EVENING NEWS CLIPS – 2.28.20

MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT

MLL AND GOVERNOR PRITZKER PROVIDE CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

ABC7 News at 6PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

ANCHOR: and new concerns about covid-19 becoming what health experts are calling a global pandemic. There are now cases in nearly 60 countries, including first cases reported in Mexico. There have been two confirmed cases here in Illinois, both of those patients have recovered. National state and local leaders held news conferences today to talk about the virus.

NBC5 News at 6 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

CBS2 News at 6 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

ANCHOR: chicago state health officials are confident they will be ready to respond if there is an outbreak of the coronavirus here.

GOV. PRITZKER: we are ready to put the full weight of the state behind a full-fledged response, when needed.

ANCHOR: some of the things they are doing already, increasing surveillance across the state and expanding testing for people with respiratory symptoms . health officials stress the risk of coronavirus remains low here, but we need to plan and prepare. what does that mean?

WGN News at 5PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-roll of MLL speaking at press event

*MLL: While we continue to closely monitor the situation, I want to stress to residents that the chances of contracting the virus continue to remain low.

ANCHOR: leaders across the world are preparing to deal with the rise in coronavirus cases.

FOX32 News at 5 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

MATTHEWS: with a news alert about the coronavirus. state officials are addressing the risk of the contagious virus in illinois. while the global risk is high, the threat here is very low. there have been two confirmed cases in illinois. a husband and wife were treated and released from hospital in hoffman estates earlier this month. state officials say there are two testing labs for the virus in illinois and hundreds of staff members with the Chicago Department of Public Health are monitoring people at local airports and hospitals.

CBS2 News at 5 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B Roll of MLL at press conference walking.

*MLL speaking at press conference

*MLL: Fear cannot guide us in this moment. Thoughtfulness and preparations are the rule of the day.

PARRA: plans are in place to protect you here from the corona virus. we take a closer look at how the city and state are ramping up the response.

REPORTER: a growing sense of urgency surrounding the coronavirus.

NBC5 News at 5 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

ANCHOR: a show of force today against the spreading coronavirus. state and city leaders and public health officials want to reassure illinois residents that they are prepared. they detailed a coordinated response and that includes being the first state to test for the virus. voluntary testing at certain hospitals to gather statistics on the presence of the virus. and a statewide hotline to answer any questions from the public or to report a suspected case.

WGN News at 4PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-roll of MLL speaking at press event

*MLL: Fear cannot guide us on in this moment, thoughtfulness and preparations are the rule of the day.

REBIK: those leaders say that they're well prepared. they say last summer they actually held a simulation training here in chicago to prepare for a potential outbreak situation and coming up next week the office of emergency management holding a table top exercise to prepare if this virus potentially spreads further in our area.

ABC7 News at 4PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-roll of MLL speaking at press event

*MLL: Number one, the risk is low, the level of preparedness is very high, and in the event that we need to scale up our efforts, we are uniquely qualified to do so.

ANCHOR: city and state officials say that they are prepared for the novel coronavirus. there are two confirmed cases in illinois. john garcia has more with what the residents need to know.

NBC5 News at 4 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-roll of MLL speaking at press conference Feb. 28

*MLL: none of us can stand here and say there's no risk. but we believe, based upon the diligence of the medical professionals, which you heard directly from them, that the risk remains low. But we’ve got to be diligent.

ANCHOR: earlier this month, illinois was the very first state to provide in-state coronavirus testing, with results within 24 hours. next week, the administration will expand testing, albeit, precautionary.

ABC7 News at 11:30AM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

*MLL: I want to stress to residents that the chances of contracting the virus continue to remain low. our residents should continue to enjoy the city, neighborhoods, particularly Chinatown, and its amenities as they normally do. fear cannot guide us at this moment. thoughtfulness and preparation are the rule of the day.

ABC7 News at 11AM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

ANCHOR: we begin with breaking news. Health officials in chicago alongside Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Governor JB Pritzker are just giving an update on novel coronavirus preparations in chicago. there have been two cases in the chicago area but they have since recovered and there are no new cases. health officials reiterating chicago will be ready should there be more.

Illinois to greatly expand testing for coronavirus even though risk remains low, officials say

SUN TIMES//Tina Sfondeles

Even as the state announced plans to expand testing for the coronavirus to help diagnose the virus more quickly, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot insisted on Friday that Chicago and Illinois are prepared for any outbreak. So far, Illinois has had just two confirmed cases, and both people have recovered. But on the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state plans to partner with hospital emergency departments in every region to do voluntary testing of patients with influenza-like symptoms.

Pritzker, Lightfoot Outline Efforts to Handle Spread of Coronavirus

WTTW//Kristen Thometz

State and local officials are again saying the risk of catching the coronavirus remains low in Illinois after federal health officials on Tuesday warned that the U.S. should be prepared for a potentially severe outbreak of the illness, called COVID-19. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot outlined several initiatives at a press conference Friday in Chicago.

Coronavirus In Chicago: What You Need To Know

WBEZ//Staff

While the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, there have been only two confirmed cases in Illinois — both in Chicago — and health officials stress the risk of infection remains low. Still, state and local health agencies say they’re taking the virus seriously and coordinating their responses. Gov. JB Prtizker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot held a news conference Friday to provide an update on what health agencies are doing.

MLL, CPD, CTA ANNOUNCE THE CITY’S PUBLIC TRANSIT SAFETY PLAN

CBS2 News at 6 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL in next to Charlie Beck

ANCHOR: the shooting comes just hours after police unveiled their plan to crackdown on crime on the cta.

HICKEY: that's right, cities like houston and atlanta use bans or suspensions for riders who repeatedly commit crimes, now superintendent Beck thinks that chicago should follow their lead. interim chicago police superintendent charlie beck says one way to combat some of the recent violent crime on the cta is to keep repeat offenders from ever passing through the turnstile.

NBC5 News at 6 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

ANCHOR: And this all playing out on the day chicago police announced a new plan to improve safety and fight crime on the cta. The plan is a response to a recent wave of armed robberies and attacks. It includes 50 more officers, canine units patrolling the cta and surrounding areas and a team of detectives dedicated to crime on the CTA.

BECK: to make sure that we not only know what's going on on the system but we respond to it quickly and effectively.

ABC7 News at 5, 6PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

*MLL: I want to say very clearly that violence on our system is just not gonna be tolerated.

ANCHOR: the shooting on the red line coming on the same day the city rolling out its new plan to keep cta passengers safe. the plan includes an increased police presence along the train lines. what do passengers think about the plan? will jones is live with reaction.

JONES: a lot of people use public transportation in the city. they want to take the train and get to where they are going safely. they hope this new plan will make that happen.

CBS2 News at 5 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

ANCHOR: the shooting comes hours after chicago police come out with a plan, their new plan to fight violent crimes on the cta

HICKEY: CPD says they will add 50 officers to the mass transit unit bringing the total to 250 and will put 32,000 surveillance cameras on cta to better use.

BECK: I don’t want people to feel secure that their perpetrator will be caught, I want that they fell secure that they will be free from crime.

NBC5 News at 5 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL in cool fedora speaking to reporters.

*MLL: at the highest levels of city government, we understand what the concerns are, we are proactively addressing those concerns.

ANCHOR: and the shooting happened on the same day chicago police announced its new plan to fight mass transit crimes. a big part of that plan is putting more officers and detectives on the cta. but what do passengers think about that plan.

FOX32 News at 5 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL and Beck answering questions to reporters

*MLL: This new plan brings more than 50 officers and detectives onto our transit system. we are adding in additional technology, we’re adding in detectives and other officers who will be solely focused on cta related matters.

ANCHOR: a boost in security on the cta. the city is unveiling their new safety plan. our team coverage continues with joanie lum in the south loop.

WGN News at 5PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

ANCHOR: police investigating a shooting at grand and state near the cta red line.

ABC7 News at 4PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

*MLL: I want to say very clearly that violence on our system is just not going to be tolerated.

ANCHOR: Chicago police, Mayor Lightfoot, and CTA officials rolled out a new safety plan to keep riders safe. The big question: what does this plan include?

JONES: riders will see more police officers on the trains and on the platforms. the goal is to make would-be criminals think twice before committing a crime. But if they do commit a crime, police promise that the offenders won’t get away. Mayor Lori Lightfoot riding the red-line to the Roosevelt cta station this morning before unveiling a new plan to improve safety for riders.

ABC7 News at 11:30AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

ANCHOR: the city rolled out a new plan this morning to keep cta passengers safe, including 50 additional officers patrolling the L. and in the spring police will also launch what’s called the strategic support center, which will give detectives access to 32,000 cameras on cta property.

BECK: by monitoring those cameras, we can ensure if crime occurs on the cta line, we can solve it quickly. it is about having four detectives and a crime analyst assigned strictly to cta.

NBC5 News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

ANCHOR: our top story at 11, a major new effort to keep you safe on the CTA after recent high profile crimes. This morning we learned some additional resources will be used on stations, trains, and buses that include smart technology and a dedicated group of detectives. NBC5’s Kye Martin is live at the Roosevelt red line station with more

ABC7 News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

* MLL: the cta is safe and we move literally millions of people on the cta every day.

ANCHOR: a new plan to keep trains and buses in chicago safe. the cta alongside the chicago police department laying out new measures, like more surveillance cameras and police officers. we are live at the roosevelt cta station with more.

WGN News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

* MLL: this means more officers with tools respond to crime as soon as it happens, but also to raise the visibility of officers on the CTA system to make sure that if there's an issue that riders have somebody that they can go to right away, but also i think the visibility will help deter some of the petty crime that we've been seeing on the cta.

CBS2 News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

* MLL: this is an all hands on deck approach. And I am grateful for the responsiveness of the CTA. also the cpd. we are going to do everything we can to continue pushing forward so that our riders have confidence that the cta is safe because it will be safe.

ANCHOR: keeping riders safe, the CTA and Chicago police are taking even more steps to stop crime on city trains and buses. if you ride the cta, expect to see major changes very soon.

How Chicago police will combat CTA crime spike: 50 more cops on ‘L’ patrols, new center for real-time monitoring of surveillance cameras

TRIBUNE//Mary Wisniewski and Joe Mahr

Chicago police plan to beef up patrols and investigations to address a spike in crime on the CTA’s rail system. The department on Friday announced it will add 50 officers to the unit that patrols the “L,” bringing the total to 250. And, in a first for the department, each of those officers will be equipped with tracking devices for the department to better monitor and adjust how they’re deployed, interim police Superintendent Charlie Beck said.

Chicago Police Adding 50 Officers to CTA Lines to Combat Recent Violence

WTTW//Matt Masterson

Chicago police are adding 50 officers on CTA lines and a new dedicated support center that will focus on solving crimes committed on trains and buses following a recent spate of violent incidents on the city’s transit lines. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police interim Supt. Charlie Beck on Friday unveiled their new transit safety plan, pledging to deploy dozens of officers on CTA lines and add a Strategic Decision Support Center (SDSC) in the 1st Police District that will act as a central location for police to access the 32,000 cameras already installed on CTA property.

50 More Officers, Special Detective Unit Coming To CTA To Fight Crime

BLOCK CLUB//Kelly Bauer

DOWNTOWN — Fifty more officers are coming to CTA buses and trains as the city faces backlash over high-profile crimes on public transportation. For months there’s been heavy attention paid to crimes on buses and trains — including a shooting at the UIC Blue Line station and the slaying of a man in a CTA tunnel this month — and public calls for the city and Police Department to do more to protect travelers.

CONTROVERSY SPARKED OVER CPS’S DECISION TO HONOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY

FOX32 News at 5:30 PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*Footage of MLL in a cool fedora speaking to cameras.

*MLL: I have no plans to support any changes in the elimination of Columbus Day. For a number of years CPS essentially celebrated both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I thought that that made sense.

WGN News at 5PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

*MLL: I do think that we've got to do a lot more to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history, but I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level.

ANCHOR: chicago public schools is eliminating columbus state Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the city won't follow suit.

WGN News at 4:30PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

*MLL: I’ve spent time with folks from the American Indian center. But I do think that we've got to do a lot more to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history but I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day.

ANCHOR: Mayor Lori Lightfoot has no plans to do away with Columbus Day, chicago public schools decided to celebrate indigenous peoples day instead.

ABC7 News at 4:30PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

*MLL: I do think that we’ve got to do a lot more to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history. But I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level.

ANCHOR: Mayor Lori Lightfoot says chicago will still observe Columbus Day. her comments follow a decision by CPS to replace the holiday on the school calendar with indigenous peoples day.

ABC7 News at 11:30AM: Controversy sparked over CPS’s decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

ANCHOR: Chicago's Italian community outraged with the elimination of columbus day on the CPS calendar. The school board voted this week to honor indigenous peoples day instead. the joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans which sponsors the City’s annual Columbus Day Parade calls it a slap in the face and is working to overturn it. indigenous peoples day will honor native americans and their cultures, many of which were devastated as part of christopher columbus arriving in the americas.

Lightfoot: No plans to change city holiday of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day

SUN TIMES//Fran Spielman

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday she has no plans to duplicate at the city level what her handpicked school board just did, infuriating some Italian Americans. That is, replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. “I do think we’ve got to do a lot more to do to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history but I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level,” the mayor said at an unrelated news conference after unveiling her plan to bolster CTA security.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she won’t support eliminating Columbus Day city holiday

TRIBUNE//Gregory Pratt

Mayor Lori Lightfoot won’t support the elimination of Columbus Day at the city level despite Chicago Public Schools replacing the controversial holiday with Indigenous Peoples Day, she said Friday. “I have no plans to support any changes in elimination of Columbus Day,” Lightfoot said. “For a number of years CPS essentially celebrated both, Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. I thought that that made sense.”

Lightfoot Won’t Support Changing Columbus Day To Indigenous Peoples Day As A City Holiday

BLOCK CLUB//Heather Cherone

DOWNTOWN — Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Friday that she will not back an effort to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day as an official city holiday. “I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level,” Lightfoot said. The Chicago Board of Education voted Wednesday to change the official holiday observed by schools on the second Monday of October from Columbus Day, honoring the Italian explorer, to Indigenous Peoples Day, to recognize that his arrival touched off a genocide of indigenous people.

OTHER MLL NEWS

NBC5 News at 6 PM: MLL At Get out to Vote Rally Supporting Kim Foxx

*MLL speaking to press conference

*MLL: what's important in this system and what we have right now in kim foxx is a prosecutor who understands the lived experience of people.

CBS2 News at 6 PM: MLL Conflicts with ICE over Immigration Policy

*photo of MLL displayed in the news studio behind anchors

*MLL speaking at press conference.

*MLL: the chicago police department will not cooperate with ICE on any immigration related business and that's affected their ability to conduct immigration raids across the city. but that's exactly our intention.

ANCHOR: new concerns about the man you see here, he is accused of sexually assaulting a three- year-old girl in the river north mcdonald's bathroom. this is christopher puente's record.

Rivals Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle rally for Kim Foxx, together but separately

TRIBUNE//Lolly Bowean and Gregory Pratt

Political rivals Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Friday joined together to announce they are both endorsing embattled State’s Attorney Kim Foxx as she presses for a second term. But while the two elected leaders both took the lectern at the Painters District Council to push for Foxx’s reelection, the women didn’t pose together for a group photo, didn’t stand together on the stage and spent no time chatting in the moments before or after their announcement.

Student Protesters Demand Lightfoot Live Up To Campaign Promises on Environmental Protection

BGA//Brett Chase

More than two dozen Chicago young activists Friday called on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to reinstate a city department of environment to combat heavy pollution in black and Latino neighborhoods and increase efforts to fight climate change. About 30 people, mostly students, rallied outside the mayor’s office on City Hall’s fifth floor. They urged Lightfoot to follow through on her campaign promise to reopen the environment department, which former Mayor Rahm Emanuel eliminated in 2012.

Does the DPI tech center still have the backing of three major universities?

CRAIN’S//Lynne Marek

When University of Illinois President Tim Killeen came up to Chicago in 2017 to unveil a proposal for his school's new South Loop research center, he told a crowd gathered at the site that the University of Chicago and Northwestern University would be "inaugural partners."

But this February, when he returned to the same location for another press conference announcing state funding of $235 million for that 500,000-square-foot Discovery Partners

Ald. King Launches Hyde Park Advisory Council: ‘It Will Empower The Community To Help Itself’

BLOCK CLUB//Maxwell Evans

HYDE PARK — The first meeting of Ald. Sophia King’s (4th) Hyde Park advisory council was held Wednesday as she seeks to boost civic engagement in the ward. The Hyde Park council is one of six advisory councils King is rolling out — one for each of the communities she represents. The others are focused on the South Loop, Douglas, North Kenwood-Oakland, Grand Boulevard and Kenwood.

Alderman Hasn’t Decided If He’ll Support Weed Farm Planned For Logan Square Marble Plant

BLOCK CLUB//Justin Laurence

LOGAN SQUARE — A cannabis company with a unique ownership model wants to bring a indoor weed farm and dispensary to Logan Square, but the local alderman hasn’t decided if he’ll support the plan yet. Perception Farms owners want to turn a long-vacant marble manufacturing plant at 2537-43 N. Pulaski Road into a space where they would both grow and sell weed under one roof.

What Will Replace Auburn Gresham’s Closed Sav-A-Lot? Alderman Courting Multiple Grocers

BLOCK CLUB//Jamie Nesbitt Golden

AUBURN GRESHAM — A replacement for the neighborhood’s now-vacant Save-A-Lot may soon come, according to Ald. David Moore (17th). The Citizen recently reported the alderman is in talks with several local grocers, including Pete’s Fresh Market and Local Market, to fill the space at 7908 S. Halsted St. left vacant by the discount supermarket chain Feb. 22.

New Rogers Park Program Aims To Train Spanish-Speaking Entrepreneurs

BLOCK CLUB//Joe Ward

ROGERS PARK — A new entrepreneur training center wants to help Far North Side Spanish-speaking residents get their business ideas off the ground. The Rogers Park Business Alliance has expanded its GROW entrepreneur training program to include classes for predominantly Spanish-language speakers. Called GROW/Progresando, the new program will be run out of a storefront at 7056 N. Clark St.

Clouted developer, ally of ex-Ald. Solis bids to become pot shop landlord — but says competitors might be sabotaging him

SUN TIMES//Tom Schuba

A politically connected real estate mogul who has been an ally of disgraced former Ald. Danny Solis (25^th) is now at the center of the race to open some of Chicago’s first recreational weed stores. Although developer Fred Latsko doesn’t have a stake in any Illinois pot companies, he owns a pair of vacant properties where cannabis businesses want to sell weed.

The Damaging Divide: How Inequality Costs All Chicagoans

CRAIN’S//David Mendell

By now, Chicago's decades-long flight of black residents is well documented. Local think tanks have commissioned studies; reporters have interviewed African Americans who've left and stayed; academics, demographers and politicians have opined on the subject, some calling Chicago a modern-day tale of two cities for its glaring racial inequality.

Speed Cameras: The Cities With the Worst Offenders

WSJ//Steve Calvert, Paul Overberg and Max Rust

NEW ORLEANS—As the Nissan cruised past single-story homes near Holy Cross School in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood, a speed camera clocked the car going 30 mph in a 20 mph zone.

The resulting citation in May was the car’s 296th speed-camera ticket in less than two years. In 2018 alone, it racked up 188 tickets totaling $19,080 in fines—and the owner didn’t pay a penny, the city says.

A State Senator Had Thousands of Dollars in Ticket Debt. Now She’s Fighting to Make Sure Others Won’t.

PRO PUBLICA//Melissa Sanchez

If you’re reading this, you probably know I’ve reported extensively on Chicago’s system of ticketing and debt collection, how it’s disproportionately hurt black drivers and prompted tens of thousands of bankruptcies. The reporting, which eventually became a collaboration with our friends at WBEZ Chicago, has led to significant reforms, including some debt relief from the city, more affordable payment plans and a state law ending license suspensions over unpaid parking tickets.

The Navy Pier Flyover’s Northern End Is An Ice-Choked Hazard. Are Trail Closures The New Normal?

BLOCK CLUB//Justin Laurence

STREETERVILLE — The construction of the $64 million Navy Pier Flyover was meant to give lakefront trail users a safe path over a congested and dangerous Downtown bottleneck while providing a sleek, critical link to the trail on both sides of the Chicago River. But rising Lake Michigan levels and violent waves have crippled the trail at the flyover’s northern end, creating blockades of ice, sand and torn asphalt slabs, forcing the Chicago Park District to block access.

Rahm Emanuel, Bruce Rauner break the ice

SUN TIMES//Fran Spielman

The cold war between old friends Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner will take time to end, but the ice has been broken. The big thaw has begun. Emanuel said so, during a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Sun-Times that was part of his whirlwind book tour. “He sent me a text while I was on my bike trip” around Lake Michigan after Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s inauguration on May 16, 2019, Emanuel said.

Chicago police shoot woman at Grand station on CTA Red Line

TRIBUNE//Rosemary Sobol

Chicago police shot a woman at the CTA’s Grand Red Line station Friday afternoon, authorities said. The woman was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital but her condition was not known, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt. The shooting happened shortly after 4 p.m. as officers were calling a 10-1, code for officer in need of assistance. “The whole train stop is gonna be a crime scene,” an officer radioed from the scene after the shooting. CTA trains were not stopping at the Grand Avenue stop.

Woman shot by police at CTA’s Red Line Grand Avenue station

SUN TIMES//Staff

A woman was shot by Chicago police Friday afternoon at the Grand Avenue Red Line station on the Near North Side. Paramedics responded about 4:18 p.m. to the station for a person shot, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt said. A woman was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with a gunshot wound, he said. Her condition is unknown.

COLUMNISTS AND EDITORIALS

New, carefully crafted gang database an essential tool for Chicago police

SUN TIMES//Editorial Board

If you have not seen the video, beware. It is disturbing. Three teens or young men walk up to a convenience store on the South Side. One of them pokes his head in the door to see who’s there. Then all three pull guns and fire repeatedly into the store. They kill a young woman. They wound four other people. Now here’s the thing: This happened Tuesday and the police are still looking for the shooters.

Look who wants in on ComEd's rate-setting mojo

CRAIN’S//Steve Daniels

It's worked so well for Commonwealth Edison, after all. Nicor Gas, the utility delivering natural gas to most of suburban Chicago, is pushing legislation in Springfield to put the rate changes for it and Peoples Gas, the utility serving the city, on the same sort of autopilot that ComEd and downstate utility Ameren Illinois have enjoyed for eight years. Bills were introduced in mid-February in the House and Senate.

Chicago’s affordability housing problems would be helped by higher density

SUN TIMES//Ed Zotti

Higher density offers a way to help solve Chicago’s growing problem with housing affordability, three recent projects suggest — but success requires a shrewd eye and sensitivity to community needs. In Uptown, Cedar Street Companies converted an old office building on Broadway into 342 apartments a short walk from the Red Line.

CPS dropping Columbus Day is a slap in the face of Italian Americans

SUN TIMES//Pasquale Dominic Gianni

The Chicago Public School Board voted late Wednesday to replace Columbus Day on its official school calendar with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” In doing so, the board demonstrated that in order to uplift one ethnic community, it was willing to step on the back of another. The move is a slap in the face to Chicago’s Italian-American Community. But moreover, it is an affront to all immigrant communities that have long celebrated Columbus Day as an homage to this land’s first immigrant.

BUSINESS

Coronavirus is slowing production in China. Chicago companies must figure out how to cope.

TRIBUNE//Ally Marotti, Lauren Zumbach, Lisa Schencker and Robert Channick

At AllCell Technologies’ facility in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, dozens of employees are cranking out lithium-ion batteries, destined to power drones, electric vehicles and more. The key component of the rechargeable batteries comes from China and other Asian countries, where the coronavirus has caused factories to shut down or operate at reduced capacity, and travel restrictions have hindered shipping.

FULL TRANSCRIPTS

ABC7 News at 6PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

PENCE: president Donald trump has no higher priority than the safety of the american people.

PRITZKER: the best thing the general public can do at this time is to continue with the same precautions that you take during flu season

ANCHOR: governor Pritzker says the state is adding testing facilities and will offer voluntary screening at hospitals for patients. Today the governor also announced a hotline and a website if you have questions about covid-19 or you want to report a suspicious case. That number is 18008893931.

WGN News at 5PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

ANCHOR: police investigating a shooting at grand and state near the cta red line.

HALLIGAN: we’re expecting to get an update from police here momentarily but what we're being told right now is that 2 police officers were rushed to the hospital but they are listed in good condition another civilian, however was also rushed to northwestern listed in serious condition we're still working to find out more information about what led up to this police involved shooting once again we're hoping to get an update from police here shortly also there are several closures in this busy downtown area for this friday evening, so, illinois and state ohio all closed. that's according to the chicago office of emergency management as you can see a heavy police presence in the area now cta red line trains are running however they're not stopping at grand and state because of this ongoing investigation into this incident so this comes on the same day that chicago police and the Mayor just announced new safety tactics for cta transit lines. they said that they recently had added swat officers, uniformed swat officers along cta transit lines. but they will be adding 50 additional chicago police officers solely dedicated to a cta transit lines because of this ongoing issues recently that we've seen a spike in violence so they are adding that as well as chicago police monitoring 32,000 cta cameras in one central location so once again that was all just announced today regarding safety on cta lines once again we'll keep you updated and give you the latest information as soon as we get it, but right now reporting live near a state and grand. shannon halligan back to you.

WGN News at 5PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

ANCHOR: chicago public schools is eliminating columbus state Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the city won't follow suit.

MLL: I do think that we've got to do a lot more to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history, but I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level.

ANCHOR: cps announced that next year they will replace columbus day with indigenous peoples day instead, the move has been criticized by Italian American groups while it's been praised by others. the mayor says chicago will continue to celebrate Columbus day. Mayor Lightfoot says she wants to do more to celebrate Native Americans but she didn't elaborate on what those plans are.

WGN News at 5PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-roll of MLL speaking at press event

*MLL: While we continue to closely monitor the situation, I want to stress to residents that the chances of contracting the virus continue to remain low.

ANCHOR: leaders across the world are preparing to deal with the rise in coronavirus cases.

and just into the newsroom. there's a second coronavirus case of unknown origin in the same area as a similar case. the novel coronavirus has killed more than 2800 people worldwide a vast majority of those deaths are in mainland china. so far leaders are reporting more than 83,000 confirmed cases worldwide more than 50 countries have cases. local leaders have followed the international developments with this virus and say they are ready to respond. Dana Rebik live with the details.

REBIK: [no audio]

MLL: While we continue to closely monitor the situation, I want to stress to residents that the chances of contracting the virus continue to remain low.

REBIK: This from Mayor Lori Lightfoot gathered with governor pritzker and state health officials as the world health organization announced today the risk that coronavirus will continue to spread and have a global impact is very high.

PRITZKER: we're ready to put the full weight of the state behind a full-fledged response when needed.if we meet those thresholds.

REBIK: the state now expanding to additional testing labs outside cook county in central and southern illinois. also the start of voluntary testing at select hospitals to test those who come in sick with flulike symptoms.

EZIKE: it causes mild illness in otherwise healthy people but potentially serious illness in the elderly and immunocompromised persons.

REBIK: coronavirus has now been found in more than 50 countries with spikes this week in italy and Iran. in the US there are now 62 confirmed cases, including 44 people who were aboard the diamond princess cruise ship, 3 people repatriated from china, and 15 US cases, 2 of which were in illinois. medical experts say the best action is to detect cases early isolate and care for patients and trace their contacts.

PRITZKER: our top priority is keeping Illinoisans and safe. and to this point illinois has successfully contained the virus to 2 confirmed cases and both patients have fully recovered and returned home.

REBIK: next week the office of emergency management and communication here in chicago will be conducting a table top exercise where they will be going through simulations and potential outcomes if the virus does arrive here in the chicago area again and spreads. the illinois department of public health has also set up a hotline today where people can call for more information on coronavirus or to report a suspected case live at city hall dana rebik wgn news.

ABC7 News at 5, 6PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

*MLL: I want to say very clearly that violence on our system is just not gonna be tolerated.

JONES: a lot of people use public transportation in the city. they want to take the train and get to where they are going safely. they hope this new plan will make that happen. some cta passengers have seen crime up close while taking public transportation.

MANCE: most of the time, police are reactionary. So by the time the violent offenders come out they’re running down the station, the police come afterwards.

JONES: CPD is trying to be more proactive combatting crime on the CTA, growing the mass transit unit from 200 to 250 officers and building a strategic decision support center similar to this one solely focues on cta, monitoring the system’s 32,000 cameras in real time. they are also putting four detectives on solving cta crime.

BECK: we want to prevent these crimes. i want people to feel secure that their perpetrator will be caught, i want people to feel secure that they will be free from crime.

JONES: just this month, three people were shot. one of them fatally inside the cta tunnel and the loop.

CHICAGOAN: you know you hear about these stories and be afraid for your safety.

MLL: I want to say very clearly that violence on our system is just not gonna be tolerated. JONES: SWAT team officers were put on patrol on the CTA following these incidents, they will return to normal duties next week when the safety plan goes into effect. Riders say they’re hopeful the changes will make for a safer commute.

KING: living in the south loop and being downtown, we want to be sure that all of us taking public transportation can be safe. So we are excited that the police department and the city has decided to step this up.

JENSEN: it makes you feel safer knowing someone is close by and quicker to respond.

JONES: cpd will have a crime analyst devoted to cta crime looking at where crime is likely to happen. we are live at the chicago red line station. abc 7 eyewitness news.

WGN News at 4:30PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

ANCHOR: Mayor Lori Lightfoot has no plans to do away with Columbus Day, chicago public schools decided to celebrate indigenous peoples day instead. that decision has caused some controversy lot of people talking about it. eric runge live at the christopher columbus statue in little italy with the story.

RUNGE: well good afternoon to the both of you this statue here behind me has been vandalized in the past and there has been efforts to change the name of columbus drive so far those efforts have failed regardless of which side of this issue you are on many see it as a defining moment for the city. with little argument or widespread coverage, the board of education wednesday moved to move christopher columbus day off the school calendar completely.

TODD-BRELAND: i think this is important for all of our school communities and i think it's the right thing to do now.

RUNGE: chicago public schools joins a list of other school districts cities and states across the nation dumping columbus day for indigenous people day. the argument being christopher columbus's actions after sailing the ocean blue amounted to leading to the genocide of people already living there. cps is working on plans to more accurately tell the history of indigenous peoplr.

MLL: I’ve spent time with folks from the American Indian center. But I do think that we've got to do a lot more to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history but I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day.

RUNGE: news alterman nicholas sposato was happy to hear.

SPOSATO: don't have a problem with indigenous people day. it just can't beat columbus day.

RUNGE: you don’t even want it shared?

SPOSATO: I don’t want it shared? They should have their own day if they want to, why would they want to share something?

RUNGE: he said italians in the city would go to war if there were a change and wonders what will happen next.

SPOSATO: where does this stop we're going to start what Columbus, then we’re gonna go on to the president's you know we're going to take all the statues down of presidents, every president that had slaves.

RUNGE: now the alderman also said that he is not against teaching the entire history of columbus, he also told me off camera that maybe there's another italian that we can celebrate. live in little italy america wgn's eric thank you.

ABC7 News at 4:30PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

ANCHOR: Mayor Lori Lightfoot says chicago will still observe Columbus Day. her comments follow a decision by CPS to replace the holiday on the school calendar with indigenous peoples day. the joint civic committee of italian americans would sponsor the annual columbus day parade calls the decision a slap in the face. The Mayor sought to assure them today.

MLL: I do think that we’ve got to do a lot more to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history. But I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level.

ANCHOR: CPS will use indigenous peoples day to honor native americans and their cultures, many of which were devastated by christopher columbus's arrival in the Americas.

ABC7 News at 4PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-roll of MLL speaking at press event

*MLL: Number one, the risk is low, the level of preparedness is very high, and in the event that we need to scale up our efforts, we are uniquely qualified to do so.

ANCHOR: city and state officials say that they are prepared for the novel coronavirus. there are two confirmed cases in illinois. john garcia has more with what the residents need to know.

GARCIA: the risk of contracting the virus known as covid-19 is still considered quite low in illinois. But they also want to assure people that they are prepared in the event that that risk increases. thousands of comics fans are roaming through the convention center at rosemont this weekend. while many are dressed as superheroes, they are not immune to the novel coronavirus. while there is no sign of it at the convention, they are encouraging frequent handwashing and other precautions. city, county, and state leaders say that is important.

PRITZKER: I want to be clear. the best thing the general public can do at this time is to continue with the same precautions that you take during flu season.

GARCIA: government Pritzker and other leaders including public health officials say they’ve been meeting for several weeks to prepare for covid-19. They’ve been just two confirmed cases so far in Illinois and both patients have been treated and are back home now; nevertheless, the governor says the state is adding testing facilities and will offer voluntary screening in hospitals for patients with symptoms.

MLL: Number one, the risk is low, the level of preparedness is very high, and in the event that we need to scale up our efforts, we are uniquely qualified to do so.

GARCIA: in the meantime, many organizations in the state like the inspired home show next month at McCormick place are taking their own precautions. they canceled one of the five expos at the show because most of the presenters would have to travel from china.

SALAMAH: recognizing the difficulty in travel between china and the u.s., we made the decision not to open that this year.

GARCIA: spokesperson for the state department they are encouraging anyone with flulike symptoms to get screened for covid-19. He says they have plenty of testing kits available and are opening two new testing facilities down state to handle the samples. back to you.

ANCHOR: the governor announced a hotline and a website. if you have questions about coronavirus or you want to report a suspicious case, the number is 800-899-3931.

ABC7 News at 4PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL speaking at event

*MLL: I want to say very clearly that violence on our system is just not going to be tolerated.

ANCHOR: Chicago police, Mayor Lightfoot, and CTA officials rolled out a new safety plan to keep riders safe. The big question: what does this plan include?

MLL: I want to say very clearly that violence on our system is just not going to be tolerated. JONES: the CTA safety plan involves adding 50 officers to the mass transit unit bringing it to 250 officers. Also assigning four detectives to focus on solving cta crime and a crime analyst to prevent crime before it happens. cpd is building another strategic decision support center. But this one will just focus on the CTA. officers will be able to monitor the CTA’s 32,000 cameras in real-time.

BECK: by monitoring these cameras, we can make sure that if crime does occur on the cta line, we solve it quickly.

JONES: in addition to officers riding the train and patrolling the stations, the cta is bringing in private security.

CARTER: We also deployed private security guards to supplement the effort of the CPD officers who ride our trains and busses everyday.

JONES: this all coming after a string of violent crime on the CTA that prompter the interim police superintendent to redeploy swat team officers to the public transit system. after this new plan goes into effect, swat team officers will return to their normal duties.

BECK: we want to prevent these crimes. i want people to feel secure that the perpetrator will be caught, i want people feel secure that they are free from crime.

JONES: more on this story coming up at five, you will hear from cta riders and what they think about the plan. will jones, abc 7 eyewitness news.

WGN News at 4PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-roll of MLL speaking at press event

*MLL: Fear cannot guide us on in this moment, thoughtfulness and preparations are the rule of the day.

MLL: Fear cannot guide us on in this moment, thoughtfulness and preparations are the rule of the day.

REBIK: this from Mayor Lori Lightfoot gathered with governor pritzker and state health officials as the world health organization announced today, the risk that coronavirus will continue to spread and have a global impact is very high while the risk to the general public remains low we want you to know that our state and local agencies and officials are using every tool at our disposal to ensure the public's health and safety are well guarded.

REBIK: the state now expanding to additional testing labs outside cook county in central and southern illinois also the start of voluntary testing at select hospitals to test those who come in sick with flulike symptoms.

ARWADY: we are also looking ahead, we know that it is not possible to quarantine the whole globe.

and that as the virus continues to spread throughout really the world we want to be ready here. REBIK: coronavirus has now been found in more than 50 countries with spikes this week in italy and Iran. in the US there are now 62 confirmed cases, including 44 people who were aboard the diamond princess cruise ship, 3 people repatriated from china, and 15 US, cases 2 of which were in illinois. medical experts say the best action is to detect cases early isolate and care for patients and trace their contacts.

EZIKE: in terms of the severity of the disease in the US in illinois, it is important to note that to date every person in the US that has contracted the virus has made a recovery a full recovery.

REBIK: and health officials also today encouraging people to get a flu shot if they haven't gotten one yet obviously it won't protect against coronavirus but they say that it will lessen the impact on the health care system for those who would potentially have to come in to for treatment down the road. the illinois department of public health also setting up a coronavirus hotline today we have that number on our website wgn tv dot com or you can call for more information or to report a suspected case live at city hall dana rebik wgn news.

NBC5 News at 6 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

BECK: to make sure that we not only know what's going on on the system but we respond to it quickly and effectively.

ANCHOR: the plan includes a new technology center where police can watch real time video from thousands of cameras at stations and platforms.

CBS2 News at 6 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL in next to Charlie Beck

ANCHOR: the shooting comes just hours after police unveiled their plan to crackdown on crime on the cta.

BECK: there are a number of entities across the country that use either temporary restraining orders or use settlement agreements on people that are convicted, to keep people from riding the train.

HICKEY: legal experts tell cbs2 bans can be worked into probation orders on a case-by- case basis, but those orders are dropped when the probation period is over.

BECK: it's obviously not something i can do, as the police department but it is something the courts can do.

HICKEY: the programs for houston's metro, San Francisco’s Bart, and atlanta's marta systems are different. Their conduct policies allow for some type of ban or temporary suspension they also have appeal policies for riders to challenge them. transportation expert jose Sweeterman says he understands the appeal but also cautions.

SCHWIETERMAN: the cta can be a lifeline. i think we have to calibrate these programs well so they are fair to people while still protecting passengers.

HICKEY: ultimately he worries enforcement may be a challenge.

SCHWIETERMAN: realistically Ventra cards move around between people. you don't need IDs to get on trains, it's going to be a bit of a loose enforcement problem i think.

HICKEY: we reached out to the cook county states attorney's office about Beck’s comment. a spokesperson told me right now they don't have enough information about that proposal to make a comment.

NBC5 News at 6 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

ANCHOR: the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the illinois response . a show of force today to reassure the public about the outbreak and remind everyone the risk in illinois is low. state and city leaders and public health officials detailed a coordinated response today. it includes being the first state to test for the virus, voluntary testing at certain hospitals, they gather statistics on the presence of the virus, and a statewide hot line to answer questions or report a suspected case.

GOV. PRITZKER: while the risk to the general public remains low, we want you to know that our state and local agencies and officials are using every tool at our disposal to ensure the public's health and safety are well-guarded.

The governor points out there were two cases in the chicago area that were successfully contained. a married couple, the wife had recently been to china. both are out of the hospital and fully recovered.

CBS2 News at 6 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

ANCHOR: chicago state health officials are confident they will be ready to respond if there is an outbreak of the coronavirus here.

GOV. PRITZKER: we are ready to put the full weight of the state behind a full-fledged response, when needed.

GERASOLE: here's a question a lot of you have: is it safe to ride public transportation right now? the answer is, of course it is. because the threat level is low. you still have to practice good hygiene, for example coughing into your sleeve. we have other common sense advice today from an infectious disease expert who told us things to know about the spread of the coronavirus.

the most important thing to know is you are more likely to get sick from influenza, garden- variety influenza than you are from coronavirus.

GERASOLE: Dr. JOSHIE, from the Cook County department of Public health says with coronavirus, take influenza like cautions, like frequent handwashing for at least 20 seconds. can GERASOLE: can i get on a plane?

DR: yes.

GERASOLE: should i be concerned about mass transportation?

DR: no.

GERASOLE: i can go to the theater and a convention and a sporting event.

DR: please do.

the risk to the general public at this time is low. there has been no community transmission that we’re aware of in the united states.

GERASOLE: how long can this virus last on a surface?

DR: it's unclear.

GERASOLE: what should i use to clean the surface?

DR: what you normally use. a bit of soap.

GERASOLE: Hand sanitizers, using them often is a good thing?

DR: Absolutely.

GERASOLE: When do i know if i need to wear a mask?

DR: because the risk of the general public is low right now and there isn't community transmission we are not recommending that folks walk around wearing masks.

GERASOLE: until there might be a greater risk, masks should be saved for medical personnel while the rest of us remain cautious but not panicked.

DR: and enjoy your life and go about your daily business.

GERASOLE: all of that information makes sense for today, but things can change. you should continue to get your information from reputable sources, like the websites for the centers for disease control in the state and county departments of health.

the state has also set up a hotline for people with concerns. that number on your screen, 800- 889-3031.

NBC5 News at 6 PM: MLL At Get out to Vote Rally Supporting Kim Foxx

*MLL speaking to press conference

*MLL: what's important in this system and what we have right now in kim foxx is a prosecutor who understands the lived experience of people.

ANCHOR: in decision 2020 tonight, union leaders join the mayor and cook county board president today at a get out the vote rally to support kim foxx. she is running for re-election at state's attorney. the rally was held at the painter’s district council 14. their members are endorsing foxx along with a service employees union, the chicago federation of labor and the chicago teachers union.

she can be proud of the record of the last three and a half years.

MLL: what's important in this system and what we have right now in kim foxx is a prosecutor who understands the lived experience of people.

ANCHOR: bill conway, donna moore and robert theoretti are challenging her in the primary. election day in illinois is less than three weeks away.

CBS2 News at 6 PM: MLL Conflicts with ICE over Immigration Policy

*photo of MLL displayed in the news studio behind anchors

*MLL speaking at press conference.

ANCHOR: new concerns about the man you see here, he is accused of sexually assaulting a three- year-old girl in the river north mcdonald's bathroom. this is christopher puente's record. He’s been arrested 13 times since 2006 for crimes ranging from burglary to forgery and now we know he never should've been in the u.s. he was first deported to Mexico in 2014, five days later he used a fake birth certificate to cross the border in brownsville, texas. he was caught, charged and ordered to appear in court, but never did. and again in 2017 the judge ordered him removed from the u.s. but he remained. now immigrations and customs enforcement is saying the sexual assault could've been prevented if chicago wasn't a sanctuary city. that's created a shouting match between chicago's mayor and chicago's ICE office.

TYE: chicago's ice office is blaming chicago's city hall for what they call irresponsible lawmaking. tonight chicago's mayor is pushing back and doubling down.

MLL: we have to make sure that our police department is seen as a legitimate force in all communities and we cannot do that if we are participating in raids with a weaponized and politicized ICE. we are not doing that in chicago.

TYE: the mayor conveyed that blunt message to the local ICE boss last week, not over the mcdonald's rape case, but the arrest of julio torres earlier this month.

TORRESS FAMILY MEMBER: why now? why come?

TYE: it was ICE’s decision to take him into custody as he dropped his daughter off at school that angered the mayor.

MLL: They shouldn’t do things that are traumatizing young children, that's not acceptable. i was very clear and blunt about that. how is that right?

TYE: ice has a sensitive location policy, preventing arrests and houses of worship, hospitals and schools. the torres arrest was just off school grounds, so the office director here says it was clean.

GUADIAN: i'm not going to get into the specifics on any particular case. i will say i do support my officers’ decisions.

TYE: He said chicago’s sanctuary city status does more to protect criminals than the public. the Puente case in mcdonald a prime example.

GUADIAN: if the city of chicago would honor immigration detainers, that sexual assault would have never occurred.

TYE: tonight puente is in custody, torres facing deportation and chicago's mayor is prepared for future fights.

MLL: the chicago police department will not cooperate with ICE on any immigration related business and that's affected their ability to conduct immigration raids across the city. but that's exactly our intention.

TYE: That shot across the bow by the local ice leader, which frankly is not something we see very often, was uttered because he tells me the city was distorting reality over how they really do their job. the mayor pushed back on that, saying if ice is upset, they should do their job better.

FOX32 News at 5:30 PM: Controversy sparked over CPS's decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

*Footage of MLL in a cool fedora speaking to cameras.

ANCHOR: Mayor Lori Lightfoot is saying she will not follow the school board's lead and eliminate the columbus day holiday in chicago. the board voted this week to replace columbus day with indigenous peoples day. The move outraged the area’s largest italian- american group and they called it a slap in the face. Lightfoot said today she does not support that change.

MLL: I have no plans to support any changes in the elimination of Columbus Day. For a number of years CPS essentially celebrated both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I thought that that made sense.

ANCHOR: The mayor did say there is a lot more everyone can do to recognize the history of indigenous people in America.

FOX32 News at 5 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL and Beck answering questions to reporters

ANCHOR: a boost in security on the cta. the city is unveiling their new safety plan. our team coverage continues with joanie lum in the south loop.

LUM: commuters are on the move to work and school and count on public transportation to be safe. the mayor and the interim superintendent of police say they are committed to safety and security. in the past month there have been two fatal shootings on the cta’s red and blue lines, a stabbing in the loop, even kids were victims of armed robberies. riders say bad guys can commit crimes on trains because they can jump off and run away. the cta has 32,000 surveillance cameras that police can watch in real-time. Detectives and patrol officers will monitor activity on platform stations, trains, and buses. more police will be there in person.

BECK: we have our s.w.a.t. officers that are doing extra duty here to make sure people feel safe. we also have a number of extra officers deployed above and beyond the normal CTA deployment. with the addition of being able to monitor the exact location of all of the officers that are working the system we can deploy them accurately and move them to respond to crime and we will make sure they are in the right place at the right time.

MLL: This new plan brings more than 50 officers and detectives onto our transit system. we are adding in additional technology, we’re adding in detectives and other officers who will be solely focused on cta related matters.

LUM: CTA officials say that ridership has not dropped due to violent crimes, but they have heard riders’ demands for a safer system.

CBS2 News at 5 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

ANCHOR: the shooting comes hours after chicago police come out with a plan, their new plan to fight violent crimes on the cta

HICKEY: CPD says they will add 50 officers to the mass transit unit bringing the total to 250 and will put 32,000 surveillance cameras on cta to better use.

BECK: I don’t want people to feel secure that their perpetrator will be caught, I want that they fell secure that they will be free from crime.

HICKEY: Some lofty goals from cpd in the wake of recent high-profile violent crimes on the mass transit system. the mayor and the superintendent said overall crime on the cta is down slightly this year but CBS2 found that serious crimes on the CTA trains and stations have jumped dramatically in the past five years. From 1,187 reported crimes in 2015 climbing steadily to 2,345 last year.

MLL: This is an all hands on deck approach

HICKEY: That approach includes building a strategic decision support center at the central district station officers will be able to access the CTA’s network of 32,000 surveillance cameras in real time. and according to Superintendent Beck, stop crime before it even happens

BECK: they will run real-time anticrime missions where they predict crime may occur.

HICKEY: that high-tech nerve center should be up and running by the spring and we will look forward to tracking the results.

HICKEY: Beck also sugested that courts take steps to ban offenders who are caught repeatedly committing crimes on the cta. He says CPD itself is powerless to do so.

NBC5 News at 5 PM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City's public transit safety plan

*B-roll of MLL in cool fedora speaking to reporters.

*MLL: at the highest levels of city government, we understand what the concerns are, we are proactively addressing those concerns.

WALDROUP: every day, thousands of people depend on the cta to get around this city. but the reality is, many of them say they do not feel safe. we spoke to a woman robbed a few days ago on the green line. she's hoping these new resources can really make a difference.

RESIDENT: he did have a bandanna covering his face.

robin tillman’s heard about phones being snatched on the cta. she never thought it would happen to her. then, last friday night, on the green line, it did.

TILLMON: doors opened up at laramie. and a kid jumped on the train and tried to snatch my phone out of my hands.

WALDROUP: robin says the phone thief appeared to be a teenager who managed to get away.

TILLMON: he pulls me out of my chair. i'm on one knee. you can see. he scraped my knee up.

WALDROUP: she said from passengers to workers, no one wanted to help.

TILLMON: i was just surprised because I was like , well call the police, I wanna file a report about this and they were like, you have to call yourself, call 311. i'm like, how? my phone is gone! how am i going to call?

WALDROUP: today, police detailed their plan to possibly stop crimes like this from happening on the CTA.

BECK: it's about using cops smarter. It’s about knowing where cops are in the system so we can protect them, but also so we can deploy them based on crime patterns.

MLL: at the highest levels of city government, we understand what the concerns are, we are proactively addressing those concerns.

WALDROUP: it adds 50 more officers including K-9 units to patrol the CTA and the surrounding property. a team of detectives dedicated to cta crimes. and a new technology center to watch video fed in real time from the cta. robin says the crime plan makes sense. she's hoping it works.

TILLMON: i think that's a really good idea. I don’t know why there wasn’t something in place before

WALDROUP: robin says she'll continue to ride the cta, but she will not be distracted. That’s also her advice to others.

FOX32 News at 5 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

DR. ARWADY: right now chicago department of public health staff are at O’Hare airport as they are every day connecting with returning travelers distributing thermometers collecting information as a compliment to the cdc federal screenings of incoming travelers. right now chicago department of public health staff are monitoring hundreds of recently returned travelers and arranging covid-19 testing if these travelers develop symptoms.

MATTHEWS: there is a hotline created by the state to handle questions or suspected coronavirus cases. that number 1800-889-3931.

CBS2 News at 5 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B Roll of MLL at press conference walking.

*MLL speaking at press conference

*MLL: Fear cannot guide us in this moment. Thoughtfulness and preparations are the rule of the day.

PARRA: plans are in place to protect you here from the corona virus. we take a closer look at how the city and state are ramping up the response.

REPORTER: a growing sense of urgency surrounding the coronavirus.

DR. ARWADY: you all heard the change in stance this week as we have seen further spread across the globe.

PARRA: the state of Illinois is expanding its testing labs by two. One in Carbondale and one in Springfield. doctors will also be randomly testing people with flulike symptoms at select illinois hospitals. A sentinel surveillance to make sure there are not quiet coronavirus cases slipping through the cracks but with fears of a shortage of testing kits in California, cbs2 asked how many kits there are in Illinois. no answer quite yet. Also on the docket for Illinois coronavirus response: a statewide hotline and we have learned the hotline gets answered by the illinois poison center and their spokesperson said they are the coronavirus hotline. He told me during the ebola outbreak they were tasked with answering calls for the state’s ebola hotline as well. while chicago never saw a case of ebola, chicago has seen two cases of coronavirus. But city leaders are trying to strike a balance in tone of preparedness without alarm.

MLL: Fear cannot guide us in this moment. Thoughtfulness and preparations are the rule of the day.

PARRA: part of that preparedness the mayor mentions is preparing for worst-case scenarios yet when I asked what the plan was for chicago schools, she would not answer just yet. But we did learn about what is called a tabletop exercise happening next week among chicago leaders. they will take what we know about coronavirus so far and work through the logistics of what chicago would do if things like schools and transportation were to shut down because of the coronavirus in the city

when the city and state in the general tabletop exercise last year, ironically in the mock situation the virus originated from china in the first cases were seen in chicago this next training on tuesday of course, will be coronavirus focused.

NBC5 News at 5 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

DR. ARWADY: we know that it is not possible to quarantine the whole globe. and that as this virus continues to spread throughout really the world, we want to be ready here.

ANCHOR: and they continue to stress the risk here is low. if you have any questions or concerns, that hotline number is 1-800-889-3931. and officials from middle america to the far east are doing what they can to stave off a potential pandemic, while the white house is trying to project calm and confidence, Wall Street and the world markets reflect the mounting concerns right now.

ANCHOR: so we have some breaking news to bring you right now. officials in northern california are actually tracking potentially two more cases of -- new cases of coronavirus. and "the washington post" is reporting that one of those cases is of unknown origin, meaning it's not immediately connected to someone through travel or contact with a known patient. unclear if the third fits that criteria, but it is raising concern about the possibility of the virus spreading from person to person, at least in northern california. from coast to coast, state governments ramping up preparations to battle the coronavirus amid conflicting signals from health officials over whether it's already spreading across the country. the virus is sweeping other parts of the world, with disneyland shutting down in Tokyo and Olympics officials considering scaling down the torch relay. wall street in its seventh day of a massive sell-off, as the trump administration accuses its critics of being alarmist.

WALL STREET REP: really, what i might do today is call the markets and tell people to turn their televisions off for 24 hours.

ANCHOR: "the new york times" reporting top health officials have been instructed not to speak on the topic without clearance. president trump on the coronavirus threat last night.

TRUMP: it's going to disappear. one day it's like a miracle, it will disappear.

ANCHOR: but today there are new questions about what may be the first u.s. case of community spread. a woman in northern california now on a ventilator after contracting the disease without the risk factors of travel or close contact with a known patient.

DR. BLUMBERG: this is probably the tip of the iceberg. there's probably other patients who are getting this disease, who are more mildly affected.

ANCHOR: the patient lives in the same county as travis air force base, where hundreds of americans were taken for quarantine. a new whistle-blower complaint obtained by "the new york times" claims some federal workers greeting those evacuees did not have the right training or safety equipment.

U.S. REP GARAMENDI: how else did this illness get into the community? most likely, high probability it came from the patients, the evacuees that were brought to travis air force base.

ANCHOR: health officials now trying to figure out whether others may have been exposed and could be passing on the coronavirus. the cdc is now issuing new testing guidelines and sending test kits to public health labs nationwide, as early as next week.

NBC5 News at 4 PM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*Footage of MLL speaking at press conference Feb. 28

CITY OFFICIAL: the risk of infection to illinoisens is low.

ANCHOR: preparing for the coronavirus threat, officials announce hospitals across the state are prepare participating in voluntary testing of the coronavirus, to diagnose cases quickly and prevent further community spread.

DR. ARWADY: we know it's not possible to quarantine the whole globe. and that as this virus continues to spread throughout really the world, we want to be ready here.

ANCHOR: to be clear, the chicago area has had two confirmed cases in january, with both making a full recovery. however, the world health organization today warned the risk of spread and the risk of impact is very high at a global level. state and city leaders insist --

MLL: none of us can stand here and say there's no risk. but we believe, based upon the diligence of the medical professionals, which you heard directly from them, that the risk remains low. But we’ve got to be diligent.

ANCHOR: already underway, airport screening and monitoring health of travelers returning from china. also developing guidance for child care, schools, and faith-based facilities.

DR. ARWADY: it can be scary when you're hearing these reports. helping them understand that this is a virus like the flu, like influenza, and the things they can do to protect themselves against the flu are actually a lot of the very same things.

ANCHOR: there has been conflicting information. medical officials offering warnings, the white house chief of staff today is critical though of the media's coverage of the coronavirus.

GOV. PRITZKER: all i'm saying is we're not relying upon the white house. we, in fact, have one of the best public health systems in the country. so you've got experts here.

ANCHOR: city and state officials are saying hope for the best, prepare for the worst. the message today, they are confident they are tackling the what ifs that may arise if more confirmed cases are confirmed here locally.

ABC7 News at 11:30AM: Controversy sparked over CPS’s decision to honor Indigenous Peoples Day

ABC7 News at 11:30AM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

* MLL: I want to stress to residents that the chances of contracting the virus continue to remain low. our residents should continue to enjoy the city, neighborhoods, particularly Chinatown, and its amenities as they normally do. fear cannot guide us at this moment. thoughtfulness and preparation are the rule of the day.

ANCHOR: Illinois health officials saying the state is taking proactive steps against the spread of novel coronavirus as federal authorities warn a spread of the virus in the u.s. is imminent. Just moments ago, Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot leading a news conference on the latest measures estate and the city are taking against the virus. john garcia joins us now with the latest on what was said today.

GARCIA: this news conference wrapped up just a few moments ago. it was a comprehensive group of folks speaking here, including the governor as well as the mayor. they wanted to get across that they have been preparing in the state and the city and the county for quite some time in the event that this coronavirus becomes an issue. they say are well-prepared to deal with it. at the same time, they want to stress the risk in a state of illinois as well as the city of chicago is very low. but again, they are well-prepared if that changes. at this point, they say there have been two confirmed cases in the state at this point. both of those patients were treated and released, both are back at home to their normal routines. one of the messages that they are taking this very seriously, but they also don't want people to change and alter their behavior drastically. basically, they should continue with our normal routines.

PRITZKER: illinois has one of the nation's leading public health systems, and our experts have been proactively preparing for this situation. our illinois state and local agencies and officials have decades of experience in developing responses and preventative measures for outbreaks.

MLL: I want to stress to residents that the chances of contracting the virus continue to remain low. our residents should continue to enjoy the city, neighborhoods, particularly Chinatown, and its amenities as they normally do. fear cannot guide us at this moment. thoughtfulness and preparation are the rule of the day.

GARCIA: some of the health officials who were here reiterated what the symptoms are the people should be concerned about. similar to flulike symptoms. if you have those, officials stress you should not go to work or school, you should stay home to protect from spreading that.

ABC7 News at 11:30AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

BECK: by monitoring those cameras, we can ensure if crime occurs on the cta line, we can solve it quickly. it is about having four detectives and a crime analyst assigned strictly to cta.

ANCHOR: these new safety measures come after a rash of violence on the cta including a stabbing and two shootings.

NBC5 News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

MARTIN: we witnessed a show and tell today as the Mayor, the interim CPD Superintendent and the president of CTA actually decided to ride the redline here to their crime plan announcement at Roosevelt. Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Interim Superintendent Charlie Beck, and Dorval Carter with the CTA tell us they feel optics are key. Suburban folks count on a safe system when they are downtown, to say nothing of the say hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans who take the CTA to work every day. What will change? 50 experienced officers and canine units will be reassigned to solely patrol the CTA and surrounding property. They will be visible on trains and platforms, and they will not change the department’s budget just moving around within CPD. CPD will also establish a new tech center to watch video that’s fed in real time from the CTA.

MLL: to the riders to say at the highest levels of city government we understand what the concerns are, we are proactively addressing those concerns and we're going to do everything we can to remain diligent so we don’t continue to see any spike in crime

BECK: it's not just about more cops. Although more cops is necessary when you look at what’s deployed nationally for major transportation. it's about using cops smarter. it's about knowing where cops are in the system so we can protect them and deploy them based on crime patterns.

MARTIN: police say this is not just about having 32,000 crime cams across the system but using those cams to close cases and having the resources to do those. swat officers that are currently on trains will go back to their normal duties. the mayor says this is one of her cop prioritiesy top priorities.

ABC7 News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

* MLL: the cta is safe and we move literally millions of people on the cta every day.

MCADAMS: officials talking about a lot of changes. one of them is adding 50 police officers making it 250 officers in total that will only patrol cta platforms, buses, and other areas around the CTA to make sure that people feel safe, also adding undercover officers. The investigators will have access to thousands of cameras around the cta areas but the question this morning is if it will be enough to curb crime on the cta. this morning, city officials rolling out a new safety plan.

MLL: we are adding in additional technology, adding detectives and other officers who will be solely focused on cta.

MCADAMS: the new approach will add 50 police officers to the unit that controls the L. that makes 250 officers reassigned to only focus on cta crime trends. each officer will have a tracking device as they monitor platforms, trains, and buses across the city.

BECK: it’s about using cops smarter. it is about knowing where cops are in the system so we can protect them, but also so that we can deploy them based on crime patterns.

MCADAMS: in the spring, cpd will launch the support center. from there, detectives can access 32,000 cameras installed on cta property.

CARTER: every station, bus, and train has multiple security cameras capturing images of our day-to-day operations.

MCADAMS: those cameras allow police to focus on hotspot areas and watch events in in real-time.

BECK: by monitoring those cameras we can make sure if a crime does occur on the cta line, we solve it quickly.

MCADAMS: the plan comes after a string of violent incidences. Just this month, three people were shot one fatally after shots were fired inside a cta tunnel in the loop. a day before that, a musician was stabbed on the jackson red line platform. a woman charged in connection with that attack.

MLL: the cta is safe and we move literally millions of people on the cta every day.

MCADAMS: although crime has spiked on platforms, trains, and buses in the past several months, investigators are reminding the public this morning that although the crime has gone up, so has the arrest rate. we will have more on our website abc7chicago.com. they also remind people that many of the cases are for cell phone death and robberies.

WGN News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

ANCHOR: and some other news, the cta and city of chicago are teaming up to make public transit safer in the wake of several attacks on cta trains and platforms wgn's shannon halligan is live at the cta roosevelt station with our top story. shannon.

HALLIGAN: yeah, the mayor, police superintendent and cta president all announced these plans here at the roosevelt station this morning. one of the biggest changes is the addition of 50 officers and detectives dedicated solely to cta safety. those officers will also be tracked at a central location, this is the first time that chicago will be tracking individual officers using gps technology that allows dispatchers to deploy to the closest officers to track down offenders. the hope is also that these officers will be able to deter crimes from happening on public transit lines.

MLL: this means more officers with tools respond to crime as soon as it happens, but also to raise the visibility of officers on the CTA system to make sure that if there's an issue that riders have somebody that they can go to right away, but also i think the visibility will help deter some of the petty crime that we've been seeing on the cta.

HALLIGAN: and recently Chicago police has been using uniform swat officers along transit lines. they will return to their normal duties once these additional 50 officers are deployed and that is expected to happen starting March 4th live at the roosevelt station shannon halligan wgn news.

CBS2 News at 11AM: MLL, CPD, CTA announce the City’s public transit safety plan

*B-Roll of MLL speaking at press conference

ANCHOR: keeping riders safe, the CTA and Chicago police are taking even more steps to stop crime on city trains and buses. if you ride the cta, expect to see major changes very soon. City officials detailed plans to beef up security on the transit system about an hour ago. Mugo Odigwe is live at the Roosevelt CTA station with some of those changes

ODIGWE: good morning, Mayor Lightfoot says but the idea behind the new plan is to stop crime before it happens on CTA trains and platforms. it begins with 50 additional police officers, they will join the several hundred who are currently patrolling the CTA. that means more eyes to monitor activity on the stations, trains and buses. keep in mind, once the 50 officers start their patrols, the s.w.a.t. officers who were recently brought in will no longer be needed. cpd is also adding four detectives who will focus solely on crime related activity on the cta. the department will add what they call a strategic decision support center. it's basically a room that allow cpd to have access to more than 32,000 cameras already installed on CTA property. they will be monitored 24/7 making it easier to find anyone who is committing a crime on the cta.

MLL: this is an all hands on deck approach. And I am grateful for the responsiveness of the CTA. also the cpd. we are going to do everything we can to continue pushing forward so that our riders have confidence that the cta is safe because it will be safe.

BECK: our goal is a crime free system. we want to prevent these crimes. i don't want people to feel secure that their perpetrator won’t be caught, i want people to feel secure they will be free from crimes.

ODIGWE: so when can you expect to see these changes? the 50 additional officers will start on march 4th. the strategic decision support center is now being built. we are told they expect to have all of this up and running and ready to go by spring. Live in south loop cbs2 news

ABC7 News at 11AM: MLL and Governor Pritzker provide coronavirus update

PRITZKER: following the recommendations of the cdc and in lockstep with a few other large population states, we are beginning voluntary testing at select hospitals to gather statistics on the presence of the virus in our communities. and we will be extending that effort to our other partner hospitals statewide. our Illinois department of public health has launched a statewide covid-19 coronavirus hotline and website to answer any questions from the public or to report a suspected case.

ANCHOR: in the meantime, two more people have died aboard the diamond princess cruise ship in japan. The ministry says one is a british male the other a Japanese woman. and mexico is reporting its first coronavirus case.

FULL ARTICLES

Coronavirus is slowing production in China. Chicago companies must figure out how to cope.

TRIBUNE//Ally Marotti, Lauren Zumbach, Lisa Schencker and Robert Channick

At AllCell Technologies’ facility in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, dozens of employees are cranking out lithium-ion batteries, destined to power drones, electric vehicles and more.

The key component of the rechargeable batteries comes from China and other Asian countries, where the coronavirus has caused factories to shut down or operate at reduced capacity, and travel restrictions have hindered shipping.

Knowing the flow of parts could soon dry up, AllCell stocked up on materials to keep production going. That’s “a big financial burden” for a 40-employee company, said CEO Said Al-Hallaj.

“Who would have thought a small company from the South Side of Chicago would be impacted?” he said. “World trade wars, viruses, global epidemics. You would think, ‘I don’t have to plan for this, I’m not that big.’ … But that’s not the case.”

The spread of the coronavirus — and the effort to contain it — is rocking supply chains around the world, and Chicago-area companies are not immune. They are searching for alternative suppliers while they worry about how much slowed — or stopped — production will affect their bottom lines and their workforces.

Disruptions from the coronavirus are predicted to limit the growth of the global average gross domestic product to 2.3% this year, its weakest mark since 2009, according to financial forecaster Oxford Economics. In the U.S., GDP growth is expected to slow to 1.5%.

In a report, titled “No mask can prevent financial market contagion,” Oxford Economics predicts that if the coronavirus outbreak becomes a global pandemic, it could lead to a recession.

Few expect a quick resolution.

Initially, the Lunar New Year celebration cushioned the economic fallout of the outbreak, as many factories and businesses in China typically close for one to two weeks for the holiday and workers travel home to visit family. American companies placed orders in advance of the holiday to ensure a steady supply. But that cushion is eroding.

“We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security,” said Justin Formella, chief strategy officer at MBX Systems, which provides server and computing equipment for streaming services, security companies and other customers.

The Libertyville-based company stocked up on storage and graphic processing hardware from U.S. distributors. But Formella said access to those products is becoming constrained.

“It’s like when there’s a tsunami, and you know a wave is coming," Formella said. “It’s just delayed in how it’s going to hit.”

The World Health Organization has confirmed more than 80,200 cases of the new coronavirus, called COVID-19, and about 2,800 people have died. Most of the cases have been in China.

Though the epidemic appears to be slowing in China’s Hubei province, the virus’ epicenter, clusters of cases have popped up in Iran, South Korea and Italy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised travelers to avoid China and South Korea, and told older adults and those with chronic medical conditions to postpone nonessential travel to Iran, Italy and Japan.

In the U.S., stocks tumbled this week over fears coronavirus might become a pandemic. On Thursday alone, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 4.5%.

On Wednesday, health officials warned Americans to prepare for an outbreak. A total of 53 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S., and no one has died, according to World Health Organization data.

U.S. consumers are just beginning to see the effects of a disrupted global supply chain, but it’s evident at companies of all sizes and in multiple industries. Apple, Microsoft and Macy’s are among the large companies that have warned about the effects of the virus on their business. How quickly they, as well as small local businesses, can recover remains to be seen.

Logan Square-based Shop4ties had to turn away more than a dozen orders for apparel like ties and shirts because it wouldn’t be able to deliver orders on time, including one $18,000 order due March 13, said CEO and co-owner Becky Feinberg-Galvez.

All of the company’s products are made in China. Though Feinberg-Galvez has been in regular contact with her suppliers, some factories didn’t reopen until Feb. 17 or 18 and with only half their normal workforce, she said. A dye factory still hasn’t reopened, she said.

Shop4ties received its first shipment in about six weeks Monday and was able to fill two orders. In a typical month, the company would handle about 70 orders, Feinberg-Galvez said.

“We were looking at big growth this year, but our first quarter is going to be 25 to 30% of what it was last year,” she said. “It’s hard to know what the long-term effect will be.”

Shop4ties’ six full-time employees and three contracted graphic designers are fully aware of the situation, Feinberg-Galvez said. Without knowing how the outbreak will affect sales this year, they’re working to mitigate what they can. she said.

Managing the situation is about the only thing U.S. companies can do at this point, said Phillip Braun, a clinical professor of finance at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. It’s still unclear whether employers will resort to layoffs.

“If this becomes a global pandemic, the results on economic growth are going to be even worse,” he said.

In South Elgin at Hoffer Plastics, the family owned custom injection molding company is awaiting four orders from a Chinese tool shop that was temporarily closed by the epidemic.

The Shenzhen factory has only recently reopened with a reduced staff, likely delaying delivery of metal molds needed to make plastic components used in everything from dishwashers to auto engines. “From a production standpoint, we need one mold to make millions of parts,” said Alex Hoffer, chief revenue officer.

Among the orders Hoffer Plastics is awaiting is a mold to make a plastic tube for an oral hygiene product used in hospitals. The mold was to be delivered by March 30, with Hoffer set to begin production on a “hot timeline” for a Chicago-area medical equipment manufacturer.

Delays on the $500,000 medical tube order could prove costly. “It won’t jeopardize the whole order, but it will be lost revenue for us in 2020,” Hoffer said.

Hoffer Plastics employs 380 people working three shifts to produce about 3 billion parts a year, generating about $90 million in annual sales. The company is telling employees to stay vigilant and communicate about any changes in production or demand, Hoffer said. It’s business as usual, but there’s a heightened threat level in terms of uncertainty.

The outbreak is likely to affect the medical product supply chain as well, “including potential disruptions to supply or shortages of critical medical products in the U.S.,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said in a Feb. 14 statement.

The FDA has been reaching out to manufacturers to identify potential disruptions and shortages, Hahn said. It also has been tracking reports of increased orders of some medical devices, such as respirators, surgical gowns, gloves and masks.

Northfield-based Medline Industries makes hospital supplies such as masks and gowns, among other products. A spokesman declined to give specifics about how the virus is affecting its business, but it said in a statement that restrictions on exporting certain items, such as face masks, could lead to shortages or delayed shipments throughout the industry.

A large percentage of the protective equipment made in China, such as masks and surgical gowns, are manufactured in the Hubei province, and the province has extended a mandatory factory closure through March 10, the company’s statement said.

“Other medical supplies manufactured in the Hubei province — traditional wound care products, surgical drapes and gowns and some surgical pack components — likely will be impacted by the events in China if the restrictions continue for an extended time,” Medline said.

The manufacturing and research and development facilities that north suburban-based Abbott Laboratories has in China are operational, spokeswoman Darcy Ross said in a statement. She declined to comment on whether the virus was affecting the company’s supplies or sales.

Much of Abbott’s manufacturing in China focuses on its nutritional products, and China is a significant market for Abbott’s infant formula business, said Debbie Wang, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar.

Abbott makes Similac formula. The formula made in China is sold in China.

“The whole issue now of shutting down production facilities potentially, it just seems like it could introduce some near-term turbulence in what had been pretty predictable supply,” Wong said.

She said Abbott’s overall sales in the first quarter could be soft as a result of the virus. It’s also possible that Abbott, which sells generic drugs outside the U.S., could, like other companies selling pharmaceuticals, have a tough time making those drugs because a number of active ingredients for medications come from China, she said.

It’s also possible, however, that Abbott could benefit, if it succeeds in making a test to diagnose the virus, she said. Abbott has confirmed that it is working to develop a test.

Even companies with production in the U.S. have experienced coronavirus-related disruptions.

Hazel Technologies, which makes a product that extends the shelf life of produce and other foods, was awaiting delivery on a machine needed to make some of its products when the travel restrictions hit, said co-founder and CEO Aidan Mouat.

Unwilling to wait months, the Chicago company spent 10 times as much to buy the machine elsewhere, Mouat said. He said he had to reallocate resources from other projects to make that happen.

Problems associated with the virus come at an inopportune time for companies that already have been forced to deal with tariffs on Chinese goods imposed by the Trump administration.

“It’s kind of a one-two punch,” said Joe Born, CEO of Chicago-based Bluetooth speaker brand Aiwa.

Born said he’s seen prices that consumers pay for electronics hiked — likely a result of the tariffs coupled with coronavirus issues — and his company might have to do the same.

A shipment of wireless earbuds that was set to arrive in early March will be delayed at least a month because of the coronavirus, Born said. Aiwa had to adjust marketing budgets and stop advertising that product.

For some companies, lessons learned from the tariffs or changes made to ease their blow have proved helpful.

Best Buy has seen a dip in inventory due to coronavirus disruptions in the supply chain, but its suppliers are prepared after handling uncertainty around the tariffs, CEO Corie Barry told CNBC.

Vernon Hills toymaker Learning Resources stocked up on goods before the tariffs went into effect, reducing the coronavirus’ interruption on all but a handful of new items, said CEO Rick Woldenberg. Factories the company works with in China are opening back up and restarting production.

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Some economists say tariffs could deliver a more serious blow to companies in Chicago and elsewhere because they are more permanent.

“The virus is a temporary thing," said Lawrence Officer, an economics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “In a few months, all will be back to normal.”

Experts say it is difficult to predict how long the effects of the supply chain disruption will ripple through the global economy. Those that haven’t been hit hard are being cautious.

During a call with investors Tuesday, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said the company had felt delays in production of merchandise made in China but “nothing concerning yet.”

Less than half of the products for Macy’s-owned brands are made in China, but some of its vendors also source a significant percentage of their goods from there, he said. The company is also expecting reduced tourism in the United States to affect sales, but Gennette said it’s too soon to estimate the outbreak’s impact.

“We’re watching this one very, very carefully,” he said.

Chicago’s affordability housing problems would be helped by higher density

SUN TIMES//Ed Zotti

In Uptown, Cedar Street Companies converted an old office building on Broadway into 342 apartments a short walk from the Red Line. Opened last fall, the building is filling up quickly enough that the developer is thinking about building another residential mid-rise across the street.

In Logan Square, Bickerdike Redevelopment, a not-for-profit developer, expects to break ground soon on a 100-unit, all-affordable residential project near the Blue Line. After some early controversy, the project gained community support. One nice touch: putting the tall part of the structure on a commercial street, with townhouses for families accessible from side streets.

In Ravenswood, Ronan Construction developed two condo buildings with a total of 14 units on a residential street just off Irving Park Road. After negotiations involving neighbors and the alderman, all parties agreed on a plan to gradually step the buildings down in height so they’d fit into the neighborhood.

These projects demonstrate:

• Higher density makes it possible to build more affordable housing, ranging from big midrise projects to small-scale, soft-density projects on side streets.

• Chicago’s commercial streets are a promising place to build market-rate housing in neighborhoods — not just along hipster highways like Milwaukee Avenue.

• Those hipster highways can be part of the solution, too. High-density corridors in trendy neighborhoods offer a good location for subsidized affordable housing projects, where they can be part of a diverse urban mix and not a threat.

• Finally — and this is the key to making the whole thing work — you can do all of the above while keeping neighbors happy.

“It was a longer road than we anticipated, but we were delighted with the way the project came out,” says Jimmy Ronan, a principal in the company that built the Ravenswood condos. Among the early occupants: families with children.

“Pushback from the neighbors wasn’t bad,” says Mark Heffron, managing partner of Cedar Street. “The project had real community benefits — improved pedestrian activity, retail, more economic development in the area.”

“We got a lot of comments from the community and took them to heart,” says architect Pete Landon, whose firm designed the Bickerdike project. “We tried to be as accommodating as we could.”

Increased density is likely to be an important part of Chicago’s future. It can help make housing more affordable, keep families in the city and increase neighborhood vitality.

Affordability is a problem for a lot of people in Chicago, not just those with low incomes, as the accompanying maps show.

Red and yellow indicate neighborhoods where the average amount residents spend on housing exceeds 30% of their income — the threshold above which the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development considers people to be cost-burdened.

Rents in most of the city are affordable, except for the West Side and South Side. And the problem there isn’t high rents — they’re among the lowest in the city. It’s that incomes are so low.

Home ownership costs, though, are a different story. All over town, the cost of home ownership is above 30% — often far above.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the average resident in these neighborhoods is cost-burdened — a lot of people rent. But it does mean home ownership is beyond the reach of the typical person who lives there.

In metro Chicago, home ownership costs account for 31% of median income. In the city, it’s 41%.

The affordability of city home ownership is slowly but inexorably getting worse. As it does, an increasing number of Chicagoans will quietly decide to head for the door.

Higher density can help head off that problem. It won’t make single-family homes cheaper. But, by encouraging production of other types of dwellings, it’ll help drive down the cost of housing.

Soft density — say, two to four units per building lot rather than one — is especially important. By reducing the cost of home ownership in the way that two-flats did a century ago, it can enable families to stay in the city.

“Increasing density is an incentive to build more housing,” says Matt Fiascone, president of the Habitat Company, one of the city’s largest housing developers. “You can’t say adding three to five units is too small. It all makes a difference.”

Increased density would help the city chip away at another problem — the overconcentration of subsidized housing in Chicago’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.

According to HUD data, federally subsidized housing of all types — including public housing, subsidized affordable housing and Section 8 vouchers — is overwhelmingly concentrated on the West Side and South Side. In some neighborhoods, more than 50% of households are subsidized.

“We need a vision for affordable housing across the entire city,” says Marisa Novara, Chicago’s housing commissioner. “We want every community to contribute.”

Till now, neighborhood opposition and aldermanic privilege have conspired to keep that from happening. But the higher densities increasingly accepted in gentrifying neighborhoods make it possible to squeeze in affordable housing with everything else.

Higher density also means an affordable housing development can be large enough to support onsite staff, streamlining management and maintenance.

Higher density won’t just produce more affordable housing. It’ll increase the city’s vitality and attractiveness.

In 1950, Chicago had roughly the same density as San Francisco — about 16,000 people per square mile. San Francisco’s density has climbed to almost 19,000, second to New York at 28,000 among major U.S. cities. Chicago’s has fallen to 11,600.

It’s no coincidence San Francisco and New York have become the nation’s leading technology centers — millennials like the urban buzz density produces.

Downtown Chicago has that buzz, too — that’s why the city has done as well as it has. Since 2010, Chicago’s core has gained 63,000 residents. There’s a good chance the 2020 census will show the downtown population count trailing only — you guessed it — San Francisco and New York.

Chicago needs more lively neighborhoods, but they won’t happen automatically. Restrictive zoning plus de-conversion and teardowns mean gentrifying communities outside downtown tend to become less dense over time. For example, Lincoln Park has shrunk from 38,000 dwellings in 1990 to 35,000 now.

That’s an easier problem to solve if the neighbors are on board with higher density — a possibility along commercial corridors near transit like Broadway in Uptown and Edgewater.

The city’s transit-oriented development ordinance provides a framework for making that happen but “could definitely be streamlined,” Fiascone says. His suggestion: citywide transit-oriented development standards and bonuses that limit aldermanic discretion.

Worth a try.

The Damaging Divide: How Inequality Costs All Chicagoans

CRAIN’S//David Mendell

Yet, despite this searing spotlight on racial divisions, the city's population loss in minority neighborhoods on the South and West sides is unyielding. Experts point to various causes: gun violence, underfunded and shuttered schools and health facilities, rising property taxes, lack of jobs and resources, predatory lending, entrenched segregation—or, most likely, a combination of these factors.

But one underlying narrative has been true since the 1980s, when Chicago first began to experience an outflow of blacks: Disparities between minorities and whites started widening, particularly in wages and wealth. And that inequality continues growing.

"Chicago is in a situation where those who historically have the least are left with even less," says David Stovall, a professor of African American studies, criminology, law and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The costs of that chronic inequity fall heavily on the city's black and brown residents, who make up a majority of the population. In 1980, according to researchers at UIC, a black worker in Chicago made an average of 5 percent less than a comparable white employee. By 2016, this gap had grown to almost 22 percent.

Experts say this disparity affects all of us, regardless of race or ethnic background.

According to a 2017 study by the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council and the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., the region loses $4.4 billion in annual income because of segregation, or $2,982 in income per African American. If we reduced segregation to the national median, the region's GDP would rise by nearly $8 billion, real estate values would rise by $6 billion, and we'd save nearly $300 million in policing and corrections costs. More than 80,000 additional Chicagoans would have college degrees, resulting in an extra $90 billion in lifetime earnings.

Bridging the housing and economic divide between minorities and whites is essential to maintain the health of a multicultural region like Chicago, says MarySue Barrett, president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit that tries to connect government, community and business leaders around civic issues.

"Our region will never realize its full potential unless we figure out how to get everyone part of the wealth-building economy and start to close the racial wealth gap," Barrett says.

Perhaps the most rigorous academic analysis of Chicago's black flight traces the source to wage inequality between whites and blacks.

Between 1940 and 1960, when Chicago's wage gap was less than in Southern U.S. cities, blacks moved here as part of the Great Migration. Between 1990 and 2016, as wage disparities grew here, more than 357,000 blacks left the city for the suburbs and beyond, according to a recent study called "Between the Great Migration and Growing Exodus: The Future of Black Chicago" by UIC's Institute for Race & Public Policy.

It has not been unusual for residents, and especially families, of all races to leave the city for suburban living. The 1950 U.S. census marked the high point of Chicago's population with 3.6 million residents, 900,000 more than it is today. The departure of white residents between 1950 and 1980 far exceeded the departure of blacks in more recent decades.

But there are differences in white and minority migratory patterns. Blacks leaving South and West Side neighborhoods in recent years are not being replaced, while whites both move in and move out of North Side neighborhoods, where economic activity is bustling.

The primary reason for black wage gaps and outward flight: Chicago's African American neighborhoods have been disproportionately harmed by deindustrialization and mass incarceration, the UIC study found.

Researchers also noted another troubling trend. Unlike whites, Chicago's blacks are not necessarily leaving for fertile new beginnings in thriving suburbs or faraway locales. They often wind up in nearby struggling communities like Gary, places that have below-average levels of educational attainment, higher unemployment and lower wages.

It's undeniable that such structural inequities were factors in the surprising election last year of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a progressive African American who proclaimed ending gun violence and poverty as her central missions. Lightfoot's white predecessors certainly gave lip service to solving these societal ills, especially during election season, but none put issues of segregation and inequality front and center when making budgets and policy.

In fact, both Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel were accused of exacerbating inequality by investing heavily in wealthier white areas, through programs like tax-increment financing and downtown megaprojects, while minority neighborhoods languished. UIC's Stovall goes as far as calling these policies "engineered conflict," subtly designed to drive poor blacks from the city.

A BASIC INCOME

Lightfoot, often employing an in-your-face style, has vowed to reshape those priorities. She has set a goal of not just reducing poverty over the next generation but eradicating it, an extremely tall order. Toward that end, she's appointed a chief equity officer to address inequality and in late February convened a daylong "Poverty Summit" that brought together researchers, community organizations, public officials and others in hopes of spurring greater collaboration on the issue.

She recently told a well-heeled City Club audience that she hoped her blunt talk of systemic poverty made them "uncomfortable." And at the summit, the mayor was unafraid to lecture civic and nonprofit organizations on the need to work together more effectively and to scold trade unions for a history of excluding minorities.

"I'm trying to take government and use it as both convener and a leader in this work," Lightfoot said. "Too many people are working in silos. Too many people are competing for grant dollars. This can't be about chasing the next grant. This has to be a commitment to the people and the work and making a difference."

"If we don't do something now, I fear we are going to lose another generation of kids," she said.

Still, Lightfoot drew scant applause when she explained her opposition to one proposed solution: a universal basic income, the concept of giving low-income families a payment to help them stay afloat financially. As some U.S. cities explore this option, an Emanuel-established task force on income inequality endorsed a trial UBI program that would provide 1,000 struggling families a payment of $1,000 per month for a year and a half, funded by philanthropic organizations.

Lightfoot, however, said that while UBI is "an interesting concept," she's concerned that it's not sustainable. "I am about teaching people how to fish so they can feed themselves for a lifetime," she said.

The task force also recommended expanding eligibility for the state's earned income tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers or creating a similar break for Chicago residents, something also endorsed by the Metropolitan Planning Council.

But even with a shift in focus at City Hall, questions clearly remain: Will Lightfoot be able to halt black flight? Will she and future mayors truly be able to greatly reduce Chicago's poverty and keep it in check? Can long-standing racial gaps be substantially narrowed?

And therein lies a significant challenge for the mayor—balancing agendas of downtown business interests and neighborhood activists and groups. Can she convince a business community frustrated with rising taxes and other downtown-related expenses to invest in struggling neighborhoods, where land and labor costs might be cheaper? Can minority entrepreneurs be adequately supported with capital to spur economic activity on the South and West sides?

Even Lightfoot's new equity chief, Candace Moore, concedes that attaining true equity likely will remain elusive.

"We're trying to create something that we have never seen in our lifetimes," Moore says. "And so what does it mean to do that work? How do you build something you've never seen before? It's definitely a challenge, even for a strong mayor who doesn't mind pushing hard."

Yet overall, Lightfoot's policy pronouncements and rhetoric have equity advocates feeling good about a new direction.

They see positive signs in her plans to waive hefty fines and fees for low-income residents, to overhaul the TIF program, to rewrite city laws to force more affluent neighborhoods to provide affordable housing, and to rework Emanuel's Neighborhood Opportunity Fund to pump capital into small businesses in struggling areas. Lightfoot herself points to a new program she calls Invest South/West that is sending $250 million into 10 neighborhoods on the South and West sides.

"For the first time in forever, I am optimistic about reforms at the city, county and state levels when it comes to issues like racial justice and housing and poverty," says Esther Franco-Payne, executive director of Cabrini Green Legal Aid, which provides legal help to low-income individuals.

Despite the steady outmigration of blacks, the Chicago region remains among the most stubbornly segregated communities in the country. Longtime advocates for addressing Chicago's racial inequality say Lightfoot's efforts to end poverty and close racial gaps are long overdue, and these policy shifts could reverberate beyond black and brown neighborhoods. A growing body of research shows that racial gaps, as well as offshoots like segregation, decidedly hurt our region, and not just in minority-populated pockets. Thus, Lightfoot's plans have been greeted with open arms by equity advocates

"There just has to be a redistribution of resources from downtown interests toward an investment in the neighborhoods," says Daniel Cooper, MPC's director of research. "The city has made a great start, but we have to get it right. We have to involve the voices and the stakeholders on the South and West sides."

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

For a criminal justice advocate like Franco-Payne, reforms undertaken by the Cook County state's attorney's office, such as keeping low-level, nonviolent offenders out of prison, signal hope. Blacks and Latinos harmed by the drug war continue to struggle economically and will never catch up to whites without rethinking criminal justice, she says.

"We have taken this blanket approach to denying people opportunity based on past mistakes," Franco-Payne says. "And once people have served their time or paid their dues, we have to think about what is the opportunity for them to effectively get past that? We continue to deny people basic rights based on something they did 10 or 20 years ago."

Raymond Richard might fall into this category. His early life was shaped by segregation and deprivation, and those conditions have cost taxpayers an untold amount of money. Richard, 51, grew up in the Cabrini Green public housing project in the shadow of the upscale Gold Coast and then spent more than 15 years incarcerated in jails and prisons for drug offenses and theft.

Now saddled with a felony record, he says he's struggled to find sustainable employment because his criminal background frightens employers, even though he's been out of prison for 12 years. He's been offered jobs in construction and warehouse labor, but the offers were rescinded after potential employers discovered a felony on his record.

"I feel I am still being discriminated against because of my past," Richard says. "When does my past end and my future begin?"

He says that growing up poor in the projects, particularly as neighboring white-populated communities blossomed economically, "destroyed my self-esteem and made me feel like an outcast."

"With one of the richest communities in the country just a few blocks away, it makes you just feel less than a person, you know?" Richard says. "I know people today who feel that way. If you live in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, your mental health suffers. I think we all have post-traumatic stress disorder, every one of us. It impacts every part of our life."

Racial gaps are more than statistics to Richard. As a black man born into poverty, he sees a society rigged against him from birth, although he acknowledges that some friends from his youth who also turned to drugs have fared even worse.

"A lot of them aren't here anymore. At least I am alive," he says. "But I do feel like there's a double standard. The heroin epidemic wasn't an epidemic until it affected white kids in the suburbs."

RISING ABOVE

While the city's impoverished neighborhoods have received much attention, there's also anecdotal evidence to suggest highly educated and employable minorities also struggle to find employment equal to whites.

John Rogers Jr., who has led mayoral task forces on diversity in the business community, says too many "anchor institutions" in South and West Side neighborhoods have been slow to hire minorities into leadership roles. With few blacks and Latinos in boardrooms and in executive positions, there's too little attention to diversifying all levels of employment in these institutions, he says.

"Our economy has become a professional services, financial services and technology-based economy," says Rogers, founder of what is now Ariel Investments. "And almost without exception, all the progressive institutions and minority businesses are located in construction, catering, janitorial services—the lowest-margin, least profitable parts of our ecosystem."

"In the most profitable parts of our ecosystem, the growth areas, minorities are pretty much locked out completely," Rogers says.

As such, black professionals in Chicago have struggled to break through glass ceilings that keep them beneath their white counterparts.

Renee Ferguson, a retired investigative reporter at WMAQ-TV/Channel 5, can recite a litany of racial slights and institutionalized racial impediments that she faced in white-led newsrooms and in her everyday life.

"If you want to be successful and rise above, you have to be ready to fight," she says. "Not everyone has that in them."

That's just one of many reasons why racial gaps in wealth and wages have remained largely unchanged nationally while they have grown in Chicago.

Income and wealth inequality has become a national cause for concern, an issue so powerful that it has driven the presidential candidacy of self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders to front-runner status in the Democratic Party. But in Chicago, where lines of segregation long have been etched in concrete streets, where minorities decry an economic system rigged against them, it's a matter of race.

A State Senator Had Thousands of Dollars in Ticket Debt. Now She’s Fighting to Make Sure Others Won’t.

PRO PUBLICA//Melissa Sanchez

Well, here’s another potential reform to add to the list: A few weeks ago, Illinois state Sen. Celina Villanueva, a Chicago Democrat, introduced legislation to end driver’s license suspensions for unpaid red-light and speed camera tickets. Five unpaid camera tickets can trigger a suspension. (Note that this really isn’t a road safety issue as you can get 100 camera tickets but not risk losing your driving privileges if you can afford to pay them.) State officials told me this week that more than 13,000 drivers currently have their licenses suspended because of unpaid camera tickets.

I met Villanueva last month at an event organized by Reform for Illinois, a good government group, and was surprised to hear her speak publicly and so candidly about how ticket debt had affected her own life. So this week I reached out to ask how her personal story had influenced her legislation.

She told me the timing was right, in part because of an ongoing federal public corruption investigation into red-light camera companies. (Her predecessor, Martin Sandoval, pleaded guilty last month to taking bribes in the case.) But she also saw this as an important issue that affects working-class residents across the state.

Here’s some of our conversation, edited for brevity and clarity:

Why introduce this bill now?

Villanueva: It was a perfect storm with the corruption issue. Was your interest [in supporting red-light cameras] really public safety or was it padding your own pockets, making money off the backs of working-class people? And why are we still suspending people’s driver’s licenses if we’ve passed a law ending suspensions over regular parking ticket debt?

People are going into debt because of these red-light camera tickets, which cost $100 or more, and then double [with late fees]. That’s hard, especially for poor people or working-class people who don’t have disposable income.

I heard you speak not too long ago about how these issues hit home for you on a personal level. Can you tell me what happened?

Villanueva: I had a car a few years ago that was at the end of its life. It was breaking down on me every couple of months, and fixing it up was costing more than the vehicle itself.

The city sticker was also about to lapse, so I thought, I’m going to get rid of this car. I called to have it taken to the junkyard. In the meantime, my car was parked in front of my house. I can’t move the car, it’s broken down, and I start getting tickets.

I was living paycheck to paycheck, working as an immigrant rights activist. Any extra money I had was going to bring down credit card and student loan debt, and paying my bills. But these tickets kept doubling and, all of the sudden, I ended up with $3,000-plus in ticket debt. A couple of the tickets were red-light camera tickets.

How did you pay them off?

Villanueva: I barely had a couple extra hundred dollars to my name. I looked at the payment plans, but they were asking for about $1,500 down. It would take me a whole year to save up that amount. I looked into bankruptcy, did some research online. I didn’t want to file. That would have affected everything else in my life.

But I had to do something because I didn’t want my license suspended. I knew that pretty soon I would need to get another car. My job was ramping up and I knew I would be spending a lot of time in the suburbs. Taking public transportation to the suburbs is not reliable.

I had a very small retirement plan with my job. People take out loans against their retirement plans to make a down payment for a house. I did it to pay off tickets. If it wasn’t for that, I honestly don’t know where I would be right now.

Do you see potential for more reforms related to government debt collection and other systems of fines and fees?

Villanueva: There is definitely an opportunity. Obviously the state of Illinois has been in a difficult financial situation for the past few years that we’re trying to do get ourselves out of. We’re looking for new revenue sources.

But I think it’s also really important that we’re not creating punitive fines that harm people. We have to get away from trying to collect $10, $100 from every single time we say you’re falling out of line or you did this wrong, and then not giving people an opportunity to work and pay off the fine because we’ve suspended their license. What we’re doing is creating and reinforcing cycles of poverty and that’s not OK.

At last check, Villanueva’s bill had 10 cosponsors, all but one of whom are Democrats. No hearings have been scheduled and no opposition has been filed, though it’s early in the session. Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration has not yet taken a position, though last month Pritzker said the issue was “absolutely worthy of consideration.”

The biggest opposition will likely come from the municipalities that rely on the threat of license suspension to pressure indebted motorists to pay camera citations, thereby generating needed revenue. Historically these suspensions have disproportionately hurt Chicago residents from majority black neighborhoods, ProPublica Illinois previously found.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the city said that “while the city is still reviewing the bill, we commend lawmakers and advocates for offering up additional ideas to help lift the burden of debt for those hit hardest in Chicago and all around the state.”

Bottom of Form

Here are a couple other bits of ticket-related news I want to share with you:

The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled arguments on a case that started with a city of Chicago legal strategy aimed at discouraging motorists with ticket debt from filing for bankruptcy. Starting in 2017, the city stopped immediately returning impounded vehicles to motorists who filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. A federal appeals court said last summer that the city was violating the basic protections of bankruptcy and doing it mostly to generate revenue.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, the Supreme Court is essentially being asked whether creditors of all sorts are allowed to hang onto property after someone files for bankruptcy, without violating a legal protection known as the automatic stay. But given that this all started here in Chicago, where tens of thousands of people have filed for bankruptcy to cope with the crushing consequences of ticket debt — including the loss of their licenses or vehicles — we’ll be paying attention.

On a related note, the city of Chicago and its towing contractor were sued in federal court this week over the impound program. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, claims the city’s practice of towing, impounding and eventually selling off thousands of vehicles over unpaid tickets is unconstitutional. “Even if it sells the vehicle, none of the proceeds are paid to the owner,” attorney Jacie Zolna writes in the lawsuit. “Incredibly, the City does not even off-set the owner’s debts by the amount of the sale. It simply takes it all for itself and leaves the former owner’s debt as it is.”

In a statement, a city spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit but said Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is “actively working to evaluate the city’s complex impound systems to find ways to enhance them and ensure that residents aren’t losing their cars simply due to inability to pay.”

Read this story on the lawsuit by WBEZ data editor Elliott Ramos, my collaborator on a lot of the ticketing reporting. Elliott has separately investigated the city’s massive towing and impound program, and his reporting is cited heavily in the lawsuit. (If you haven’t checked it out, please do so even just to see the insane drone footage of one of the city’s huge impound lots.)

The Navy Pier Flyover’s Northern End Is An Ice-Choked Hazard. Are Trail Closures The New Normal?

BLOCK CLUB//Justin Laurence

But rising Lake Michigan levels and violent waves have crippled the trail at the flyover’s northern end, creating blockades of ice, sand and torn asphalt slabs, forcing the Chicago Park District to block access.

It’s sent users scrambling for new routes — but it’s also led some to take their chances. And it raises the larger question of what the future is for the trail.

A critical section of the larger lakefront trail, the narrow strip that guides cyclists and pedestrians from Ohio Street Beach through Oak Street beach has been closed for much of the winter after a January storm destroyed large sections of asphalt and left what remains a slippery patch of ice created by waves that spill over the entire trail.

Construction of the Navy Pier Flyover began in 2014 under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The project was meant to be completed in 2018, but has been delayed repeatedly. The third and final phase of the project, the section that sends the trail over the Chicago River, is now estimated to be completed later this spring.

The flyover is meant to provide a safe and easy passage for cyclists and pedestrians from south of the Chicago River to Ohio Street Beach, but unless the lake waters recede or the city prioritizes infrastructure upgrades, the northern access of the flyover could remain inaccessible for long stretches.

The Chicago Park District, which maintains the trail, has placed barriers warning users to stay off the dangerous area north of Navy Pier, but some commuters have told Block Club they’ll continue to bypass them, preferring to risk the peril of slipping into the lake to avoid biking on Chicago streets, which they say can be even more dangerous.

Cathy Breitenbach, director of cultural resources at the Park District, said the closures won’t be going away any time soon and stressed that the district doesn’t take closing portions of the trail lightly. The danger is serious, she said.

“When there are barricades up it’s for people’s safety,” she said. “You’re not just risking your own safety, you’re risking the safety of first responders who might have to help you if you get in trouble.”

Earlier this winter, a Park District maintenance truck slid into Lake Michigan while working to get the trail ready after a winter storm.

“We work very hard to keep the trail usable year round, but we won’t put our own staff at risk either,” she said.

Maintenance of the trail continues year round, but certain areas, like that just north of the flyover, have suffered structural damage that make it difficult and sometimes unsafe to maintain, she said.

“If we could keep it open we would. I mean, we really do try to keep that resource available to the public. Until structural repairs can be made, we cannot safely maintain them,” she said.

“Models show that lake levels are likely to remain high through this year, and so, at least in the near term future we’re going to be dealing with this,’ she said.

Those structural repairs, largely to replace the asphalt that has been ripped up by waves and deposited along the trail, cannot be made until the spring when asphalt plants reopen.

The Park District regularly updates users on trail closures on its website and social media accounts. The section north of the flyover is not the only portion of the trail to be closed, and the district has had to install heavy concrete barriers in areas where users were simply moving wooden ones aside.

Sarah Eddy works for an environmental nonprofit and described herself as an avid cyclist. She said she wasn’t speaking on behalf of the nonprofit but worried that this is the “new normal.”

Eddy said if the city had a larger network of protected bike lanes, cyclists wouldn’t be forced to the lakefront trail in the winter.

“How sad is that, that people are literally saying, ‘Oh, it’s safer for me to be on this potentially icy sharp curve where I could slip into the lake’ rather than ride my bike on the street. I think that says something about where we are in our bike advocacy and how much further we have to grow,” she said.

High water levels and frequent storms brought on by climate change led Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to declare a state emergency last month, but it’s unclear what will be done for the trail system itself.

“It sucks that it has to take these really kind of drastic visual measures,” Eddy said. “… But I don’t want them to just go and repave something again to get all ripped up however many months later. I’d rather them take their time to figure out what’s the best way to actually make sure that this is a lakefront trail that we can continue using 25 years from now and not just a literal band-aid pave-over.”

Maggie Gabrek described herself as a run commuter from her job at Union Station to her home in Lincoln Park. She’s run 22 marathons and trains along the lakefront year round. She said her running group began worrying about the area in the summer when water was swishing at their feet.

“Everyone’s like ‘oh s—, the winter is coming’ and the water levels haven’t gone down,” she said.

Throughout the winter she and her friends have been in contact, alerting each other to trail conditions.

“We’ve been texting back and forth, like ‘is it any better yet?’ and everyone’s like ‘No!’ ” she said. Gabrek said when the path gets too slippery she’ll detour westward and run along Inner-Lake Shore Drive.

Chris Burke was biking home from work in the Loop when he paused to survey the area just north of the flyover. He bikes as often as he can even though he lives near an express bus route that runs on Lake Shore Drive. The bus is nice but it still gets stopped in traffic.

“I would take the express bus and have a look over just to see the conditions to see if I can ride,” he said. “The main area I’m concerned about is the corner…that corner gets really slippery. … I’ve actually fallen on that corner before.”

Burke was speaking about the corner that guides users along the S-curve that mirrors Lake Shore Drive just east of Oak Street Beach. Last Friday, the corner was completely covered in ice. Earlier this week, after unseasonably warm weather over the weekend, the ice was gone but Lake Michigan waves spilled over the entirety of the trail.

Eddy said it’s particularly hard to lose the trail to climate change because other forms of transportation are driving the CO2 emissions that led to the crisis.

“The transportation sector is the leading cause of carbon pollution in this country,” she said. “…We need to be encouraging people to do more biking, more walking, more public transit. I think one of the greatest assets that Chicago has is the Lake Front Trail.”

Alderman Hasn’t Decided If He’ll Support Weed Farm Planned For Logan Square Marble Plant

BLOCK CLUB//Justin Laurence

Perception Farms owners want to turn a long-vacant marble manufacturing plant at 2537-43 N. Pulaski Road into a space where they would both grow and sell weed under one roof. They presented their plans to neighbors inside a cramped fieldhouse basement room at Kelvyn Park, 4438 W. Wrightwood Ave., Wednesday night.

The company plans to file a craft grow license application with the Illinois Department of Agriculture by March 16, but it needs to include in its application that the site will be properly zoned for the use, a step that likely calls for 31st Ward Ald. Felix Cardona Jr.’s support.

In November, Cardona nixed a plan to turn the warehouse, which has sat vacant for 11 years, into a 1,000 person-capacity music and event venue. His decision followed a meeting on the proposal which drew 200 people and a mixed response.

After the meeting, Cardona told Block Club he has yet to decide if he’ll support the zoning change the indoor weed farm and dispensary will need. He plans to take the issue to the zoning advisory committee he set up to weigh zoning issues in the ward.

If Cardona is on board, “then we can get the alderman’s letter of support to include with our application and make our application viable,” said Walter Moore, principal investor and CEO of Perception Farms.

Beyond the zoning change, the company needs separate state licenses to both grow and sell weed, and would require special-use permits from the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Jaime Zaplatosch, who handles community engagement for said all of the regulatory hurdles to opening make it a longshot that they’ll be able to open both a dispensary and farm at the location. If they aren’t able to open both, they will prioritize the farm.

The company has ambitions beyond the Logan Square location. Perception Farms has applied for five dispensary licenses that will be decided by May 1, but they aim to eventually own 10 dispensaries and three craft weed farms, the state maximum.

Charles Cherqui, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, echoed a sentiment that others in the industry have expressed: that as new dispensaries come online, larger weed companies will buy them out, creating consolidation in the state.

“Big cannabis not only controls the dispensaries, but they also control the large cultivation centers,” he said. “…Perhaps being conspiratorial, but we think that part of the longterm strategy is to maybe try to starve out some of the social-equity run dispensaries so that way they’ll have an easier time coming in and sweeping up the licenses.”

The company said what makes it different than its potential competitors is its social-equity mission. For each of the five dispensary applications and the pending craft grow application, the company has partnered with five to seven people who would otherwise qualify as a so-called social equity applicant under state law.

Each license would operate as an independent company, with those who qualify as social-equity applicants obtaining 51 percent ownership and three board seats and the founders of Perception Farms retaining 49 percent and two board seats. Everyone involved would be listed as a principal officer on the application, allowing the company to qualify for the 50 bonus points the state will only give to social-equity applicants when scoring applications.

“They’re owned and controlled by social-equity applicants. The board is majority controlled by the social equity class of stocks, so for each license this arrangement is built into our shareholders agreement,” Moore said.

All employees hired at the dispensaries or the craft weed farms would be hired from the areas most impacted by the War on Drugs and would receive a starting pay of $18 and a benefit package that includes a profit share in the company that will be vested on a five-year schedule.

Employee owners would receive their share from the 51 percent class of stock, while outside investors would be limited to the 49 percent stake. Employees are free to cash out at any time, but the 51 percent class is perpetual and can not be diluted from outside investors or given to the founders of Perception Farms.

Moore said the exact formula for how much stock new employees receive hasn’t been decided, and noted that the decision will be up to those who own three board seats.

While the employee profit sharing model is unique, they will face competition for the 75 state-wide dispensary licenses to be handed out on May 1, including from social-equity applicants that will be 100 percent owned by those most affected by the War on Drugs.

About 600 of the 700 groups that filed for around 7,000 dispensary applications qualified as social-equity applicants, according to the state.

Cherqui saidthere is room for both their model and a traditional ownership model in the industry. He said there will be many licenses awarded to social-equity applicants that had the capital and expertise to complete the application process, but that Perception provides a pathway to ownership for those who don’t.

“As the company grows everybody who comes in as an employee has an on-ramp to ownership, and so rather than it just being a one time wealth transfer to a certain handful of people who were lucky enough to win the application…ours is perpetual and for the futurem” he said.

Ald. King Launches Hyde Park Advisory Council: ‘It Will Empower The Community To Help Itself’

BLOCK CLUB//Maxwell Evans

HYDE PARK — The first meeting of Ald. Sophia King’s (4th) Hyde Park advisory council was held Wednesday as she seeks to boost civic engagement in the ward.

The Hyde Park council is one of six advisory councils King is rolling out — one for each of the communities she represents. The others are focused on the South Loop, Douglas, North Kenwood-Oakland, Grand Boulevard and Kenwood.

The next kick-off meeting is for Kenwood, to be held 6 p.m. March 5 at Kenwood Academy, 5015 S. Blackstone Ave.

“What we’ve decided to do is form these advisory councils around communities, in hopes that it will empower the community to help itself,” King said.

At Wednesday’s Hyde Park debut at the Polsky Exchange North, 1452 E. 53rd St., about a dozen residents learned the structure of the councils while offering their ideas on topics that will be explored further through a series of subcommittees.

Before the meeting started, longtime neighborhood resident and CollaBOOration lead organizer Bennie Currie agreed to serve as council chair.

King “wants to make sure that the people that really are concerned are not just concerned, but actually getting involved,” Currie said. “I thought this was a fantastic idea.”

To be decided as residents nominate themselves over the next few weeks are a vice chair, secretary and heads of seven subcommittees:

Arts and parks
Block clubs
Development
Economic development and jobs
Education
Infrastructure
Public safety

Subcommittees will plan to meet monthly, with the full advisory council meeting three or four times a year.

King said she is open to creating more subcommittees to address community-specific needs. Residents are welcome to serve on more than one subcommittee at a time.

Some broad ideas attendees had for the ward include improved safety and traffic flow on city streets; a more holistic and all-ages approach to education; increasing access and awareness to economic opportunities; and improved relations with and accountability from the city’s and University of Chicago’s police departments.

Though Hyde Park represents “only a very small sliver” of the 4th Ward, it’s “full of people” who are passionate about civic engagement, said Michael Gorman, a grad student at the University of Chicago who plans to go into transportation policy. He expressed interest in the infrastructure subcommittee.

Gorman plans on inviting friends and coworkers to future council meetings after being a little surprised at how “sparse” Wednesday’s crowd was, though he understood it was just the first meeting.

“I moved to Hyde Park last summer, and I think being actively involved in the place that you live is really important to society,” Gorman said.

A few of the ideas shared aren’t necessarily ward-level concerns and would require action from other agencies.

For example, aldermen can’t directly expand programming at the neighborhood’s public schools or force major property owners like Mac Properties and Hyde Park Property Management to be more involved with the community, two concerns raised on Wednesday.

While King may not be able to personally address every concern, the council’s creation helps encourage collective action in the community, former DePaul professor and CPS principal Doreen Barrett said.

She discussed potential focus areas for the education subcommittee with King for much of the evening’s breakout session.

“If you have people at the ward level who are constituents of these schools, they have a voice, and together they could go to the Board of Education as a group,” Barrett said. “There’s power in numbers.”

King said council members will have not only a more direct way to raise community concerns, but will benefit from increased communication with their neighbors.

“We can’t do everything, but we can come together and certain things we’ll rise to the top,” she said. “We’ll try and get them done to help our community.”

Lightfoot: No plans to change city holiday of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day

SUN TIMES//Fran Spielman

“I do think we’ve got to do a lot more to do to make sure that we are aware and sensitive of the history but I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level,” the mayor said at an unrelated news conference after unveiling her plan to bolster CTA security.

Lightfoot noted that for a number of years, the Chicago Public Schools have essentially celebrated both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. She “thought that made sense.”

The mayor was not asked — nor did she explain — why, if she thought a shared holiday made sense, her handpicked school board forged ahead with the change that has so infuriated Italian American aldermen and civic groups.

She would say only that she has “spent time with folks from the American Indian Center” and that there is “a lot more we can do to elevate the history of indigenous people —in the past, but also in the present.”

“They are a marginalized community and . . . there’s a lot more we can do,” she said.

The decision to drop Columbus Day came in a split vote by the seven-member Board of Education, with two members voting against changing the CPS calendar. The October holiday had previously been recognized as “Indigenous Peoples Day/Columbus Day.”

Board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland, an associate professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argued then that it was the board’s “responsibility to lead on this issue.”

“I believe in the transformative potential of culturally responsive education,” she said. “In addition to our Indigenous students in CPS, more than 80% of our students are the descendants of survivors of European settler colonialism. I think this is important for all of our school communities and I think it’s the right thing to do now.”

The decision so outraged the City Council’s two Italian American aldermen, one of them, Ald. Nick Sposato (38th), said he was “ready to go to war.”

“Go ahead and have your damn Indigenous Peoples Day. Just don’t have it on Columbus Day,” Sposato said Thursday.

“They’re taking Columbus Day away. I’m an Italian American. He found America. They want to say he didn’t. They want to say he did bad things. You know how many people were on the three ships when he came here? Ninety. You think he could do the things they’re claiming that he did with 90 people?”

Sposato likened the effort to the movement sweeping the nation to tear down statues of U.S. presidents and other historical figures who were slave owners.

“It’s time for war with CPS about changing this, changing history, changing the day,” he said. “We’re gonna fight ‘em to change it back to what it was.”

Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st) called the change “absolutely ridiculous.”

“I just think it’s wrong . . . If you want to have Indigenous Peoples Day, great. I’ll celebrate it with you. Pick a day. But to have to get rid of Columbus Day for it is a slap in Italian Americans’ faces,” Napolitano said.

Napolitano likened the insult to the controversy in 2018 that followed the effort to change Balbo Drive — named for an Italian Air Force Marshal famous for making the first transatlantic crossing from Rome to Chicago but also helping to bring fascist Benito Mussolini to power — for journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells. Resistance led the City Council to name Congress Drive after Wells instead.

“Every couple of months, it seems like they pick a new [famous Italian] to get rid of,” he said. “I don’t understand what’s going . . . To say that Italian-Americans haven’t contributed to the United States, to the city of Chicago, it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Although CPS alone sets its calendar, which is not subject to City Council review, the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, is mounting a campaign to reverse the action on behalf of the 500,000 Italian Americans in the Chicago area.

“Christopher Columbus is a symbol for the resilience of a people that have helped shape the cultural landscape of this great nation,” the group’s president, Sergio Giangrande, said in a statement. “The historical legacy of any individual is and should be subject to debate. That debate should not give license to the wholesale removal of a symbol . . . that was a beacon of hope for millions of maligned Italians who helped create the beauty of this country.”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she won’t support eliminating Columbus Day city holiday

TRIBUNE//Gregory Pratt

Mayor Lori Lightfoot won’t support the elimination of Columbus Day at the city level despite Chicago Public Schools replacing the controversial holiday with Indigenous Peoples Day, she said Friday.

“I have no plans to support any changes in elimination of Columbus Day,” Lightfoot said. “For a number of years CPS essentially celebrated both, Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. I thought that that made sense.”

Following similar moves in other school districts and cities, the Chicago Board of Education voted Wednesday to drop Columbus’ name from the October school holiday in favor of an observance of Indigenous Peoples Day.

The announcement took several aldermen and Italian-Americans by surprise, though the move has also been praised.

Northwest Side Ald. Nick Sposato, 38th, predicted backlash from the Italian American community, whose members have been among the most critical of the movement to stop celebrating Christopher Columbus. Sposato said removing Columbus from the holiday is erasing history and misguided.

“It’s time for war,” he said after CPS made its announcement.

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Sidestepping the issue could allow her to avoid a messy battle with Sposato and other aldermen who are her allies.

As mayor, Lightfoot appoints the school board members. Shortly after taking office, she overhauled the board by appointing all new members and installing President Miguel del Valle.

On Friday, Lightfoot acknowledged that Native Americans are a marginalized group and said she wants to do more for them, but didn’t offer specifics.

“Certainly there’s a lot more we can do to elevate the history of indigenous people in the past but also in the present,” Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot Won’t Support Changing Columbus Day To Indigenous Peoples Day As A City Holiday

BLOCK CLUB//Heather Cherone

DOWNTOWN — Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Friday that she will not back an effort to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day as an official city holiday.

“I absolutely have no plans to support any elimination of Columbus Day at the city level,” Lightfoot said.

The Chicago Board of Education voted Wednesday to change the official holiday observed by schools on the second Monday of October from Columbus Day, honoring the Italian explorer, to Indigenous Peoples Day, to recognize that his arrival touched off a genocide of indigenous people.

Lightfoot said the schools had celebrated both holidays for a number of years, and that the change made sense.

However, the city will not be following suit, Lightfoot said at an unrelated event to announce new crime fighting measures for the Chicago Transit Authority.

Lightfoot said there was more the city could do to “elevate the history of indigenous people” in Chicago.

“They are a marginalized community,” Lightfoot said. “There is a lot more we can do to be aware and sensitive of the history.”

Two measures introduced by Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33) [O2019-6976; O2019-5581] last year to change the holiday have yet to get a hearing — and now face a tough road to become law.

In 2016, the City Council passed a resolution [R2016-688] recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day, but that was only a ceremonial measure.

Chicagoans have called for Columbus Drive to be renamed and some have repeatedly vandalized a statue of Columbus.

Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38) said he was incensed by the decision by the Board of Education, whose members are appointed by Lightfoot.

The move amounts to “erasing history,” Sposato said, vowing to marshal an effort to reverse the decision.

“This isn’t the end of it,” Sposato said.

Columbus Day marks the contributions of Columbus, who claimed to have discovered America on Oct. 12, 1492 — even though it was already populated.

The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans President Sergio Giangrande called the CPS decision “a slap in the face of the more than 500-thousand Italian Americans in Chicago.”

“The historical legacy of any individual is and should be subject to debate,” Giangrande said. “That debate should not give license to the wholesale removal of a symbol indemnity that was a beacon of hope for millions of maligned Italians who helped create the beauty of this country.”

When Lightfoot vowed in a speech on Feb. 14 to end poverty in Chicago within a generation, she called out past Chicago leaders for failing to atone for the crimes committed against the first residents of what would become Chicago.

“Here in Chicago, we must highlight and embrace the legacy of the Council of the Three Fires and teach our children about the United Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi Indians so that they know more than the story of Ft. Dearborn,” Lightfoot said.

In 2018, an effort by Alds. Sophia King (4) and Brendan Reilly (42) to rename Balbo Drive for Civil Rights icon and investigative reporter Ida B. Wells ignited a similar firestorm and was ultimately scrapped.

Italo Balbo, a marshal in the Italian Air Force Marshal, rose to fame after he made the first transatlantic crossing from Rome to Chicago. He also helped fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to power in 1922 and served as a high-ranking official in his air force.

The City Council voted unanimously to rename Congress Parkway for Wells a few months after the controversy, which prompted members of Chicago’s Italian American community to threaten to unseat Reilly. However, his 2019 bid for re-election was unopposed.

Speed Cameras: The Cities With the Worst Offenders

WSJ//Steve Calvert, Paul Overberg and Max Rust

NEW ORLEANS—As the Nissan cruised past single-story homes near Holy Cross School in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood, a speed camera clocked the car going 30 mph in a 20 mph zone.

It is an extreme example of a problem that reaches far beyond New Orleans. In U.S. cities, cameras meant to enforce speed limits are failing to deter frequent offenders, whose cars each year pile up five, 10, 20 or dozens of tickets, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of more than 32 million citation records spanning a decade. The examination involved data provided by 20 cities and counties in response to public-records requests.

In New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C.—all home to ambitious Vision Zero programs aimed at eliminating fatal traffic crashes—11% to 17% of speed-camera tickets in 2018 went to vehicles cited five or more times that year. The serial scofflaws collectively amassed 370,000 citations, even though cameras don’t fire unless a car goes 10 mph over the speed limit in Chicago, and 11 mph over in New York and Washington.

Speed-camera advocates and transportation officials in cities with high repeat-offender rates expressed alarm at the Journal’s findings, even as they noted most drivers who get ticketed get only one and pointed to safety benefits like reduced speeding near schools.

The findings show that these automated-enforcement programs are falling well short of their potential to alter the behavior of dangerous drivers in increasingly crowded urban areas.

“Some of those high numbers are just really appalling and concerning,” said Jane Terry, vice president of government affairs at the nonprofit National Safety Council. “That’s why you have mechanisms like suspending a license and taking other actions that are necessary to bring about change in the way people drive.”

In cities with harsher punishments for speeding, frequent offenders are less common. Some cities in the West with strict penalties and low frequent-offender rates could serve as a model. But in many cities, officials’ hands are tied by state laws that mandate lighter consequences, which are often used as a way to gain public acceptance for speed cameras.

New Orleans last year had the highest frequent-offender rate of any major city in the Journal’s analysis—27% of all tickets went to cars cited five or more times. The Nissan with 188 tickets had the biggest annual total of any vehicle among the 18 jurisdictions for which totals could be calculated.

“Holy cow,” said Brian Williams, chief business officer of all-boys Holy Cross, when told of those numbers. “I don’t know what to say about someone with 188.”

Speeders are a major concern, because middle-school students sometimes cross nearby Paris Avenue at afternoon pickup, he said.

Bike Easy, a New Orleans cyclist advocacy group that supports automated enforcement, said the cameras are falling short. “Even if it’s a small number of people consistently driving dangerously that way, we need to figure out how to curtail that,” said Dan Favre, the group’s executive director.

New Orleans’ five most egregious speed offenders in 2018 got a total of 559 tickets. None of the tickets were paid, which meant the city could boot the cars. But none got a boot, city records show. The registrations for two of the cars were eventually revoked for a different reason—lapsed insurance—and the owners of the other three canceled their plates, according to the state’s motor vehicle office. State officials said confidentiality laws bar releasing the owners’ names.

New Orleans’ Department of Public Works wasn’t aware of the city’s high frequent-offender rate, agency director Keith LaGrange said. Regarding boots, he said enforcement occurs downtown and on major routes with parking, so it is possible none of the five cars were ever parked in those areas.

The city has booted more than 22,000 cars since late 2014 for unpaid camera tickets, according to city data. Only about 59% of citation recipients pay the fines, which range from $75 to $235 depending on the vehicle’s speed, a city spokesman said. Washington’s speed-camera ticket payment rate has averaged about 77% since 2015, and New York’s rate last year was 92%, officials in those cities said.

“We are always concerned with public safety issues including bad driving behaviors,” Mr. LaGrange said. The city is focused on upgrading crosswalks and putting flashing beacons near schools, he said, and in 2020 officials will launch a neighborhood traffic-management program targeting dangerous driving.

Meanwhile, New Orleans roads remain perilous. Citywide there were more than 6,100 crashes involving injury last year, one of the highest totals in more than a decade, according to figures compiled by Louisiana State University.

Kevin O’Malley, a managing deputy commissioner of the Chicago Transportation Department, said a preliminary analysis indicates a link between repeat offenders and crashes there. “It’s something we take seriously and it’s something that we really think merits study,” he said.

In cities like New York, Chicago, Washington and New Orleans, speed-camera tickets are akin to parking tickets issued to the vehicle’s owner. Because only the license plate is photographed, officials can’t say who was behind the wheel. A fine is the sole penalty permitted by law in these places. In New York, for example, violators incur a flat $50 fine, no matter their speed or prior ticket total. Only those who don’t pay face repercussions like a boot or, in some places, a block on their car-registration renewal.

A very different story plays out in some Western cities where frequent violators are rare. Barely 1% of speed-camera tickets last year in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Portland, Ore., were linked to tags listed five-plus times in citation data. In Mesa, Ariz., the rate was below 3%.

One key factor is that camera-generated tickets in Arizona and Oregon are equivalent to traditional speeding tickets that police officers hand drivers. Cameras snap a photo of the driver, not just the tag, and citations are issued and mailed to the driver. Automated tickets have fines that can top $500, and they go on a driver’s record where auto insurers can see them. In Arizona, each ticket carries three points, and if drivers accrue eight points in 12 months, they can lose driving privileges for a year.

Scottsdale aggressively targets frequent offenders, police traffic program supervisor Alex Ristuccia said. When someone amasses more than a handful of tickets, an officer will often visit the driver’s home. Police can arrest him or her on the spot, if the camera clocked their car going at least 21 mph over the limit.

“They not only realize, ‘Oh, wow, Scottsdale takes traffic enforcement serious and this is more than just a little throwaway ticket.’ It also allows our officers and detectives an opportunity to talk to that person [and ask] ‘What’s going on?’ ” Mr. Ristuccia said.

Arizona’s driver-liability law presents certain challenges, such as identifying the driver. Officials check driver’s license photos of anyone registered as an owner of the car, and when that doesn’t yield an answer, they look for clues in various databases. If the agency can’t identify the driver within a reasonable likelihood, it still sends a violation notice giving the owner the option to name the driver. Mr. Ristuccia said owners cough up a name “more than you think.”

“Parents will identify their kids, sometimes spouses, ex-spouses,” he said.

When speed cameras began appearing in the U.S. in the late 1980s, privacy advocates quickly criticized them as invasive, despite municipalities’ promise that they were an efficient, low-cost policing tool that would make roads safer. Now, 150 localities in 15 states use them, and several states prohibit them outright or in most cases, according to the insurance industry-backed Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Studies have consistently found the cameras lead to lower speeds and fewer crashes.

Speed-camera critics cite a host of objections, saying speed limits are often set too low, the technology isn’t reliable and revenue is the primary motivator.

“Generally, cities are trying to get the money. It’s a policing-for-profit scheme,” said Shelia Dunn, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin-based National Motorists Association.

Washington, D.C., has grossed more than $450 million since 2012, not counting internal costs or payments to the private vendor that helps run the program. In New Orleans, the city’s annual gross revenue from both speed and red-light camera tickets soared from $16 million to $27 million between 2014 and last year, while its frequent-offender rate more than doubled.

On the other hand, the far smaller, more labor-intensive program in Scottsdale nets about $1 million a year for the city’s general fund, and Portland says its operation lost money in two of the past three years.

Many local officials said they would forgo the cash if it meant less speeding.

New York City—where a state-approved expansion will bring its school-zone network to around 2,000 cameras, far and away the biggest in the U.S.—has pumped out more than 7 million tickets since 2014.

Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said the city is searching for ways to hold recurrent scofflaws more accountable. A 2018 crash in Brooklyn that killed two children has fueled interest in clamping down on the most egregious offenders. The tag on the car in that crash had been cited eight times for speeding or running red lights.

Ms. Trottenberg said the city supports, in principle, a proposal that would require any car owner who gets five or more traffic-camera tickets within a year to attend an intensive driver’s education class. Otherwise the car would be impounded.

In New Orleans, 64 of the city’s 84 speed cameras are in school zones and are permitted to operate on school days during the morning and afternoon, when the speed limit falls to 20 mph.

On a recent afternoon, a pair of cameras on busy six-lane Canal Street flashed dozens of times as cars drove past Warren Easton Charter High School. The cameras nabbed more frequent offenders in 2018 than those at any other spot in the city.

Earlier this year, with no public notice, the city dropped the threshold for getting a ticket in school zones by two mph, to 24 mph. The new limit twice ensnared Andrew Pollack’s SUV, which has triggered 10 tickets since last year. Several came from a camera around the corner from his daughter’s elementary school in a leafy neighborhood near Tulane University.

Mr. Pollack, a glass artist, said he accepts responsibility for speeding and paid all $835 in fines. But he insisted he isn’t a menace like the “big trucks and college kids flying down the streets.” And he worries about frequent offenders with scads of citations.

“They definitely need to investigate that whole system,” he said.

Pritzker, Lightfoot Outline Efforts to Handle Spread of Coronavirus

WTTW//Kristen Thometz

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot outlined several initiatives at a press conference Friday in Chicago. Among them, the state is expanding its capacity to test for the virus, and will also begin testing patients with flu-like symptoms for COVID-19 at select hospitals as a precautionary measure.

“Our top priority is keeping Illinoisans safe and to this point Illinois has contained the virus to two confirmed patients, and both patients have fully recovered and returned home,” Pritzker said Friday. “While the risk to the general public remains low, we want you to know our state and local agencies and officials are using every tool at our disposal to ensure the public’s health and safety our well-guarded.”

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it “is operationalizing all of its pandemic preparedness and response plans, working on multiple fronts including specific measures to prepare communities to respond to local transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19.”

Next week, local health officials will begin testing for COVID-19 at two additional state labs – one in central Illinois, the other in southern Illinois, according to Pritzker. Currently, state health officials are testing for the virus at a Cook County lab.

Testing patients with flu-like symptoms will expedite diagnosis of COVID-19 cases, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, adding officials are monitoring the situation closely. “I want to stress to residents the chances of contracting the virus continue to remain low. Our residents should continue to enjoy the city, its neighborhoods, particularly Chinatown, and its amenities that they normally do,” she said. “Fear cannot guide us in this moment. Thoughtfulness and preparation are the rule of the day.”

The testing will be voluntary, according to Pritzker.

Health officials will also introduce community mitigation strategies to slow the spread of the virus using everyday preventive strategies, such as frequent handwashing, routine cleaning of frequently touched surfaces and objects, and covering coughs and sneezes. People should stay home when they are sick.

“These community mitigations, like handwashing and staying home when you’re feeling sick, are our first lines of defense,” Pritzker said.

Coronaviruses are respiratory viruses that range from the common cold to more serious illnesses, like SARS and MERS, and are generally spread via droplets in the air when people cough or sneeze, as happens with the common cold, according to officials. There is no treatment or vaccine for it.

“I want to be clear: The best thing the general public can do at this time is to continue with the same precautions you take during flu season with renewed vigilance,” Pritzker said

For more information about the coronavirus, visit IDPH’s website, call its dedicated COVID-19 hotline (800-889-3931) or send an email.

Coronavirus In Chicago: What You Need To Know

WBEZ//Staff

While the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, there have been only two confirmed cases in Illinois — both in Chicago — and health officials stress the risk of infection remains low.

Still, state and local health agencies say they’re taking the virus seriously and coordinating their responses. Gov. JB Prtizker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot held a news conference Friday to provide an update on what health agencies are doing.

“We’re ready to put the full weight of the state behind a full-fledged response when needed,” Prtizker said.

Here’s a rundown on the state of the coronavirus in Illinois and answers to some common questions:

What's the state of coronavirus in Illinois?

The two confirmed cases were a wife and husband in Chicago. The woman had been in Wuhan City, Hubei Province in China, the epicenter of the virus, and she fell ill when she returned to the Windy City. After seeing a local doctor she was confirmed as a coronavirus case. Officials say she passed the virus to her husband, who became ill. Both individuals were treated and have made a full recovery.

Including that couple, a total of 76 people in Illinois have been “persons under investigation” for coronavirus. As of Friday, 70 have tested negative for the virus and four are pending.

What are state and local health agencies doing?

Illinois was first in the U.S. to provide in-state testing for the virus, which allows the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) to get results within 24 hours. Starting next week, Illinois will expand its in-state testing for coronavirus, Pritzker said Friday. There will be new testing labs in central and southern Illinois, in addition to the one in Cook County.

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Pritzker said the IDPH will also partner with hospitals throughout Illinois to do voluntary testing so that officials can diagnose new cases quickly and reduce the chance of the virus spreading in a community. Under that plan, emergency departments will test people who show flu-like symptoms.

What’s the latest on the global outbreak?

As of Friday, more than 80,000 people have been infected from the viral outbreak that began late last year in China. A total of 35 cases have been reported in the U.S. The virus has killed more than 2,700 people globally.

What is the coronavirus?

Technically, it’s called the 2019 novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. The virus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. It’s a member of the coronavirus family that's a close cousin to the deadly SARS and MERS viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past.

This coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan and has been linked to a live animal market. It began as an animal-to-human virus, but then spread rapidly from person to person.

How do infected people spread the virus?

Coronaviruses are generally spread by respiratory droplets that go into the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

What precautions should I take?

Federal, state and local officials continue to offer this sensible advice: take the same precautions you do during a normal flu season. These include:

Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer frequently.

Cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze.

Stay home if you’re sick, except to see a doctor.

If you develop a fever and symptoms of respiratory illness, visit a doctor.

Avoid people who are ill.

How do you teach kids about the virus?

Here’s a fun and informative comic from NPR made just for kids.

Is there a vaccine?

Not yet, but efforts are underway to develop one. One company, drugmaker Moderna, announced this week that it has shipped its first batch of a possible coronavirus vaccine for humans to government researchers for testing.

Can I get coronavirus from packages or products sent from China?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says on its website that it’s difficult for the virus to survive on surfaces, so “there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.”

Will coronavirus go away when the weather warms up?

We don’t know yet. Winter is the season for the common cold and flu, but the CDC notes that you can still get sick during warmer months. Only time will tell with this coronavirus.

Should I be concerned about pets?

There’s no reason to believe that any animals in the U.S., including pets, could be a source of infection for coronavirus, the CDC says. So far, the agency hasn’t received any reports of pets or other animals becoming sick with the virus.

Where can I get more info?

The CDC web page.
The IDPH web page. It updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can also get information from the state by calling 800-889-3931 or emailing dph.sick@illinois.gov.
The CDPH web page.

Clouted developer, ally of ex-Ald. Solis bids to become pot shop landlord — but says competitors might be sabotaging him

SUN TIMES//Tom Schuba

Although developer Fred Latsko doesn’t have a stake in any Illinois pot companies, he owns a pair of vacant properties where cannabis businesses want to sell weed.

One is at 901 W. Kinzie in the West Loop; Windy City Cannabis wants to open a recreational weed shop in the massive, mural-covered brick building. The other is at 444 N. LaSalle, the former home of the English Bar & Restaurant, in River North; PharmaCann, a Loop pot company, wants to open a clinic there.

Latsko recently told the Chicago Sun-Times he was approached by the cannabis firms and didn’t actively market his properties to them.

But by no means are the pot companies a lock to become Latsko tenants. Windy City Cannabis has yet to hold a required community meeting for the Kinzie Street location or apply for a special-use zoning permit. As a result, the company won’t take part in next month’s special meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals, where PharmaCann and its counterparts will seek zoning approvals.

As for PharmaCann’s proposal for Latsko’s building on LaSalle, state law prohibits pot shops from opening within 1,500 feet of each other, and three others want to open nearby. That means only one of those shops eventually will be allowed to open.

As a result, Latsko — long a player in Chicago’s political and development landscape — says he’s concerned that someone might be trying to sabotage his chances of PharmaCann becoming his tenant at 444 N. LaSalle.

City building inspectors slapped a warning on that building on Feb. 18, saying owners could get a citation for “interference with officials” after an inspector was unable to gain entry to the property. Pat Mullane, a spokesman for Mayor Lori Lightfoot, said a 311 caller had complained that construction work was being done at the location without a permit.

A notice posted Feb. 18 at 444 N. Lasalle, a property owned by developer Fred Latsko that could soon house one of the city’s first recreational marijuana dispensaries.

PharmaCann spokesman Jeremy Unruh deferred questions about the issue to Latsko, who denied that any work was being done and suggested that the caller may have simply been confused by the construction at a neighboring building.

But he also suggested the tipster may be in cahoots with another weed firm seeking to open in the area. “I think a lot of people are scrambling to try to muddy waters for different people out there,” said Latsko. “I think it’s competitors.”

A spokesman for Cresco, which also hopes to open nearby, declined to comment on Latsko’s claim. Representatives for the other two pot dispensaries, MOCA and Greenhouse Group, didn't respond to messages.

A week after officials tried to get inside Latsko’s building — after the Sun-Times reached out to PharmaCann and the city — an inspection was scheduled and “no issues were found at the property,” Mullane said.

It’s no surprise Latsko’s high-profile sites are drawing interest from pot companies: he’s been a clout-heavy player in Chicago for years. In 2017, he doubled his investment in a property at 930 N. Rush when he sold the home of a Lululemon Athletica for nearly $21 million.

He also has some familiarity with the marijuana industry, leasing buildings to cannabis businesses in Nevada and California.

Reluctant landlord

Despite his involvement, Latsko said he’s “still reluctant” about his role in the legal weed biz. That’s largely because the federal prohibition of the drug restricts cannabis firms from using traditional banking services. ”I get paid in cash from tenants,” noted Latsko, who remains hopeful something will eventually be done to remedy that issue.

A former driver for legendary Bears quarterback Sid Luckman, Latsko made headlines in 2009 after Rod Blagojevich expunged Latsko’s 24-year-old criminal record for theft and forgery on Blagojevich’s last day as governor.

More recently, Latsko’s name appeared in a 2016 affidavit for a search warrant of ex-Ald. Solis’ 25th Ward offices. The warrant accused Solis, the former chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee, of receiving sex acts, Viagra, campaign contributions and free use of Latsko’s Indiana farm — once owned by Oprah Winfrey — in exchange for shepherding official City Hall actions.

Around that time, Solis proposed an ordinance “favorable to Latsko’s business interests” and participated in city approval of some of his real estate projects, the affidavit said. Latsko has denied to the Sun-Times there was any quid pro quo.

Illinois to greatly expand testing for coronavirus even though risk remains low, officials say

SUN TIMES//Tina Sfondeles

So far, Illinois has had just two confirmed cases, and both people have recovered.

But on the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state plans to partner with hospital emergency departments in every region to do voluntary testing of patients with influenza-like symptoms. Those tests would then be sent to labs in Chicago, Carbondale or Springfield.

“While the risk to the general public remains low, we want you to know that our state and local agencies and officials are using every tool at our disposal to ensure the public’s health and safety are well-guarded,” Pritzker said at a Chicago press conference. “I want to be clear, the best thing the general public can do at this time is to continue with the same precautions that you take during flu season with renewed vigilance.”

That includes washing your hands, staying home when sick and covering your mouth and nose while coughing or sneezing.

Both Lightfoot and Pritzker stressed that the risk of contracting the virus in Illinois is low — despite the World Health Organization on Friday saying the risk of the disease spreading is very high at a global level.

“There really is no cause for alarm,” Lightfoot said.

“We believe, based upon the diligence of the medical professionals that you heard directly from that the risk remains low,” Lightfoot said. “But we’ve got to be diligent. We didn’t say no risk, but the risk is low.”

Lightfoot also said despite the virus’ origin in China, there’s no reason to avoid Chinatown in Chicago. Several small businesses have said they’ve struggled in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

“Our residents should continue to enjoy the city and neighborhoods, particularly Chinatown, and its amenities as they normally do,” she said.

Lightfoot urged that “fear cannot guide us in this moment.”

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said the state will communicate “quickly and transparently” if the risk level grows in the state.

“Our knowledge of coronavirus increases every single day,” Ezike said. “We understand that the virus is primarily spread through person-to-person transmission. Again, it causes mild illness in otherwise healthy people but potentially serious illness in the elderly and immunocompromised persons.”

The state’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Jennifer Layden, announced her resignation this week to take a position with the city’s Department of Health. Ezike said the state currently has an acting state epidemiologist, Dr. Craig Conover, who is a CDC-trained specialist and has worked for the department since 2002. Ezike said he worked closely with the state on the H1N1, SARS and Ebola virus. The state plans to fill the vacancy quickly, she said.

President Donald Trump announced that Vice President Mike Pence is now leading the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. Does Pritzker, a frequent critic of Trump, have confidence in that response?

“All I’m saying is we’re not relying upon the White House. We, in fact, have one of the best public health systems in the country,” said Pritzker. “And so we’ve got experts here ... who are highly capable of managing the COVID-19 [coronavirus], that’s come upon us.”

Earlier this month, Illinois became the first state able to test for the new coronavirus without having to send samples to the CDC. That means test results should typically be available in about 24 hours, officials said.

The state has a hotline where questions about coronavirus can be directed at 1-800-889-3931.

Chicago Police Adding 50 Officers to CTA Lines to Combat Recent Violence

WTTW//Matt Masterson

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and police interim Supt. Charlie Beck on Friday unveiled their new transit safety plan, pledging to deploy dozens of officers on CTA lines and add a Strategic Decision Support Center (SDSC) in the 1st Police District that will act as a central location for police to access the 32,000 cameras already installed on CTA property.

“I want to say very clearly, that violence on our system is just not gonna be tolerated,” Lightfoot said during a press conference Friday at the Roosevelt Red Line station on the Near South Side. “Our residents deserve a system that’s not only accessible and reliable, but of course above all else, that it’s safe.”

The announcement comes amid an uptick in violent crime along train and bus lines this year. In January, a man was arrested after he beat and sexually assaulted a woman on a Red Line train near Morse Avenue.

This month, a musician was stabbed on the downtown Jackson Red Line platform, a man was shot during an attempted robbery onboard a Blue Line train at the UIC-Halsted stop, and one man was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting last week inside a tunnel connecting the Jackson Blue Line and Red Line stations.

The police department says crime on the CTA is actually down slightly this year over the same period in 2019, and arrests are up 30% in 2020.

Already, Beck has added SWAT officers to CTA lines, but he called that a temporary measure and said they will be removed once the new dedicated CTA officers are added by March 4.

“I think it was a good statement about the values of CPD and what we think is important when you put your most expensive asset in a location then you are displaying what you value," he said of the SWAT officers. “And that is my most expensive asset.”

Beck said the officers being added to the CTA patrol won’t be new hires, but he wouldn’t get into specifics about how exactly they’ll be deployed. The new SDSC center, which will be funded by a grant from billionaire Ken Griffin, will allow officers to more quickly access surveillance footage from both CTA cameras and private security cameras, which sometimes takes detectives hours to retrieve.

Beyond adding those 50 officers, the CPD is also creating a dedicated group of detectives who will work with the CTA Security Department and focus solely on CTA crimes.

“We have been incredibly successful at solving these crimes, but that’s not enough. We want to prevent these crimes,” Beck said. “I don’t want people to feel secure that their perpetrator will be caught, I want people to feel secure that they will be free from crime.”

New, carefully crafted gang database an essential tool for Chicago police

SUN TIMES//Editorial Board

If you have not seen the video, beware. It is disturbing.

Three teens or young men walk up to a convenience store on the South Side. One of them pokes his head in the door to see who’s there. Then all three pull guns and fire repeatedly into the store.

They kill a young woman. They wound four other people.

Now here’s the thing:

This happened Tuesday and the police are still looking for the shooters. We don’t even know their names yet. But you can bet good money that this shooting, like so many other shootings in Chicago, had everything to do with gangs.

Street gangs are one of the great scourges of Chicago. They are a reason our city suffers from such a high rate of violent crime — along with all the other explanations we constantly lament, such as the easy availability of guns, the illegal drug trade, poverty and unemployment.

The Chicago police, whom we ask to protect us, need tools to fight the gangs.

All of this, we suppose, is a long-winded way of getting to the point of this editorial: We firmly believe the Chicago Police Department should maintain a gang member database, so long as the list is rigorously fair and monitored. It’s just common sense.

We support the creation of a new and more carefully crafted CPD gang database recently announced by Acting Police Supt. Charlie Beck and endorsed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The new database, called the Criminal Enterprise Information System, will launch in the next six to 12 months and will aim to ultimately replace CPD’s existing gang database.

In the past, we have written editorials condemning the police department’s previous gang database, which was a farce. We argued that the database should be cleaned up or chucked.

There were names on the list of people who had died years before. There were names of middle-aged men who had left the gang life decades ago. There were names of people who had never been in a gang. There was a disproportionate racial makeup to the list — white gangs seemed to get a pass.

There was no appeals process for getting one’s name off the list. And the list could be viewed by third parties who had no business seeing at it, such as employers.

But thanks to a federal lawsuit, a scathing review by City Hall Inspector General Joe Ferguson and — we would like to think — public pressure created in part by editorials such as ours, CPD under Beck has overhauled the rules.

The database will be more focused now, with a multilevel process for determining whether a name goes into it. It will include an appeals process overseen by the civilian Police Board. The names of people who have had no contact with law enforcement for five years are to be automatically removed.

And only law enforcement personnel with a legitimate need to see the list, such as detectives working a criminal investigation, are to be granted access.

Given all this, we frankly marvel at the thinking of local activists, supported by some aldermen, who think there should be no gang database at all.

As if the presence of violent gangs is not why so many Chicagoans are afraid to step outdoors. As if gang members are misunderstood ragamuffins.

There will always be a risk that a database such as this will be abused. Constant vigilance — by the Police Board, civil liberties groups and the media — remains essential. The true integrity of the new database will be better assessed in a year or two.

But when three men shoot up a convenience store, killing an 18-year-old nursing student, there is every reason to suspect this was gang-related — because we’ve seen it before. A 2017 study published by the University of Chicago Crime Lab showed that an overwhelming majority of shooters in Chicago have known gang affiliations.

We want the police to track down and arrest those killers.

A gang database, carefully crafted and monitored, is an important tool of this essential police work.

CPS dropping Columbus Day is a slap in the face of Italian Americans

SUN TIMES//Pasquale Dominic Gianni

The move is a slap in the face to Chicago’s Italian-American Community. But moreover, it is an affront to all immigrant communities that have long celebrated Columbus Day as an homage to this land’s first immigrant.

Without question, a recognition for Native-American peoples is long overdue. They’ve long suffered mistreatment at the hands of migrating settlers. To assert that Columbus was uniquely and directly responsible for these atrocities, however, is simply unsupported by the historical record, but rather a result of the efforts of a recent wave of revisionism to fit a favored narrative.

A brief interlude:

In 1992, the 500^th anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage to the new world, growing discontent began to fester over the celebration the quincentenary among Native American community leaders. An olive branch was extended by the late Dominic DiFrisco, the longtime voice of Chicago’s Columbus Day Parade.

“No longer shall we employ the use of the word ‘discovered’ in referring to Columbus’ voyages. This land was theirs first, after all,” DiFrisco said, referring to Native Americans.

Our Native-American brothers and sisters then were invited to lead the parade that year and re-invited every year since to play an integral part in it. Just like that, a planned protest turned into a march of comradery.

It was such a remarkable occurrence, in fact, that a delegation of Native-American and Italian-American community leaders were invited to Italy, as guests of the Italian Government. During the visit, the Italian Parliament bestowed honorary citizenship upon the Native-Americans and they were granted a private audience with Pope John Paul II.

“The pope put his arm around James Yellowbank’s shoulder and said, “Sono con voi,’” DiFrisco recalled. “When I told him it meant ‘I am with you,’ they all wept.”

Later, they laughed, feasted and drank wine in a Roman piazza.

“We acknowledged them as the original Americans and welcomed them to our table as brothers and sisters. We all came to understand that there was more that united than separated us,” DiFrisco said. “To be frank, I think we just hit it off.”

DiFrisco and the original architects of the local protest movement, James Yellowbank and Sam Keahna remained lifelong friends, with Keahna even bestowing an eagle feather upon DiFrisco, making him an honorary member of his tribe. It is a beautiful story about humanity and the coming together to reach compromise, instead of tearing each other down.

CPS has taken a different approach.

In 2017, the Illinois Legislature, by a unanimous vote and subsequently signed into law by the governor, passed House Bill 0132, designating Indigenous Peoples’ Day as the last Monday in September and leaving Columbus Day intact as the second Monday in October. The United States government and the Chicago City Council still recognize Columbus Day as the second Monday of October as well.

The unelected, and therefore minimally accountable to the public, CPS board decided that instead of tending to the needs that affect the everyday lives of its 355,000 students, it would prefer to grab headlines. Rather than deferring to the will of the unanimous body of state lawmakers and the governor, it determined its own judgment on the matter should usurp that of its chartering body.

Do they, or should they, even have the authority to do so? With that authority follows the frightening question of what might be next.

President’s Day? Cancel it, CPS could say, because George Washington owned slaves. Martin Luther King Jr Day? Cancel it, CPS could say, because the great Dr. King was accused of personal misgivings.

As ridiculous as these propositions may sound, we have always recognized that all human beings are inherently flawed, but we celebrate them for their extraordinary accomplishments.

What’s worse, due process was left at the doorstep of the Wednesday afternoon CPS board meeting. No notice or an opportunity to be heard was afforded to those of us that feel we have been stripped of a part of our heritage.

Yes, Columbus did not ‘discover’ America, but he led the first documented voyages to the New World, laying the foundation for mass waves of immigration from Europe to this sweet land of liberty for the ensuing centuries. In doing so, Columbus set in motion the trajectory of history as we know it by inextricably linking two worlds together. We have great reason to celebrate this and all of those who followed in Columbus’ bravery and footsteps by taking a giant leap to an unknown world in search of something new.

The Italian-American Community has never been so united. We will ensure our voices are heard. We will petition our friends and allies in public office, as well as all of the civic and community leaders within reach, to take a stand in urging the CPS Board to revisit this decision.

The contributions of Italian-Americans to our country, and our city, are not limited to our pizza, our pasta, our back-breaking labor and our unconditional love and passion. For a community that has given so much, we only ask that we keep our beloved day of joy and celebration.

Pasquale Dominic Gianni is an executive board member in Chicago of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian-Americans.

50 More Officers, Special Detective Unit Coming To CTA To Fight Crime

BLOCK CLUB//Kelly Bauer

DOWNTOWN — Fifty more officers are coming to CTA buses and trains as the city faces backlash over high-profile crimes on public transportation.

For months there’s been heavy attention paid to crimes on buses and trains — including a shooting at the UIC Blue Line station and the slaying of a man in a CTA tunnel this month — and public calls for the city and Police Department to do more to protect travelers.

In response, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the CTA and Chicago Police Department announced Friday 50 more officers will start patrolling CTA stations, trains and buses, joining hundreds of other officers already doing that work.

Earlier this month, the Police Department also started deploying SWAT officers on the CTA.

“Public transit is the great connector of our city, and residents and riders deserve a world-class public transportation system that is not only accessible, reliable and affordable, but most importantly safe,” Lightfoot said during the announcement.

The Police Department is also creating a detective unit for the CTA, officials announced Friday. The unit will work with patrolling officers and the CTA’s Security Department to prevent crime and solve those that do occur.

Also, a Strategic Decision Support Center — where officers use technology and experts to strategize on preventing and solving crime — will be added to the 1st District. The center will focus on crimes in the district and on the CTA.

The Mayor’s Office said crime has slightly decreased and arrests are up on the CTA compared to the same time last year, but the additional resources aim to give bus and train riders a “more secure, comfortable traveling experience.”

About 1.5 million people ride the CTA on an average weekday, and the agency’s buses make more than 18,000 trips and its trains 2,300 trips, according to the city.

“With more than 1 million daily riders, the safety and security of the traveling public are extremely important to us,” said interim Police Supt. Charlie Beck in the announcement. “Today’s transit safety enhancements puts Chicago in alignment with other major city transit systems across the country and allows us to leverage technology-based policing that has helped reduce crime and violence in Chicago for the last three years.”

What Will Replace Auburn Gresham’s Closed Sav-A-Lot? Alderman Courting Multiple Grocers

BLOCK CLUB//Jamie Nesbitt Golden

AUBURN GRESHAM — A replacement for the neighborhood’s now-vacant Save-A-Lot may soon come, according to Ald. David Moore (17th).

The Citizen recently reported the alderman is in talks with several local grocers, including Pete’s Fresh Market and Local Market, to fill the space at 7908 S. Halsted St. left vacant by the discount supermarket chain Feb. 22.

Moore told Block Club Thursday he was meeting with another interested party next week, and is hopeful his constituents will get the supermarket they need.

Local Market opened a South Shore location last fall, six years after the departure of Dominick’s, a closure that turned the neighborhood into a food desert. The new Jeffery Plaza Local Market is about 5 miles away from the vacant Auburn Gresham Sav-A-Lot.

As for the vacant CVS just down the street at the corner of 79th and Halsted, Moore said he’s still searching for a suitable replacement.

“We can’t put a grocery store in there because the square footage isn’t compatible, so I’m hoping we can get another pharmacy because that’s what we really need.”

New Rogers Park Program Aims To Train Spanish-Speaking Entrepreneurs

BLOCK CLUB//Joe Ward

ROGERS PARK — A new entrepreneur training center wants to help Far North Side Spanish-speaking residents get their business ideas off the ground.

The Rogers Park Business Alliance has expanded its GROW entrepreneur training program to include classes for predominantly Spanish-language speakers. Called GROW/Progresando, the new program will be run out of a storefront at 7056 N. Clark St.

A ribbon cutting was held Thursday at the new business training center, where local officials will help to keep Rogers Park’s small business community thriving.

“One of my favorite things about Rogers Park is all our entrepreneurs that keep us a healthy, safe and thriving community,” said. Ald. Maria Hadden (49th).

The Spanish-language small business training program is the first of its kind on the North Side, according to the business alliance. Similar programs are more common in neighborhoods like Pilsen, said Rebeca Fernández, bilingual program manager for GROW.

An architect and building consultant from Mexico, Fernández moved to Chicago in 2006, where she learned to speak English while trying to build a consultant business. She knows how difficult building a business can be when language barriers exist.

“The Latino community, they feel comfortable with someone whose been in their shoes,” Fernández said. “I know what it’s like to try to be independent, to start a business with a little bit of money. I want to teach them how to start a business on the right foot.”

GROW/Progresando offers one-day intensive classes and a 10-day program for budding entrepreneurs. Established business owners can also stop in for consulting appointments or to have questions answered.

A lot of businesses opened by the Latinx community are food operations, Fernández said. Such businesses cost a lot of money, require a lot of licensing and inspections and are notoriously competitive. The business program will help entrepreneurs learn tools like online marketing, but also to know what businesses are already established in the area.

The Rogers Park Business Alliance has hosted small-business training for some time out of its offices at 1448 W. Morse Ave. But the group noticed that a language barrier was causing some in community to miss out on the available help.

Thanks to a $114,000 grant from the Coleman Foundation, the business alliance has been able to help more people achieve their small business goals.

“In the Rogers Park community, more than 70 percent of businesses are small start-ups,” said Sandi Price, executive director of the business alliance. “Our entrepreneurial training programs fill a great need in the neighborhood and we also know there are current and future small business owners across Chicago that will benefit from this expansion.”

Look who wants in on ComEd's rate-setting mojo

CRAIN’S//Steve Daniels

It's worked so well for Commonwealth Edison, after all.

Nicor Gas, the utility delivering natural gas to most of suburban Chicago, is pushing legislation in Springfield to put the rate changes for it and Peoples Gas, the utility serving the city, on the same sort of autopilot that ComEd and downstate utility Ameren Illinois have enjoyed for eight years. Bills were introduced in mid-February in the House and Senate.

For its part, Peoples says the bill is Nicor's idea and that Peoples is still reviewing it. Sources hear that Peoples intends to file with the Illinois Commerce Commission for a rate hike as soon as this month, so that's presumably more on the minds of the utility and Wisconsin-based parent WEC Energy Group than Nicor's bid to convince lawmakers to let it set rates via a truncated annual-formula process. Gas utilities currently must use the traditional route, requesting rate hikes at times of their choosing from the ICC and going through an exhaustive 11-month review process.

Naperville-based Nicor, a unit of Atlanta-based Southern, has obtained ICC approval of two rate hikes in the past two years, together adding $261 million in additional revenue from ratepayers. With Peoples not having received a rate increase since 2015, its request is likely to be a whopper whenever it arrives. And it will come at a time when Chicago households are showing increasing difficulty paying their heating bills.

"While we have not finalized our decision, we have been assessing the possibility of filing a regulatory rate review," spokeswoman Danisha Hall says in an email.

The lack of a traditional rate hike hasn't stopped Peoples Gas from raising Chicagoans' cost to heat their homes. A 2013 law gave both Peoples and Nicor the authority to impose surcharges on monthly bills to help recover the cost of speeding up the replacement of aging pipes throughout their service territories.

In 2019, a residential customer consuming the average amount of natural gas in Chicago paid Peoples nearly $107 in such surcharges, nearly 10 percent of the total bill, according to the utility. That was $30 more than the year before.

The surcharge revenues at Peoples were the primary reason that WEC Energy's Illinois gas utilities (which include smaller North Shore Gas) contributed $291 million in operating earnings last year to the parent, up 14 percent from the year before. That helped support the 7 percent increase WEC announced in its dividend for 2020.

UNCOLLECTIBLES

In the meantime, though, Peoples is setting records of a different type. The utility reported $60 million in uncollectible bills for 2019, with $51 million of that coming from residential heating customers. That's 54 percent above the 2018 figure of $39 million in bad debt.

While it keeps hiking heating bills to pay for the spike in capital investment, Peoples bears little to no risk from those unable or unwilling to pay. By state law, it recovers the costs from paying customers via yet another special charge.

The outlook for the formula-rate bill that Nicor is pushing is uncertain at best. ComEd has been trying to convince Springfield to extend its formula-rate authority, which expires in 2022, by a decade. That bill is on ice for the time being, with ComEd in the middle of a federal investigation of corruption in state government. Lawmakers aren't likely to be eager to confer similar power on Nicor and Peoples, especially with concerns expressed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot about home-heating affordability in her city.

Nicor has been spending similar amounts to Peoples on capital projects, but its base of 2.2 million customers is more than double that of Peoples. It also serves a significantly smaller proportion of low-income households. So the costs can be spread across a far larger base and heating bills don't rise as much.

The average residential customer in the city paid $1,222 for natural gas last year. That includes many dwellers of small homes and condominiums, so average usage is less than that of Nicor's customers in the suburbs.

"If our proposal is adopted, customers will benefit in three ways," Nicor spokesman Craig Whyte says in an email. "Lower litigation costs while having the ICC fully consider our rate requests, increased transparency into company investments and expenses through detailed annual filings, and lower costs to customers by the utility reducing its annual return on equity."

Nicor says the return on equity it's allowed to earn—a key component in setting utility rates—would be lower by more than 0.8 percentage points than the 9.73 percent the ICC approved in the rate case decided late last year.

Similar to ComEd's formula rate, Nicor's bill would tie its return on equity to long-term interest rates. But at today's historically low rates, the gas utilities would earn more than 1 percentage point more than ComEd. Only at much higher rates, with a 30-year Treasury yield at 5 percent or more, would ComEd's return exceed that of Peoples and Nicor under the bill.

A key benefit of the formula approach is that utilities are guaranteed they will earn their specified return. If they fall short, rates climb that much more the next year to make them whole. Under the traditional approach, utilities are given no such guarantee.

It's easy to see why gas utilities want what electric utilities already have. ComEd's electricity delivery rate for residential customers has increased about 37 percent in the seven years since the formula took hold.

Consumer advocates are backing legislation introduced in the House and Senate that would take away Peoples' authority to impose the infrastructure surcharge on its customers. That legislation was put forward in the House last year as well and went nowhere, in large part due to the opposition of unions that benefit from the pipe work.

The surcharge authority expires at the end of 2023.

How Chicago police will combat CTA crime spike: 50 more cops on ‘L’ patrols, new center for real-time monitoring of surveillance cameras

TRIBUNE//Mary Wisniewski and Joe Mahr

Chicago police plan to beef up patrols and investigations to address a spike in crime on the CTA’s rail system.

The department on Friday announced it will add 50 officers to the unit that patrols the “L,” bringing the total to 250. And, in a first for the department, each of those officers will be equipped with tracking devices for the department to better monitor and adjust how they’re deployed, interim police Superintendent Charlie Beck said.

The department will open a Strategic Decision Support Center in the downtown police district, which will give police a central location to monitor the system’s 32,000 cameras in real time. The center, to be funded in part by billionaire and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, will house a CTA crime analyst and four detectives dedicated to solving the most common types of crimes that plague the system, such as cellphone robberies and thefts, Beck said.

“If someone steals a cellphone, time is of the essence if you’re going to use the tracker ability of the cellphone to make an arrest,” Beck said. Detectives will focus on making those types of arrests, and on monitoring “recidivists” who repeatedly commit crimes on the transit system, he said.

“Either we monitor them more closely when they’re riding the trains or ban them from the trains,” Beck said.

The realignment of police power on the CTA follows an increase in high-profile crimes, along with a boost in overall crime on the system, as documented in a September Tribune investigation. Crime doubled between 2015 and 2018 and arrest rates fell, despite the addition of cameras in every station and rail car, the Tribune reported.

The city ended 2019 with slightly less nonviolent crime on the "L" than the year before, but violent crime continued to rise. Several recent high-profile incidents, including a fatal shooting in a downtown CTA pedestrian tunnel, have focused public attention on the problem and prompted the department to announce more patrols.

Friday’s announcement appears more comprehensive, building on decisions made in the last year to increase the unit’s size and figure out how better to use technology to solve crimes.

A Tribune analysis of crime records shows arrest rates have improved slightly for thefts but not robberies, which involve force or the threat of force.

The department made arrests in just 11% of "L" robberies last year, a figure unchanged from 2018 and nearly half the arrest rate for robberies in 2015. As for thefts, the department’s arrest rate sank from about 7% in 2015 to 2% in 2018, but rebounded to 4% in 2019.

The department said crime to date this year has seen a slight decrease compared with the same time last year, and arrests rose. But Beck said he expects to see more improvement when the department adds the new officers to the Public Transportation Unit on March 4.

All public transit officers will be deployed with GPS devices so the department can track their movements. Beck said the department has used GPS to track patrol cars, but never individual officers. It’s a way to better ensure officer safety, direct officers to crime scenes and ensure officers are deployed to places where crime is more likely to occur, he said.

“We want to make sure that everybody we have working there is at the right place at the right time,” Beck said.

Helping figure out where to deploy officers will be a CTA crime analyst, stationed at the new support center, Beck said.

Beck said the new detective unit will focus on CTA-specific types of crimes, while traditional detective units will continue to handle the most violent crimes on the CTA, such as shootings, homicides and robberies that lead to serious injuries. Allowing the new unit to focus on less severe crimes can help it respond faster, through pulling videos, identifying suspects, detecting patterns and making arrests more quickly, he said.

Griffin’s contribution would cover the build-out costs of the room, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. A budget was not yet available. Through the University of Chicago Crime Lab, Griffin has helped fund other rooms of this type and the detective bureau’s area technology centers, Guglielmi said.

Beck said traditional district officers will continue to do most patrolling of stations and platforms, while most of the Public Transportation Unit officers will be on trains. The department will continue to deploy tactical teams and undercover units to supplement the boosted patrols and investigations.

The department is looking to change another way police help tackle CTA crime: officers working overtime. For decades, the CTA has paid for officers from Chicago and some suburban departments to work overtime patrolling the rail system. The last three-year deal, passed in 2017, anticipated that about 60 officers a day would patrol for extra hours.

Without going into specifics, because the Police Department is still in negotiations with the police officers’ union and CTA, Beck said the goal is that the department fill those slots “with the best, most motivated officers” available.

Regarding the idea of banning certain individuals from the system, Beck said at a Friday news conference at the Roosevelt Red Line station that such a ban could be pursued through a court order or settlement agreement. The CTA also has an ordinance that allows it to ban people from the system.

After the news conference, President Dorval Carter said a ban is a tool the agency is “reluctant" to use because of how important transit is for people. If the agency did pursue such a ban, it would work with the Chicago Police Department, he said.

The CTA has its own security team, which collects information from CTA cameras to give to police, and pays private guards, working in two-person teams, to patrol trains and platforms.

Kevin Ryan, vice president of security at the CTA, told the Tribune he hopes the CTA may be able to use private guards to help enforce “quality of life” issues on the system, such as the ban on smoking or playing loud radios.

There have been increased complaints on social media about this type of rule-breaking. “People don’t seem to want to pay attention to the rules,” Ryan said.

Passengers at the CTA Roosevelt station on Friday said they were glad more police are being added to the system. “I’m scared to ride the Red Line at night,” said Nicole Rose, 38, of Lawndale.

Does the DPI tech center still have the backing of three major universities?

CRAIN’S//Lynne Marek

But this February, when he returned to the same location for another press conference announcing state funding of $235 million for that 500,000-square-foot Discovery Partners Institute, the two prominent private schools were barely mentioned, and neither have a formal relationship with DPI, despite being listed on the DPI website.

The research center had been billed as a way to bring together the downstate public university's STEM firepower and the academic cachet of the two private schools, both ranked among the nation's top 20 universities. The idea was that they'd collaborate with each other and companies on applied research with a goal of boosting Chicago's economy and retaining Illinois students.

The private schools' involvement matters because development of the center won't be cheap and attracting company participation won't necessarily be easy. Killeen cobbled together $500 million in university money that isn't from the state on Pritzker's urging, but DPI partners have provided little support, leaving it up to cash-strapped Illinois and its universities to shoulder the risk of DPI living up to its promise.

Northwestern says in a statement that it has yet to "formalize our participation in DPI," despite some discussions between the universities' administrators and faculty. Bruce Layton, Northwestern's special assistant to the president, was in the crowd in 2017 and recognized by Killeen, but now he's not willing to discuss involvement with DPI for at least six months to a year, he says.

"This is a conversation for the future because the relationship lies in the future," Layton says in an email. "DPI has only just drafted its business plan. They have yet to build their building. They have a new director. Northwestern has a new (interim) vice president for research, and the two have yet to meet, although they will meet soon. Conversations up to now have been mostly academic. No money has been discussed."

Former University of Chicago senior adviser John Flavin was also recognized at the 2017 press conference, but he has since left the university, and the school declines to make anyone available for an interview on the topic. A spokesman for the school says there are ongoing conversations, but no formal agreement. "The DPI represents an exciting initiative that will be important for UIUC and the city, and we look forward to playing a collaborative role as planning continues," says spokesman Jeremy Manier.

It's not clear what's causing the private schools' reticence, but it might have something to do with the political landscape changing since former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner hatched DPI along with former Democratic Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In February, it was Mayor Lori Lightfoot who stood by Pritzker in the latest push for DPI.

The state's other public schools took on increasing importance under Pritzker, with DPI playing up their roles now in the related Illinois Innovation Network. Aside from those schools, only the Illinois Institute of Technology in Bronzeville and a random smattering of international schools are involved.

Killeen, who leads the University of Illinois System, an umbrella organization for campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield, says DPI is a work in progress. "DPI and the IIN are in close contact with their many partners as the initiative's momentum grows," Killeen says through a spokesman. "We'll be convening the leadership of the partner institutions soon."

VYING FOR STUDENTS

The arm's-length embrace may also be tied to the increasingly competitive higher education environment. With the pool of high school graduates shrinking nationwide and states reducing allocations to universities significantly over the past two decades, schools are vying to attract students, research funding and donor dollars.

"Very often, inter-institutional cooperation is difficult," says James Palmer, who leads the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University. "We tend to be in a competitive environment right now, especially for students," he adds, noting that he doesn't know details of the DPI partnerships.

On the very day in 2017 when Killeen announced that U of I was spearheading DPI, the University of Chicago had its own announcement just a few miles away in Hyde Park, saying it would join with UIUC in an expansion of its Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation in "developing and commercializing groundbreaking technology."

The University of Chicago also announced that year that it was teaming with UIUC as well as Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab in the development of the Chicago Quantum Exchange to study quantum physics and bid for federal funding.

Similarly, Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine last year opened a billion-dollar Streeterville biomedical research center, which it expects will increase research funding by $150 million annually within 10 years.

Pritzker aims to fashion DPI after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kendall Square Initiative, but that facility is backed by the big bucks of a private university. It has also attracted corporate sponsors, including Chicago-based Boeing, which two years ago agreed to lease 100,000 square feet of space there.

"This kind of interdisciplinary tech research is hot these days," says William & Mary economics professor David Feldman, whose research has focused on higher education. "Faculty can be tempted to work on a company's problems if they get a share of the revenue stream. And universities are even more tempted because patents can play a big role in university revenue. Universities have been working for years to create a framework for determining ownership of ideas (between the institution and the faculty researchers), but the legal landscape here is still not fully mapped. That's a potential barrier for corporate involvement."

So far, DPI on its own hasn't announced any corporate partners, and cannibalizing companies from the expansive University of Illinois Research Park in Urbana-Champaign isn't part of the plan.

Elsewhere, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin at Madison was initiated in 2004 and has grown with a $120 million donation from former Cisco Systems CEO John Morgridge and his wife, Tashia, who both attended the school.

University of Illinois System Board Chairman Don Edwards, a UIUC graduate, tried to jump-start alumni giving for DPI with a $10 million donation last month and says he'll be calling on other Chicago business leaders for more support.

Adding the financial wherewithal of the University of Chicago and Northwestern might help, too.

Rahm Emanuel, Bruce Rauner break the ice

SUN TIMES//Fran Spielman

The cold war between old friends Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner will take time to end, but the ice has been broken. The big thaw has begun.

Emanuel said so, during a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Sun-Times that was part of his whirlwind book tour.

“He sent me a text while I was on my bike trip” around Lake Michigan after Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s inauguration on May 16, 2019, Emanuel said.

“He was not in town. [But], when my father passed away, Diana [Rauner] came to the funeral.”

Emanuel was tight-lipped about the contacts that followed, except to say, “I’ve talked to Diana…He and I have — I try to leave things private. But we’ve had some communication.”

Will they ever re-kindle their once-close friendship?

“I’ll never say never on that…It’s gonna take time…I don’t think we’ll be vacationing any time soon,” Emanuel said.

Emanuel and Rauner are longtime friends and former business associates. They made millions together. Their families vacationed together and shared expensive bottles of wine.

Their inability to make that friendship work for the good of both the city and the state will go down as one of the great mysteries and failures of both of their administrations.

Emanuel was forced to override multiple Rauner’s pension vetoes and persuaded the Illinois General Assembly to give the Chicago Public Schools a $450 million cash infusion and bankroll teacher pensions going forward over Rauner’s strenuous objections.

CPS was literally on the brink of bankruptcy before an override of, yet another Rauner veto finally ended the state’s budget stalemate.

“There’s nothing worse than a friend who becomes a foe,” Emanuel said Friday.

In his book, “The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World,” Emanuel talks openly about the feud with Rauner that became “personal and acrimonious.”

He accuses Rauner of being “determined to drive CPS into bankruptcy” and having an “ideological objective” of “breaking” the Chicago Teachers Union.

On Friday, Emanuel said the “straw that really broke the camel’s back” was Rauner’s decision to sabotage an $875 million CPS borrowing by floating a plan to take over the Chicago Public Schools and pave the way for CPS to declare bankruptcy.

“I’m not a wallflower. I fight hard when I believe [in something.] But I think I have boundaries. He was willing to at risk 300-plus thousand kids and their education so he could have his vision of bankruptcy,” Emanuel said, noting that the empty threat “rattled the markets” so much that the borrowing was cut in half.

Bruce Rauner could not be reached for comment.

In his book, which is part political rehabilitation, Emanuel calls income inequality the “biggest challenge” facing cities today.

That’s ironic, considering the “Mayor 1%” label he never managed to overcome.

“I understand from my political, kind of New Democrat philosophy and the short stint that I did in investment banking that you would say, ‘[Mayor] 1%,” Emanuel said.

“But if you ride the Red Line South, the first major train system we built [with] $1 billion, not a lot of 1%. If you take the Chicago Star Scholarship, not a lot of 1%. Minimum wage. Raised it to $13 [an-hour]. One of the first cities. Universal pre-K and full-day kindergarten. So, I know what the record is and I know what the politics of a charge is without substance.”

As for the presidential race, Emanuel said former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn’t rebound nearly enough in his second debate to make up for his disastrous performance in the first.

He argued, yet again, that Democrats would be making a grave mistake by nominating front-runner Bernie Sanders, arguing that Sanders’ path to victory flies in the face of six winning elections for Democrats.

“Given Donald Trump. Given what’s at risk in the [U.S.] House, the Senate, the governorships and state house, it is too much a roll of the dice to take six successful national elections, throw ‘em away and try the [British Labour Party leader] Jeremy Corbyn strategy that you’re gonna get young voter, blue-collar turnout that has never been done in 60 years for Democrats,” Emanuel said.

The former mayor said it’s too soon to say what impact the coronavirus and the stock market plunge that it triggered will have on Trump’s re-election chances.

But the “incapacity of the federal government to respond” could become an issue if it becomes a “full-fledged pandemic” that starts to impact domestic travel, he said.

“Remember, this is a person who has now spent 3 1/2 years tearing down scientists, academic and medical professionals, the government as an instrument of delivering services,” he said.

Rivals Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle rally for Kim Foxx, together but separately

TRIBUNE//Lolly Bowean and Gregory Pratt

But while the two elected leaders both took the lectern at the Painters District Council to push for Foxx’s reelection, the women didn’t pose together for a group photo, didn’t stand together on the stage and spent no time chatting in the moments before or after their announcement. At one point, a security guard stood awkwardly between them as they both seemed laser-focused on the other speakers.

“I shook her hand,” Preckwinkle said, when questioned about the visible distance. She went on to say she was present at the event to support Foxx, who once worked as Preckwinkle’s chief of staff.

Both Lightfoot and Preckwinkle had previously declared their support for Foxx, but Friday’s event brought them together for a rare joint public appearance a year after they began the 2019 runoff campaign for mayor against each other.

Their joint appearance with Foxx comes just inside three weeks before Election Day. Earlier, Foxx’s campaign released a digital ad calling out one of her opponents, Bill Conway, for his ties to his father’s Washington D.C. firm, the Carlyle Group. The event, which had the mood of a pep rally, was held just hours before Foxx was set to face her Democratic political opponents in another hour-long debate.

During her remarks, Preckwinkle said she’s supporting Foxx because she has reduced the jail population, which for too long, largely has been made up of black and Latino residents.

“She can be proud of the record on the last 3 1/2 years,” Preckwinkle said. “If you think about it, she focused on violent crimes … the shooters and the killers. That’s where our resources ought to go.”

“She’s acknowledged the errors of the past,” Preckwinkle continued about Foxx. “And exonerated people who were wrongfully convicted, who were tortured by the police into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit.”

In her speech, Lightfoot said Foxx was a compassionate crime-fighter who set the right priorities.

“What’s important in this system, and what we have right now in Kim Foxx, is a prosecutor who understands the lived experience of people, a prosecutor who has heart, who understands that you absolutely should focus on people in community who are causing harm,” Lightfoot said. “But … you have to have a heart for people who, for example, are suffering from addiction and shouldn’t be caught up in the criminal justice system.”

Drawing on her experience as a former prosecutor and defense attorney, Lightfoot said the criminal justice system can be “dehumanizing” and many people in black and brown communities don’t feel the system will treat them fairly.

“If you care about fairness, if you care about legitimacy of our system, if you care about making sure that we are focused on the people in community who are truly doing harm, not the people who have lost their way through addiction or poverty, if you care about those things as I do, and I think you must, then you will cast your vote for Kim Foxx,” Lightfoot said.

In addition to Conway, a private attorney who used to work for the state’s attorney’s office, Foxx is facing two other Democratic opponents: former federal prosecutor Donna More and former Ald. Bob Fioretti.

During her campaign, Foxx has touted how her office has instituted restorative justice practices, pushed against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and secured convictions against the men responsible for killing 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee and 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton.

But she has faced heavy criticism for her handling of the high-profile Jussie Smollett case, which has remained in the national media spotlight. Earlier this month, a special Cook County grand jury indicted the actor on six counts of disorderly conduct, a year after Foxx dropped similar charges against him. The grand jury alleged that Smollett, who is known for his role on the TV show “Empire,” staged a hate crime against himself in January 2019.

As a result of the new charges, two of Foxx’s rivals called for her resignation.

On Friday, Foxx said that while attention has been given to that case, there are many others her office has handled that have been overlooked.

“I get it: I have been here for the last year while we have focused our attention on one case … just this week, on Monday … there was a family that had to walk past the media scrum, holding each other’s hands, as they were going to the homicide case of the loss of a loved one. There are people every day who are dealing with violence in their communities wishing, hoping, praying that we would lift the names of their lost loved ones or their important loved ones.”

Foxx said that while there is a conversation about her having a conflict with Chicago police, her office works with the officers to fight crime.

“If you are causing harm to our community, if you are a threat, I believe you should be detained. Absolutely, without question.”

Foxx also spoke about her efforts to reform her office by focusing on violent crime and being less aggressive about prosecuting shoplifters, residents behind on child support payments and those with suspended driver’s licenses because of unpaid tickets.

Friday’s event attracted a collective of elected officials: Cook County Commissioners Bill Lowry and Bridget Degnen; Chicago Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th; Sophia King, 4th; and Pat Dowell, 3rd. In addition, state Reps Marcus Evans Jr. of the 33rd District and Debbie Meyers-Martin of the 38th District were there.

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Foxx’s latest commercial criticizes Conway, accusing him of “spending millions to buy the state’s attorney’s office.” The ad is titled “Follow” and suggests that voters “follow the money,” to learn how the Carlyle Group built its wealth.

Conway’s campaign has largely been financed by his father, William Conway, a billionaire who co-founded the well-connected investment firm.

Student Protesters Demand Lightfoot Live Up To Campaign Promises on Environmental Protection

BGA//Brett Chase

About 30 people, mostly students, rallied outside the mayor’s office on City Hall’s fifth floor. They urged Lightfoot to follow through on her campaign promise to reopen the environment department, which former Mayor Rahm Emanuel eliminated in 2012.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to breathe,” Alexandra Shelby told the crowd, explaining she was born with asthma. “Tell me, Ms. Lightfoot. Do you really want to live off this reputation of robbing healthy lives from those in the black and brown communities?”

A high school senior at the Progressive Leadership Academy charter school on the South Side, Shelby joined other members of a school student group focused on environmental issues at the protest. Demonstrators circled in the lobby in front of Lightfoot’s office and chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho. Environmental racism has got to go,” and “Clean air is what we need. Lori Lightfoot, I can’t breathe.”

Members of several activist groups at the rally criticized the mayor for not moving quickly on her vows to better city environmental enforcement and develop plans for climate change — two issues the protesters said inordinately damage minority communities.

“It’s important that black and brown people are up here at the front line of this conversation of environmental injustice because we know that we live in communities that are directly impacted by the climate change crisis,” said Alycia Moaton, a leader of the group GoodKids MadCity. “It shows where Lori’s priorities are at with her not wanting to invest in reopening this environmental department. She criticized Rahm Emanuel for not giving attention to it and yet she has done nothing herself.”

The protest comes as pressure has mounted on Lightfoot to “bring back the city’s department of environment,” a key promise she made while running for mayor. Lightfoot vowed the department under her administration would protect residents from polluters, lead in water and poor air quality.

In December, eight months after Lightfoot took office, the Better Government Association reported the mayor was backing away from the initial campaign promise, saying the city didn’t have the money to immediately fund it. But she was promising to hire a chief sustainability officer as a first step toward providing more environmental oversight.

Lightfoot still hasn’t hired anyone for the post.

“In order to meet an ambitious climate agenda, the administration is currently in the process of hiring a Chief Sustainability Officer who will ensure a dedicated focus on current climate and environmental issues from the Mayor's Office,” according to a statement released by Lightfoot’s office. “The CSO will work with subject matter experts and community stakeholders to develop forward-looking policy solutions that center racial equity and growing quality jobs, and protecting communities from pollution.”

In January, Elise Zelechowski, city deputy director of policy, was named acting chief sustainability officer. Zelechowski was a former city environment department employee under former Mayor Richard Daley.

“I honestly don’t know what the hold up is,” said Peggy Salazar, director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. Overall, Salazar said she’s been disappointed at the lack of any movement on environmental protection under Lightfoot. “When it comes to the environment, she falls real short.”

The calls for action follow eight years of Emanuel’s administration in which city environmental inspections and enforcement plunged, the BGA reported last year. A few months ago, the city’s inspector general mirrored some of the BGA’s findings, warning that residents across Chicago are potentially exposed to risks from hundreds of sources of toxic air emissions that went unchecked for a three-year period.

Ahead of Friday’s demonstration, the students said in a statement announcing the protest they are concerned about the “environmental racism and the disproportionate pollution experienced by black and brown youth on the South and West sides of Chicago.”

They also want to hold the mayor to city goals converting buildings to renewable energy. Lightfoot has set those goals of city-owned properties by 2025 and converting the entire city to renewables by 2035.

Earlier in the week, activists from the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization called on Lightfoot to reassess the city’s planning practices that they say have increased pollution in communities near industrial areas, such as the West and Southeast sides.

For Moaton and others, they would like to see the mayor follow up her rhetoric with action.

“She has run a campaign on progressive tactics but has not followed up on anything she has said she’s going to do,” Moaton said.

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