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Archive for May, 2026

Barrington Hills Park District (Riding Cult) meets tonight

Posted in Agendas, Algonquin Rd, Animal Welfare, Barrington Hills Park District, Barrington Hills Polo Club, Commercial Horse Boarding, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Equestrian Commission, Ethics, Financial Statements, Fox River Valley Hunt, FPDCC, FRVPC, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Massbach Hounds, Politics, Privacy, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Riding Center Advisory Committee, Riding Club Commission, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Taxes, The Other Half, Transparency, Unions on May 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Barrington Hills Park District Board/Riding Cult of Barrington Hills will hold their monthly meeting this evening in person and via Zoom at 6:00 PM. Some topics on their agenda include:

  • Approval of the April 2026 Park Board Meeting Minutes (Not provided)
  • Treasurer’s Report Review, Approval of the April 2026 Park District Financials (Not Provided)
  • Advisory Committee Report (Not Provided)

A copy of their agenda can be viewed here. Instructions for accessing the meeting remotely can be found here.

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WATCH: Ex-rep sues Pritzker, Illinois over race-based congressional map

Posted in Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, SNAFU, Springfield, The Center Square, The Chicago Way, Transparency, Unions on May 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The entrance of the federal court in the Southern District of Illinois is shown in East St. Louis. Photo: Greg Bishop / The Center Squar

By Sean Reed | The Center Square

Illinois’ congressional district map is being challenged over what some argue are unconstitutional racial requirements for districts. A former Republican state representative sued Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the State Board of Elections late last week.

Jeanne Ives, a former representative of the state’s 42nd district, brought the case backed by J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Filed in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of Illinois, the official complaint claims congressional maps drawn after the 2020 U.S. Census are unconstitutional because the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011 mandates the creation of “racial districts.”

Ives told The Center Square Daily that state Democrats have brazenly moved to draw maps based on racial lines.

“It’s very obvious to anybody looking at Illinois maps, and Illinois law, that these districts are in fact – they use race to design the districts and the SCOTUS decision makes it abundantly clear that you just can’t do that anymore,” Ives said.

Ives said a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which determined Louisiana’s district map as unconstitutional because of an over-reliance on race, is what has explicitly made it clear that Illinois’ congressional map as unconstitutional.

Report continues here.

Related: “U.S. Supreme Court decision puts brakes on Illinois redistricting amendment”

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Finance Committee meets today

Posted in Agendas, Finance Committee, Property Taxes, Taxes, Village Treasurer on May 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Village Finance Committee meets this afternoon at 1:00 PM. Topics on their agenda include:

  • Year-To-Date-Review
  • Financial Forecasting
  • Financial Efficiencies and Modernizations

A copy of their agenda can be viewed and downloaded here.

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Commentary: Illinois toll hike undermines Pritzker’s affordability message

Posted in Aunt Blabby, Daily Herald, Deception, Fat Bastard, Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois Tollway, Look For The Union Label, Overhead, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, Unions on May 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Matt Paprocki

By Matt Poprocki | Posted to the Daily Herald

Gov. JB Pritzker is marketing himself as a champion of affordability. A proposal to impose the largest passenger toll increase in state history cuts directly against that message.

The plan would raise tolls 45 cents for passenger vehicles and 30% for commercial vehicles. If approved, it would generate an additional $1 billion annually starting in 2027, with automatic increases tied to inflation every two years beginning in 2029, capped at 4% annually.

State leaders have framed the proposal as forward-looking, but in reality it’s another cash grab — for a system that doesn’t need the money.

State leaders approved the potential toll hike in November 2025 to secure labor support for a broader transit funding agreement. But the tollway does not need more money: Toll revenues have exceeded operating and maintenance costs for decades. In 2024 alone, the tollway collected nearly $1.44 billion — the most in its history.

With cost of living a top concern in Illinois, residents and businesses do not need something disconnected from necessity or announced projects.

The Illinois Tollway board has a choice. It can approve a record-setting unnecessary increase that drivers and businesses cannot afford, or it can decline the increase and recognize that Illinoisans already pay enough. Nothing will change; the state still has enough money to run road projects and has a surplus sitting in tollway reserves right now.

Since 2019, Illinois drivers have paid roughly $1,500 more in gas taxes and vehicle fees. Higher tolls would affect not only commuters, but ripple through the broader economy.

Commercial tolls are set to rise by 30%, and those costs will be passed on to consumers through higher prices on everyday goods. Nearly everything purchased in Illinois travels by truck at some point, making this toll increase a broad, indirect tax on households statewide.

The proposal is even more troubling because of its automatic inflation-linked increases. That lets lawmakers avoid future accountability. Costs will simply rise in the background, removed from public debate or oversight.

This approach raises serious concerns about how transportation dollars are being managed. Voters approved the 2016 transportation “lockbox” amendment to ensure money would be used appropriately. While this proposal may comply with that framework, it undermines its spirit by layering on new, permanent revenue streams instead of emphasizing the efficiency and restraint voters were looking for.

Illinois has seen this pattern before. In 2019, Pritzker and lawmakers tied the state’s gas tax to inflation, creating automatic annual increases. The result has been one of the highest gas taxes in the nation and billions in surplus revenue. Now, the same approach is proposed for tolls, despite clear evidence that existing funds are more than sufficient.

Spiking fees beyond what’s needed for road maintenance is unfair to drivers, who should pay only for the actual cost of maintaining infrastructure. Using fees collected from residents and businesses to set aside billions to satisfy unions is directly opposed to improving affordability and economic growth in Illinois.

State leaders could pursue meaningful relief. Georgia and Indiana implemented temporary gas tax holidays to help offset rising fuel costs. With Illinois’ transportation funds running a surplus, lawmakers could provide similar relief without jeopardizing long-term funding.

The board responsible for approving the hike is composed of Pritzker appointees, and the governor himself sits on it as an ex-officio member. If the increase moves forward, it will do so with the backing of the same leadership that claims to want to ease the burden on families.

Will Pritzker allow another unnecessary cost increase on Illinoisans, or will he step in and stop it?

For a governor who says he’s focused on affordability, the answer should be clear.

     – Matt Paprocki is the president and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute

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Data centers are cropping up all over Illinois. How do they work?

Posted in AI, Chicago Reader, Clown Car, Data Center, Deception, Ethics, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, New Normal?, One Barrington Hills, Plum Farm development, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, Transparency, Village Code, Village Director of Administration, Village President on May 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

What you need to know about the hyperscale data centers coming to the Midwest | Credit: Illustration by Shira Friedman-Parks

By Siri Chilukuri | Chicago Reader

The explosion of proposed data centers across Illinois has sparked a fierce, bipartisan backlash and even legislation to curb the long-lasting effects on people’s air quality, water quality, and energy bills. In town halls from Pekin to Joliet to Chicago’s southeast side, people have packed rooms and spent hours discussing the impact of potential developments on their communities. As residents grapple with project proposals, it’s never been more important to understand the impact of data centers.

Everything from the emails you send to the photos you save on your phone is stored in a data center. For decades, data centers have been central to the architecture of the Internet, especially the digital lives we lead today. But the rise of artificial intelligence, in particular generative AI—which uses computer models to produce text, images, videos, and more—is driving the development of facilities that use more energy and water than ever before. The size of these so-called hyperscale data centers, and the profit motives driving the rush to get them online quickly, can cause pollution.

Sarah Moskowitz, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, has been working with utility customers for decades on issues of affordability and climate change. The CUB is an advocacy organization for Illinois ratepayers, which has been watching the rise of data center projects in Illinois and learning more in the process about what they actually do. For Moskowitz, the distinction between next-generation hyperscale data centers that have roiled communities and the existing data center infrastructure is an important one to make. At the most basic level, “a data center is a physical facility containing equipment to store, process, and disseminate digital information,” Moskowitz said. “A hyperscaler is basically a large version of that. Generally, we think of hyperscalers as gigantic facilities, largely deployed to process artificial intelligence.”

Even the term “hyperscale” is imprecise, though, according to Helena Volzer, senior source water policy manager at the Alliance for the Great Lakes. “There’s really no hard and fast definition of what hyperscale even means. It just means a large facility,” Volzer said. Economists at the University of Virginia expect an average hyperscale data center to be about 300,000 square feet by 2030.

Hyperscale data centers are energy intensive not just because of their massive size but also because of what they process. The power used by generative AI is staggering—the computational power needed to train the large language models that power chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, and the power needed to perform basic functions once they’re up and running far outpaces the demands of existing data centers. One Goldman Sachs report estimates that AI will spur a 165 percent increase in data center power consumption by 2030.

“What makes the data center problem unique is the fact that these facilities are being built in a specific location, or specific locations, and they are being built en masse,” said Yury Dvorkin, an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University. “[If] you put a lot of electricity demand in a very constrained location, what happens is that it’s harder for the grid to deliver power in that specific location.”

Report continues here.

Related: “Illinois lawmakers begin days of deep dives on data centers,” “Do you trust our Board of Trustees? We don’t. But you decide for yourself once we have finished. (Part 4),” “Do you trust our Board of Trustees? We don’t. But you decide for yourself once we have finished. (Follow-up),” “Do you trust our Board of Trustees? We don’t. But you decide for yourself once we have finished. (Part 3),” “Do you trust our Board of Trustees? We don’t. But you decide for yourself once we have finished. (Part 2),” “Do you trust our Board of Trustees? We don’t. But you decide for yourself once we have finished. (Part 1),” “110 Acre AI data center campus pitched to Village Board”

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Village Adjudication Hearing(s) today

Posted in Land Use, Village Attorney, Village Code on May 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The monthly Village Adjudication Hearing(s) is scheduled for today at 11 AM in the MacArthur Board Room.

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Obama Presidential Center helped by $123 million in public infrastructure improvements

Posted in Chicago Sun*Times, Cook, County, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Look For The Union Label, Politics, Taxes on May 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The former Cornell Drive, which ran between the Obama Presidential Center’s museum tower and the lagoon, was removed as part of the campus’ publicly-funded infrastructure improvements. | Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

By Lee Bey | Chicago Sun*Times

When the Obama Presidential Center opens next month, and its funders are honored and congratulated, there are two major financial contributors worthy of a bow or two: Chicago and Illinois taxpayers.

The Chicago Department of Transportation said it has spent $123.3 million since 2022 on capital projects aimed at remaking the roadways and green space in Jackson Park and around the center.

And there’s still more work to be done. The final public infrastructure costs are likely to approach $200 million.

The costs are not part of the presidential center’s privately-funded $850 million price tag.

“The Chicago Department of Transportation has delivered a series of roadway and mobility improvements in and around Jackson Park in coordination with the Obama Presidential Center,” CDOT said in a statement to the Sun-Times.

One major change included ripping up a half-mile of Cornell Drive between Midway Plaisance and Hayes Drive. The center’s landscape architect, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, turned what was an obtrusive six-lane highway ripping through Jackson Park into walkable green space that links the Obama campus to the park’s historic lagoon to the east.

Other projects included adding a third southbound lane on DuSable Lake Shore Drive between 57th and Hayes drives; reworking Hayes Drive east of Stony Island Avenue that involved reconfiguring intersections at Cornell, Richards and DuSable Lake Shore drives; and adding a pump station to help fix flooding at the 59th Street pedestrian underpass.

Article continues here.

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Midterm message

Posted in Elections, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Scott Stantis on May 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

By Scott Stantis | PUBLISHED: May 8, 2026, The Baltimore Sun

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Editorial: A cautionary tale from UK local elections as Brits move to the extremes

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Economy, Elections, New Normal?, OP/Ed, Politics on May 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

People walk past a polling station sign during the United Kingdom’s 2026 local elections in London on May 7, 2026. (Kin Cheung/AP)

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

Britain held its local elections Thursday, and one headline was the ascendency of Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform party over the traditional Conservatives. But the day hardly brought succor for the Labour Party; the traditional party of the left lost ground in key constituencies to the Green Party, historically a marginal entity in the United Kingdom but now the party of choice among 18-to-24-year-old voters.

Even Labour’s first minister of Wales, Baroness Morgan of Ely, lost her seat.

Beleaguered British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, meanwhile, was just about hanging on. To many minds, he is a dead man walking, soon to be abandoned by his Labour Party.

What is the takeaway? The results certainly look dismal for moderates of any persuasion; the Reform and Green supporters hate each other with a passion. They’re also a vote of no confidence in the legacy parties.

And they’re further evidence of how Britain, not unlike the U.S., is now deeply divided between the affluent, educated urbanites who embrace progressive ideals and government spending — in Chicago we’d call them lakefront liberals — and the population living in rural areas and hollowed-out factory towns who feel abandoned by the elite establishment, many of whom abhor Britain’s porous borders and lament what they see as an immigration-driven collapse of both social services and a traditional British life.

Age came into play, too. Despite a popular leader in Kemi Badenoch, the traditional Conservative Party increasingly is seen as a gerontocracy appealing only to the aged. Labour has some of the same problems, having lost a hefty chunk of its traditional working-class supporters. All of the energy is at their flanks.

Editorial continues here.

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Chocolate Fest to kick off festival season in Long Grove May 15-17

Posted in Entertainment, Topics Of Interest on May 10, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Submitted by Jody Grimaldi

Festival season begins in Long Grove the only way it knows how: with chocolate. From May 15-17 the village’s iconic Chocolate Fest returns, transforming historic downtown Long Grove into a lively, chocolate-filled celebration that draws visitors from across the region year after year.

Set among colorful historic buildings and anchored by the village’s famous covered bridge, Chocolate Fest offers a weekend that feels both nostalgic and energetic. It’s the kind of place where you can wander with a chocolate treat in hand, discover something new around every corner, and settle in for an afternoon that easily turns into an evening.

Now firmly established as one of the suburbs’ signature spring festivals, Chocolate Fest marks the unofficial start of Long Grove’s event season. It’s a weekend built around indulgence, live music, and community, all set within a charming and walkable downtown.

A weekend built around chocolate

From classic favorites to creative twists, Chocolate Fest is known for its wide range of chocolate-inspired offerings. Visitors can expect everything from chocolate-dipped strawberries and funnel cakes to specialty desserts and inventive treats crafted just for the weekend. Local shops and restaurants join in with their own chocolate-themed menu items, giving guests plenty of reasons to explore the village beyond the main festival areas.

New this year: themed music days

This year introduces a fresh twist with themed music days that shape the energy of each evening:

Friday’s music will have a country theme, with headliner Whiskey Friends, a Morgan Wallen tribute, alongside a full lineup of live performances.

On Saturday it will be a ’90s throwback with tributes to Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, and more.

Sunday will feature a laid-back, classic rock finale headlined by Mr. Blotto with a Woodstock-inspired set.

Live music will take place across multiple stages throughout downtown, with additional family-friendly programming at the Fountain Square Stage. The full music schedule can be found at longgrove.org.

More than just a sweet tooth

Chocolate Fest delivers a full weekend experience beyond the desserts. Guests can enjoy a classic carnival with rides, kids activities, interactive experiences, and a variety of food and beverage vendors throughout the village. Downtown Long Grove’s more than 30 independently owned shops will be open all weekend, offering everything from handcrafted goods and home décor to clothing, gifts, and specialty items. Many will feature chocolate-themed merchandise and festival specials.

Restaurants, breweries, and tasting rooms also will be in full swing, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks throughout the weekend, with select chocolate-inspired creations added just for the occasion.

All proceeds from this Historic Downtown Long Grove Business Association event are directed toward downtown improvement projects such as permanent street lights, maintenance of Covered Bridge Park, entry signs, banners, and free activities for visitors.

Long Grove Chocolate Fest 2026

When: Noon to 11 p.m. Friday, May 15; 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, May 16; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, May 17
Where: Downtown Long Grove, 145 Old McHenry Road
Admission: Tickets are $7 and may be purchased online or at the gate. Gates accept cash or card payments. Children age 12 and younger admitted free. Discounted admission prices are available when purchasing three-day passes online only.
Parking: Free public parking available throughout downtown; ride-shares encouraged. A remote parking lot and free shuttle are available Saturday and Sunday; see the website for a map and details.
Details: longgrove.org/festival/chocolatefest

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