been considered as a natural solution to drought problems in the West.
A lagoon on the Northwestern campus in Evanston is the home to a family of five beavers. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
In the Midwest, with warmer winters and increased precipitation fueled by climate change, beavers can help keep some water systems balanced, with dams cushioning water fluctuations in urban areas. On the flip side, it’s important that beavers don’t dam one of the few creeks with active springs and high water quality, which support rare species like some mussels.
Or take down too many trees.
On a late December morning in Evanston, as the sun rose above an unsettled Lake Michigan, a beaver that was perched under a bridge gnawed a twig, swam toward a thin layer of ice cracked by its tail and disappeared under the water. Multiple people stopped by to ask if the family was out. Felicia Brown stopped to watch.
“It became a source of inspiration,” Brown said. “I was going out there once or twice a week, then I was going out there four times a week. And everybody was comparing notes.”
Advertisement
She pointed out the protective wiring up around some nearby trees, and a few remaining stumps.
“When the willow trees started to be decimated, I was so excited,” Brown joked. She saw beavers years ago and recognized the signs. This family became a highlight of the year’s walks, she said. If you saw people by the bridge, you knew the beavers were out.
“It was definite motivation to get out there and to see what was going on.”
mgreene@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @MorGreene


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Plan to reopen CPS schools ‘doesn’t have anything to do with vaccination,’ Chicago health commission

Plan to reopen CPS schools ‘doesn’t have anything to do with vaccination,’ Chicago health commissioner says, though teachers slated for shots in coming months

Arwady cited data from the Archdiocese of Chicago , which operates about 200 schools in Cook and Lake counties that @ @ @ @ @ in-person classes since last fall .
That data showed students in school had half the @ @ @ @ @ of school , and teachers had been infected at rates similar to “ adults in @ @ @ @ @ said .

Chicago Public Schools teachers and staff won’t be vaccinated against the coronavirus before buildings are due to reopen for in-person classes, but eventually school nurses will help administer the inoculations.
Teachers, along with other groups considered front-line essential workers, are slated to be in the second phase of vaccination, after the first-priority rollout for health care employees and long-term care facility residents and workers that began this month.
Advertisement
Chicago’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, said Wednesday that teacher vaccinations could potentially begin in March or late February at the earliest. That’s after the scheduled resumption of in-person classes in CPS, which is Jan. 11 for prekindergarten and some special education students and Feb. 1 for most kindergarten through eighth graders, unless they opt for continued remote learning. The first group of teachers is expected to report to schools Monday.
But Arwady, when asked during an online question-and-answer session why CPS planned to bring staff and students back before staff members are vaccinated, said the decision “doesn’t have anything to do with vaccination.”
Advertisement
Chicago Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady gives an update about COVID-19 vaccines before receiving her first dose Dec. 29, 2020, at Malcolm X College in Chicago. (Youngrae Kim / Chicago Tribune)
She continued: “It has to do with the fact that we have seen, not just here in Chicago but around the country and around the world, that ... we don’t see schools driving community spread. We don’t see them as significant sources of infection.”
Arwady cited data from the Archdiocese of Chicago, which operates about 200 schools in Cook and Lake counties that have been mostly open for in-person classes since last fall. That data showed students in school had half the infection rate of those out of school, and teachers had been infected at rates similar to “adults in the community,” Arwady said.
In response, Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates questioned in a tweet why CPS isn’t waiting to resume in-person classes until after spring break if vaccines might be available by March.
CTU has fought CPS reopening plans because of skepticism in the district’s ability to keep staff and students safe.
Thad Goodchild, CTU’s deputy general counsel, told the Tribune on Wednesday that, with vaccinations for educators being “so close on the horizon” and with officials forecasting a post-holiday spike in infections, “why in the world take the risk of more people getting exposed, getting sick and dying from COVID to avoid another six weeks of remote learning? It doesn’t make any sense.”
He questioned the comparison with Catholic schools, noting the archdiocese school system is a fraction of the size of CPS and its demographics are very different.
The union has also taken issue with the city’s shifting metrics for determining when it’s safe to open schools, and CTU spokeswoman Chris Geovanis said city officials are “just willfully ignoring newer research, which increasingly shows that schools are a greater source of risk when communities are contending with higher background rates of infection/transmission.”
Goodchild reiterated that “all options are on the table” for union members to address their safety concerns.
Advertisement
“The law provides employees the right to decline unsafe work assignments,” he said. “We expect a lot of members will invoke that right.”
In her comments, Arwady noted that the vaccines require two shots several weeks apart so that, if educator vaccinations begin in March, it will be close to the end of the school year before such a distribution would be complete, and CPS will have many other safeguards in place already.
“There is no world in which I would be supportive of CPS coming back if I did not think that CPS had done all the things that were necessary and more to have a safe environment for staff and for children, and I’m really confident in the plans,” she said.
When the vaccine does become available to teachers, Arwady said, schools that have nurses will be trained to administer the shots to the staff and other schools will be provided a “vaccinating partner.”
A nurse in every school was one provision won by the union in its two-week strike in 2019, though it was expected to take a few years to reach that level.


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Coronavirus in Illinois updates: 7,374 new COVID-19 cases and 178 additional deaths announced as sta

Coronavirus in Illinois updates: 7,374 new COVID-19 cases and 178 additional deaths announced as state reports more than 126,000 vaccinations administered

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be relied on in many countries because of its low cost , availability and @ @ @ @ @ can be kept in refrigerators rather than the ultra-cold storage some other vaccines require .
@ @ @ @ @ will sell it for $ 2.50 a dose and plans to make up to 3 @ @ @ @ @ of 2021 .

We have lifted the paywall on this story. To support essential reporting, please consider becoming a subscriber .
Laquitta Boyd, holds her 6-year-old daughter Venisha while receiving her first COVID-19 vaccination at a back-to-school health fair hosted by RUSH University Medical Center at the Salvation Army Freedom Center on July 30, 2022, in Chicago. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
By the end of the day Monday, 126,211 COVID-19 vaccinations had been given throughout Illinois, as the state began the third week of its mass immunization effort, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.
As of Tuesday, 269,625 doses of vaccine had been delivered to Illinois, not including the share that went directly to the city of Chicago.
Advertisement
The state’s next allotment of vaccine is expected to be delivered “on a rolling basis” this week and Monday, according to the governor’s office.
However, the U.S. goal of getting initial COVID-19 vaccine doses to 20 million Americans by year’s end is looking like a long shot.
Advertisement
The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initially promised to unleash a vast stockpile of 300 million vaccine doses by January but later slashed its target and said it hoped to get about 40 million doses to recipients by the end of the year.
The CDC reported Tuesday that only 11.45 million doses had been distributed since Dec. 13, with only about 2.1 million doses actually administered.
On Wednesday, state health officials announced 7,374 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 178 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 955,380 and the statewide death toll to 16,357 since the start of the pandemic.
Here’s what’s happening Wednesday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:
4:25 p.m.: Plan to reopen CPS schools ‘doesn’t have anything to do with vaccination,’ Chicago health commissioner says, though teachers slated for shots in coming months
Chicago Public Schools teachers and staff won’t be vaccinated against the coronavirus before buildings are due to reopen for in-person classes, but eventually school nurses will help administer the inoculations.
Teachers, along with other groups considered front-line essential workers, are slated to be in the second phase of vaccination, after the first-priority rollout for health care employees and long-term care facility residents and workers that began this month.
Chicago’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, said Wednesday that teacher vaccinations could potentially begin in March or late February at the earliest. That’s after the scheduled resumption of in-person classes in CPS, which is Jan. 11 for pre-kindergarten and some special educations and Feb. 1 for most kindergarten through eighth graders, unless they opt for continued remote learning. The first group of teachers are expected to report to schools on Monday.
But Arwady, when asked during the online Q and A why CPS planned to bring staff and students back before staff members are vaccinated, said the decision “doesn’t have anything to do with vaccination.” Read more here. — Alice Yin and Elyssa Cherney
Advertisement
1:43 p.m.: Timeline: How COVID-19 upended the Chicago-area restaurant industry — and how it fought back.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, it ushered in a year of uncertainty, fear and struggle that spanned industries, income brackets and communities.
Restaurants across the state were forced to pivot repeatedly, with hundreds laying off employees and eventually closing because of the mounting expenses and a lack of governmental aid that never really came. Some found new ways of operating or introduced new concepts they hoped would align better with the shift to takeout and delivery that became a lifeline for beloved culinary institutions in the Chicago area.
As 2020 draws to a close, we look back at the past nine months and how the pandemic affected restaurants, bars and breweries. While it’s still unclear what 2021 will bring, the lessons of 2020 will remain important for some time to come.
Read more here. —Grace Wong
1:28 p.m.: Aetna drops Walgreens from its Medicaid plan, making it harder for low-income Chicagoans to get their prescriptions during the pandemic
Critics say the decision is hitting poor and majority-Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides hard at a time when residents are already disproportionately suffering from COVID-19 and unemployment.
“It’s really pathetic,” state Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, said of Aetna’s decision. “It’s an attack not just on Black people, but on those that are struggling during the pandemic.”
Advertisement
In a written statement, Aetna responded that it has nearly 2,000 in-network pharmacies statewide for Medicaid members, including independent pharmacies and those in national and regional chains such as Walmart and Jewel-Osco.
Read more here. —Nara Schoenberg
12:10 p.m.: 7,374 new confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases and 178 additional deaths reported
Illinois health officials on Wednesday announced 7,374 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 178 additional fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 955,380 and the statewide death toll to 16,357 since the start of the pandemic.
Officials also reported 74,573 new tests in the last 24 hours. The seven-day statewide rolling positivity rate for cases as a share of total tests was 7.6% for the period ending Tuesday.
—Chicago Tribune staff
11:45 a.m.: Illinois reports 126,211 COVID-19 vaccinations administered throughout the state
By the end of the day Monday, 126,211 COVID-19 vaccinations had been given throughout Illinois, as the state began the third week of its mass immunization effort, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.
Advertisement
As of Tuesday, 269,625 doses of vaccine had been delivered to Illinois, not including the share that went directly to the city of Chicago.
This week, 21,450 Pfizer doses and 16,200 Moderna doses were shipped to the city, public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said in a Wednesday virtual Q&A.
Arwady underscored that there is no concern the vaccine will expire before use, given that they have about a six-month shelf life and are being distributed within days. What will really determine efficient roll-out, she said, is more allocation.
Read more here. —Jamie Munks and Alice Yin
6:05 a.m.: UK approves use of 2nd COVID-19 vaccine with easier storage
Britain on Wednesday became the first country to authorize an easy-to-handle COVID-19 vaccine whose developers hope it will become the “vaccine for the world.” The approval and a shift in policy that will speed up rollout of the vaccine in the U.K. comes as a surge in infections threatens to swamp British hospitals.
The Department of Health said it had accepted a recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to authorize emergency use of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca.
Advertisement
Britain has bought 100 million doses of the vaccine. Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.K. have already received a different vaccine, made by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and German firm BioNTech.
Partial results from studies in almost 24,000 people in Britain, Brazil and South Africa suggest the shots are safe and about 70% effective for preventing illness from coronavirus infection.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be relied on in many countries because of its low cost, availability and ease of use. It can be kept in refrigerators rather than the ultra-cold storage some other vaccines require. The company has said it will sell it for $2.50 a dose and plans to make up to 3 billion doses by the end of 2021.
A decision on the vaccine is further off in the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration is waiting for data from a separate clinical trial. The study was halted in September and delayed for nearly seven weeks — much longer than in other countries — as regulators investigated whether an illness in a participant in Britain was related to the vaccine. American regulators ultimately allowed the trial to proceed.
Read more here. —Associated Press
6 a.m.: New year brings new laws, but fewer of them, thanks to the pandemic
One of the side effects of the coronavirus pandemic was a drastically shortened spring session of the General Assembly, which means far fewer laws taking effect on New Year’s Day than in a typical year.
Advertisement
Only about a half-dozen new state laws and policies take effect Jan. 1. A year earlier, more than 250 new laws took effect, including the landmark legalization of recreational marijuana.
Nonetheless, some of the new laws will have a significant effect on people’s lives.
Read more here. —Dan Petrella and Jamie Munks
Breaking coronavirus news Stay up to date with the latest information on coronavirus with our breaking news alerts.
In case you missed it
Here are some recent stories related to COVID-19:


Corrections and clarifications

Publishing information quickly and accurately is a central part of the Chicago Tribune ’ s news responsibility and a value @ @ @ @ @ .
Our editorial code of principles governs professional behavior and journalism standards .
Everyone in @ @ @ @ @ live up to this code of conduct .
Download the file .

· Lauren Zumbach’s byline was inadvertently left off a story on the front page of the Business section on Sunday about traveling once restrictions end.
The Tribune regrets the error.
Advertisement
Publishing information quickly and accurately is a central part of the Chicago Tribune’s news responsibility and a value shared in all our publications. Our editorial code of principles governs professional behavior and journalism standards. Everyone in our newsroom must agree to live up to this code of conduct. Download the file.
To report an error, fill out this form.


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Temps to dip below freezing for days after Chicago’s first winter blast dropped 4 inches of snow and

Temps to dip below freezing for days after Chicago’s first winter blast dropped 4 inches of snow and made evening commute ‘one of the worst we’ve had’

Weather spotters Tuesday into Wednesday were collecting snowfall totals to submit to the weather service for review and verification .
@ @ @ @ @ was hardest hit in northern Illinois with 6.2 inches of snow , although Borchardt said @ @ @ @ @ than 7 inches in that city , about 90 miles from Chicago .
To the @ @ @ @ @ as Hampshire had 4 inches of snow and Bull Valley had 3.7 inches .

Light rain and rising temperatures Wednesday melted some of the 2 to 4 inches of snow that fell across the Chicago area, but a cold front will drop temperatures below freezing and keep it that way through the end of the week, when another significant storm may strike.
Tuesday night’s storm hit during the evening commute, lashing northern Illinois with sleet, freezing rain and 2 to 4 inches of snow in the city, 3 to 5 inches in the suburbs and more than 7 inches in Rockford, according to Brian Borchardt, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
Advertisement
The snowfall rate was particularly fast, dropping 1 to 2 inches per hour for at least three hours in most areas, which reduced visibility, made roads difficult to navigate and led to multiple crashes, Borchardt said.
“The evening commute was really rough — one of the worst we’ve had in a number of years — because last winter wasn’t that bad,” he said. “And it came through at the worst time, right when everyone was heading out on the roads.”
Advertisement
Precip will end from west to east early this AM, with lingering drizzle through 10 a.m. to noon. Some drizzle may also freeze on colder, untreated surfaces. Slush and ice covered roads from last night could create hazardous travel into the start of the AM commute. #ILwx #INwx pic.twitter.com/Kls7sjJgb9 — NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) December 30, 2020
The earliest commuters Wednesday morning had to contend with slick roads and heavy rain, but it wasn’t long before the precipitation slowed to a drizzle. A cement truck jackknifed not far from O’Hare International Airport, but few other crashes were reported, officials said.
With the rain letting up, the weather service canceled a winter weather advisory for the Chicago area early, about 6 a.m.
“Thankfully the temperature rose above freezing and a lot of that is melting already, so this morning the roads are in much better shape and the snow’s kind of compacting as well. So cleanup mode today,” Borchardt said.
A daytime high of 40 was forecast for Wednesday, but then a cold front will blast through early in the afternoon and the temperature will drop quickly.
“Probably by 2, 3 o’clock we’re going to dip below freezing again,” Borchardt said. “So this is a short-lived warmup and we’re going to dip below freezing and stay below freezing through Friday. What’s on the ground this afternoon is likely going to stick around.”
Given the short warming period, that could be several inches.
Weather spotters Tuesday into Wednesday were collecting snowfall totals to submit to the weather service for review and verification. Their initial reports showed Rockford was hardest hit in northern Illinois with 6.2 inches of snow, although Borchardt said there were reports of more than 7 inches in that city, about 90 miles from Chicago. To the far northwest, areas such as Hampshire had 4 inches of snow and Bull Valley had 3.7 inches.
Carol Stream had 4.5 inches of snow, and the weather service headquarters in Romeoville had 4.2 inches of snow.
Advertisement
“A snow band parked over us a little longer than it did in other areas, so yes, we had higher totals than surrounding areas. It seems like most of the Chicago metro totals were 2 to 4 inches,” Borchardt said.
Areas south of the city had not been expected to be hard hit, but Joliet had 3.7 inches of snow. To the west, Aurora, Batavia, Buffalo Grove and Palatine all had 3.6 inches of snow.
Rockford Airport officially had 6.2" with this event (0.5" overnight). This is the highest with an event in almost two years (Jan 18-19, 2019).
Other totals:
NWS Chicago in Romeoville: 4.2"
Near Midway Airport: 3.2"
Chicago (O'Hare): 2.6"
Map: https://t.co/ke6HEqUqhk #ILwx — NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) December 30, 2020
As of 6 a.m., the Illinois Department of Transportation listed nearly all Illinois counties mostly covered with ice and snow, while roadways generally were listed as partially covered with ice and snow. There had been no significant traffic crashes or problem areas listed on the area’s expressways or toll roads.
Borchardt said Chicagoans can expect bitter cold and a dry few days until another system moves in not long after ringing in the new year. Initially, meteorologists forecast another snowstorm right around midnight, but Borchardt said that’s been revised and the system should begin hitting the area shortly after dawn Friday, New Year’s Day.
“It has shifted a little bit later, so Thursday night right now looks OK,” he said. “It looks like we’re going to have another messy, wintry mix coming up with some light snow and — more concerning — probably some accumulating ice across parts of the area. So that’s going to be the next system to watch.
“It looks like from daybreak Friday onward, so it looks like most of the daylight hours will be nasty.”
Advertisement
Borchardt said the composition of the wintry mix will be the opposite of what happened Tuesday night when there was much more snow than ice. Only about one-tenth to two-tenths of an inch of ice coated branches and power lines, which meant there were no significant power outages in the area with the recent storm, he said.
“From what it looks like right now, maybe not as much snow as we saw (Tuesday), maybe a little bit more ice, though,” Borchardt said. “We don’t have specifics on amounts just yet, but that’s kind of the flavor we see right now: a little more ice than snow.”
kdouglas@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @312BreakingNews


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Charges pending for assailant who stabbed Hoffman Estates snowplow driver stabbed in apparent ‘rando

Charges pending for assailant who stabbed Hoffman Estates snowplow driver stabbed in apparent ‘random’ attack, police say

“ I don ’ t know much about it right now.
, One of my guys got hurt , just @ @ @ @ @ guy showed up with a knife and cut his hand .
As far as I @ @ @ @ @ under investigation , ” Sanchez said .
“ He got hurt on his hand , @ @ @ @ @ employee ) took the knife away from him … and he chased him across the @ @ @

Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas, Stacey Wescott

Criminal charges were pending for a person in connection with the early Wednesday stabbing of a snowplow operator who had been salting driveways in a quiet Hoffman Estates neighborhood, according to authorities and the man’s boss.
About 6 a.m. an employee of Tiger-Scape Inc., an Elgin-based landscaping services company, was salting driveways in a community of brick townhomes near Poplar Creek, according to Horacio Sanchez, the owner of Tiger-Scape. Sgt. John Bending, a spokesman for Hoffman Estates police, said officers were dispatched to the area of Golf Road and Moon Lake Boulevard for a report of an “unknown problem” and learned a person had been stabbed while in the 1700 block of Pebble Beach Drive.
Advertisement
Schaumburg police officers investigate along Golf Road following a stabbing near the Poplar Creek Club Homes in Hoffman Estates on Dec. 30, 2020. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
“Right now we’re in the beginning phases of the investigation but I can tell you we responded to that area for a report of a stabbing,” Bending said.
Sanchez, whose business has been plowing and salting the property in the community for 20 years, said one of his employees was salting driveways when he was the victim of an apparently random attack.
Advertisement
“I don’t know much about it right now. One of my guys got hurt, just driving, and a random guy showed up with a knife and cut his hand. As far as I know, it’s under investigation,” Sanchez said. “He got hurt on his hand, they fought, (the employee) took the knife away from him … and he chased him across the street.”
The employee followed his assailant across busy Golf Road, which serves as a border with neighboring Schaumburg, and ended up near a CVS.
Sanchez wasn’t sure what happened after that because he couldn’t get in touch with his employee, who was stabbed in his hand and arm and taken to Amita Health St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates with injuries that Bending said were not life-threatening.
“I don’t have any communication with my driver because his phone is inside of the truck and nobody is allowed to go near the truck,” Sanchez said. “He seems to be OK. The police told me he’s fine.”
Schaumburg police investigate a stabbing near the Poplar Creek Club Homes in Hoffman Estates on Dec. 30, 2020. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
By late afternoon Wednesday, Bending said criminal charges of aggravated battery were “pending’' for the person detained. In a news release Bending said the employee had been stabbed in the hand and arm and Bending said officers located the assailant soon after the attack.
“Nobody is at large and there’s no danger to the community. He has been detained … pretty quickly afterward,” Bending said.
Sanchez didn’t know who would want to hurt his employee or why and he was surprised something like this happened in an area he considers so safe.
“We’ve been here for 20 years with different companies. We know this place very well, it’s a very nice neighborhood. So I was very surprised when he called me ... it was a shock.”
Advertisement
Check back for updates.
kdouglas@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @312BreakingNews


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Chicago violence numbers soar in 2020

Chicago violence numbers soar in 2020

Chicago in 2020 reached a level of violence not seen in the city in years , with homicides increasing by @ @ @ @ @ according to official statistics .
It is believed to be among the highest year-over-year increases @ @ @ @ @

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 30 Johana Stead hugs her 10-year-old niece, Mya DeJesus, during a June 29, 2020, vigil for 10-year-old Lena Nunez, who was killed by a stray bullet in her home in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. Lena was a classmate of Mya's. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Chicago in 2020 reached a level of violence not seen in the city in years, with homicides increasing by more than 50%, according to official statistics. It is believed to be among the highest year-over-year increases in recent city history.


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Daily Illinois coronavirus graphs: 178 new deaths, 7,374 new confirmed and probable cases and 74,573

Daily Illinois coronavirus graphs: 178 new deaths, 7,374 new confirmed and probable cases and 74,573 new test results

Illinois announced 7,374 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 Wednesday for a total of 955,380 .
The state also @ @ @ @ @ a total of 16,357 and 74,573 new test results for a total of 13.2 million @

Johns Hopkins University & Medicine tracked coronavirus cases, deaths and test totals from Jan. 22, 2020 through March 10, 2023, but is no longer providing this data. These charts will no longer be updated.
Check the Illinois Department of Public Health for the most up-to-date data for Illinois.
[ Remembering the lives of those in Illinois who died from coronavirus ]
Can’t see these charts? Go here.


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--COVID-19 in Illinois by the numbers: Here’s a daily update on cases, positivity rate and hospital da

COVID-19 in Illinois by the numbers: Here’s a daily update on cases, positivity rate and hospital data in your area

Among the metrics ( see below ) tracked under guidelines set by Gov .
J.B. Pritzker are the percentage of @ @ @ @ @ , the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19-like illnesses , and the capacity of hospitals @ @ @ @ @ state will decide how much or how little to restrict activities based on these metrics @

Note: With Chicago and Illinois moving into phase 5, the Tribune is no longer updating this data. If the state moves back into bridge phase, the Tribune we reassess. Daily metrics on COVID-19, like cases, deaths and hospitalizations, can be found here. And Daily metrics on the vaccination effort can be found here. More on where the coronavirus stands nationally and around the world can be found here.
To assess how different parts of Illinois are handling the COVID-19 pandemic, officials look at the state through the 11 regions of Emergency Medical Services. The city of Chicago is one region, for example, and the rest of Cook County is another.
Among the metrics (see below) tracked under guidelines set by Gov. J.B. Pritzker are the percentage of coronavirus tests that return positive, the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19-like illnesses, and the capacity of hospitals to take in new patients.The state will decide how much or how little to restrict activities based on these metrics. (Cases, deaths and tests data is as of Dec. 31).
• Check out the Tribune’s coronavirus coverage.
• Remembering the lives of those in Illinois who died from coronavirus.
• Other Chicago, suburbs and Illinois COVID-19 metrics.
• See how the governor’s plan to manage the regions works.
Source: Illinois Department of Public Health
Created by the Chicago Tribune dataviz team. On Twitter @chitribgraphics


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--COVID-19 cases in Illinois by ZIP code: Search for your neighborhood

Search below by street address , ZIP code or city , then click on the map to see the number @ @ @ @ @ .
The state is not providing data for any ZIP code with five cases or @ @

Note: With Chicago and Illinois moving into phase 5, the Tribune is no longer updating this data. If the state moves back into bridge phase, the Tribune we reassess. Daily metrics on COVID-19, like cases, deaths and hospitalizations, can be found here. And Daily metrics on the vaccination effort can be found here. More on where the coronavirus stands nationally and around the world can be found here.
Illinois releases the number of positive COVID-19 cases by ZIP code daily. The map below shows the cumulative cases for each area as well as other analysis of the data.
• Check out the Tribune’s coronavirus coverage.
• Tracking daily Illinois coronavirus deaths, cases and tests.
Search below by street address, ZIP code or city, then click on the map to see the number of confirmed and probable cases. The state is not providing data for any ZIP code with five cases or fewer.
Data as of June 10.
The map search tool above works best in Chrome or Firefox and may not perform consistently in Internet Explorer.
Note: Because of a coding error this map was displaying the incorrect rates for new cases in the last 7 days per 100,000 people — the issue should now be resolved.. The Tribune adjusted the data shown on the map below to focus on new cases, those the state tracked in the last 7 seven days. The totals for the entire pandemic are still available, but in the pop-up after tapping or clicking on a ZIP.


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Achy backs. Sore necks. Working from home has created new demand for physical therapy. ‘Your body ju

Achy backs. Sore necks. Working from home has created new demand for physical therapy. ‘Your body just can’t handle it.’

Like many medical providers , physical therapists saw patient visits drop dramatically in early 2020 , when the pandemic started @ @ @ @ @ , 54 % of physical therapists said they were working fewer hours , according to @ @ @ @ @ survey .
In recent months , however , some local physical therapists say they ’ @ @ @ @ @ patients as they did before COVID-19 , with many people visiting for pandemic-related problems .

Joyce Brodsky does strengthening exercises for her shoulder and rotator cuff at Athletico on Dec. 14, 2020 in Niles. Brodsky injured her shoulder in September and has been working with a physical therapist in order to recover. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Joyce Brodsky was always more of a sunbather than a swimmer.
But after COVID-19 began spreading, sitting in chairs by her condominium pool was no longer allowed, and the only place to catch the sun was in the deep end.
Advertisement
So Brodsky, 76, of Lincolnwood, began doing the backstroke. Eventually, she worked her way up to 60 laps at a time.
After a couple of months, she felt throbbing pain in her upper arms. She learned she had torn rotator cuffs and arthritis in her shoulders, which may have been aggravated by her new exercise routine. She started physical therapy in September.
Advertisement
“I wanted to get exercise, and I wanted to take advantage of the sun in the pool,” Brodsky said. “I kind of thought being in the water would help me because water is supposed to be therapeutic.”
Across the country, aching backs, necks and shoulders brought on by COVID-19-related lifestyle changes have sent many people to physical therapists — a trend that’s likely to continue in 2021.
Kimi Smith, a physical therapist at Athletico, works with Joyce Brodsky on strengthening exercises for her shoulder and rotator cuff on Dec. 14, 2020, in Niles. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Working from couches, dining tables and kitchen counters is taking a toll on people’s bodies. People are also getting injured when they start new exercise routines because their regular gyms closed, or they no longer want to go to them. And that’s to say nothing of the physical therapy some COVID-19 patients require after they recover.
Like many medical providers, physical therapists saw patient visits drop dramatically in early 2020, when the pandemic started. During those early months, 54% of physical therapists said they were working fewer hours, according to an American Physical Therapy Association survey. In recent months, however, some local physical therapists say they’re seeing nearly as many patients as they did before COVID-19, with many people visiting for pandemic-related problems.
“We’ve been seeing a lot more people getting aches and pains because of a significant shift in their activity level,” said Matt Gauthier, a physical therapist at Athletico Physical Therapy’s Niles-Northwest Chicago clinic.
[ Exercising at home? Here are 5 ways you might be screwing up your workouts — and how to avoid common pitfalls. ]
For example, he’s been seeing people with knee and hip issues after they took up running or biking — activities they could easily do alone, from home.
Before the pandemic, 47-year-old Randy Liss of Edison Park liked to do bench presses and other exercises at a gym once or twice a week. Once COVID-19 hit, he tried to stay strong by lifting smaller weights and doing pushups in his garage. He ended up with a torn shoulder labrum.
He started physical therapy in November at Illinois Bone & Joint Institute in Norwood Park.
Advertisement
“People are doing things in places they wouldn’t normally be doing them,” Liss said. “If things are out of whack at all, it puts a stress on your body and your body just can’t handle it.
“If it wasn’t for COVID, this wouldn’t have happened because my life would be the same as it was in February,” he said.
Physical therapists say complaints of neck, shoulder, and upper back pain are more common as patients slump over their computers for hours at a time.
Joyce Brodsky does strengthening exercises for her shoulder and rotator cuff at Athletico on Dec. 14, 2020, in Niles. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Borislav Strahilov, 26, of Rosemont, started working from home in March, spending hours a day sitting in a chair he described as “a piece of crap.” He also decided in the spring to use the time he was saving by not commuting downtown to start working out. He went from doing very little exercise to lifting weights six days a week.
After a few months, his upper back began to hurt. At one point, it got so bad that he had to sleep in one position all night, without moving, to get any rest.
He started physical therapy in November at Illinois Bone & Joint Institute.
Advertisement
“I never thought I’d be going to physical therapy at 26,” Strahilov said.
[ Exercise your options: Shape up your home workout routine with these items ]
Physical therapists say they’re seeing many people like Strahilov who never needed physical therapy before now.
They’re also seeing many people with previous problems that have flared up — aggravated not just by lifestyle changes, but also the stress of coping with the pandemic.
Many workdays now include monitoring remote learning and making sure children are cared for. And that’s on top of the fear many people have of getting sick, said Sam Wilson, lead physical therapist at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield.
“It really ramps people’s pain up,” Wilson said of stress. “We started to see these people who previously had pain be a little harder to treat because people were a little more anxious, nervous, stressed out, because of how life has changed over the last few months.”
Previous injuries are also reemerging as people have less time and opportunity to take care of themselves, Gauthier said.
Advertisement
Joyce Brodsky does strengthening exercises at Athletico on Dec. 14, 2020, in Niles. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
“People aren’t necessarily able to take care of themselves like they used to, whether it’s (because of) the kids being home or the work and home lines being blurred,” Gauthier said. “A lot of self-help has fallen off the table, so a lot of older injuries are coming back for people.”
The good news, however, is that many of these lifestyle-related injuries are highly treatable, therapists say.
Physical therapists often teach patients exercises to help them strengthen certain muscles, and many have started offering virtual sessions for people who aren’t comfortable visiting their offices.
In some cases, patients might start to feel better after just a couple of sessions, while for others, it may take weeks or more.
One of the biggest lessons for people, physical therapists say, is to keep moving.
Part of the problem is that people aren’t moving around as much as they normally would in an office. Gauthier, with Athletico, suggests people get up and walk around at least every couple of hours.
Advertisement
“In an office setting there’s always a reason to get up and move, whether it’s to go get something or talk with someone,” Gauthier said. At home, “people just hole up on a couch or in a favorite chair and don’t get up as much as they would otherwise.”
[ Online workout classes — 5 to 60 minutes and mostly free — will get you through the coronavirus stay-at-home order. ]
That’s partly what happened to Phoebe Skowronski, 28, of Albany Park.
Before the pandemic, she had minor back pain from an injury years ago, but it was manageable. Her commute included about two miles a day of walking, and she went to the gym most days.
Even in the office, the software engineer was on the move.
“The office I was working in was very large,” Skowronski said. “If I was walking even to the lunchroom or kitchenette, I was walking four or five times farther than I’m walking now to get to my kitchen.”
After she started working from home — from her dining table — the pain intensified to the point where she couldn’t sit without leaning on something.
Advertisement
In August she started going to physical therapy twice a week at the Athletico in Albany Park to strengthen her muscles.
Within a couple sessions, Skowronski started feeling better. She enjoyed physical therapy, saying it was refreshing to get out and do something good for herself during the pandemic.
“I could see the improvements,” she said. One day, she said, “I was sitting at home and I couldn’t figure out why my back felt so weird, and then it dawned on me: It was because I wasn’t in pain anymore.”


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Murder suspect who escaped at restaurant drive-thru caught in East Chicago: sheriff

Surveillance video released of the escape days later , according to authorities , show a man wearing a police-style uniform @ @ @ @ @ on his chest , in the driver ’ s seat of a black SUV that @ @ @ @ @ McDonald ’ s drive-thru window .
Minutes later , it shows Taylor hop out of @ @ @ @ @ the SUV , lean down for a second and then run out of the parking @ @ @ @ @ first tries to get out of the SUV but is blocked by the side of @ @ @ @ @ around to run after the escaping man

A Hammond man arrested on a murder warrant who escaped when a private driver who was extraditing him from Texas stopped at a Gary McDonald’s drive-thru Dec. 14 was captured Wednesday in East Chicago.
Lake County Sheriff’s officers captured Leon Taylor, 22, around 8:40 a.m. at 4919 Indianapolis Blvd. “after a brief foot chase,” Sheriff’s spokeswoman Pam Jones said. Officers had been working “around the clock” over the Christmas holiday using every lead the department received, she said.
Advertisement
Leon Taylor - Original Credit: Post-Tribune (Lake County Sheriffs Dept. / HANDOUT)
“Our success was a direct result of a cooperative effort including: the U.S. Marshals Service, Indiana State Police, Chicago Police Department, Hammond Police Department, East Chicago Police Department and Gary Police Department,” Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said in a release.
“I commend all of these agencies for a job well done.”
Advertisement
An agent from REDI Transports, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, was transporting Taylor from Texas when he escaped in the area of 35th Avenue and Grant Street in Gary, The Post-Tribune reported previously. The agent called Gary police, who in turn called the Lake County Sheriff’s Department to assist.
Surveillance video released of the escape days later, according to authorities, show a man wearing a police-style uniform, with a star badge on his chest, in the driver’s seat of a black SUV that had pulled up at the McDonald’s drive-thru window. Minutes later, it shows Taylor hop out of the passenger-side back door of the SUV, lean down for a second and then run out of the parking lot as the driver at first tries to get out of the SUV but is blocked by the side of the restaurant, then pulls around to run after the escaping man
Taylor ran across Grant Street and into the area of 35th Avenue, successfully evading the driver. Authorities initially said Taylor was shackled, but the video showed he was wearing a chain around his midsection, handcuffs and a restraint on his leg when he took off running from the SUV.
Once the agent called Gary police, the Lake County Sheriff’s Department was requested to assist in the search for Taylor, the release said. Lake County sheriff’s officers responded to the scene along with the Lake County aviation unit helicopter and K-9 unit to no avail.
Taylor, who according to court records has previous robbery charges against him, has been charged in the Nov. 19 shooting death of Daniel Nitzsche, 52, of East Chicago, according to court records. Nitzsche, who was found on the sidewalk outside a residence in the 700 block of West 150th Street, told East Chicago Police that he’d been robbed and shot by two men in ski masks; witnesses and surveillance video led police to Taylor, records said.
Court records indicate a 14-year-old boy was with Taylor during the robbery and shooting, but charges against the boy, if any were leveled, haven’t been released.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Speed camera tickets starting at 6 mph above the limit part of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2021 revenue p

Speed camera tickets starting at 6 mph above the limit part of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2021 revenue packages

But city officials are so far offering few specifics on when and how the stricter enforcement will be rolled out @ @ @ @ @ receive a written warning in the mail after the first time a camera catches them @ @ @ @ @ before tickets for subsequent violations .

With 2021 upon us, Mayor Lori Lightfoot will soon end Chicago motorists’ carefree days of driving up to 9 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.
The city will start issuing tickets in the new year to people automated speed cameras catch driving between 6 and 9 mph too fast. Lightfoot is counting on millions of dollars in new revenue in 2021 from the $35 tickets to help close a $1.2 billion deficit.
Advertisement
But city officials are so far offering few specifics on when and how the stricter enforcement will be rolled out, beyond saying speeders will receive a written warning in the mail after the first time a camera catches them exceeding the new threshold, before tickets for subsequent violations.
That warning period won’t start on Jan. 1. Chicago Department of Transportation officials haven’t said how soon after that it will kick in. Unless otherwise marked, the general speed limit in Chicago defaults to 30 mph.
Advertisement
The speed camera change is among several new taxes and fees Lightfoot included in her 2021 budget.
Activists protest near a speed camera in the 5300 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue Nov. 20, 2020. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)
Other changes include a 3-cent per-gallon gas tax increase that will be added to fill-ups starting Jan. 1 and a bump in a computer lease tax.
The city will install 96 new parking pay boxes. That will mean about 750 spots that have been free, in parts of downtown, Lincoln Square, Old Town, Lakeview and other North Side neighborhoods, will require drivers to pay to park.
The money raised from those meters is slated to offset the annual payment the city has to make to Chicago Parking Meters LLC for meters taken out of commission, part of the much-despised 2008 meter lease.
Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
A $94 million property tax hike is also in the offing, though that increase won’t appear on property owners’ tax bills until 2022 because of the normal one-year payment lag.
And there’s a plan to refinance $501 million in city debt for the 2021 budget, which will provide a jolt of new revenue next year but likely cost taxpayers more later.
The speeding ticket change — part of Lightfoot’s 2021 plan to raise an additional $38 million from fines, forfeitures and penalties — has drawn the ire of community groups and some aldermen because tickets can hit working-class residents hard.
Advertisement
A speed camera overlooks traffic on Western Avenue near Addison Street in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, Oct. 26, 2020. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
The city has had the power to ticket cars going as little as 6 mph over the limit since Mayor Rahm Emanuel started the speed camera program in 2013. But Emanuel never took full advantage of it.
Currently, only those caught driving 10 mph above the limit get the $35 tickets. Tickets of $100 are issued to drivers caught speeding by 11 mph or more above the posted limit.
As a candidate, Lightfoot promised to reform the city’s fines and fees program, saying it was regressive and focused on generating revenue, not safety.
“The red-light camera program was sold to Chicagoans as a public safety solution, but it’s really been about revenue — and those fines fall disproportionately on people of color,” Lightfoot said at the time.
And shortly after taking office in 2019, the mayor shepherded through the City Council a series of reforms to the city’s fines and fees system that ended the practice of suspending the driver’s licenses of people who haven’t paid parking tickets, reduced vehicle sticker penalties and created a six-month payment plan to give those with ticket debt more time to pay.
But in justifying lowering the speed camera ticket threshold, she tried to make a distinction between speeding tickets and “nonmoving violations.”
Advertisement
“Unlike fines for nonmoving violations that did fall disproportionately on Black and brown Chicagoans, and drove people into bankruptcy, people have control over whether or not they speed,” Lightfoot said in October, after the Tribune reported that her budget included the lower speed camera limits.
jebyrne@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @_johnbyrne


chicagotribune--2020-12-30--Column: Why rush teachers and students back into classrooms now, CPS? Widespread COVID-19 vaccinatio

Column: Why rush teachers and students back into classrooms now, CPS? Widespread COVID-19 vaccination is on the horizon.

Vaccines have arrived , and more are on the way .
Illinois has already administered around 126,000 .
Britain on @ @ @ @ @ another coronavirus vaccine , developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford .
Developers are @ @ @ @ @ for the world ” because it ’ s significantly cheaper per dose than other vaccines @ @ @ @ @ stored at normal refrigeration temperatures .

Chicago Public Schools denied hundreds of requests from teachers and staff to continue to work remotely or take leave. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Monday marks the scheduled return of about 7,000 teachers and staff to Chicago Public Schools buildings, with students set to follow a week later. Another group of educators is scheduled back in buildings Jan. 25, with most kindergarten through eighth graders scheduled to begin a hybrid schedule on Feb. 1.
The district denied hundreds of requests from teachers and staff to continue to work remotely or take leave, including the vast majority of employees who applied for accommodations due to a household member’s medical condition.
Advertisement
Why now, CPS?
________
Advertisement
Columns are opinion content that reflect the views of the writers.
________
An 18-year-old senior at Lincoln-Way East High School, Sarah Simental, died on Sunday from COVID-19. A 41-year-old Louisiana congressman-elect, Luke Letlow, died on Tuesday from COVID-19.
Coronavirus hospitalizations in the U.S. hit an all-time high Monday. December saw the single worst daily death toll since the beginning of the pandemic.
A new COVID-19 variant was just discovered in Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis announced Tuesday, in a man in his 20s with no travel history.
There’s still so much we don’t know or understand about this virus and its toll on human bodies.
Why now, CPS?
Vaccines have arrived, and more are on the way. Illinois has already administered around 126,000. Britain on Wednesday gave emergency authorization to another coronavirus vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. Developers are calling it the “vaccine for the world” because it’s significantly cheaper per dose than other vaccines and can be shipped and stored at normal refrigeration temperatures.
Advertisement
Vice President Mike Pence’s Operation Warp Speed has declared a goal of vaccinating 80% of the country by late June. It’s lofty, and would require us to start vaccinating more people per day than we’ve vaccinated in the entire previous two weeks. But anywhere near that goal is still millions more people vaccinated than are vaccinated right now.
Safe, effective vaccines are no longer a distant dream — too elusive or faraway to plan around. They’re developed. They’ve arrived. Why not continue remote learning until educators and school building staff members have access to them?
Phase 1b of the Illinois Department of Health’s vaccination guide focuses on essential front-line workers, which could include educators, along with police, firefighters and transportation workers, pending Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices guidance.
I checked in with two CPS teachers and one CPS social worker Tuesday. They work in different neighborhoods at different grade levels. None have been told when they might expect to receive a vaccine — only that they’re due back in their classrooms without one.
I don’t understand the rush.
Remote learning is, admittedly, far from ideal. Access to technology among CPS students is woefully unequal, and the drawbacks of missing face-to-face time with peers, friends, teachers, mentors and coaches are so myriad as to be almost incalculable. I have two CPS students who’ve been stuck doing school from their bedrooms since March. They’re bored and lonely and sick of screens.
Advertisement
But it’s temporary. It will not be their entire childhood. It’s an imperfect solution to a truly horrendous problem — a virus that has killed more than 330,000 of our fellow Americans and sickened millions more. It is, in its own way, teaching them about resourcefulness and resilience and responsibility to the greater good.
It’s survivable. COVID-19, in many, many cases, is not.
CPS families understand this. Just 37% plan to send their kids back into classrooms, and those numbers shrink for families of color, with about 31% of Latino and 34% of Black families signing on for in-person learning.
We’re so close to widespread access to vaccination. We’re so close to classrooms becoming markedly safer than they are now. Why rush educators and students back before we’ve realized that reality?
It’s reckless. It unnecessarily puts lives at risk. It’s a rush toward danger, when safety is absolutely in our sights.
Why now, CPS?
Advertisement
Join the Heidi Stevens Balancing Act Facebook group, where she continues the conversation around her columns and hosts occasional live chats.
hstevens@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @heidistevens13


chicagotribune--2020-12-31--Girl, 17, struck by bullet in possible road rage shooting near O’Hare

Officers were called to the 6200 block of North Manheim Road about 5:20 p.m. for a report of a person @ @ @ @ @ girl had been struck in the thigh as she rode in a car headed north @ @ @ @ @ a statement from police .

A 17-year-old girl was shot in the leg in what Chicago police say may have been a case of road rage near O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday night.
Officers were called to the 6200 block of North Mannheim Road about 5:20 p.m. for a report of a person shot. They learned the girl had been struck in the thigh as she rode in a car headed north on Mannheim, according to a statement from police.
Advertisement
It wasn’t immediately clear whether she was the driver or a passenger. The girl was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where she had been listed in good condition, police said.
“This is a possible road rage incident,” authorities said in the statement.
Advertisement
No arrests have been made, and police did not release a detailed description of the shooter or his or her vehicle.
Check back for updates.