chicagotribune--2020-09-25--Mayor Lori Lightfoot, labor leaders call for congressional help on Chicago’s coronavirus revenue hol

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, labor leaders call for congressional help on Chicago’s coronavirus revenue hole

“ City employees make up the backbone of our middle class , especially in communities of color — and they @ @ @ @ @ letter reads in part .
“ We owe a debt of gratitude to our workers @ @ @ @ @ , amid the economic fallout from the pandemic , the last thing we want to @ @ @ @ @ critical public sector employees .
We urgently need federal support to shore up our budget @ @ @ @ @ this crisis .
”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot greets Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, as she tours the temporary McCormick Place alternate care facility in April. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and labor leaders whose members could bear the brunt of layoffs or furloughs as the city tries to close a yawning 2021 budget deficit called on Illinois' congressional delegation this week to work toward passage of a federal aid package that could forestall the deepest cuts.
It’s not likely the letter they sent to legislators from Illinois will have much impact on the partisan Washington, D.C., impasse over aid to cities and other units of government hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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But it illustrates how Lightfoot and union heads are trying to show they’re working together before the mayor introduces a budget proposal next month that she has warned could include significant payroll cuts in many front-line city departments to help close a shortfall for next year she estimates at $1.2 billion.
While laying out that financial hole last month, Lightfoot said a federal revenue deal is the best way to avoid cuts that would affect city services.
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In the letter to Illinois' congressional members, Lightfoot and the heads of the Chicago Federation of Labor, AFSCME Council 31 and other unions said the virus fallout “has caused a seismic disruption to our economy, and — as a consequence — our City finances.”
“City employees make up the backbone of our middle class, especially in communities of color — and they always have,” the letter reads in part. “We owe a debt of gratitude to our workers. That’s why, amid the economic fallout from the pandemic, the last thing we want to do is lay off our critical public sector employees. We urgently need federal support to shore up our budget and keep people working amid this crisis.”
The letter was sent Wednesday, a day before U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, a Peoria Republican, introduced legislation that would create a loan program for state and local governments, but prevent Illinois from receiving any loan forgiveness because of the state’s massive public employee pension debt. LaHood’s plan stands little chance of passage in a Democratic-controlled House.
In a statement Friday, Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter said the union is “proud to stand with Mayor Lightfoot” to try to get federal officials to help Chicago.
“The time for partisanship has long passed,” Reiter said. “We cannot jeopardize critical city services or the jobs of thousands of dedicated public service workers who have put their duty above their own safety day after day during this crisis.”
jebyrne@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @_johnbyrne


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--Kyle Rittenhouse, the Lake County teen charged with killing two in Kenosha protests, will fight extr

Kyle Rittenhouse, the Lake County teen charged with killing two in Kenosha protests, will fight extradition but likely faces uphill battle

Lawyers who have handled extradition cases said Rittenhouse could face an uphill climb .
While it ’ s unclear what @ @ @ @ @ extradition proceedings typically do not involve a defense against the charges and instead focus on @ @ @ @ @ of the legal paperwork and whether the person jailed is actually the person charged with @ @ @ @ @ .

From left, Matt Muchowski, Vance Wyatt, and Donald Blake hold signs outside the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan on Sept. 25, 2020. Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of killing two protesters days after Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wis., faces a hearing to return him to Wisconsin to face trial on homicide charges that could put him in prison for life. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Kyle Rittenhouse’s attorneys are fighting his return to Wisconsin to face a murder charge and other counts alleging he killed two men and wounded a third during protests in Kenosha last month.
Defendants frequently waive their right to challenge extradition, but a lawyer for the 17-year-old from Antioch told Lake County Judge Paul Novak during a brief online hearing Friday morning that he plans to contest the process.
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Attorney John M. Pierce did not detail the legal arguments he plans to make but said the case would involve “issues of some complexity, frankly, that have not arisen in the country for some time.”
Rittenhouse appeared by video, wearing a dark shirt and sitting against a white brick wall wearing a face mask. He said nothing beyond greeting the judge.
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Lawyers who have handled extradition cases said Rittenhouse could face an uphill climb. While it’s unclear what issues Pierce might raise, extradition proceedings typically do not involve a defense against the charges and instead focus on specific questions about the validity of the legal paperwork and whether the person jailed is actually the person charged with the crime, attorneys said.
On the question of identity, numerous video clips show Rittenhouse at the scene and Pierce has acknowledged in a written statement that his client shot the people but argued he fired in self-defense. Chicago attorney Stephen Komie, who has handled numerous extradition matters, said that because the identity question appears to have been resolved, he expects Rittenhouse to be extradited.
Elgin attorney Brian Mirandola, a former Kane County assistant state’s attorney, said defendants rarely beat extradition because the hurdles prosecutors have to clear are low.
“It’s a very small bar to get over, and 99.9% of the time (defendants) are going to lose.”
The judge set the next hearing for Oct. 9.
Rittenhouse has been held without bail in Lake County’s juvenile detention facility since his arrest a month ago. Kenosha County prosecutors have charged him with shooting three men with an AR-15-style rifle Aug. 25 during violent protests over white police Officer Rusten Sheskey’s shooting of 29-year-old Black man Jacob Blake a couple of days earlier.
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Videos show that Rittenhouse — an ardent supporter of police who participated in groups for aspiring officers — was among numerous civilians armed with rifles who interjected themselves into the protests, property destruction and looting that followed Blake’s shooting.
Rittenhouse stands at the center of a heated political debate. Conservatives have cast him as a well-intentioned citizen who exercised his right to self-defense, and gun rights advocates and a foundation with ties to his legal team have raised money for his defense. President Donald Trump has said the teen “probably would have been killed” during the confrontation.
Matt Muchowski of Waukegan, from left, Vance Wyatt of North Chicago and Donald Blake of Waukegan hold signs outside the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan on Sept. 25, 2020, to remember the two men fatally shot during protests in Kenosha. Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, is charged with the killings. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Liberal commentators, meanwhile, have argued that he needlessly killed two people after wading into unrest over police violence against African Americans.
Outside the courthouse Friday, a few people gathered for a vigil to remember those who died.
“I helped organize this rally because I was afraid that gun-toting militias are going to become the new normal in intimidating peaceful protests, and in shutting down the discussions we need to have for racial justice in this country,” said Waukegan precinct committeeman and union organizer Matt Muchowski.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers have contended he clearly fired in self-defense. Defense lawyers in Wisconsin have said the success or failure of a courtroom self-defense claim could hinge on questions about the teen’s actions before he fired and details that have yet to emerge.
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If convicted of murder as an adult, Rittenhouse could face a life sentence.
Lake County State’s Attorney Michael Nerheim, center, prepares to hold a news conference Sept. 25, 2020, in downtown Waukegan. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)
There is plentiful video footage from the night of the Kenosha shootings, and it forms both the basis of prosecutors’ charges and a statement Pierce released in Rittenhouse’s defense shortly after the teen was charged.
Kenosha County prosecutors wrote that video showed the teen running across a parking lot, trailed by Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha. Video showed Rosenbaum appearing to throw a plastic bag at Rittenhouse and missing him, prosecutors wrote. A witness told police that Rosenbaum, who appeared on video to be unarmed, had tried to grab the gun before he was fatally shot, prosecutors wrote.
In his statement, Pierce wrote that Rittenhouse was justified in shooting “an attacker lunging towards him and reaching for his rifle.”
Rittenhouse then ran before someone knocked off his hat, and he tripped and fell, prosecutors wrote. A man carrying a skateboard and later identified as Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, approached Rittenhouse as he was still on his back, prosecutors wrote. Huber tried to grab the gun as the skateboard “(made) contact” with Rittenhouse’s shoulder before the gunman fired one shot, and Huber collapsed and died, prosecutors alleged.
Prosecutors wrote that Rittenhouse then shot a man who had approached him, Gaige Grosskreutz, of West Allis. Grosskreutz appeared to be holding a handgun when he was wounded in the arm, prosecutors wrote.
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Pierce’s statement said that Rittenhouse feared he’d be disarmed and killed and “had no choice but to fire multiple rounds towards his immediate attackers.”
Lake County News-Sun freelance reporter Karie Angell Luc contributed.
dhinkel@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--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--2020-09-25--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 @ @ @ @ @ state is not providing data for any ZIP code with five cases or fewer .

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--2020-09-25--Daily Illinois coronavirus graphs: 25 new deaths, 2,514 new confirmed cases and 69,793 new test resu

Daily Illinois coronavirus graphs: 25 new deaths, 2,514 new confirmed cases and 69,793 new test results

Illinois announced 2,514 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 Friday for a total of 283,885 .
The state also announced 30 @ @ @ @ @ of 8,538 and 69,793 new test results for a total of 5.36 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.


French bulldogs rescued

People gathered throughout the city to protest after a Kentucky grand jury decided not to charge any Louisville police officers @ @ @ @ @ Taylor ’ s killing .

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chicagotribune--2020-09-25--Chicago City Council violated open meetings law during private calls with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Illi

Chicago City Council violated open meetings law during private calls with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Illinois attorney general rules

“ If there were a distinction between members of the Council gathering as ‘ community representatives ’ rather than as @ @ @ @ @ a distinction without a difference — aldermen represent their constituents in the community by virtue @ @ @ @ @ members of the Council , which is a legislative body , ” the ruling said @

Chicago’s City Council violated the state’s open meetings law when it held a series of conference calls with Mayor Lori Lightfoot during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the Illinois attorney general’s office ruled.
Under state law, governmental bodies aren’t generally allowed to meet without giving the public notice and access. Chicago mayors historically have maneuvered around this rule by briefing small groups of aldermen rather than bringing all 50 members of the City Council together.
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But in the early days of the pandemic, Lightfoot held a series of large private meetings with aldermen. In May, journalism nonprofit ProPublica Illinois filed a complaint with the attorney general alleging that the meetings violated state law.
In its response to the attorney general, the city acknowledged hosting conference call meetings on March 26, March 30 and April 6 with enough members to meet quorum, though Lightfoot’s Law Department denied violating the law.
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot conducts a virtual City Council meeting from her office at City Hall on June 17, 2020. (José M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)
Lightfoot officials argued that the meetings were “briefings” during which aldermen did not deliberate on any matters and the discussion was not “public business” as defined by state law.
The city said aldermen “participated in the calls as community representatives, not as legislators.” But in a ruling earlier this month, the attorney general disagreed that the city had followed the law.
“If there were a distinction between members of the Council gathering as ‘community representatives’ rather than as legislators, it would be a distinction without a difference — aldermen represent their constituents in the community by virtue of their positions as elected members of the Council, which is a legislative body,” the ruling said.
Asked about the ruling, the Law Department released a statement: “Consistent with our view that the City acted properly in these instances, and with due regard for the recent PAC determination and applicable law, the City will continue to take action as needed to preserve public safety on a case-by-case basis.”
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The city also is facing a lawsuit from the Better Government Association over alleged Open Meetings Act violations on other occasions, including a contentious call during which Lightfoot exchanged profanities with a frequent critic.
During the height of civil unrest in Chicago neighborhoods following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, Lightfoot hosted a call with all 50 aldermen that devolved after Southwest Side Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, complained about what he said was an inadequate response by the city to looting.
When Lopez finished his comments, Lightfoot tried to move on without answering him and Lopez insisted that she address his questions.
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“I think you’re 100% full of s---, is what I think,” Lightfoot responded.
Lopez replied, “Well, f--- you then.”
Asked later whether she regrets “using such colorful language,” Lightfoot said the entirety of the conversation went for an hour and a half.
She added that during “tough and difficult times, we ought to be able to have candid conversations.”
“There are a lot of incredible emotions that were shared on that call by fellow aldermen. Now all of them don’t feel secure or safe coming together with their colleagues because of one individual who decided to illegally tape a conversation that was intended to be a private conversation among all of us,” Lightfoot said.
gpratt@chicagotribune.com
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Twitter @royalpratt


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--Campaign trail tracker: Where Trump, Biden and their running mates have traveled in presidential rac

Campaign trail tracker: Where Trump, Biden and their running mates have traveled in presidential race’s final weeks

In the final sprint ahead of the Nov. 3 election , both President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ travel despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic .
Starting in September , Biden abandoned his monthslong @ @ @ @ @ in Delaware while Trump has accelerated his travel and is once again welcoming crowds at @ @ @

In the final sprint ahead of the Nov. 3 election, both President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden have ramped up their campaign travel despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Starting in September, Biden abandoned his monthslong virtual campaign from his basement in Delaware while Trump has accelerated his travel and is once again welcoming crowds at some events.
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Here’s a look at the campaign trail stops made by Trump, Biden and running mates since Sept. 1.
Campaign trail tracker
Tap or click on a dot to see details of the stop.
Don’t see the map? Some mobile browsers disable it. Try this link.


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--McCook police chief pleads not guilty in alleged extortion scheme involving ex-Mayor Jeff Tobolski

Tobolski also admitted in the plea that he extorted or collected bribes from at least four other people by abusing @ @ @ @ @ or county commissioner .
The amount of bribes he collected totaled at least $ 250,000 @ @ @ @ @ not spell out how many victims were involved .

The former police chief in west suburban McCook pleaded not guilty Friday to federal charges alleging he conspired with then-Mayor Jeffrey Tobolski to shake down a businessman who needed approval to serve liquor at events held at his restaurant.
Mario DePasquale, who had been police chief in the town since 2013, entered his plea through his attorney during a brief hearing before U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo.
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Mario DePasquale had been police chief in McCook since 2013. (McCook Police Department)
Pasquale was placed on paid administrative leave after being charged earlier this month and has surrendered his badge and gun, his attorney said.
The four-count indictment alleged DePasquale conspired with Tobolski beginning in 2016 to extort an unnamed business owner who ran a restaurant at a McCook-owned facility and needed the mayor’s approval to host events with liquor. At the time, Tobolski doubled as McCook’s liquor commissioner.
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The charges stated DePasquale demanded the restaurant owner — identified only as Individual A — pay $1,500 in bribes for each “themed event” that he wanted to host. DePasquale later picked up the money in person, and he and Tobolski split the cash, according to the indictment.
DePasquale also told the restaurant owner he had to donate to Tobolski’s political campaign funds, which the victim did on multiple occasions, according to the charges.
Tobolski, who stepped down from his dual posts as mayor and Cook County commissioner earlier this year, has already pleaded guilty to his role in the same scheme, which netted the mayor a total of $29,700 in cash.
Tobolski also admitted in the plea that he extorted or collected bribes from at least four other people by abusing his official position as mayor or county commissioner. The amount of bribes he collected totaled at least $250,000, though the plea does not spell out how many victims were involved.
DePasquale has been under a cloud since his name appeared on a search warrant executed by federal agents at the McCook village facility in September 2019. The raid was part of a sweeping public corruption probe that has led to a slew of charges against Democratic lawmakers and power players.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--Fall into the autumn spirit with 2 seasonal — and socially distanced — October food festivals in Chi

Fall into the autumn spirit with 2 seasonal — and socially distanced — October food festivals in Chicago

Apple Fest will touch down in Lincoln Square on the first weekend of October with apple-themed food and cider , @ @ @ @ @ businesses .
Preorders are available online at applefestchicago.org and will be open until 3 p.m. @ @ @ @ @ still wear your flannel ( and maybe a flannel mask to match ? )
to @ @ @ @ @ market , which will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday , @ @ @ @ @ your online orders or buy in person .

While you may not be able to literally rub shoulders with other flannel-wearing food festival guests, you can still celebrate the onset of fall with the West Loop’s Harvest Festival and Lincoln Square’s Apple Fest, both of which look slightly different this year as they pivot to ticketed or online iterations due to COVID-19.
Apple Fest will touch down in Lincoln Square on the first weekend of October with apple-themed food and cider, plus fall-inspired wares from local businesses. Preorders are available online at applefestchicago.org and will be open until 3 p.m. Oct. 3. You can still wear your flannel (and maybe a flannel mask to match?) to the weekend farmer’s market, which will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, where you can pick up your online orders or buy in person.
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Participating businesses include Bang Bang Pie & Biscuits, Mick Klug Farm, Luella’s Southern Kitchen Farmers Market, Begyle Brewing, Cafe Selmarie, Edgewater Candles, Savory Spice, City Grange, Timeless Toys and Ruff Haus Pets.
Harvest Fest, the celebration of autumn hosted by chef Stephanie Izard of Girl and the Goat, will run from Oct. 15 through Oct. 18, featuring live chef demonstrations, beverage classes and tastings, and live music. This year, the festival will take place at Izard’s restaurants around the city, instead of in the street as the Fulton Market Harvest Festival has in years past.
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All the events are separately priced, ticketed and seated, so guests will be able to remain 6 feet apart from each other. Some events will take place outdoors on a rooftop. Tables, chairs, restrooms and high-touch areas will be regularly sanitized, and of course, masks are required, except while eating or drinking.
Chefs participating in the live cooking demonstrations include Sarah Grueneberg (Monteverde), Brian Jupiter (Ina Mae Tavern and Frontier), Jonathon Sawyer (Four Seasons Chicago), and Joe Flamm (Rose Mary). Beverage classes will be taught by Tim Williams (Pour Souls), Jim Striblen and Abby Titcomb (3 Floyds), John Barley (Solemn Oath) and representatives of Moet & Chandon. Ticketed meals feature Chicago chefs like Diana Davila (Mi Tocaya Antojeria), Zach Engel (Galit) and Lee Wolen (Boka).
Visit Tock to buy tickets and view the lineup. A portion of the proceeds from the festival will go to nonprofits like the Englewood-based I Grow Chicago; Equality Should Be Normal, which offers mentorship programs and violence prevention; and Southern Smoke, a crisis relief organization for the food and beverage industry.
gwong@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--What will it take to make diners feel safe indoors? Nearly 60% feel uneasy eating inside, so restaur

What will it take to make diners feel safe indoors? Nearly 60% feel uneasy eating inside, so restaurants try sterilizing UV wands, tabletop air purifiers as winter looms.

The best way to flush COVID-19 out of the air is to bring in more fresh air through the ventilation @ @ @ @ @ get more difficult as the weather gets cold and it can ’ t heat up @ @ @ @ @ , whose construction consulting firm helps build restaurants and other commercial properties .
Better air @ @ @ @ @ installation can be tricky if restaurants don ’ t own the building , he said @

A portable ionic air purifier is seen Sept. 17, 2020, on a table at Formento's, an Italian restaurant in Chicago's West Town neighborhood. Recently, Formento's installed an array of air filtration and ventilation devices to help diners feel safe eating inside the restaurant. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
The host greeting diners at Formento’s, an Italian restaurant in the West Town neighborhood, now offers guests something new alongside the menu and wine list: a portable air purifier for their table.
The tabletop devices are among a series of air quality upgrades the restaurant introduced this month to assure customers they can breathe easy dining inside.
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Diners can also expect to see bussers using ultraviolet wands to sterilize glassware and utensils, and little air-sucking robots in various corners of the restaurant that use heat to kill microorganisms. Unseen are new air filters installed in the HVAC system meant to trap virus particles.
The changes were costly for a restaurant that continues to lose money due to COVID-19. But Phillip Walters, whose B. Hospitality Co. owns Formento’s as well as its sister sandwich restaurant Nonna’s, and The Bristol in the Bucktown neighborhood, said it’s a necessary investment if the businesses are going to survive.
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“We have to convince people that restaurants are safe,” Walters said.
Restaurants hoping to see the other side of the pandemic are pouring money into air quality upgrades and other safety features even as business remains devastated by COVID-19. As they burn through cash, they are counting on customers taking comfort in the changes and filling seats.
AF3000 "autoclave" filters are placed in the bar and dining room at Formento's in Chicago. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
It’s a gamble for customers as well as restaurants. Some indoor air quality experts question the effectiveness of products that claim to halt airborne transmission of the coronavirus but haven’t been rigorously tested.
But as winter approaches, and restaurants brace for the loss of patio seating that’s been a lifeline during the warm months, instilling confidence in indoor air quality has become a pressing issue.
“I’m doing anything I can for my customers to feel safe to eat at my restaurants,” said Scott Harris, founder of Francesca’s Restaurant Group, which owns Mia Francesca in Lakeview and 25 other establishments.
Francesca’s is spending about $100,000 to outfit the HVAC units in all of its restaurants with bipolar ionization technology, which kills viruses through a chemical reaction. Menus will have a blurb explaining the technology and servers will be trained to describe it to customers, Harris said.
The added expense comes as revenues remain down 80% in Francesca’s city restaurants and 30% in the suburbs, and overall costs have increased due to masks, hand sanitizer and many boxes of gloves for its 2,700 employees. Management is discussing raising prices a bit, by 50 cents here and there, to help absorb it.
“It’s hitting our bottom line big time,” said Harris, who expects money from the federal Paycheck Protection Program will sustain his restaurants through December. He is contemplating closing his three city restaurants for fear demand, hurt by both the coronavirus and the social unrest, won’t bounce back.
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Lettuce Entertain You, Chicago’s largest restaurant group, expects to make a seven-figure investment to install air purification technologies at all 120-plus restaurants across the country by the end of October, said R.J. Melman, president of the company.
Though Chicago has encouraged creative solutions to keep outdoor dining alive when temperatures plunge, and on Monday released guidelines for erecting and heating tents and geodesic domes, “at the end of the day, for most restaurants in Chicago survival depends on indoor dining,” Melman said.
Convincing people to come inside will be a challenge. Nearly 60% of people say they feel uncomfortable dining indoors, according to a new study from market research firm Mintel.
Melman thinks diners are willing to eat indoors where they feel safe doing so.
“People want to get out,” he said.
For Walters, of Formento’s, the decision to invest in indoor air quality came as he reached a crossroads on how to survive winter.
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He explored installing a system of heated tents, but it was complicated and expensive, with bids suggesting a $50,000 to $100,000 price tag.
So he took a different path, consulting HVAC specialists to devise a five-layered air purification system to make indoor dining more appealing. The cost was about $13,000 for Formento’s, which is 13,000 square feet, and $3,000 at the much smaller Bristol.
High-performance MERV-13 air filters are installed in all HVAC units at Formento's in Chicago's West Town neighborhood. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
Walters followed guidance from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers to install higher-density filters in all of the HVAC units, opting for MERV-13 filters that are effective at blocking most particles the size of the novel coronavirus.
To convince the public, however, “we had to go above and beyond.”
In addition to the tabletop ionic air purifiers, which are optional for guests, he bought multiple UV-C germicidal sterilizing wands for cleaning between customers, and supplied after-hours cleaning crews with sterilizing foggers. Floor purifiers that suck in air and kill viruses in 400-degree ceramic chambers, before cooling and releasing the air back into the environment, are placed every 500 feet.
Walters is lobbying the city to increase capacity limits from 25% to 50% for restaurants that have taken extensive measures to improve air quality. He is also sharing what he’s learned so other restaurants can adopt similar technologies, which he said don’t have to break the bank.
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He worries that if customer traffic doesn’t improve small operators will close and corporate chains with bigger pockets will be the only ones standing when the smoke clears. Formento’s revenues are down 60% and The Bristol’s are down 70% compared with a year ago.
“This industry will whittle away to nothing. To zero,” he said. “People need to get out and eat.”
Hosts, bussers and others use UV-C sterilizing wands to clean tables, utensils and glassware between uses at Formento's. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
For people debating whether to risk dining out, the central question may be whether the air quality enhancements make a difference in preventing transmission of COVID-19.
The Environmental Protection Agency says “there is growing evidence that the novel coronavirus remains airborne in indoor environments for hours, potentially increasing in concentration over time,” and has recommended increasing building ventilation and air filtration as a part of a larger strategy that includes social distancing, wearing masks, hand-washing and disinfecting.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in guidance to office building employers, advises bringing in more outside air, installing better central air filters and using portable high-efficiency particulate air fans to help clean the air. HEPA filters are nearly 100% effective in capturing airborne particles associated with COVID-19.
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But the pandemic has opened the floodgates to a slew of other products and technologies that purport to destroy the novel coronavirus, and some experts are warning it’s buyers beware.
Brent Stephens, professor and chair in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said inadequate test standards and misleading claims have made for a Wild West of air cleaning technologies.
He worries some ionization systems have not been adequately tested to ensure they don’t unintentionally create byproducts that are harmful to health. Other products may offer a false sense of security.
“There is a lot of theater out there,” he said. “I would not recommend restaurants going in on these exotic technologies.”
The best way to flush COVID-19 out of the air is to bring in more fresh air through the ventilation system, but that will get more difficult as the weather gets cold and it can’t heat up enough, said Roger Peck, whose construction consulting firm helps build restaurants and other commercial properties. Better air filters also help, though installation can be tricky if restaurants don’t own the building, he said.
More worrisome to Peck is the prospect of winter dining in tents with drop-down panels and no air circulation.
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“To me that’s a toxic soup,” he said. “I would choose dining indoors in a heartbeat.”
Some restaurants are forgoing the headache of air quality investments and tent cities altogether and plan to ride out winter by focusing on carryout and delivery, said Doug Roth, president of restaurant consultancy Playground Hospitality.
Still, he applauds businesses that are investing in air quality upgrades to ease patrons' concerns.
“They’re not 100% foolproof, but I think it’s a better option than having nothing at all,” Roth said.
Gibsons Restaurant Group, which owns the iconic Gold Coast steakhouse as well as Hugo’s Frog Bar and other restaurants, is working on a promotional video to highlight the safety steps it is taking, which it plans to push out on social media and send to customers, said Chairman Steve Lombardo III. They include positive air pressure that pushes air out rather than recirculating it, the installation of MERV-11 air filters in the HVAC units and mobile plexiglass barriers that can be rolled around to different tables.
The safety upgrades cost about $10,000 per restaurant, mostly for the plexiglass, plus about $1,500 monthly to change the HVAC filters, he said. It’s a financial pinch given that sales the past three months have on average been down 35% compared with last year, and the restaurants are losing money, but Gibsons, which is well-capitalized and has little debt, can afford it, Lombardo said.
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Businesses that can’t may be at a disadvantage as customers weigh where to eat. But some mom-and-pops are finding ways to make air purification a priority.
Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook this month spent $5,000 to outfit its HVAC units with the Sterile-Aire system, which uses ultraviolet energy to inactivate bacteria and viruses. Chef/co-owner Sarah Stegner said she plans to ask the landlord to pay for half or let her take it out of the rent.
People dine inside at Prairie Grass Cafe on Sept. 22, 2020, in Northbrook. The restaurant invested in ultraviolet air purification technology in its HVAC units for colder months when indoor dining is the only option. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
Stegner several years ago installed the system in her home, because her husband and daughter have sports-induced asthma and the family has a cat, and found it reduced their congestion. She can’t guarantee it will be a magic bullet against COVID-19, but she wants to do all she can to offer more protection.
“The priority is keeping my staff safe, keeping the guests safe, working in a positive environment where we have a margin of control,” said Stegner, a former Ritz Carlton chef and founding member of Green City Market who opened Prairie Grass 16 years ago.
The cafe is notifying guests of the air filtration system with flyers on the tables and in carryout bags. The feedback has been “incredibly positive,” Stegner said.
The cafe, which normally has 180 seats, has been operating with 50 plus an outside patio. After a scary month when it was $11,000 in the red, it managed to break even in August even though its revenues are half of what they were last year. Stegner credits a smaller staff, her landlord giving her a break on rent, a grant and a series of small cost savings.
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“We looked at everything,” Stegner said, from the phone system to the energy bill to pricing and portion sizes.
She also has found new ways to generate revenue, selling raw fish direct to consumers once a week and hosting Zoom cooking classes, which are free to view but people can buy a package of prepped ingredients to follow along. Promotions have also helped, including Women’s Restaurant Week and an exchange with another restaurant in which it sold Stegner’s pot pies and she sold its desserts.
Though it’s been challenging, the pandemic has forced a creativity that Stegner hopes continues long-term. It has also instilled a sense of urgency to not sit on any ideas that could help her business stay afloat.
“If you’re going to do something, do it right away,” Stegner said. “Don’t hesitate, because you might not get a second chance.”
aelejalderuiz@chicgotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--Coronavirus in Illinois updates: Here’s what happened Sept. 24 with COVID-19 in the Chicago area

Nature preschools were increasing before the pandemic , more than doubling in the last three years , according to a @ @ @ @ @ Alliance , a project of the North American Association for Environmental Education .
The report @ @ @ @ @ country have nature-based education at their core , meaning a significant amount of time is @ @ @ @ @ among the states with the most programs — topping 20 .
California and Washington , @ @ @ @ @ , lead the list .

We have lifted the paywall on this story. To support essential reporting, please consider becoming a subscriber .
Paca Kujtim of Arlington Heights self-administers a COVID-19 test in his car at the Arlington International Racecourse on March 31, 2021 in Arlington Heights. Kujtim was getting testing as a precaution for upcoming travel. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Illinois public health officials reported Thursday they had logged 2,257 newly diagnosed cases and 30 additional confirmed deaths of people with COVID-19, raising the statewide tally to 281,371 known cases and 8,538 deaths.
The new numbers come a day after Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned the region of northwest Illinois that includes Rockford and Northern Illinois University and borders Wisconsin and Iowa could soon see stricter rules aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus.
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Here’s what’s happening Thursday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:
7:45 p.m.: As early voting begins, some voters experience hourslong wait times in northern Illinois counties
Voters in some Illinois counties experienced hourslong wait times Thursday while trying to cast their ballots in the general election on Illinois' first day of early voting.
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A limited number of polling places in counties surrounding Chicago opened Thursday, including in DuPage, Lake, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will. Suburban Cook County and Chicago won’t begin in-person early voting until October, though election boards began to send mail-in ballots to some of the more than 1.7 million voters who applied for one and were approved.
Many Illinois election authorities had encouraged early voting because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but some county officials said they hadn’t anticipated the level of turnout that occurred on Thursday, with lines that in some cases stretched hundreds of people long.
Lorraine Leiser, 73, of Glendale Heights, said she waited with her son at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton for about three hours to vote. She said she felt safest voting in person with a paper ballot given recent speculation about possible delays using the U.S. Postal Service.
Leiser said she had voted early in past elections but had never seen such lines as she did on Thursday.
“My son actually mentioned, ‘You know, Mom we haven’t seen anybody leave the line,’” Leiser said. “Everybody was determined to vote today.”
Read more here. —Kelli Smith
6:50 p.m.: Cubs cut 60 jobs in their business department — and plan for potential limited seating at Wrigley Field next season — because of COVID-19, source says
The Chicago Cubs on Thursday laid off about 60 members of their business department because of declining revenue amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a source told the Tribune.
In addition, the team is bracing for limited seating capacity for games at Wrigley Field in 2021 in the event fans are allowed to attend games without a vaccine for the coronavirus, the source said. Should fans be allowed to return in limited capacity, the Cubs would prioritize season ticket holders for admission.
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Read more here. —Mark Gonzales
5:10 p.m.: Drive-thru flu shots? Vaccine vouchers? How getting the flu shot in Illinois will be different this year
Getting the flu shot this year is going to look different in Illinois as patients and medical facilities adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some Chicago area doctors and pharmacies are offering drive-thru flu shots for kids and adults, to help with social distancing. And some companies that normally offer vaccines in the office are giving vouchers to employees working from home that they can redeem at pharmacies.
Meanwhile, children as young as 3 years old can now receive flu shots from pharmacists, a controversial change made by the federal government last month to help as many as possible get vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The changes come as experts stress the importance of getting the flu shot this year, both to keep people healthy during the pandemic and to preserve health care resources in case COVID-19 surges again during the winter.
Read more here. —Lisa Schencker
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4 p.m.: United Airlines becomes first US carrier to offer coronavirus testing for passengers
United Airlines will become the first U.S. carrier to offer rapid coronavirus testing to some of its passengers — if they’re willing to pay a little extra, the company announced Thursday.
The tests will be available to customers traveling from San Francisco International Airport to Hawaii starting Oct. 15. Passengers would either take a quick test at the airport that delivers results in 15 minutes or request a mail-in, self-collected test ahead of their trip, according to United.
Read more here. —New York Daily News
3:40 p.m.: Peoria Republican LaHood introduces plan for federal loans to state and local governments but exempts Illinois from getting loan forgiveness
Republican U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood introduced legislation on Thursday backed by the GOP-aligned Illinois Policy Institute that would create a loan program for state and local governments — but it would effectively prevent Illinois from receiving any loan forgiveness because of its massive public employee pension debt.
The legislation has little chance of passage in a Democratic-controlled House and it comes amid continued dispute over federal assistance to state and local governments between the House and GOP-controlled Senate.
But it did allow LaHood to continue teeing off on Illinois' financial woes.
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“This pandemic did not create Illinois' financial mess; however, it emphasized the long-term challenges that Illinois and other states face for failing to implement sound budget policy,” LaHood, of Peoria, said in a statement.
“For decades, politicians in Springfield have kicked the can down the road on addressing Illinois' fiscal crisis, exploding the state’s $140 billion in unfunded pension liability and piling up these problems on the backs of hardworking taxpayers. Illinois shouldn’t get a blank check to bail out decades of failing to do what most responsible adults can: spend less than you earn and save for a rainy day,” he said.
Read more here. —Rick Pearson
3:35 p.m.: Democrats to redraft coronavirus relief bill in bid to jump-start negotiations
House Democrats are going back to the drawing board on a huge COVID-19 relief bill, paring back the measure in an attempt to jump-start negotiations with the Trump administration.
The Democratic-controlled chamber could also pass the $2 trillion-plus measure next week if talks fall through to demonstrate that the party isn’t giving up on passing virus relief before the election.
The chamber passed a $3.4 trillion rescue measure in May but Republicans dismissed the measure as bloated and unrealistic. Even as Democrats cut their ambitions to $2.2 trillion or so, Senate Republicans have focused on a much smaller rescue package in the $650 billion to $1 trillion range.
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An aide familiar with the leadership discussions and authorized to characterize them said the new bill would total about $2.4 trillion and is likely to contain additional relief for the airline and restaurant sectors, which have been especially slammed by slumps in business from the virus. The aide requested anonymity to characterize the closed-door talks.
Read more here. —Associated Press
3 p.m.: Fourth grader, middle school worker in North Shore District 112 test positive for COVID-19
A fourth-grade student at Oak Terrace Elementary School and an adult working at Edgewood Middle School tested positive this week for COVID-19, North Shore School District 112 officials said Wednesday.
“While we have been successful so far with being open for four weeks, today COVID-19 has hit us,” said Superintendent Michael Lubelfeld. “The best thing we can do is remind everyone that even in a successful restart of schools, which we have had, we are still in a global pandemic.”
The superintendent said district officials are working closely with the Lake County Health Department on contact tracing. The health department will contact staff and Oak Terrace students who have been identified as “close contacts” with the ones who tested positive and will provide guidance, he said.
The fourth grader last attended school Friday and will be quarantined for the next few weeks, Lubelfeld said.
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“We know exactly what the child’s movements were,” Lubelfeld said. “We were able to confirm there was an adherence to 6-foot physical distancing and all safety protocols. We believe that no further action, other than communication, is warranted at this time. Obviously, we will do an electrostatic deep cleaning out of caution.”
Read more here. —Gloria Casas
12:30 p.m.: How COVID-19 decimated Illinois nursing homes, exposed government flaws and left families in frustrating limbo
At a two-story nursing home in Willowbrook, close to the front entrance, is a resident’s room where crystal ornaments of birds and butterflies adorn the window.
It’s where 93-year-old Joan Keith nearly died gasping for air — and later tested positive for COVID-19.
It’s where she watched ambulances evacuate dying neighbors from Chateau Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
And it’s where the former beautician has been largely confined since then, feeling a mix of emotions: missing her family, grateful to be alive, yet leery of venturing beyond her door frame.
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“If I go in the hall, there’s people — they have the mask on and everything — but I don’t know if they’re carrying anything,” she said, “and I don’t want to be ill again.”
That uneasiness is felt in long-term care facilities across the state, places where COVID-19 has taken a particularly staggering toll with no clear end in sight.
Six months into the pandemic, the new virus has infected more than 28,000 Illinois long-term care residents and killed more than 4,000. It’s also fueled debate over the Illinois Department of Public Health’s oversight of a mostly for-profit industry. That includes how the agency cut back inspections, at times breaking state law, as the virus raced through facilities.
Read more here. —Joe Mahr and Robert McCoppin
12:15 p.m.: 2,257 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 30 additional deaths reported
Illinois public health officials reported Thursday they had logged 2,257 newly diagnosed cases and 30 additional confirmed deaths of people with COVID-19, raising the statewide tally to 281,371 known cases and 8,538 deaths.
11:25 a.m.: Historic Chicago dive bar Old Town Ale House reopens despite tavern restrictions — by selling frozen pizza
Old Town Ale House, the historic dive bar that the late film critic Roger Ebert once called “the best bar in the world that I know about,” quietly reopened Wednesday night on the North Side of Chicago.
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“GOOD NEWS! THE OLD TOWN ALE HOUSE IS PLANNING ON REOPENING TONIGHT!!!!” wrote artist and self-described mascot-in-residence Bruce Elliott publicly on his personal Facebook page Wednesday morning. Elliott painted the infamous political wall art behind the bar. The series debuted with a naked Sarah Palin holding an assault rifle, progressed to a portrait of Mitt Romney wearing what the artist calls “Magic Mormon Underwear,” as well as a work entitled “Cavity Search” featuring convicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
Open since 1958, the bar has been closed since July 24 at 12:01 a.m., when city COVID-19 orders went into effect shuttering all taverns without outdoor seating. By Chicago licensing rules, taverns sell drinks, but no prepared food. Packaged foods, including chips and other staple dive bar sustenance, did not count. So how could Old Town Ale House open? Thank frozen pizza.
The bar obtained a retail food license from the city, which allowed it to sell the pizza.
“My boss drove down to the City Clerk (office) and got a copy that they said we could post and be legal,” said Tim Polk, bartender and manager of 20 or so years. Tobin Mitchell owns the bar, and is Elliott’s ex-wife. “We just found out we could open at noon,” said Polk.
Read more here. —Louisa Chu
11 a.m.: Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, here’s how the virus has changed our lives
For six months, the world has changed in ways few of us could have imagined at the start of 2020.
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As COVID-19 took hold on so many facets of our lives, from our health to our livelihoods, our schools and our cultural institutions, the Chicago Tribune has sought to follow each development with insight into how the pandemic impacts us all.
Now, six months after the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus' spread had become a pandemic, we reflect on how the pandemic is shaping our world — and how we’re getting through it together.
Read more here. —Chicago Tribune staff
7:55 a.m.: Jobless claims rise to 870,000 as fraud and backlogs cloud data
The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment aid rose slightly last week to 870,000, a historically high figure that shows that the viral pandemic is still squeezing restaurants, airlines, hotels and many other businesses six months after it first erupted.
The figure coincides with evidence that some newly laid-off Americans are facing delays in receiving unemployment benefits as state agencies intensify efforts to combat fraudulent applications and clear their pipelines of a backlog of jobless claims.
California has said it will stop processing new applications for two weeks as it seeks to reduce backlogs and prevent fraudulent claims. Pennsylvania has found that up to 10,000 inmates are improperly receiving aid.
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In Illinois, 23,113 people filed initial claims for jobless benefits during the week that ended Sept. 19, compared with 27,384 a week earlier.
Read more here. —Associated Press
6:43 a.m.: Sign tallying COVID-19 deaths that was marred with spray paint will stay up in Northbrook after some called for its removal
On the corner of Shermer Road and Walters Avenue in what many refer to as Triangle Park, a large sign displaying the number of national COVID-19 deaths stood Tuesday night, freshly covered with black spray paint.
At the exact same time, Northbrook officials were discussing whether the sign should be allowed to remain standing. Regardless of any personal views, trustees concluded at the meeting that they legally have no right to order the sign taken down.
The sign, which was unveiled Friday, says “We’re #1,” along with an updated tally of the number of national COVID-19 deaths — now displaying a grim 200,000. At the bottom of the sign reads “U.S.A. Donald J. Trump, President.”
Read more here. — Kaitlin Edquist
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6 a.m.: Want to vote early in Illinois' general election? Here’s what you need to know.
Balloting for the Nov. 3 general election kicks off Thursday with the opening of some early-voting polling sites while election officials across the state begin to mail out ballots to some of the more than 1.7 million applicants and brace for an unprecedented surge in both types of voting because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though election officials will begin sending mail-in ballots to all Illinois residents, only some polling places will open Thursday, including a few sites in DuPage, Lake, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties.
Chicago’s in-person early voting operation doesn’t start until Oct. 1 at the Loop Super Site at 191 N. Clark St., before expanding Oct. 14 to locations in each of the city’s 50 wards.
In suburban Cook County, in-person early voting starts Oct. 7 and will expand Oct. 19 to more than 50 sites.
Read more here. —Kelli Smith
6 a.m.: ‘This is not good enough.’ Chicago-area parents rally to get kids back in school, and some districts are making it happen.
Her three children had always been good students, but since being relegated to online learning in Downers Grove, Carrie Swenson has had to guard against sleeping during class, poor grades and the temptation to cheat.
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At random times, with all three in band but no group practice, they take turns playing a trumpet, saxophone or percussion, while their golden retriever howls. Swenson’s son is dejected and no longer in the Advanced Placement classes at which he excelled.
“This is not good enough,” Swenson said of remote learning. “It’s like they’re watching TV. I’ve heard of more and more students disengaging. Overwhelmingly, parents are saying this isn’t enough, we cannot do this.”
Swenson recently joined in a wave of parent rallies across the suburbs, calling for kids to get back in the classroom and into athletics in Algonquin, Barrington, Libertyville, Naperville, Orland Park, Villa Park and Wheaton, among other towns. They say online learning is not working, noting that some districts are operating with children in class, showing it can be done safely despite the coronavirus. In response, some boards are taking steps to reopen schools, many through a hybrid plan of remote and in-person learning.
Read more here. —Robert McCoppin and Karen Ann Cullotta
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 five stories related to COVID-19 from Wednesday:


chicagotribune--2020-09-24--Hundreds gather for Breonna Taylor after officers not charged


chicagotribune--2020-09-26--Youth hockey in Illinois has been frozen by COVID-19 restrictions. Some parents say it’s time for a

Youth hockey in Illinois has been frozen by COVID-19 restrictions. Some parents say it’s time for a thaw.

Standing outside the Mount Prospect Ice Arena while two of her kids practiced , Quinn said teams are already doing @ @ @ @ @ the risk .
Players dress at home or in the rink parking lot and don @ @ @ @ @ rooms .
They wear masks off the ice ( and sometimes on ) , bring @ @ @ @ @ practice social distancing on the bench .

Patrick Quinn laces up 9-year-old Ian Burns' skates while members of the Glenview Stars hockey club gear up in their equipment outside the Mount Prospect Ice Arena before a practice. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Gov. J.B. Pritzker often says he is “listening to the experts” about which youth sports are safe to play during the COVID-19 pandemic, but when some hockey parents filed a public records request to learn what those experts were telling him, they received a pile of emails in which almost everything was blacked out.
The opaque response infuriated the parents, whose favored sport cannot be played in Illinois under current rules. They say Pritzker and his staff don’t understand the attributes that make hockey safer than other sports classified as high risk, and show no interest in learning.
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“If they have information that says youth hockey is high risk because of A, B and C, that’s what I’ve been looking for,” said Kelly Quinn, a Glenview parent of four hockey-playing children and head of a group called Restore Youth Hockey. “I’m a reasonable person. But (the lack of information) makes me believe they didn’t explore hockey at all.”
The Glenview Stars hockey club practices at the Mount Prospect Ice Arena, Sept. 24, 2020, in Mount Prospect. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
A spokeswoman for the governor did not respond to a request for comment. But at a news conference earlier this month in which he was asked to justify the ban on contact sports, he cited concerns over “an exchange of sweat, saliva and other things that are going on” along with a potential lack of social distancing in locker rooms.
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Illinois' restrictions aren’t stopping many kids from playing. Like athletes in other sports, they’re simply heading out of state for tournaments, a scenario that concerns epidemiologists but which parents say they feel compelled to pursue.
“We’ve traveled up to Wisconsin,” said Mark Zaremski of Downers Grove, whose 10-year-old son plays on a travel team. “We’ve got something set up for Indiana in a couple of weeks. I just think it’s unnecessary. I don’t think we should have to do this. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
In July, following a COVID-19 outbreak among Lake Zurich High School athletes that was later traced to social gatherings, state officials created regulations for youth sports that ranked their risk level from high to low.
The Illinois Department of Public Health placed hockey among the higher-risk sports, which also include football, wrestling and rugby. That meant athletes could practice as long as there was no contact, but not play games.
Cayson Quinn, 9, takes a drink of water after putting on his hockey equipment outside the Mount Prospect Ice Arena before a practice with the Glenview Stars hockey club Sept. 24, 2020, in Mount Prospect. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
That’s a greater risk level than the National Federation of State High School Associations and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee assign to the sport. (IDPH officials said they consulted the groups while creating their rankings.) Hockey parents said the sport should be considered low risk, a category that includes cross-country, golf and baseball, and created an online petition that makes a case for easing the restriction.
They noted that players are covered head-to-toe in protective gear that includes face shields, do not share equipment and compete on a vast surface. USA Hockey produced a study earlier this year that found with the sport’s constant movement, youth players spend only a few seconds in immediate proximity to one another during a practice or game.
The organization announced in early August it would continue to sanction the sport, citing guidance from the Mayo Clinic. With precautions such as hand-washing, off-ice mask wearing and social distancing, USA Hockey President Jim Smith said, “A trip to the rink is likely as safe as a trip to the grocery store.”
Illinois public health officials, however, point to several hockey-related COVID-19 outbreaks around the country, including one that happened last month at a tournament for adults in Traverse City, Michigan. Contact tracers found 35 infections stemming from the tournament, though they couldn’t pinpoint the exact route of transmission.
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Kelly Quinn puts away items in bags outside the Mount Prospect Ice Arena before a practice for the Glenview Stars hockey club Sept. 24, 2020. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
“Not only were there a lot of games, but also there were a lot of outside the rink activities that the groups did together — barbecues, hanging out, a lot of social events where they were not masked and in close proximity,” said Wendy Hirschenberger of the Grand Traverse County Health Department.
Even so, she said hockey should be viewed as a high-risk activity given its physical nature. Zachary Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University, agreed with that assessment and said he was concerned about COVID-19 spreading through interstate tournaments.
“The virus does not obey state borders,” he said. “If you are traveling, you run the risk of becoming infected and either bringing the virus to your destination or back home. It is really disappointing to see youth organizations engaged in this race to the bottom.”
USA Hockey allows its state affiliates to set their own rules on tournaments, and in Illinois that duty falls to Amateur Hockey Association Illinois, or AHAI. In a statement issued earlier this month, it said while it does not recommend teams play out of state, it won’t require them to get the permit ordinarily needed to compete outside of Illinois.
Still, AHAI warned there could be consequences.
“If teams or participants travel out of Illinois, they would be subject to any applicable state of Illinois quarantine requirements and may be subject to penalties by the state of Illinois if it determines that such travel violated the current health regulations,” it said.
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Some parents and coaches insist the game can be played safely, pointing to a July tournament held in the Chicago area before the new rules took hold. Nearly 200 youth teams came and went without any reports of an outbreak, they said.
“With all the science that’s out there and all the legwork that’s been done and all the evidence that kids have been skating since June (with) no outbreak in the hockey community, it’s proven itself,” said Sylvain Turcotte, hockey director of the Glenview Park District and the Glenview Stars travel team. “Hockey should be able to be played.”
Standing outside the Mount Prospect Ice Arena while two of her kids practiced, Quinn said teams are already doing what they can to lower the risk. Players dress at home or in the rink parking lot and don’t use the locker rooms. They wear masks off the ice (and sometimes on), bring their own water bottles and practice social distancing on the bench.
She said critics who think hockey parents are being reckless should hold the same attitude about grocery shopping, dining out or attending a small wedding, all of which remain permissible.
“You know the risk tolerance of your own family, and if I thought any of my family members were in a high-risk category then I wouldn’t have my kids play,” she said. “But they’re not, and I’m willing to take the risk because I think the risk is small.”
Dr. David Thomas, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said while that is a sensible perspective, public health leaders must take into account that some won’t be meticulous with preventive measures and could allow the virus to spread.
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“You’re really trusting everyone,” he said. “All it takes is one person to not do it.”
jkeilman@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @JohnKeilman


chicagotribune--2020-09-26--At least 2 Lake Bluff fifth-graders test positive for COVID-19 after social gatherings involving stu

At least 2 Lake Bluff fifth-graders test positive for COVID-19 after social gatherings involving students

“ Our role is to educate Lake Bluff ’ s children despite a public health emergency , not to monitor @ @ @ @ @ , ” School Board President Mark Barry said in a statement .
“ Families that @ @ @ @ @ ’ t make the hard choices that keep COVID-19 out of our buildings should take @ @ @ @ @ this crisis is over .
The alternative puts our students , our educators and our @ @ @ @ @

All fifth graders at Lake Bluff Elementary School may have to study remotely through next week after at least two students tested positive for COVID-19, according to school officials.
The students may have been exposed to the virus in mid-September at multiple organized sports events and a large social gathering involving mainly fifth-grade students, said District 65 Superintendent Lisa Leali.
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“There were enough students who could have been potential contacts that we decided, out of an abundance of caution, to shift the fifth grade level to all remote learning until the Lake County Health Department could complete their investigation,” Leali said Friday evening.
Leali did not believe it was necessary to have students from other grades at the pre-K through fifth grade school stay home next week because the majority of children at the gatherings were fifth-graders, she said.
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“The events, from what we can tell, were very limited in terms of who was participating from the tracing we were able to do,” Leali said.
In a statement issued by the village of Lake Bluff, there were two cases in which parents did not immediately report coronavirus symptoms or that the children had tested positively to the school district.
District officials strongly encouraged those with possible exposure to COVID-19 to report the information to the school to ensure that in-person classes may remain in place for as many children as possible.
“Our role is to educate Lake Bluff’s children despite a public health emergency, not to monitor Lake Bluff’s families,” School Board President Mark Barry said in a statement. “Families that can’t or won’t make the hard choices that keep COVID-19 out of our buildings should take advantage of remote learning until this crisis is over. The alternative puts our students, our educators and our community in danger.”
The school district was initially informed by the Lake County Health Department of one positive case on Monday, but decided to keep children in school based on conversations with health officials, Leali said.
“As we learned more and the Health Department got more information from the people involved, we realized there were a lot more opportunities for exposure and that is why we made the decision to shift to remote,” Leali said.
A Lake County Health Department spokeswoman said via text they work closely with all school districts as every COVID-19 case is investigated.
Leali did not have any specific information on the health of the infected children.
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District 65 has been offering in-person learning this semester with families also allowed to select an exclusively remote option.
There are 107 total fifth grade students and roughly half were already learning exclusively remotely. She added the fifth grade classrooms would now undergo a deep cleaning.
The five teachers involved with fifth grade students had been instructing from a distance and officials did not think they would have been exposed to the virus, but Leali conceded the teachers are now feeling anxious.
“They want to trust the community is giving us the information they need,” Leali said
Leali said all fifth graders are scheduled to return to school Oct. 5 and after talking with both the county and state health departments late Friday, she thought some of the students might be able to return to the building next week pending further investigation.
The district has put procedures in place this year including temperature checks and self-certification from families before students enter the two district schools, Leali said.
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She does not foresee any significant changes to protocols despite the recent positive tests.
“We feel confident in the system we have set up,” Leali said.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to correct the total number of fifth-grade students.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter.


chicagotribune--2020-09-26--Elections board says mail-in applicants who instead want to vote in person should first wait for the

Elections board says mail-in applicants who instead want to vote in person should first wait for their ballots to arrive

Some confusion and delays that occurred during the first two days of early voting this week were attributed to people @ @ @ @ @ by mail , but then showed up to vote in person , according to an @ @ @ @ @ news release .

Illinois election authorities are asking voters who applied for a mail-in ballot but then decide to cast their vote in person to “allow sufficient time” until their ballot arrives before heading into an early voting location.
Some confusion and delays that occurred during the first two days of early voting this week were attributed to people who had applied to vote by mail, but then showed up to vote in person, according to an Illinois State Board of Elections news release.
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“We are asking that voters who have already applied for a mail ballot allow sufficient time for the ballot to arrive,” elections board spokesman Matt Dietrich said in an email.
Election officials throughout the state began mailing vote-by-mail ballots on Thursday to Illinois voters who applied for one and were approved. In-person early voting started that same day in many areas across the state, including at limited locations in DuPage, Lake, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties. Suburban Cook County and Chicago won’t begin in-person early voting until October.
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Voters in some places experienced hourslong wait times trying to vote Thursday as an unprecedented number of people showed up to polling places to vote early. At locations in DuPage, Will and Kane counties, lines stretched hundreds of people long at various points in the day.
A voter puts her ballot into the ballot box on the first day of early voting at the DuPage County Fairgrounds, Sept. 24, 2020 in Wheaton. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
About 1.9 million people in Illinois had applied by Friday for a mail-in ballot, which they can cast by mail, deliver to their local election authority or drop off at a secured drop box location in their area.
If voters applied and were approved for a mail-in ballot, but decide to vote in person instead, they must bring their mail-in ballot with them to an early voting location and surrender it to an election official.
Voters who apply for a mail-in ballot but don’t receive one can vote in person, but must sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury.
“This is intended for situations in which the late delivery imperils the individual’s ability to cast a vote, such as a ballot that hasn’t arrived on or near Election Day,” Dietrich said.
If voters cast a ballot in person after signing an affidavit, and later receive a mail-in ballot, they should discard it. It is a class 3 felony in Illinois to vote more than once in an election.
“In the incidents reported in the last two days, the additional paperwork has caused delays at early voting locations that could have been avoided had the voter waited to allow the mail ballot to be delivered,” Dietrich said. i
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kelsmith@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @KelliSmithNews


chicagotribune--2020-09-26--Federal investigators seek to question 3 CPS employees; Board of Ed pays for lawyers to represent th

Federal investigators seek to question 3 CPS employees; Board of Ed pays for lawyers to represent them

“ Chicago Public Schools is not present , involved in , and has not provided any information in the interview @ @ @ @ @ were not themselves under investigation and the interviews related to matters that the employees may @ @ @ @ @ their employment by the district , the district offered to retain legal counsel to act @ @ @ @ @ assist them in the interviews .
”

Chicago Public Schools is paying two outside law firms to represent three employees whom federal authorities have asked to interview.
The Chicago Board of Education this week approved a request to pay the firm McGuireWoods $30,000 “to represent three individuals who have received interview requests from the U.S. Attorney’s Office” for the Northern District of Illinois, according to Board of Education documents.
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“The U.S. Attorney’s Office informed the district that these employees are not under investigation for their conduct but may have information or evidence that would be helpful to an investigation,” according to a statement released by CPS spokeswoman Emily Bolton.
Citing “ongoing legal proceedings," district spokespeople declined to provide the names of those who have been asked for an interview. They also did not say when or if the interviews had already taken place, but said the district is using two firms, McGuireWoods and The Law Offices of Clarence Butler, to provide legal counsel to the three.
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“The law firms represent the interests of the individuals, not the district, and do not report back to Chicago Public Schools,” the CPS statement said. “Counsel independent of CPS is provided so that there is no conflict of interest in the representation of the employees.”
The Chicago Public Schools office at 42 W. Madison St. on Sept. 21, 2020, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
CPS officials did not provide more information about any agreement with The Law Offices of Clarence Butler.
“The interviews are arranged directly between the employees and the U.S. Attorney’s Office," according to the statement, which continued:
“Chicago Public Schools is not present, involved in, and has not provided any information in the interview process. Because the employees were not themselves under investigation and the interviews related to matters that the employees may have witnessed in connection with their employment by the district, the district offered to retain legal counsel to act as their personal representative to assist them in the interviews.”
Last month, a former top aide to Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson pleaded guilty to a federal charge of lying to the FBI about whether he passed secret bid information about a $1 billion custodial contract to an operative for one of the bidders.
There has been no indication whether that case is connected to the interview requests. On Friday, CPS officials said the U.S. attorney’s office “did not inform the district about the nature or subject matter of their investigation.”
hleone@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-09-25--From Notre Dame to Chicago’s 7th Circuit to Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett poised to becom

From Notre Dame to Chicago’s 7th Circuit to Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett poised to become Trump’s pick to succeed Ginsburg

“ He was who he was , '' Barrett said in her 2019 Notre Dame interview .
`` He was @ @ @ @ @ He was a family man .
He took a lot of criticism from many quarters @ @ @ @ @ had and the choices that he made , and , you know , his Catholicism @ @ @ @ @ he had the strength to be who he was .
”

Three years ago, University of Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett was plucked from relative obscurity by President Donald Trump to serve as a federal appellate judge on the Chicago-based 7th Circuit.
Now, Barrett has been thrust into an even more searing national spotlight as Trump on Saturday formally nominated the South Bend judge to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
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President Donald Trump, left, introduces 7th U.S. Circuit Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court in the Rose Garden at the White House Sept. 26, 2020 in Washington. With 38 days until the election, Trump tapped Barrett to be his third Supreme Court nominee in four years and to replace Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
“It is my honor to nominate one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court. She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution,” Trump said in making the Barrett announcement in the Rose Garden, where she was joined by her husband and seven children.
“The stakes for our country are incredibly high. Rulings that the Supreme Court will issue in the coming years will decide the survival of our Second Amendment, our religious liberty, our public safety and so much more,” Trump said. “To maintain security, liberty and prosperity, we must preserve our priceless heritage of a nation of laws and there is no one better to do that than Amy Coney Barrett.”
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Acknowledging what she called a “rather overwhelming occasion,” Barrett told Trump she was “deeply honored by the confidence you have placed in me.”
“I have no illusions that the road ahead of me will be easy, either for the short term or the long haul,” she said. “I never imagined that I would find myself in this position. But now that I am, I assure you that I will meet the challenge with both humility and courage.”
If Barrett is confirmed by the Senate, Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will further an already massive conservative ideological restructuring of the federal judiciary that could last for decades. Barrett becomes Trump’s third nominee for the Supreme Court during his term, following confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. She would give the court a 6-3 conservative supermajority.
The effects could be far-ranging, most immediately on a case scheduled for November that could decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to cases dealing with abortion and LGTBQ rights, gun control and employer-employee relations.
The nomination also has immediate political ramifications. Trump picked Barrett just 38 days before the Nov. 3 election — a move that could energize his conservative base while providing more incentive for Democrats to back former Vice President Joe Biden for the presidency. Biden’s running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, sits on the Judiciary Committee.
Less than an hour before Trump made the announcement, his campaign used the nomination in a fundraising pitch. “It’s only a matter of time before the Radical Democrats start OBSTRUCTING our nominee, and it’s going to take all hands on deck if we’re going to FIGHT BACK against their unprecedented smear tactics," the email read.
Barrett’s conservatism also could become a major political issue for suburban women, a critical demographic that Trump and Republicans have seen slipping away. It’s a group that tends to be more socially moderate and one that has made the nation’s suburbs more of a political battleground as it trends Democratic.
Biden noted Barrett had critiqued the high court’s 2012 decision upholding the Affordable Care Act and said Senate Republicans should wait.
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“The American people know the U.S. Supreme Court decisions affect their everyday lives. The United States Constitution was designed to give the voters one chance to have their voice heard on who serves on the court. That moment is now and their voice should be heard,” Biden said in a statement after the announcement. "The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett is nominated to the U.S.Supreme Court by President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
In selecting Barrett — a devout Roman Catholic who is a favorite of social conservatives — Trump stayed true to his word to nominate a woman to replace Ginsburg, albeit one from the opposite end of the political spectrum.
The nomination came a day after Ginsburg, an icon for women and civil rights, became the first woman and first person of Jewish faith to lie in state in the nation’s Capitol building. Trump and Barrett each reflected on her legacy.
If confirmed by the Republican-majority U.S. Senate, Barrett would be the fifth woman in history to join the nation’s high court, and the first since Elena Kagan, who was nominated by President Obama a decade ago.
Though Barrett has continued to live in Indiana while serving on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, her appointment is the first with direct Chicago connections since John Paul Stevens in 1975.
Barrett, who turned 48 in January, would be the youngest jurist on the Supreme Court and could shape the country’s legal direction for decades to come.
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Her selection to replace Ginsburg just weeks before a presidential election has set off political fighting between Republicans who control the Senate and the Democratic minority and is expected to lead to a fiercely contested confirmation hearing. McConnell has promised to hold a vote as soon as possible, though he has stopped short of saying it will definitely happen before voters go to the polls on Nov. 3.
Trump thanked Republican senators for a commitment to providing “a fair and timely hearing” and predicted she would easily be confirmed.
“Her qualifications are unsurpassed and her record is beyond reproach. This should be a straightforward and prompt confirmation. It should be very easy. Good luck. It’s going to be very quick. I’m sure it will be extremely noncontroversial,” said Trump, before nodding to the controversial hearings surrounding Kavanaugh. “We said that last time, didn’t we?”
Barrett said she looked forward to meeting with senators in the days ahead.
“The president has nominated me to serve on the United States Supreme Court and that institution belongs to all of us,” she said.
“If confirmed, I would not assume that role for the sake of those in my own circle and certainly not for my own sake. I would assume this role to serve you. I would discharge the judicial oath which requires me to administer justice without respect to persons, do equal rights to the poor and rich, and faithfully and impartially discharge my duties under the United States Constitution,” she said.
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Democrats have protested the Republicans' rush to replace Ginsburg, saying voters should speak first and the winner of the White House should fill the vacancy. Democrats also noted that Senate Republicans blocked Obama’s 2016 nominee, Merrick Garland, citing the election year, but won’t do the same on Trump’s pick.
President Donald Trump walks along the Colonnade with Judge Amy Coney Barrett after a news conference to announce Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court at the White House on Sept. 26, 2020, in Washington. (Alex Brandon / AP)
Illinois' two Democratic senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, voted against Barrett’s nomination to the appellate bench three years ago. On Saturday, Duckworth said she would vote against her nomination to the nation’s highest court.
“I voted against confirming Amy Coney Barrett to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit because she failed to demonstrate the capability or willingness to serve as an impartial, fair and independent jurist,” Duckworth said in a statement. “Judge Barrett was not fit to be a circuit judge in 2017 and she is the wrong choice for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court today. Once again, she will not have my support.”
Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and a member of the Judiciary Committee, was asked on CNN prior to Trump’s announcement if Barrett was qualified to sit on the nation’s highest court. He replied: “I don’t know the answer to that.”
Criticizing Republicans as hypocrites for trying to fast-track Barrett’s nomination before the election in contrast to blocking Garland’s nomination, Durbin said Trump’s refusal to say he would abide by the outcome of the presidential election and the president’s desire to have a justice seated in case of a disputed result were concerns.
“When you look at those statements, they are nothing short of amazing, startling, for a president to say that. I want to know what Amy Coney Barrett has to say about that. Is she ready to be on the court? I need some answers,” Illinois' senior senator said.
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CNN reported a tentative schedule of Barrett meeting with McConnell on Tuesday and hearings set to begin the week of Oct. 12.
Barrett’s conservative bent and religious upbringing are sure to be hotly scrutinized, as they were three years ago during her confirmation hearing for the 7th Circuit when Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California told Barrett she was concerned that “the dogma lives loudly within you.”
At the time, Barrett had no record of judicial rulings for senators to dig into. Now she brings to the national spotlight more than 100 written opinions and dissents authored over the past 2½ years offering insight into how she sees the law related to hot-button issues such as gun control, immigration and abortion.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Barrett enjoys the widespread and often passionate support of colleagues stretching back to her days as a clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia 20 years ago.
Fellow clerks nicknamed Barrett “The Conenator” — a play on her maiden name and reputation for destroying flimsy legal arguments.
But being a judge, let alone a Supreme Court justice, was not necessarily her first career choice. In an interview last year at an alumni function at Notre Dame Law School, Barrett said she’d relished her role as law professor and was still on a steep “learning curve” as a jurist.
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“The judge thing was really out of the blue — I mean that wasn’t something that I, I’m still surprised that I’m not just a 100% full-time faculty member,” Barrett said.
Barrett’s husband, Jesse, is a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. They have seven children ranging in age from 8 to 19, including two whom the couple adopted from poverty-stricken Haiti and a young son born with developmental disabilities.
As the eldest of 29 grandchildren, Barrett, whose father also is a lawyer, has long placed an emphasis on family.
“What greater thing can you do than raise children?” she said during a 2019 interview at Notre Dame. “That’s where you can have your greatest impact on the world.”
Barrett attended an all-girls Catholic school in New Orleans before studying English and French at a liberal arts college in Memphis, Tennessee. She earned her law degree in 1997 from Notre Dame, where she saw the law as a way to use her passion for reading and writing to serve a higher purpose.
“I liked the way that law would enable me to do the reading and writing that I loved, but also be involved in real-world things and have a role in shaping the world,” Barrett said.
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Like Scalia, her former boss and mentor, Barrett has a conservative bent and considers herself a public meaning originalist who strictly applies the intent of the authors of the Constitution or other governing laws at the time they were written.
Barrett’s originalist mindset was on display in 2018 when she cited centuries-old laws in Britain and elsewhere in a dissent over a 7th Circuit appeal involving a Wisconsin man convicted of being a felon in possession of a handgun.
While Barrett’s colleagues ruled that Wisconsin’s law barring felons from having firearms was constitutional, Barrett wrote that since the plaintiff had been convicted of a white collar crime, he was not inherently dangerous.
“Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons,” Barrett wrote in her dissent, which said the Wisconsin law should be declared unconstitutional. “In 1791 — and for well more than a century afterward — legislatures disqualified categories of people from the right to bear arms only when they judged that doing so was necessary to protect the public safety.”
Barrett has often spoken about the influence Scalia had on her approach to the law as well as how he handled himself in the face of criticism.
“He was who he was,” Barrett said in 2019 at Notre Dame. “He was a man of faith. He was a family man. He took a lot of criticism from many quarters for the values that he had and the choices that he made, and, you know, his Catholicism and his faith, and he had the strength to be who he was.”
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She also has written in the past about originalism as applied to the legality of the Affordable Care Act, which is due to be argued before the Supreme Court in November.
In a law review article written shortly before she joined the 7th Circuit, Barrett criticized Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. for his ruling that sustained the legislation, saying he had “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.”
“Deference to a democratic majority should not supersede a judge’s duty to apply clear text,” Barrett wrote in the 2017 article.
Of all the topics Barrett will be grilled on in her confirmation hearing, it’s the abortion issue that could prove to be the most polarizing, especially given she would potentially replace Ginsburg, a champion of women’s rights.
When Barrett was on the shortlist to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, opponents pointed to her scholarly articles and Catholic faith as suggesting she is a religious extremist who could be willing to overturn precedent and end legal abortion established by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.
Critics focused in part on Barrett’s affiliation with People of Praise, a charismatic faith group that has been portrayed as oppressive and misogynistic — a charge the group rejects. Supporters and former colleagues, however, described an exacting legal thinker committed to separating her faith from her interpretation of the Constitution and law.
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Her nearly three-year stint on the bench in Chicago has included at least one abortion-related case.
A 2018 ruling by a 7th Circuit panel declared unconstitutional an Indiana law requiring the burial of fetal remains after an abortion or miscarriage, which prohibited clinics from treating the remains as waste.
Barrett joined three conservative judges in asking for the ruling to be tossed and for the full court to rehear the case. They eventually issued a joint dissent that suggested they thought the Indiana law was constitutional.
Barrett became a star among conservatives in fall 2017 after her Catholic faith took center stage during her confirmation hearing to the appellate bench.
During the hearing, Barrett repeatedly said her faith would not intrude on her legal reasoning.
“I see no conflict between having a sincerely held faith and duties as a judge,” she testified. “I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law.”
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Barrett declined to discuss her personal views on abortion, same-sex marriage and other hot-button topics, but she was questioned on her scholarly writings. Those include a 2013 law review article in which she wrote that the stare decisis doctrine — which holds that past rulings govern future decisions — is “not a hard-and-fast rule in the court’s constitutional cases.”
The Senate panel also zeroed in on a 1998 paper in which Barrett, then a law student, explored when Catholic judges in death penalty cases might have to recuse themselves if they thought their moral beliefs kept them from doing their duty.
Barrett emphasized she was not the lead author — that was one of her professors, John Garvey, now president of the Catholic University of America. Barrett also said that with 20 years of legal experience, she likely would have written the article differently, though she stood by its core principle — that a judge cannot twist the law to match a personal belief.
Durbin said Saturday he remained concerned about her past writings on stare decisis and on religion and jurisprudence.
“That is what you want to hear: that whatever your religious belief whether you have one or not, it’s not going to influence your opinion. What you asked me is it still a concern. Of course,” he said on CNN.
rpearson@chicagotribune.com
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jmeisner@chicagotribune.com