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Archive for the ‘Preckwinkle’s Rules of Order’ Category

Cook County to vote on non-binding ‘millionaires tax’ question

Posted in Cook, County, Democratic Socialists of America, Elections, Illinois Policy Institute, Look For The Union Label, Overhead, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, What the Ficke (Bradford)? on October 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »

By Bryce Hill | Illinois Policy Institute

An advisory referendum on the Nov. 3 general election ballot will gauge Cook County voters’ support for a statewide income tax increase on millionaires.

The results are non-binding, so the vote will not trigger any policy change.

Cook County voters will be asked:

“Shall Illinois adopt the Millionaire Amendment for Property Tax Relief and Education, which would enact a 3% income tax surcharge only on millionaires and use 50% of this new revenue to provide property tax relief for residential and commercial taxpayers and 50% to improve state funding for public education?”

The ballot language is similar to a constitutional amendment that failed in the Illinois House earlier this year and a previous statewide ballot question from 2024. However, notably absent from the Cook County ballot question is language that specifies the additional 3% income tax would be only on income above $1 million rather than on all income for a taxpayer whose income tops $1 million. A 2019 proposal from Gov. J.B. Pritzker was widely criticized because it would have raised the state income tax to 7.95% from 4.95% on all income of a taxpayer whose income topped $1 million.

Proponents of the push to scrap Illinois’ constitutionally protected flat income tax say the increased revenue would provide property tax relief. However, previous analysis of the proposal and Illinois’ state finances shows the massive tax hike would come up more than $2 billion short of being able to provide Illinoisans with any such relief.

That’s because the state projects future budget shortfalls in excess of $3.8 billion, and the current pension funding plan shorts contributions by more than $5 billion, according to the plan’s own actuaries.

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Editorial: Chicago considers charging suburbanites more to park. How neighborly

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Cost of Living, Democratic Socialists of America, Dumb and Dumber, Dumb Bunny, Look For The Union Label, OP/Ed, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Taxes, The New Normal?, Unions on October 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

People walk along North Michigan Avenue as tulips bloom April 12, 2026, in downtown Chicago. | Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune

The last dumb idea from City Council

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

A new parking meter deal is done and dusted, as City Council on Tuesday approved a $2.53 billion agreement allowing Stonepeak Partners to take over the remaining 57 years of Chicago’s parking meter lease. Good. We were tired of writing about this historic disaster.

But that doesn’t mean there cannot be another one just ahead.

Now, aldermen are looking to the future. And as some gaze into their crystal ball, they see a brave new world in which suburbanites pay more to park.

An idea is floating around to bifurcate parking meter prices, adding a surcharge of 25 to 50 cents an hour for non-Chicagoans who park in the city, according to Ald. Walter “Red” Burnett, 27th.

Ald. Walter “Red” Burnett – Remember his face because we highly doubt this will be the last dumb idea he’ll have.It’ll raise revenue, he says, though he couldn’t say how much, and encourage public transit, though that doesn’t take into account the frequent inadequacy of those options from the suburbs, especially on evenings and weekends.What we know for sure is that such a move is crazy-town nonsense.

Ald. Walter “Red” Burnett – Remember his name and face since we highly doubt this will be the last dumb idea he’ll have.

“It’s easy to track, they already have the data now,” Burnett said. “We want our suburban counterparts to help when they’re clogging up the system.”

Clogging up the system? Oy.

We have an altogether different view of our neighbors to the north, south and west.

We view them not as bumbling annoyances from which to extract extra cash for the privilege of parking their car on the street, but value their awe and enjoyment of our city, even if they only stick around for a little while.

Editorial continues here.

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Forest Preserves spent extra $40 million yearly on expanded conservation, maintenance

Posted in Animal Welfare, BACOG, Bicyclists, Chicago Tribune, Citizens for Conservation, Cook, County, Crabtree Nature Center, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), E-bikes, Education, Elections, Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, Flint Creek/Spring Creek Watersheds Partnership, Fox River Valley Hunt, FPDCC, Friends of Forest Preserves, FRVPC, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Massbach Hounds, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Spring Creek Stewards, Taxes, Unions on September 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »

 

Mark Kolasa, a teaching assistant for a restoration ecology class, uses his binoculars during a tour through Deer Grove East Forest Preserve in Palatine on Sept. 23, 2025, as part of a celebration of the completion of the habitat restoration project. The restoration project, funded by the O’Hare Modernization Mitigation Account, restored acres of native habitat and wetlands at this site. | Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune

By A.D. Quig | Chicago Tribune

Cook County Forest Preserves has used a $40 million yearly windfall from voters to buy up and conserve more land, pay for maintenance and add programming while bolstering its pension funds, the district reported Tuesday.

Voters overwhelmingly gave the preserves the OK to raise property taxes by 0.025% in a 2022 referendum. While at the time it cost the average homeowner about $20 a year, it was a “watershed moment” for the district, according to a new progress report on the district’s spending since then.

Because the new money was commingled with other preserve funds, it’s not possible to trace the improvements dollar for dollar, but the report puts some hard numbers on the “impressive and undeniable” benefits.

Among them: $11 million spent on ecological restoration projects, buying $4 million in new “greener” vehicles and equipment, and spending $2.4 million to expand the district’s “Conservation Corps.”

Revenues have grown only modestly after the referendum infusion. President Toni Preckwinkle is expected to roll out the 2027 budget for the preserves to the forest preserve board — which is the same as the County Board — on Oct. 7.

“The leap in capacity from increasing the budget in 2023 by nearly a third, and continuing that investment, has paid dividends for us all,” Preckwinkle said in a release.

District General Superintendent Adam Bianchi, hired in July 2025, inherited the district’s goals to ecologically restore 30,000 acres and expand the preserves from 70,000 to 90,000 acres by 2039. In the first three years after the referendum, the district added an “unprecedented” nearly 3,000 acres to its restoration work, Bianchi said at the district’s monthly board meeting Tuesday. Between 2023 and 2025, the district added 558 acres overall.

The district also spent $4 million to improve 64 miles of trails, $2.5 million to repair 43 picnic sites and $1.2 million to fix up more than a dozen bathroom buildings across the county. It planted 815 trees at preserves picnic groves, golf courses and campgrounds and created an accessible canoe and kayak launch at Beaubien Woods.

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Most Cook County homeowners to see taxes rise again, treasurer says

Posted in 220, Board of Education, Chicago Tribune, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Look For The Union Label, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, Unions on August 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »

People enter the Cook County treasurer’s office in downtown Chicago, Nov. 20, 2025. Cook County property taxes are going up again for the vast majority of homeowners and business owners. | Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune

By A.D. Quig  | Chicago Tribune

Cook County property taxes are going up again for the vast majority of homeowners and business operators who will finally get their bills next month after another round of delays.

Of the 1.8 million bills set to hit mailboxes Sept. 1, about 1.3 million residences and 100,000 businesses will see an increase, according to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ annual analysis.

The total property tax bill for every city, town, school district and other taxing body across Cook County is more than $19.9 billion — an increase of about $744 million (or 3.9%) compared with last year. It’s the 32nd straight annual increase, according to the report.

Nearly all taxing agencies across the county raised their property tax levies this year, the analysis found. About 60% increased them by more than the 3.1% rate of inflation.

Of that new sum, homeowners will pay nearly $600 million, while business properties like offices, factories and big apartment buildings will pay the rest.

The biggest changes will be felt in suburban communities north of North Avenue, who had their properties reassessed in 2025. Growth in home values there “significantly outpaced” those for businesses, the report said, shifting 2% more of the region’s overall tax burden onto homeowners.

Unlike the major spike last cycle that saw a historic 15.7% increase in median bills across the northern suburbs, the median tax bill for homeowners there climbed by 6.7% this year to $8,007, per the analysis.

Report continues here.

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Illinois Tollway board approves largest passenger toll hike in Illinois history

Posted in Aunt Blabby, Fat Bastard, Girlie man, IDOT, Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois Tollway, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Road construction, Taxes, The Chicago Way, Unions on August 19, 2026| 2 Comments »

 

The sign-off from Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s board came despite overwhelming online comment opposition.

By Ethan Soifer | Illinois Policy Institute

Despite overwhelming online public opposition, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Illinois Tollway board unanimously approved a proposal Wednesday to hike tolls 57% for passenger vehicles and 30% for commercial vehicles.

The increases take effect Jan. 1.

The measure will increase tolls by about 45 cents each for passengers to an average of $1.24 per toll, costing a commuter who passes through two tolls a day for 50 weeks $225 more in 2027. Commercial vehicle tolls will increase 30%, which could increase the price of consumer goods transported through Northern Illinois.

Worse, starting in 2029, automatic inflation-linked increases would be imposed every two years without additional board approval. The Illinois Policy Institute projects that passenger toll prices will triple from current levels by 2055.

The proposal was approved 8-0 to fund a new $26.5 billion, 15-year capital plan, but the automatic toll hikes will continue beyond the timeline of the proposed projects.

More here.

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DOJ announces more than 175 charges, 300 fugitive arrests in Chicago area crime sweep

Posted in Chicago Sun*Times, Cook, County, Crime, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Dumb Bunny, Elections, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Public Safety, Taxes, Unions on July 5, 2026| 1 Comment »

Flanked by federal law enforcement officials, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Andrew Boutros speaks during a news conference at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Thursday, where he discussed the results of Operation New Dawn. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Editorial note: It is worth noting the coincidentally just one day before the crime sweep was reported, “Chicago police boss Larry Snelling announces retirement: ‘He’s leaving big shoes to fill’.”

By  Kade Heather | Chicago Sun*Times

Justice Department officials on Thursday announced the arrests of 300 fugitives as well as sweeping prosecutions against more than 175 people accused of violent crimes — all part of a massive federal law enforcement collaboration over the past two months.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros called the effort, which he created, “Operation New Dawn.”

“A new dawn of crime fighting is underway in Chicago,” Boutros, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said alongside other federal law enforcement leaders at a news conference Thursday at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. He said the announcement was timed to coincide with the country’s 250th anniversary July 4.

The size of the joint effort was “an experiment,” Boutros said — and something that “had not been done before here in Chicago” and which “worked very, very well.”

In all, charges were filed against 179 people in 140 new cases, while 305 fugitives were arrested and 24 children who had been kidnapped or lost were returned home.

“Eleven federal agencies worked arm-in-arm as one cohesive, unified group to arrest dangerous criminals responsible for some of the most serious offenses,” Boutros said.

The 60-day operation was focused on the Chicago area and the Northern District of Illinois. It included partnerships between 11 federal agencies, among them the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Federal Bureau of Investigations; the Drug Enforcement Agency; U.S. Marshals Service; and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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JB Pritzker Admin Depicts White People, Cops as Mosquitoes in Microaggression Training That Rails Against ‘Color Blindness’

Posted in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Springfield, The Washington Free Beacon on May 20, 2026| 1 Comment »

The training from Pritzker’s Department of Human Rights—offered to ‘private-sector, government, and public participants’—also shows a black woman torching the mosquitoes with a flamethrower | Microaggression video (Fusion Comedy YouTube), J.B. Pritzker (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

By Peter Hasson | The Washington Free Beacon

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker’s (D.) administration offers a taxpayer-funded training on “microaggressions” and other “exclusionary behaviors” that depicts white people and police officers as mosquitoes who suck blood from people of color.

The training—which Pritzker’s Department of Human Rights offers to “private-sector, government, and public participants” and which the Washington Free Beacon attended—is meant to “increase knowledge, awareness and prevention of discrimination and harassment issues and offer solutions to employers and employees on how to appropriately respond to situations as they arise.” It defines “microaggressions” as “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons solely based upon their marginalized group membership.”

The training divides such “microaggressions” into two categories: those that are “race-based” and those that go “beyond race.” The former category includes “color blindness”—which the training says “denies a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience.” It also includes the “assumption of criminal status”—for example, a “store owner [who] follows a customer of color around the store”—and “denial of individual racism,” including statements like “My best friend is Black.” The latter category includes “micro-insults,” like calling a person of color “articulate,” as well as “micro-invalidation,” which includes “buildings named only after white men.”

Those examples are presented in a video shown in the training called “How Microaggressions Are Like Mosquito Bites.” The beginning of the video depicts a blonde white woman who calls a black woman “well-spoken” while the two wait at a bus stop. The white woman transforms into a mosquito that bites the black woman and begins sucking her blood. Similar scenes play out as the microaggressing mosquitoes say things like “Your English is so good” and “We have to keep the Redskins name.” Toward the end of the video, a narrator says that experiencing “microaggressions” can make you “want to go ballistic on those mosquitoes” as a black woman torches the pests with a flamethrower. Police officers, meanwhile, are presented as “mosquitoes” that “carry strains that can even kill you.”

Article continues here including videos.

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The Pols Who Failed Sheridan Gorman – WSJ

Posted in Crime, Deception, Ethics, Immigration, OP/Ed, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Wall Street Journal on April 1, 2026| 1 Comment »

Sheridan G. Gorman (Via Instagram)

By William McGurn | Wall Street Journal

Sheridan Gorman should still be alive. The 18-year-old freshman should be with her family and catching them up on what’s new at Chicago’s Loyola University. Instead she’s gone, and this weekend her family came with moist eyes and broken hearts to her funeral at the First Presbyterian Church in her hometown of Yorktown, N.Y.

This family has been through the unspeakable: The light of their lives snuffed out before her time, cut down as Ms. Gorman gathered by the Chicago lakefront with friends to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. The politicians who failed to protect her from a criminal have since compounded the pain with ill-conceived statements about who’s to blame. These statements—by the governor, the mayor, a Chicago alderwoman—weren’t intended to wound, but they did.

Our political class, apparently, has lost all sense of what’s important in moments like these. It’s become all about scoring political points against your enemies. Comforting the afflicted, supporting communities and individuals, all that comes later—or not at all. This is not normal.

Begin with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. A week ago he admitted there were “real failures” in the immigration and criminal-justice systems that led to this murder. The accused murderer is 25-year-old Jose Medina, a Venezuelan who crossed into the U.S. illegally amid the border chaos of the Biden years. He has been arrested and charged with Ms. Gorman’s murder.

Mr. Pritzker’s real message wasn’t the “real failures.” It was: This is Donald Trump’s fault, notwithstanding that there’s hardly a Republican to be found in Illinois. “I know that the Gorman family has suffered mightily,” the governor said. “I agree. There have been real failures. Those failures, of course, extend beyond the borders of Illinois. There [are] national failures, a failure to have comprehensive immigration reform, a failure of the president to follow his own edict to go after the worst of the worst.”

Alderwoman Maria Hadden told Fox32’s Chicago Live last week that Gorman “might have been a wrong-place-wrong-time, running into a person who had a gun. They might have startled this person at the end of the pier unintentionally.” Ms. Hadden has since apologized for suggesting the victim caused her own death while blaming media for “intentionally creating sound bites to misconstrue my words during this tragedy.”

Not to be outdone, Mayor Brandon Johnson gave a master class in deflection when asked if he would apologize to Gorman’s parents for her death. He then characterized it as “senseless violence.” This was followed by a filibuster, in which he said the city’s sanctuary status was established 40 years ago and was somehow shaped by a 2021 criminal justice reform, which he incorrectly said was passed under Gov. Bruce Rauner who was—wait for it—a Republican. (The law was signed by Gov. Pritzker.)

Finally he, too, went to the old reliable: Mr. Trump. “He points the finger at everything and everyone else versus doing some real self-reflection on what his responsibility is.”

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Pritzker to propose statewide zoning laws to spur homebuilding, limit local control

Posted in Capitol News Illinois, Commodius Maximus, Land Use, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Unions, Zoning Board on February 18, 2026| 1 Comment »

Capitol News Illinois file photo by Andrew Adams

By Brenden Moore | Capitol News Illinois

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker will propose a statewide zoning law in his State of the State address on Wednesday, drastically limiting the authority local governments have to control what types of housing structures can be built on land that’s zoned residential.

Pritzker’s office says the measure will call for relaxed restrictions on the development of multi-unit housing, allowing homeowners to build “granny flats” and cutting other forms of red tape that have slowed homebuilding in recent years.

He’s also asking lawmakers to approve $250 million in capital funding for infrastructure grants aimed at knocking out “below ground costs” at sites eyed for residential development, programs to build out “middle” housing and down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers.

Middle housing describes multi-unit buildings that fall between single-family homes and larger apartment complexes. They take various forms, such as two-flats, townhomes, fourplexes and courtyard buildings.

A study published last year by the University of Illinois found that the state is about 142,000 units of housing short and would need to build 227,000 over the next five years to keep up with demand. That equals about 45,000 new homes a year — nearly double the five-year average of about 19,000 built annually between 2019 and 2024.

As a result, home prices have spiked 37% over five years while active home listings decreased 64%. At the same time, new construction permits are down 13%.

Pritzker’s plan, dubbed Building Up Illinois Developments, or BUILD, comes as Democrats in Springfield turn their focus this election year to affordability.

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Illinois TOPS NATION for public sector union political spending

Posted in 220, 300, Barrington Area Library, Barrington Education Association, Board of Education, BOHICA, Cook, County, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Fools and their money, Illinois Federation of Teachers, League of Women Voters, Look For The Union Label, Overhead, Pension Funding, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Road construction, School Districts, Springfield, Taxes, The Center Square, What the Ficke (Bradford)? on December 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Scott Stantis / For the Chicago Tribune

By Glenn Minnis | The Center Square contributor

Commonwealth Foundation Labor and Policy Senior Director David Osborne says Chicago’s growing reputation as the place where public sector unions flex plenty of political muscle is more than well deserved.

Osborne points to a new Commonwealth Foundation report highlighting how public sector unions across Illinois spent nearly $30 million on state races over the 2023-24 election cycle, or far more than what union officials in any other state dedicated to such causes.

At $5.5 million, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson tops the State Government Union Pac Money List of those most benefiting from government employment unions support. In addition to Johnson, at least six other state lawmakers land on the list’s Top 20, lead by House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, at No. 2 and Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, at No. 4.

“In the state of Illinois, political spending is bigger than in any other state,” Osborne told The Center Square. “Unions seem very focused on who gets elected to be the mayor of Chicago and governor of the state. What you’ve got really is a downward spiral in Illinois where the kinds of unions that have gotten so powerful have really done it at the expense of taxpayers and then they’re pouring more money into getting the right kind of people elected for them.”

With researchers adding that almost 96% of all donations for Illinois-level candidates went to Democrats, Osborne said it’s past time someone address the imbalance.

“Public sector unions, they’re not often talked about as the cause of problems,” he said. “We often look to high taxes, bigger government, economic policies, but really what’s driving states and cities to enact policies that are harmful to individuals, that raise taxes, that grow the size of government beyond its purpose are public sector unions.

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