Good afternoon! Chicago-area organizations are gathering winter coats, toys and items for households in want. Right here’s what else that you must know as we speak.
Together with pensions, advantages, budget-busting additional time and different hidden bills, the analyst stories that prices for the Chicago Police Division in 2025 might attain $3.8 billion, my colleague Chip Mitchell writes for WBEZ.
Mayor Johnson’s price range suggestion lumps many CPD bills along with different metropolis departments underneath the heading “Finance Normal.” Totaling $7.9 billion and accounting for practically half of metropolis appropriations subsequent 12 months, that colossal price range bucket additionally consists of objects starting from debt funds to employees compensation.
“To steadiness town price range, we’re going to should make decisions,” Jonathan Silverstein, who left the Council Workplace of Monetary Evaluation in 2020, instructed WBEZ. “Both cuts must be made to departments or revenues must be raised. However, if we don’t even know which departments are inflicting these bills, then we are able to’t actually unravel it.”
The same alarm about hidden prices was raised in a separate report by town’s Group Fee for Public Security and Accountability, arrange by a 2021 ordinance stemming from a police officer’s on-duty homicide of teenager Laquan McDonald.
Spokespersons for the mayor’s workplace, town’s Workplace of Price range and Administration and CPD didn’t reply whether or not the hidden prices give an excessive amount of discretion to metropolis officers or impair selections about public security spending. [WBEZ]
The Bears say they need to keep in Chicago, however their potential drive to the northwest suburbs simply acquired simpler, my colleague Mitchell Armentrout stories.
After a few 12 months of wrangling with native faculty districts over the scale of the workforce’s suburban property tax invoice, the Bears say their memorandum of understanding opens the runway for the workforce to land in Arlington. Officers declined to say what quantity the edges agreed to.
However workforce officers insist their first selection remains to be Chicago, elevating the fixed query of whether or not this newest announcement is a push for leverage in stadium negotiations which have now stretched greater than three years.
“It’s fairly clear the Bears are nonetheless targeted on the lakefront, however we’ve at all times thought-about Arlington Park and Arlington Heights a robust, if not the perfect contender, and I’m actually optimistic in regards to the progress we’ve made,” Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes mentioned. [Chicago Sun-Times]
3. An outbreak of whooping cough at Lane Tech is a part of a nationwide uptick in circumstances
5 college students at Lane Tech Excessive College have been identified with whooping cough this 12 months, the Chicago Solar-Instances stories.
The circumstances span three grades at the highschool, a spokesperson for Chicago Public Faculties instructed the newspaper. A letter was despatched out to the varsity neighborhood following the diagnoses.
The college district mentioned the vast majority of its college students are vaccinated in opposition to whooping cough, also called pertussis. Vaccination is required for college kids at CPS faculties, besides these with spiritual exemptions.
Charges of whooping cough diagnoses are returning to pre-pandemic ranges, with practically 5 occasions the variety of circumstances nationwide because the begin of 2024 in comparison with this time final 12 months, in accordance with CDC information. Chicago has seen about 2.3 occasions extra circumstances in the identical interval. [Chicago Sun-Times]
4. Music legend Steve Albini now has a Chicago avenue named after him
A piece of Belmont Avenue in Avondale was named after the late producer, Block Membership Chicago stories.
“In my 10 years as alderperson, that is the honorary avenue designation that has acquired probably the most attendance,” mentioned Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, thirty fifth Ward, throughout yesterday’s unveiling of the road signal. “And that could be a testomony to Steve’s legacy and all of the individuals who he impacted in a optimistic manner throughout his time right here on this planet.”
Albini produced a few of the most iconic information in rock music historical past and died of a coronary heart assault again in Might. [Block Club Chicago]
5. Kink, drag, circus and music: 10 vacation nights out for adults positive to carry yuletide cheer
Vacation season has arrived, and Chicago theaters are bustling with Ebenezer Scrooges, Tiny Tims and Nutcrackers in each healthful type and taste.
However my WBEZ colleague Mike Davis put collectively an inventory that isn’t about family-friendly revamps that really feel like acquainted items wrapped in new packages. This checklist is naughty.
Sneak a peek at grownup variations of iconic Christmas characters together with a risqué reindeer in Hell in a Purse’s Rudolph the Purple-Hosed Reindeer and the all-grown-up Cindy-Lou Who in Who’s Vacation! at Theater Wit.
For those who’re in search of exhibits past conventional theater, the burlesque and cabaret scenes come alive this time of 12 months. For instance, actors Jane Lynch and Kate Flannery are throwing a Swinging Christmas at Steppenwolf with vacation showtunes and comedy.
You possibly can see the total checklist within the hyperlink. [WBEZ]
Right here’s what else is going on
- Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire to finish practically 14 months of combating. [AP]
- Right here’s how President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to decrease taxes might affect you. [NPR]
- President Joe Biden has proposed requiring Medicare and Medicaid to cowl weight-loss medicine. [NBC News]
- “Demure” is Dictionary.com’s phrase of the 12 months. [NPR]
Oh, and yet one more factor …
Dangerous climate might have been responsible for the deaths of three piping plover chicks at Montrose Seaside over the summer season, WTTW stories.
Because the station stories: “Plover chicks are what’s generally known as ‘precocial,’ which means they begin operating round and foraging on their very own inside hours of hatching. However the little ones aren’t capable of regulate their temperature, in order that they depend on their mother and father to maintain them heat.”
Due to the climate after the chicks hatched June 30 and July 1, in accordance with Lincoln Park Zoo workers, the birds spent an excessive amount of time sheltering underneath their mother and father as an alternative of feeding. [WTTW]
Inform me one thing good …
What’s one thing you skilled this 12 months that you simply’re grateful for?
Becky writes:
“It’s been a difficult 12 months. I’m extraordinarily grateful for the docs and nurses who cared for my sister. She survived ecoli/meningitis, stage 3 endometrial most cancers, kidney stones and an UTI/kidney an infection, 4 surgical procedures, 5 weeks of radiation and 4 rounds of chemotherapy. She’s alive and nicely!”
Paul writes:
“I’m grateful to have been employed final March for an honest job by individuals who recognize my work. It got here after a 9-month-plus interval of unemployment, so it was very a lot wanted. I can really afford to take my spouse out for Thanksgiving dinner!”
And Holly writes:
“For a lot of this may occasionally appear banal, however I ship grateful prayers usually for the large trendy conveniences on life — warmth, a/c, electrical energy, plumbing, sizzling water, and trendy well being care. I might undoubtedly not fare nicely in pioneer occasions and the beginning of considered one of my youngsters in all probability would have killed us each. My gratitude abounds.”
Be happy to e-mail me, and your response could also be included within the publication this week.
