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Juliana Stratton is hiding from Illinois voters. That tells you everything.

Posted in Cost of Living, Deception, Democratic Socialists of America, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Economy, Education, Elections, Ethics, Fat Bastard, Flock Cameras, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, OP/Ed, Open Meetings Act, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Taxes, The Center Square, The Chicago Way, Transparency, Unions, WTTW News on September 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Juliana Stratton (left)

By Mark Glennon | Wirepoints

The balance in the United States Senate after November’s elections is likely to be razor thin, making each Senator’s competence critical in what is among the most dangerous periods America has faced, both internationally and nationally.

Juliana Stratton wants a promotion to the Senate from lieutenant governor — a mostly ceremonial post in Illinois. She’s asking for that promotion from behind a curtain, denying voters any opportunity to see whether she has even a meager understanding of the issues she will face.

Multiple debates and forums would be the best means to learn about Stratton — as well as about Don Tracy, her Republican opponent, whose Senate credentials are also little known to Illinois voters. Tracy accepted offers to no fewer than seven such events from CBS2 Chicago, FOX 32 Chicago, the League of Women Voters of Peoria, the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, the Technology and Manufacturing Association and the Illinois Municipal League.

Stratton, however, refused all but one , and it will be very late, set for October 20. Early voting starts September 24 in Illinois, nearly a month before that. And with Chicago’s PBS affiliate, WTTW, being the moderator, we should expect no tough questions for Stratton.

How about a long interview by a fair reporter versed on national issues?

Forget it. You will find none. For that matter, you won’t find one on any matter for the entire duration of her political career in Illinois. When asked for an interview in July by one source that can be reasonably expected to ask hard questions, The Center Square, Stratton declined. Tracy, in contrast, has given multiple interviews to sources both left- and right-leaning.

In fairness, Stratton did participate in multiple debates and forums when running in the Democratic primary. However, that was against fellow progressive Democrats who largely agreed with her and she was never challenged on the major issues that divide the country and would be important to undecided and swing voters.

What do we know about Stratton, aside from her record of complete allegiance to Gov. JB Pritzker on Illinois issues?

On her web pages and elsewhere you can find the standard list of the far left’s policy positions. They include abolishing ICE, which she says is unfixable; a national $25 per hour minimum wage, even in rural areas; Medicare for all, with no cost analysis provided; and ending the 51-year old Senate filibuster rule.

Her top priority, however, is fighting back against President Trump, she has emphasized. We might therefore expect some substance in her views about Trump, right?

Her most notable words about Trump were in an ad that did get her national and international attention, but it was ridiculed for its vacuous crudeness, even by left-leaning sources like Britain’s The Guardian. It was a 30-second ad in her primary race with a string of “F— Trump.”

Article continues here.

Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.

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From Saddles to Seed Nursery, This Former Barrington Horse Farm Is Being Restored to Native Habitat

Posted in Citizens for Conservation, Resident Spotlights, WTTW News on August 20, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Citizens for Conservation moved its headquarters to Hill ‘N Dale in 2025, taking advantage of an existing building on site. The views are spectacular and staff can witness changes to the landscape in real time, Abigail Derby Lewis said. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

By Patty Wetli | WTTW News

First-time visitors to Barrington Hills must think they’ve taken a serious wrong turn somewhere. Between the horse-crossing signs and ubiquitous white rail fencing, this neck of  Chicago’s north suburbs could easily be mistaken for Lexington, Kentucky.

It’s equestrian country here and Hill ‘N Dale horse farm was a long-established part of the area’s culture, but in 2022 the property was put out to pasture.

The Barrington-based nonprofit Citizens for Conservation (CFC) purchased the 232-acre parcel with the intent of returning the farm to its native wetland and prairie habitat. Last year, the organization moved its headquarters to what’s now Hill ‘N Dale Nature Preserve — repurposing an existing building — in order to gain an understanding of the land’s seasonal rhythms and to witness changes in real-time.

“This is the best office anyone could ever ask for,” said Abigail Derby Lewis, CFC’s executive director. “We’ll be in a meeting and suddenly you’ll hear the sandhill cranes and we’ll all just jump out of our chairs and go and take a look.”

Some of the first restoration work at Hill ‘N Dale involved removing a horse track and 20 miles of fencing. (Courtesy of Jeff Chemelewski)

After just a handful of years under CFC’s volunteer-led stewardship, the landscape already appears noticeably altered. A large viewing tower, horse track, paddocks and more than 20 miles of fencing were removed in short order to create a contiguous space. Over the past 18 months, efforts have picked up pace.

“When you’re listening, the land will tell you what it wants,” Derby Lewis said. “So, we’re beginning that slow roll.”

This year, burn crews conducted the first prescribed fires to see how plant communities responded. And this past spring, CFC dug out 10 acres of drainage tiles, the first phase in what will be the lengthy process of reviving natural wetlands along the section of Spring Creek (part of the Fox River watershed) that snakes through Hill ‘N Dale.

“Being able to see the amount of some of these native plants that are coming back as we remove that drain tile, having more of those wet areas and seeing what the seed bank is bringing up … it only spurs and energizes and inspires people to do more,” Derby Lewis said.

Additional plans include creating a community hub and increasing the nature preserve’s public visibility and accessibility. Currently the preserve is open Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

But deliberate is the name of the game, especially in these relatively early days.

“This is a long game. This is a multi-decade restoration,” Derby Lewis said.

There are still surveys to conduct of existing wildlife — like the macro- and microinvertebrate populations in the creek, and amphibians and reptiles — before tackling larger projects.

“You need to know what’s already here because when you start changing — when you start putting fire to the ground, when you start seeding — you need to know whether you’re going in the right direction. And the animals will tell you that,” she explained. “So what kind of patterns or shifts that you see will help to inform the management moving forward.”

Citizens for Conservation is restoring grassland in the middle of Barrington’s horse country. (Nicole Cardos / WTTW News)

Hill ‘N Dale was previously owned by the Duchossois family — a prominent name in Chicago’s business and philanthropic circles. (The family maintained ownership of the farm’s northern section.) The nature preserve is located less than 15 miles from another recently unloaded Duchossois property: the 326-acre Arlington Park, which the Chicago Bears bought in 2023 for $197 million, ostensibly as the future home of a new stadium.

By comparison, Hill ‘N Dale’s $10 million price tag sounds like a steal. For CFC, though, the purchase was a huge stretch, but one worth taking given how few properties of that size come on the market, Derby Lewis said.

Donors contributed half of the needed funds and the remaining $5 million came in the form of the largest grant ever awarded by the Illinois Clean Energy Foundation. And then CFC was off to the races.

Article continues here.

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This ‘Wicked Cool’ Half-Female, Half-Male Bird Landed in Suburban Chicago — Offering a Rare Glimpse Into One of Nature’s Strangest Phenomena

Posted in Citizens for Conservation, Hill ‘n Dale Farm, WTTW News on August 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »

A composite image of the bobolink nicknamed Black and Tan, showing its male and female sides split down the middle. | Luke Dahlberg / Citizens for Conservation

By Patty Wetli  | WTTW News

Back in early spring, Luke Dahlberg, conservation seed program manager with the nonprofit Citizens for Conservation, was spending his Sunday at the office.

His “office,” to be fair, is the 200-plus acre Hill ‘N Dale nature preserve near Barrington Hills, and Dahlberg wanted to take advantage of the lighting to photograph birds, specifically male bobolinks arriving on their breeding grounds after wintering in the pampas of South America.

“That’s when they’re just singing like crazy, they’re showing themselves,” Dahlberg said. “And usually the female bobolinks will come back a couple weeks afterwards.”

After snapping pictures of every bobolink in sight, Dahlberg went home and began scrolling through his camera roll. One bird stood out.

Male bobolinks, as with many bird species, have far more striking breeding plumage than their female counterparts. Dahlberg described the fellas’ white back and black undersides as looking like a tuxedo worn backwards, with a blonde patch on their heads lending a Dennis Rodman-circa-mid-‘90s vibe.

The bird in question didn’t quite fit the profile.

“It turned its face and it was in non-breeding plumage,” Dahlberg said, which struck him as odd but he chalked it up to a strange molt pattern.

A couple weeks later, Dahlberg pointed out this same unusual bobolink to some visitors from Illinois Audubon Society and that’s when he learned he had stumbled onto something extraordinary.

The bobolink was what’s called a bilateral gynandromorph — half female, half male, split down the middle — as the result of a genetic anomaly.

On its right side, the bird presented as male; on its left, it sported the duller plumage of a bobolink female.

“I had a better chance of photographing a unicorn,” Dahlberg said. “It’s extremely rare in nature.”

So rare that Abigail Derby Lewis, executive director of Citizens for Conservation, reached out to former colleagues at the Field Museum to confirm the ID.

“I’ve never seen one of these gynandromorphs in real life and so I was thrilled. I would definitely say the vast majority of birders will never see a gynandromorph in their life,” said Cameron Rutt, ornithologist and conservation ecologist at the Field. “Your chances of running into one, by yourself, in the wild are vanishingly slim.”

A 100% female bobolink on the left and a 100% male bobolink on the right. | hstiver / iStock; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Of the approximately 11,000 species of birds on the planet, only 45 are mentioned in the scientific literature as exhibiting gynandromorphism, totaling fewer than 100 individuals, according to Rutt.

The bird at Hill ‘N Dale is the first-ever record of a bobolink gynandromorph.

Read on here.

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