Get more in-depth, daily coverage of Chicago politics at The Daily Line.

CITY HALL — City rules will allow dog owners to bring their companions into some Chicago bars under an ordinance that advanced out of a City Council committee on Monday.

The City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection unanimously endorsed Ald. Brendan Reilly’s (42nd) proposal to narrow the city’s ban on non-service animals in businesses so that it only applies to “retail food establishments” as opposed to any “place where foodstuffs are sold or on display.” The upshot is that the ban would no longer apply to bars that don’t serve food. 

Bar owners have complained to Reilly that city health officials are ticketing their businesses because they allow dogs on the same premises as cocktail garnishes like lemons and limes, which can be defined as “foodstuffs” under city code. His proposal would “make sure that our tavern owners aren’t being ticketed for something they’ve been doing for some time,” Reilly said.

“There’s a very popular practice where customers are allowed to bring their dogs to sit on their outdoor patio space during the warm weather months, and it’s really been embraced by many of the neighborhoods in the city,” the Downtown alderman said. “So this simply is to clarify that as long as a tavern license isn’t serving food … it’s OK for them to allow their customers to bring their dogs in for a visit.”

He added that the provision “will not mandate dogs in taverns” but will empower bars owners to allow four-legged patrons if they want.

Pet-friendly bar owners have been rankled by sporadic visits from city inspectors who issue citations of up to $500 for violating the city’s health code, according to Pat Doerr, managing director of the Hospitality Business Association of Chicago.

“Alderman Reilly’s ordinance clears up a long time source of confusion over whether dogs are allowed indoors even when their spots don’t serve food,” Doerr wrote in a text message to The Daily Line. “A good day for Chicago’s dogs and the neighborhood taverns that welcome them.”

The committee had also been scheduled during its meeting on Monday to take up a separate ordinance sought by Reilly to ban pedicab drivers from playing loud music during overnight hours. But license committee chair Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) pocketed the item instead of bringing it to a vote.

A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection wrote in a statement to The Daily Line on Monday that the department “is ready to work with the Alderman and looks forward to conversations with the pedicab industry.”

Finally, the committee referred to the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules a proposal by Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) to tighten some regulations on crane operators in the city, including by requiring them to carry liability insurance. Aldermen re-routed the measure at Hopkins’ request.

Hopkins proposed the ordinance earlier this year at the request of the union IUOE Local 150, who argued it was “primarily a safety measure,” Hopkins told The Daily Line on Monday. But the alderman put the brakes on the proposal after other trade unions raised concerns about how much it could cost workers, he said. Hopkins opted to send the measure to the rules committee as a way to “park it somewhere” while he tries to strike a compromise and considers re-referring the measure to the zoning or workforce committee, he said.

Local licensing provisions 

The license committee also approved 13 hyperlocal licensing ordinances in wards around the city, including a proposal by Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th) to allow city workers to boot cars in her ward. Booting is currently banned in Garza’s ward and 17 others.

Garza told committee members that she proposed allowing car booting as a way to fight back against “a lot of predatory towing companies in the 10th Ward that prey on our constituents.”

“I think this is very admirable way [to ensure that] if people are parked illegally, they will have a chance to rectify it without having to go to the tow company and pay tow fees,” Garza said.

Ward-level booting prohibitions last took the license committee spotlight in June, when Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) pushed through a prohibition on booting in his ward. He called for a citywide reassessment of booting rules, which he said lack a formal “appeals process” outside of drivers complaining to their ward offices.

Related: Aldermen call for citywide reform of ‘predatory’ car booting, delay home-sharing crackdown

The committee also voted to lift 11 local liquor moratoria to allow various new bars and liquor stores to open around the city.

All items advanced by the committee on Monday will face a final vote by the City Council during its meeting on Wednesday.

Get more in-depth, daily coverage of Chicago politics at The Daily Line.

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One more time, Chicago.

Remap, that decennial exercise in real-life musical chairs, is going to be big in the news again this week. But other news will come from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s trip to Washington, and continuing struggles in Congress over President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The remap news will start at City Hall, where the City Council is drawing ever-closer to its Dec. 1 deadline to approve a new ward map. Another public hearing in the Rules Committee is scheduled for Monday, but the two brief meetings held last week did not include any discussions of proposed maps from the City Council’s Latino Caucus (sponsored by some other non-Latino members of the City Council) or an independent group known as the Chicago Advisory Redistricting Commission.

Rules Committee chair Michelle Harris did sound open to a hearing on the Latino Caucus map earlier this month. “We have not gotten any indication they’re going to give a hearing on our map or any other one” at this point, says Ryan Tolley, the Policy Director at Change Illinois, the group leading the independent remap effort. He did hint there’s some support behind closed doors on their map, but none have publicly come forward.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker also is expected to deal with the remap effort. The proposed new congressional map now has been sent to him, and there’s little reason for him not to sign it quickly. As soon as he does, the focus will shift to U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, who has said he will have more to say about his political future once the map is official.

Some party leaders are leaning on him hard to run against Pritzker, but Davis has told associates he’s leaning the other way.

Back at City Hall, Chicago’s major athletic teams hoping for a final vote on an ordinance allowing sports betting will have to wait, it appears. 

Following a heated no-vote hearing in which Chicago billionaire Neil Bluhm argued that stadium-based sports books would cannibalize revenues from the new casino owner—and in turn, the city—a final vote on that measure was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, but cancelled not long after. With no sportsbook or final map, the City Council meeting this Wednesday looks to be less eventful than usual.

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Before then, Lightfoot will be in Washington, D.C., along with Pritzker for the signing of the infrastructure bill today. The mayor has not been to Washington since before the pandemic, when she met with top Democratic lawmakers, the Black Congressional Caucus and Ivanka Trump. We reported on what Illinois would be getting from the spending bill in last week’s forecast.

While Lightfoot is in town, perhaps she could lean on feuding House Democrats to finally approve the second part of Biden’s big rebuild package, which focuses on human infrastructure but also would raise the cap on state and local tax deductions from the current $10,000 to more than $70,000.

When the House votes depends on when the Congressional Budget Office puts together its estimates of the budget impact of the bill. Meanwhile, funding for the regular operations of the federal government runs out in early December, and Democrats will have to work out a reprieve from the debt ceiling by then, too.

Finally, we’ll perhaps be hearing more from that war of words between Pritzker and GOP businessman Ken Griffin. Perhaps in the spirit of the season they’ll give it a rest. Perhaps.

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Catching Killers

There is nothing that Netflix likes more than an anthology series about serial killers.

But, America and the rest of the Western world do seem to have a special talent for throwing these people up amongst us – and so Catching Killers isn’t going to be short of subject matter, or a second series anytime soon.

Catching Killers is a four-parter. The first episode – which I think is the best – focuses on the hunt for “The Green River Killer”, who haunted Seattle and the Pacific North West for a decade or more, eventually admitting to 49 counts of murder, although the true number of victims will never be known.

How the killer was caught is the least interesting thing about the case. As has so often been the case over the last few decades, his DNA was already on file – and a breakthrough in testing allowed that sample to finally be matched to one known to be from the killer. It’s a conclusion to similar cases we have heard many times before.

What distinguished the Green River case was just how few police and how meagre were the resources that were put into the hunt.

Although the police PR offices talked a big game, the truth was, the interest in catching a killer who mainly preyed on sex workers and prostituted women was nothing like what it would have been if the victims had worked in some other trade.

The Seattle police talked seriously about winding the investigation up, even while the killer was still active.

Other episodes are on Aileen Wuornos – about whom not much more can be said, that hasn’t already been in other, better films – and the “Happy Face Killer” (Keith Jesperson), whose own reign of terror says at least as much about the value placed on the lives of his victims, as it does about the diligence of the forces of the law.

Catching Killers is a better, less sensationalised show than some, but it lacks any of the bite or insight of the – ironically, fictionalised – Mind Hunter.

Supplied

There is nothing that Netflix likes more than an anthology series about serial killers – Catching Killers is one of the better ones.

READ MORE:
* Glamorisation of murderers through ‘true crime’ must stop
* Widows: Sparks fly when Gone Girl’s Flynn meets Slave’s McQueen
* Viola Davis on Widows, MeToo and expressing her femininity
* From Golden State Killer to Grim Sleeper, DNA helping break serial killer mysteries from 1970s and 1980s

Widows is now available to stream on Netflix.

Widows

This is a 2018 film from Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) that won over the critics and should have been more of a smash than it was at the box office.

In present day Chicago, an armed robbery goes catastrophically wrong. The four assailants are trapped and gunned down in a firestorm. Surviving the men are four tough – some deceptively so – women. Two are mothers to young children. All four are struggling, with no legal way to access their husbands’ ill-gotten wealth. Then, just when things couldn’t get much worse, the victim of the robbery, an ex-gang leader, now running for office amidst the bare-knuckled corruption of Chicago politics, turns up wanting his incinerated two-million dollars restored.

With one month to raise the money, the women set about enacting a plan from the gang’s recovered playbook, to take a five-million dollar score from an unnamed victim, based in a building they don’t even know the location of.

Among a seriously good cast, Viola Davis (Fences) is astonishing as boss Veronica, with Michelle Rodriguez (the Fast & Furious franchise), Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale) and Elizabeth Debicki (Tenet) all fine as her gang.

Fans of the 1983 British series Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) based her script on, will be divided as to whether Widows is better than the source material. Personally, I have a lot of time for this film. It’s a heist movie with a few things to say.

SUPPLIED

They’ve Gotta Have Us is now available to stream on Netflix.

They’ve Gotta Have Us

This is a three-part documentary that anyone who calls themselves a fan of recent film should enjoy very much.

The show takes a look at the recent and overdue explosion of Black cinema in the USA and its acceptance into the mainstream.

This is a British series, so the emphasis is often on the experience of Black British actors working in America and the path they tread, especially in taking on roles that are very specifically of the American Black experience and history.

They’ve Gotta Have Us interviews everyone you might hope that it would and functions as an easily digestible introduction to a story that is a long way from fully written yet. Very recommended.

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Originally Appeared Here

Get more in-depth, daily coverage of Chicago politics at The Daily Line.

CITY HALL — Aldermen are gearing up for a long-promised hearing on Friday that will give them a chance to grill police leaders and other city officials over their use of a widely criticized gunshot detection technology. Representatives of the tech firm will also be on hand to defend their product. 

City Council Committee on Public Safety chair Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) has promised to hold a hearing on ShotSpotter since September, when Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) introduced an ordinance calling on city officials to consider ending the city’s contract with the California-based firm. But the committee is instead scheduled during a 1 p.m. meeting on Friday to take up an earlier resolution filed by Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th) prompting a wider review of the Chicago Police Department’s entire technology landscape. 

Chicago in 2018 inked a three-year, $33 million contract with ShotSpotter, which distributes acoustic sensors designed to immediately pick up on gunshots and alert police intelligence officials. The initial deal was set to expire earlier this year, but city leaders in December 2020 exercised a renewal option to extend the contract through Aug. 19, 2023.  

But two major public reports have since panned the sensor system as ineffective, kicking up a backlash among activists and some aldermen. 

Credit: ShotSpotterA graphic showing how ShotSpotter’s technology works. Representatives of the technology firm ShotSpotter are slated to testify in a meeting of the City Council Committee on Public Safety on Friday.

In May, the nonprofit MacArthur Justice Center released the results of a 21-month study that found nearly 90 percent of police deployments based on ShotSpotter reports did not turn up evidence of any “gun-related” crime. In all, researchers tallied “more than 40,000 dead-end ShotSpotter deployments” between July 2019 and April 2021. 

And in August, Chicago’s Office of the Independent Inspector General published a 30-page report finding that ShotSpotter alerts “rarely produce documented evidence of a gun-related crime” and have even exacerbated some police interactions with residents in high-crime areas. 

Related: ShotSpotter ‘seldom’ detects gun-related crimes for investigation, watchdog report shows 

“The data reflects that there’s a very low yield for the technology that really begs the question of whether a cost benefit analysis has been done,” former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson said in an October budget hearing when asked about the report. “There are bad actors who are caught because of a ShotSpotter alert. But are enough of them caught to offset the harms that come from aggressive policing from false positives?” 

Chicago Police Department leaders did not explicitly vouch for ShotSpotter during their budget hearing last month. But department Supt. David Brown said he and his team are “advocates for gunshot detection technology,” which he said has “saved lives.” And another department official said the department has credited ShotSpotter for 18 “live-saving events” when an officer was dispatched with enough time to prevent a gunshot victim from bleeding to death.    

Related: ShotSpotter contract, officer shortages come under microscope during 9-hour CPD budget hearing 

A spokesperson Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not respond to a request for comment on the technology on Thursday. But the mayor defended ShotSpotter during a news conference last month, saying the tool has been “extraordinarily helpful” and “an incredibly important crime-fighting tool” since its 2019 deployment. 

But Ramirez-Rosa told The Daily Line when he introduced his resolution in September that in light of the two critical reports released this year, city leaders “owe it to the public” to “figure out if [ShotSpotter] is a wise use of our dollars.” 

The measure was also sponsored by Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) and Ald. Maria Hadden (49th), and as of Thursday it listed 13 aldermanic co-sponsors. 

They aimed to kick the resolution into a joint meeting of the public safety committee and the Committee on Budget and Government Operations, where they hoped to enlist police leaders as well as researchers from the MacArthur Justice Center and the Office of the Inspector General to answer questions from aldermen. Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st) immediately sidetracked Ramirez-Rosa’s resolution by sending it to the council’s Committee on Committees and Rules, but the rules committee moved to rescue the measure in October. 

Budget committee chair Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) discouraged aldermen from asking city public safety officials about ShotSpotter during last month’s budget hearings, pointing to an Oct. 13 public safety committee hearing Taliaferro had scheduled to take up the topic. But Taliaferro pulled the item from that day’s meeting agenda, saying police leaders needed more time to prepare. 

Taliaferro scheduled a follow-up meeting for Friday to discuss ShotSpotter. But instead of Ramirez-Rosa’s measure, the agenda includes Lopez’s resolution, which calls for a hearing to “examine the success of technologies” broadly used by police to fight crime. 

Taliaferro told The Daily Line on Thursday that he and Dowell “have to coordinate” over a separate hearing to call up Ramirez-Rosa’s resolution. But because Lopez’s measure is sitting in only his committee, Taliaferro has discretion to call it up immediately.  

“Tomorrow’s conversation may be enough that Alderman Ramirez-Rosa is satisfied with the inquiry and ability to ask questions,” Taliaferro said. “We don’t want to duplicate our efforts.” 

Taliaferro said leaders of the police department and Chicago Office of Public Safety Administration will be on hand to answer questions Friday. He also invited representatives of the Inspector General’s Office and the MacArthur Justice Center to participate, he said. 

Dowell is listed as a co-sponsor of Ramirez-Rosa’s resolution. Taliaferro said he “has no personal agenda” on the ShotSpotter contract but wants to make sure its defenders “have an opportunity to respond to criticism” raised by aldermen. 

Ramirez-Rosa did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.  

ShotSpotter has shored up its defenses against the recent backlash, hiring the public relations firm Trident DMG to firm up its reputation. A member of the firm, acting as a spokesperson for ShotSpotter, wrote in a statement to The Daily Line last month that the technology is “highly accurate,” saying it has “been independently audited at 97 percent based on feedback from more than 120 customers” in different cities across the country. 

“ShotSpotter has been in operation for 25 years, serves more than 120 cities, and has earned trust and high renewal rates from many police departments because the system is effective in helping to save lives, reduce gun violence, and make communities safer,” the spokesperson wrote, adding that the inspector general’s August report “did not specifically suggest that ShotSpotter alerts are not indicative of actual gunfire whether or not a police report is filed or physical evidence is recovered.” 

The spokesperson followed up in an email to The Daily Line on Thursday to confirm that representatives of the firm will participate in Friday’s meeting, adding that the company “looks forward to the opportunity to discuss how ShotSpotter saves lives and makes Chicago neighborhoods safer.” 

In addition to ShotSpotter, Lopez’s resolution called out nine high-tech tools used by police: license plate readers; body-worn cameras furnished by Arizona-based Axon; the Clearnet overtime reporting system; the CLEARMap crime reporting and mapping database; dashboard cameras furnished by Coban Technologies; the Citigraf data-mapping software, from the firm Genetec; HunchLab’s “predictive police technology; computer-aided 911 dispatch systems; and “Operation Virtual Shield,” the city’s network of surveillance cameras. 

Lopez’s resolution calls for “representatives from each company” to be present for the meeting, plus those of “all other internal gathering applications not herein mentioned specifically.” The measure also demands the director of the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications and the city’s deputy mayor for public safety to participate in the meeting.

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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed Senate Bill 1169 into law, which he says will “clarify the legislative intent” of a bill originally designed to allow medical professionals to refuse to refuse or participate in healthcare services that violated their personal beliefs, but had been used recently to allow individuals to “improperly” evade COVID-19 vaccination, testing and masking requirements in the state.

According to a press release, the bill alters the Health Care Right of Conscience Act, and will remove conscientious objections as a basis for refusing to adhere to COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates in the state of Illinois.

Religious and health exemptions are still permitted, according to the press release.

“Masks, vaccines and testing requirements are life-saving measures that keep our workplaces and communities safe,” Pritzker said in a statement. “Keeping workplaces safe is a high priority, and I applaud the General Assembly for ensuring that the Health Care Right of Conscience Act is no longer wrongly used against institutions who are putting safety and science first.”

The bill will go into effect on June 1, 2022. It passed the Illinois House by a 64-52 margin, with two legislators voting “present,” and passed the Senate 31-24, sending the measure to Pritzker’s desk.

The votes were split mostly along party lines, with Democrats largely supporting the measure.

“Despite deliberate attempts to misinform the public, nothing about this law takes away anyone’s rights to claim religious or medical exemption, which are protected by federal law,” House Speaker Chris Welch said. “While only a small minority of people are skirting COVID-19 requirements, our goal is to make sure workers in high-risk environments are doing what’s needed to fulfill their responsibility to public health and keep everyone alive and healthy.”

Republicans criticized the bill as an overreach by Pritzker and Democrats.

“Senate Bill 1169 is a direct assault on an individuals’ right to make healthcare decisions for themselves,” State Sen. Jason Plummer said in a statement. “The governor can’t stand the fact that the people of Illinois have had enough of his mandates, and are standing up for their rights.”

According to Pritzker’s office, the Health Care Right of Conscience Act was originally passed to allow medical professionals to refuse to participate in healthcare services that are contrary to their personal beliefs, including abortion.

Some attorneys in Illinois have used the bill to aid clients that oppose mask and vaccination mandates amid the COVID pandemic, which Democrats were aiming to stop in drafting the edits to the bill that passed earlier this year.

Language was inserted into the bill stating that it is not a violation of the law to “take any measure or impose any requirements intended to prevent contraction or transmission or COVID-19.”

Individuals’ employment can be terminated, or individuals can be excluded from schools or places of employment if they fail to adhere to company mandates under provisions of the bill.

Several Republican candidates for governor, including State Sen. Darren Bailey, also spoke out against the bill, and praised fellow lawmakers who voted against the measure.

“Thank those who stood with us and voted no, and remember those who voted yes,” Bailey said after the Senate vote to approve the measure. “They must be held accountable and voted out next November.”

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Every year, radio listenership declines, while podcast audiences increase. In 2010, 93 percent of Americans listened to the radio, while 12 percent listened to a podcast. Now, it’s 83 percent radio vs. 41 percent podcast. Just as the Web replaced print newspapers, podcasts appear to be on their way to becoming our primary form of aural media consumption. Chicago is on top of this trend, with great podcasts on news, sports, politics, music, books and history. Here are 10 of our favorites.

City Cast Chicago: The essential Chicago podcast. Every morning at 6 a.m., host Jacoby Cochran is up with interviews on the city’s most talked-about issues. So far this week, he’s discussed the fight to save Mercy Hospital, Chicago Public Schools’ bus shortage, and the Bulls’ 6-1 start. In the past, he’s talked with Ali author Jonathan Eig about Muhammad Ali’s time in Chicago. Cochran is a lifelong South Sider, so City Cast brings a perspective from his side of Madison Street. The episodes are usually 10 to 15 minutes long — the perfect breakfast length.

The Madigan Rule: A five-part series on Illinois’s master of Machine politics, produced by the Better Government Association. Doesn’t sound like it would be sympathetic, does it? In fact, The Madigan Rule is admiring in its portrayal of how former House Speaker Michael Madigan attained and wielded power. Former Gov. Jim Edgar — one of four ex-govs interviewed — said Madigan never lied to him. State Rep. Kelly Cassidy says Madigan taught her that constituent services are the mother’s milk of politics. This isn’t just a lesson in how Chicago politics works, but how politics works, period.

Vanished Chicagoland: Podcasts are supposed to have an anti-radio aesthetic. We hear people who don’t sound like Bill Kurtis — they’re unscripted, unedited and speaking in local accents unsmoothed by broadcaster training. The completely charming Vanished Chicagoland is the ramblings of Pete Kastanes, a middle-aged man reminiscing about his South Side upbringing. In his Halloween episode, Kastanes talked about trick-or-treating in Ashburn; living in a Roseland apartment above a shoe store, while his father worked nights at the Conrad Hilton; shopping at Kresge’s, which was just down the street from Gately’s on South Michigan Avenue; attending Bogan High School; moving to the suburbs in 1995; his love of the TV show Dark Shadows; and his recovery from prostate cancer.

Windy City Historians: Lengthy discussions of Chicago history, hosted by Patrick McBriarty, author of Chicago River Bridges, and Christopher Lynch. In Episode 7 (of 25 so far) they went all the way back to the very beginning of Chicago history with an hour-long interview of three men who reenacted Marquette’s and Joliet’s canoe trip on its 300 anniversary, in 1973. (When they made it to Chicago, they were greeted by Mayor Richard J. Daley and other dignitaries.) Other episodes have covered LaSalle and the voyageurs, the stockyards, the Pullman strike, and “George Ade and the Old-Time Saloon.”

Improv Nerd: Chicago was the birthplace of improvisational comedy, so it should be the home of an improv podcast, right? In the most recent episode of Improv Nerd (#277!), host Jimmy Carrane spoke with Jude Leak, director of the Viola Spolin documentary Inventing Improv. (Spolin was literally the mother of improv, inventing a style of dramatic training called theater games, and giving birth to Paul Sills, who founded the Compass Players and The Second City.) Carrane is an improv instructor and former host of WBEZ’s Studio 312.

Hoge & Jahns: Adam Hoge and Adam Jahns — the two Adams — are, respectively, a Bears beat reporter for NBC Sports and a Bears beat reporter for The Athletic. This Monday morning, they sounded like two Lake View bros hung over after a long evening in a tavern as they dissected the Bears’ 33-22 loss to the 49ers. The verdict: Justin Fields showed improvement, but “the Bears’ defense spent too much time on the field,” said one Adam.

“Except after the 49ers scored,” said the other Adam.

That was the first half of the podcast. In the second half, they wrote off the Bears’ season, since Football Outsider gives them a 2.6 percent chance of making the playoffs, and talked about who the team can get for running back David Montgomery and safety Eddie Jackson. So at least they’re more realistic than the Superfans about a certain team from a certain town that begins with a C, ends with an O, and has “HICAG” in the middle.

Curious City: WBEZ’s investigative series, in which it answers listener questions about life in Chicagoland, is actually a radio program, airing on Thursdays during All Things Considered — hence the production and journalistic values. In the most recent episode, Curious City looked into an urban legend surrounding a rail crossing on Munger Road in Bartlett. Supposedly, a bus full of schoolchildren was killed by a train there, and their ghosts appear to push cars off the tracks to safety. The verdict: never happened, but the legend may be based on a 1930s Utah school bus accident that made national news. Some other recent investigations: “Why Are Cicadas So Loud?” and “What Are Those Giant Structures Out in Lake Michigan?”

Chicago Acoustic Underground: This podcast has music! Certain other local music podcasts only interview musicians, which isn’t all that interesting. We want to hear musicians sing, not talk! Chicago Acoustic Underground seems to understand this. In Episode 750 (there are a lot of folksingers in the Chicago area), the host began by asking Ryland Foxx about his upbringing in Hoffman Estates. That wasn’t a very exciting topic, so Foxx was invited to play some of the tunes he’d be singing at Space in Evanston that night. Other recent guests: Modern Daybreak, The Long Farewells with Aaron Rester and Gabrielle Schafer, and Taylor Steele and the Love Preachers (who are actually from Effingham).

Some of My Best Friends Are…: White journalist Ben Austen and Black professor Khalil Muhammad grew up together on the South Side. Austen is the author of High-Risers: Cabrini Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. Muhammad — a great grandson of Elijah Muhammad — is a professor of history at Harvard. They pod back together to discuss racial issues from both sides of the color line. A recent episode was devoted to the Obamas’ memoirs: Michelle’s Becoming and Barack’s A Promised Land. 

“You have a theory that Barack speaks more slowly when he’s talking about race than other issues,” Muhammad said to Austen.

“He doesn’t want to own the burden of making white people feel they’re all racist,” Austen said.

Becoming, said Austen, is “specifically about being Black and working class on the South Side of Chicago — after Civil Rights.” Both men appreciated Michelle’s shoutout to the #6 bus, since they took it, too.

Austen and Muhammad are both highly accomplished in their fields, so Some of My Best Friends Are… is slicker than many of the recorded-on-a-phone podcasts here. They even run ads for California Closets and Anheuser-Busch.

Open Stacks: Do you miss the old, underground Seminary Co-op Bookstore? Open Stacks, the bookstore’s podcast does, describing it as “a maze of rooms in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary” that crammed a mile-and-a-half of shelving into 1,800 square feet, and wrapped tennis balls around steam pipe knobs so browsers wouldn’t bonk their heads. The episode “A Cave With Windows: Bookstore as Building” featured an interview with former manager Jack Cella, now retired and living in Duluth. Then it went on to a discussion of the “curatorial vs. commercial” (LeRoi Jones’s Black Music is staying on the shelves, even if doesn’t sell a copy for two-and-a-half years, because “its presence there gives it that historical authenticity.”) If you want to know how Sem Co-op comes up with such section titles as “Commodity Aesthetics,” this is the podcast for you.

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Originally Appeared Here

Get more in-depth, daily coverage of Chicago politics at The Daily Line.

CHICAGO — The CTA is moving forward with an ambitious budget for 2022 despite still-cratered revenues and ridership from the COVID-19 pandemic. Some highlights of the $1.7 billion spending plan include a permanent slash in the cost of multi-day passes, the introduction of more electric buses and continued upgrades for stations, tracks and other equipment. 

In its report on the budget, CTA says it expects a budget shortfall of more than $455 million in 2022. For now, federal money is going to plug that gap: $299 million left over from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Act (CRRSA) and $156 million from the American Rescue Plan will bring the CTA to a balanced budget.  

Advocates hailed the permanent reductions in pass prices as a step forward for transit equity, even as they bemoaned the slow rate of change to greener modes of transit. 

But underlying the hard-charging plan is the question of what the agency will do when federal stimulus money runs out. Ordinarily, the CTA and its related agencies, Pace Bus and Metra, are mandated to fund half of their combined operating costs using farebox revenue, or money generated from riders paying to use the system.  

At the lowest ebb of pandemic ridership, CTA was only seeing an average of about 250,000 riders each weekday. It’s bounced back to 750,000 daily riders, but that’s still only about half of its pre-pandemic number.

As a result, CTA is expecting a farebox revenue total that’s higher than last year, but still only half of what it was in 2019. Ridership is expected to climb to 60 percent of its pre-pandemic volume in 2023 and 65 percent in 2024. 

For Audrey Wennink, the director of transportation at the Metropolitan Planning Council, what the agency will do after it’s used its federal money is “the million dollar question.” 

“That’s something that’s going to need to be addressed in a substantial way through conversations with the state legislature and thinking really creatively about the future of transit,” she told The Daily Line.

The Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the Metra and Pace systems along with the CTA, backed legislation (HB 106) during last month’s legislative veto session that gives the three agencies a three-year holiday from the usual 50 percent farebox recovery mandate — the requirement that rider fares cover half of operating costs for the three combined systems. After that, Wennink said it may be time to reevaluate how rider fares should fund public transit, especially since the pandemic may have brought permanent changes to how people work and commute. 

“We need to be thinking about the value of transit to our region from many dimensions… and think about funding it from a different way because of the value that it provides to our society and to our region,” she said.

Fare discounts 

To boost its ridership, the CTA is making permanent a series of discounts on its 1-day, 3-day and 7-day passes. In the budget report, agency president Dorval Carter said a summer 2021 pilot showed that the discounts were “hugely popular” and produced 10 million rides over the season.

The price of 1- and 3-day passes will go down by $5 and the cost of a 7-day pass will be $20 instead of $28. Month-long passes will now cost $75 instead of $105, while reduced-price passes will cost $35 instead of $50. 

Active Tranportation Alliance Advocacy Manager Julia Gerasimenko said the price cuts are an important way for the CTA to encourage ridership among people with limited financial options, especially since rideshare prices have been high throughout the pandemic. 

“For those who are purchasing those passes, [the CTA] saw actually a 56 percent increase in rides compared to people who were paying as they go,” she said. “So I think that really bodes well for the agency to kind of get creative.” 

The agency has also axed its $0.25 transfer fees for riders who need to change trains or buses during their commute. 

Wennink said the move was “huge” in terms of increasing access and affordability for low-income riders, who are likely to have fewer transit options and a longer way to travel to get to work. 

“Eliminating the 25 cent transfer between buses or between buses and rail — that is incredibly helpful in terms of making transit more affordable, especially to people that have two-seat rides,” she said.

Gerasimenko echoed Wennink’s praise for eliminating transfer fees and discounting multi-day passes. One way she said CTA could make further changes to benefit their low-income riders is by implementing “fare capping,” a policy used in St. Louis, Grand Rapids and New York City.

“Once a rider taps enough times to reach the cost of, say, a daily or weekly or 30 day pass, they are no longer charged for any additional trips for the duration of that multi day pass,” she said. 

Electric Buses

The budget contains $278 million dedicated to replacing buses, an increasing number of which will be electric. However, the agency also settled on a $334 million contract to produce up to 600 new “clean diesel” buses, the first shipment of which will arrive in 2022.  

Wennink was disappointed to see the diesel bus contract go through.

“Those buses will be on the street for 10, 15 or more years,” she said. “Every time you make an investment in a vehicle that uses fossil fuels that has a lifespan like that, then you’re losing the opportunity to make quicker changes.”

She also said the Metropolitan Planning Council has been hoping to see a long-awaited report on the CTA’s electrification strategy. 

Gerasimenko said she’s glad to see the CTA investing in electric buses, noting that the agency has committed to making its system 100 percent electric by 2040. But she said the current rate of electrification won’t cut it given the size of the fleet, with about 1,800 buses in operation. 

This said, Gerasimenko acknowledged that electrifying a fleet the size of the CTA is a major undertaking.

“We understand from a budgeting perspective, there’s a lot that goes into making it feasible beyond just the buses themselves, like the charging infrastructure at the garages,” she said. “It’s going to take time and resources to really implement a network wide electric bus fleet.” 

 System Upgrades, New Offices and New Hires 

The 2022 spending plan also sets aside cash for track improvements and station additions. The agency plans to funnel $2.3 billion over four years into the long-promised Red Line extension between 95th and 130th Streets. That extension will include four new stations and almost six miles of new track. Construction should start in 2025, with service scheduled to start in 2029, according to agency officials.

The budget also earmarks money for three new positions in the CTA’s recently established Office of Innovation. The office works to “ensure a coherent strategy, think about data integration and management, and plan for potentially disruptive mobility technologies” like self-driving cars, budget documents show. The office’s total budget this year is $800,000.  

$2.4 million will go toward “a distinct unit dedicated to equity, outreach, and inclusion,” which the report said will build on previous education for staff and enhance a welcoming environment for CTA workers, riders and contractors.  CTA will make 140 new hires to staff these units.  

The CTA will hold a virtual public hearing on Nov. 11 to take feedback on the proposed spending plan. 

And Carter is set to present the CTA’s budget to the Cook County Board of Commissioners during its 10 a.m. meeting on Thursday, joining leaders of the Regional Transportation Authority, Metra and the Pace suburban bus system.

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot again dodged questions Friday about the future of her embattled parks board president, Avis LaVelle, but Lightfoot said she expected LaVelle herself “will be making a decision relatively soon about what her future will be with the park district.”

Eight members of the City Council have called for the removal of LaVelle over the park district’s handling of widespread allegations of sexual harassment, abuse and assault involving lifeguards at public beaches and pools.

Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, Thursday added his name to the list and tweeted, “Everyone is focusing on the @ChicagoParks Board President needing to resign. Anyone on the board that was silent this entire time is complicit. Force them out too!”

He followed that up Friday with a letter to the entire board, calling on them all to resign.

But Lightfoot effusively praised LaVelle — who was the press secretary at City Hall under former Mayor Richard M. Daley — and made clear that she will not be the one to remove her from the park district board.

“Avis LaVelle has given a lot of service to this city over decades,” Lightfoot said at an unrelated news conference Friday. “I know that this has been a very trying time for her personally, professionally, and very difficult on her family. My expectation is that she will be making a decision relatively soon about what her future will be with the park district and I’m sure you’ll hear from her at that time.”

Lightfoot did not specify when that announcement might be. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Park District Board of Commissioners is Nov. 10.

The mayor’s comments in praise of LaVelle’s long standing work with the city received immediate pushback from one woman who says she was a victim of park district abuse.

Julie Tortorich, 61, says she was abused by a parks supervisor as a teen lifeguard in the 1970s, and called on LaVelle to step down.

“She’s been around too long,” Tortorich said. “She needs to go. We need new blood that’s not going to tolerate the old practices.”

LaVelle is a longtime player in Chicago politics and government. In addition to her post under Daley, LaVelle has served on the park district board for more than a decade, taking the helm as president in February 2019.

LaVelle also owns and operates a public-relations firm, A. LaVelle Consulting Services, based in downtown Chicago. Records show her biggest clients have included major local government contractors and the private operators of the city parking meter system and the Chicago Skyway toll road.

The company has also done work under deals with other local government agencies, including the City Colleges of Chicago and the Chicago Transit Authority, according to public records and A. LaVelle Consulting’s website.

On Friday, Lightfoot saved her most pointed criticism for her former park district CEO Michael Kelly, who resigned last month hours after the mayor said he should be fired.

Kelly was the main focus of a report on the lifeguard abuse scandal issued earlier this week by a special counsel hired by the park district board. That report focused on management at the park district and not the board.

The review concluded that Kelly knew about the explosive allegations far longer than previously revealed. And investigators accused Kelly of doing nothing to investigate the complaints immediately, contrary to his public claims before he was forced out.

Kelly received complaints in August 2019 from the parents of a young female lifeguard who worked at Oak Street Beach, the report found. That was nearly seven months before the lifeguard herself sent him an email alleging “extreme abuse” at the iconic Lake Michigan beach in February 2020.

Kelly told her then he would turn the matter over to the park district’s internal watchdog, but the inspector general was notified only 41 more days later, after the mayor’s office forwarded a second complaint from another young former lifeguard.

“I think this week’s announcements clearly show that the former superintendent repeatedly lied, and repeatedly lied publicly about what he knew, when he knew it and what actions were taken,” Lightfoot said.

At a news conference earlier this week, LaVelle acknowledged the “dysfunctional” approach to the investigation, and apologized to victims for a “slow, tortured process.” She then deflected blame toward Kelly, saying she trusted him to institute reforms and he misled her.

LaVelle has not responded to growing calls by aldermen to step down. On Thursday, she was scheduled to appear on WVON-1690 AM for an interview about the lifeguard abuse scandal, but the program’s hosts announced LaVelle backed out.

Earlier that day, WBEZ reported that LaVelle attempted to contact Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx via a personal text message in August — when prosecutors opened their own probe into allegations of sex crimes and corruption in the park district’s handling of the lifeguard abuse case. Foxx rebuffed LaVelle’s request to speak with her by sending a formal letter in response. The letter concluded by making clear that the park district leaders were not welcome to contact Foxx directly.

But Lightfoot, who is a former federal prosecutor, declined to say whether she thought LaVelle had acted appropriately in seeking to speak with Foxx. The mayor instead referred to an ongoing probe by the state’s attorney.

“The state’s attorney is conducting I think a fulsome investigation and I think a lot of things will be covered particularly regarding board interactions and I expect that that will be covered in the state’s attorney’s work,” Lightfoot said.

Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter for WBEZ’s Government & Politics Team. Mariah Woelfel covers city government.

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Originally Appeared Here

Get more in-depth, daily coverage of Chicago politics at The Daily Line.

CHICAGO — By more than doubling the city’s brigade of tree trimming crews in next year’s budget, Chicago is set to begin shifting toward a block-by-block or “grid” system to trim its parkway trees, replacing its complaint-based program that has been widely blamed for months-long backlogs. 

The change comes years after at least two recommendations — one from the city’s Office of the Inspector General and another from an independent firm hired by the city’s Bureau of Forestry — that the city get rid of its complaint-based system for trimming trees and adopt a more systematic program. Backlogs of tree trimming requests have piled up, leaving residents waiting as long as one year to have their trees maintained. 

During this year’s budget process, Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) pushed city officials to add more tree trimming crews than the originally proposed 11 new crews. Forestry bureau leaders told aldermen during a budget hearing that the department would need a total of 30 crews to move from its complaint-based system to a systematic block-by-block program resembling the grid system the Department of Streets and Sanitation took up for trash pickup starting in 2012. 

Vasquez said that despite previous recommendations to change tree trimming, “ultimately nobody was doing the work on the ground to double the [tree trimming] crews,” as aldermen during budget discussions often focus on “big-ticket items.” 

The city currently sends out 14 tree trimming crews, each of which consists of two tree trimmers, one driver and one city truck, according to city officials.  

Vasquez told The Daily Line on Thursday the shift will offer a “proactive” and “regular way” for the city to handle tree maintenance. He said issues with tree trimming backlogs make up some of the most frequent complaints his ward office fields. 

During the Oct. 5 budget hearing on the streets and sanitation department, aldermen criticized department leaders for the backlog of tree trimming requests.  

Related: Aldermen decry city’s year-long tree trimming backlog: ‘I can’t say it enough — forestry, forestry, forestry’ 

Forestry experts in the department “know that tree service is mostly about the quality of the trimming,” Department of Streets and Sanitation spokesperson Mimi Simon wrote in a statement emailed to The Daily Line. 

CloutCast: How to grow Chicago’s dwindling tree canopy 

“Moving to the grid system will ensure all 550,000 parkway trees have been serviced, and with 30 tree crews, it will take at least five years to properly trim every tree on the city parkway,” Simon said. “Once the tree is trimmed, it should not need any major trimming prior to the next 5 years.” 

The department’s Bureau of Forestry this year was budgeted for 11 tree total trimming crews, so new workers will need to be hired to fill the new positions before fully implementing the block-by-block trimming. 

“The Department of Streets and Sanitation (DSS) is diligently working to hire new employees for the Bureau of Forestry to start in 2022, and immediately begin training such employees on the safest and best practices for maintaining the urban tree environment,” Simon said.  

The department is planning to oversee 30 fully staffed and trained tree trimming crews by mid-summer next year, according to Simon. 

The additional crews are expected to cost the city an additional nearly $1.7 million. 

The additional tree trimming crews will cost “$1,688,668 over the level that was budgeted in 2021” as the department is adding “18 additional tree trimmers and 11 additional drivers for 2022,” Rose Tibayan, spokesperson for the Office of Budget & Management, wrote in an email to The Daily Line. 

Years of calls for change 

The idea of overhauling tree trimming to match how trash is collected in the city is not new. 

In former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s October 2019 report, his office found the department’s “reactive” and “request-based approach” to tree trimming led to “significant backlogs” and many city trees going without trimming for more than a decade “due to a lack of residents regularly calling 311 to request the service, and certain wards receive significantly more tree trimming services than others.” 

The complaint-based system also meant that tree trimming crews were spending “more of their time on travel throughout the City while fewer City trees [were] being trimmed,” according to the report. 

Additionally, an independent consulting firm hired by the Bureau of Forestry in 2009 found the bureau spent 75 percent of its time addressing 311 requests and that about 40 percent of the city’s 206,000 parkway trees had not been trimmed in the past decade. 

Ferguson in 2019 recommended the streets and sanitation department switch to a “grid-based approach” to tree trimming, the benefits of which were also detailed by the independent consulting firm in 2009. The watchdog’s report noted the recommended system had been “previously used by the City,” is “commonplace for most municipal urban forestry programs” and would bring “efficiency” to the department. 

“It would also result in arborists determining how best to manage the urban forest rather than safety-driven resident calls, which constitutes an important added level of input to proper holistic management,” according to Ferguson’s report.  

Ferguson also wrote in the 2019 report that a “thriving and healthy urban forest is critical to mitigating ever-mounting climate change concerns like the urban heat island effect and excessive storm water runoff, and recent studies have revealed stark differences across City neighborhoods that generally correlate with tree canopy percentages.” 

Ferguson’s 2019 investigation also found a discrepancy in how long residents in different wards had to wait to have trees trimmed. 

“For example, between January 1, 2016, and December 18, 2018, the average service request time to completion for tree trimming in the 23rd Ward was 63.5 days, while it took an average of 151.4 days in the 46th Ward, 139 days in the 43rd Ward, and 133.4 days in the 44th Ward,” the report shows. “Transitioning to a grid-based approach to tree trimming would reduce these inequities, because all the City’s trees would be trimmed on an ongoing, cyclical basis.”Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2012 implemented a three-month “blitzing” strategy and reduced by more than 25 percent the backlog of requests for tree trimming. The strategy “blitzed” neighborhoods that had the most open trimming requests with “a ward-based grid system to improve efficiency and increase productivity,” according to a news release at the time. 

“With the new system, there has been a significant increase in crew productivity, with each crew now averaging 20 tree trims per day, as opposed to 14 under the old system – an improvement of more than 30 percent,” the news release touted. 

Trees in the limelight in 2021 

Trees have been in the spotlight on multiple occasions during the past year as the city works to grow its green canopy in part to help mitigate effects of climate change, including the phenomenon of urban heat islands. 

Related:  

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2022 budget, which was approved with a vote of 35-15 last week, sets aside $46 million in federal American Rescue Plan dollars for the city to add 15,000 trees annually over the next five years and create jobs for tree planting and maintenance. 

Related: Lightfoot says neighborhoods ‘desperately need’ her plan for 75K new trees — but keeping them alive is just as hard, conservationists say 

Lightfoot continued touting her tree planting plan in a Thursday news release. 

“Our new tree planting strategy is part of our effort to fight the climate crisis,” Lightfoot said. “Delivering on bold, equitable climate goals is critical for our city to continue to thrive. These investments will directly benefit our residents in neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change and help address decades of disinvestment.” 

According to the news release, Chicago’s overall tree canopy coverage is 16 percent, but that number varies between neighborhoods, ranging from less than 10 percent to 46 percent. 

Additionally, the City Council in June approved the creation of a new Urban Forestry Advisory Board (O2020-3651) that will be tasked with boosting the city’s tree-planting efforts and making policy recommendations on the city’s tree-planting and maintenance efforts. 

Related:  

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As the sex abuse scandal involving lifeguards was deepening this past summer, the Chicago Park District’s politically connected board president, Avis LaVelle, sent a personal text message to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and asked to speak with her, according to a copy of the message obtained by WBEZ.

Foxx firmly rebuffed LaVelle’s request — quickly responding instead with a curt and formal letter, informing park district leaders that law-enforcement authorities had opened an active investigation into allegations of sex crimes and official misconduct.

In her text message to Foxx, LaVelle did not specify what she wanted to tell or ask the state’s attorney. But LaVelle sent the message to Foxx at 10:02 a.m. on Aug. 19 — 97 minutes after WBEZ first reported that the lead investigator in the park district’s internal lifeguard abuse probe was removed and that he called on Foxx to intervene, records obtained by the station show.

Three days before that text message from LaVelle, Foxx’s office told WBEZ that prosecutors received and was reviewing unspecified information about the lifeguard abuse allegations from City Hall’s separate inspector general.

In an email to WBEZ Wednesday, LaVelle said she wanted to talk to Foxx about the park district scandal.

“I had heard media reports that her office would be conducting an investigation, but the Park District had not received any official notification,” LaVelle said. “I also wanted to assure her of my full cooperation, wherever her probe of the Chicago Park District may lead.”

WBEZ received a copy of LaVelle’s text message to Foxx through an open-records request to the state’s attorney’s office.

WBEZ received a copy of Avis LaVelle’s text message to Kim Foxx through an open-records request to the state’s attorney’s office. Public Records request/WBEZ

The station has reported that Foxx’s office sent a letter in August to LaVelle and other top parks leaders informing them of their investigation into the matter. In that letter, Foxx also told LaVelle, other park district board members and the agency’s then-chief executive that their lawyers should direct any questions they may have about the abuse investigation to her top deputy.

In a statement this week, a spokeswoman for Foxx acknowledged that the state’s attorney sent the letter to the park district because of LaVelle’s text message. And the spokeswoman, Cristina Villareal, told WBEZ that Foxx has not replied to LaVelle’s request for a conversation with her.

“The only communication the State’s Attorney has had with Ms. LaVelle has been a written letter that was sent on August 19, 2021 in response to a text message the State’s Attorney received from Ms. LaVelle on the morning a former Chicago Park District Deputy Inspector General released a statement, which included allegations of sexual abuse and impeding investigations,” according to the statement from Foxx’s office.

LaVelle says she welcomes Foxx’s investigation because “the young women who suffered abuse at the hands of [park district] employees deserve full and complete answers and criminal prosecution wherever it may be warranted.”

And LaVelle said she had “complete confidence that the investigation will uncover no wrongdoing on my part, nor of any board member.”

The text message emerged into public view as some critics of the park district have called on LaVelle to resign the post, which she has held for nearly three years.

On Tuesday, LaVelle and other top parks leaders held a news conference to release a new report from a former federal prosecutor hired by the park district to review management’s response to allegations of sexual harassment, abuse and assault from lifeguards at Chicago’s public beaches and pools.

The special counsel’s report focused in great part on alleged violations of park district policy and other missteps by Michael Kelly, the longtime chief executive and general superintendent for the city’s parks department.

The outside lawyers’ report for the park district also said park district leaders knew about allegations of serious sexual misconduct for more than a year but did not begin working in earnest to institute reforms until April. That was when WBEZ first reported on the allegations against dozens of employees in the park district’s Aquatics Department.

There was no mention of LaVelle’s text message to Foxx in the 40-page special counsel’s report released this week. The author of the report, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Valarie Hays, wrote that she reviewed more than 15,000 documents from the park district, the agency’s inspector general’s office and a law firm hired to assist the inspector general in its investigation of the lifeguard abuse complaints.

But Hays did not include personal emails or text messages among the long list of records that her investigation covered. In the report, Hays wrote that she had found no evidence of “intentional interference” in the park district’s internal probe.

And at the news conference on Tuesday, LaVelle repeatedly sought to minimize her culpability, noting that she’s not paid to be the parks board president and is not involved in day-to-day operations.

LaVelle said she had believed Kelly’s promise that he was making the necessary changes — but that management did not tell the truth to the volunteer parks board that’s appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council.

“There’s a trust factor there,” LaVelle said. “We don’t work for the Chicago Park District. We know what management and staff tell us. Most of us hold full-time jobs elsewhere. We’re not in their offices with them.”

‘GM, Kim. It’s Avis.’

On Aug. 16, Foxx’s office told WBEZ that prosecutors received information about the alleged abuse of Chicago lifeguards from the city government’s inspector general at that time, Joseph Ferguson. The state’s attorney’s office declined further comment on the matter and did not say what Ferguson told prosecutors.

Then, at 8:25 a.m. on Aug. 19, WBEZ reported that the park district’s deputy inspector general, Nathan Kipp, issued a statement revealing he had been removed from the lifeguard abuse case without explanation.

Kipp wrote, “I implore State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to intervene and direct her office to assume all control of the [park district inspector general’s office] investigation.”

Foxx’s involvement, Kipp said in the statement, would be the only way to “ensure that the investigation will be staffed with necessary resources and expertise, while also rescuing it from the Park District’s and its Board’s undue influence.”

Within two hours, LaVelle reached out to Foxx. According to the records obtained from the state’s attorney’s office, LaVelle wrote, “GM Kim, it’s Avis. Can u call me when u get a minute?”

Before that, the last text messages between LaVelle and Foxx were exchanged early last year. On March, 17, 2020 — the night Foxx won the Democratic primary in her re-election campaign — LaVelle wrote, “Congratulations!!”

Two days later, Foxx replied, “Thanks!!!”

Another time, LaVelle offered to send Foxx “some remarks to consider for your election night speech.”

LaVelle asked Foxx, “Are u ok with me sending them?”

Foxx replied by sending her personal political email address, and LaVelle then wrote, “It’s on the way.” Foxx gave a thumbs up emoji to that message.

Asked Wednesday about her relationship with Foxx, LaVelle said she considers her “a professional colleague with whom I have exchanged texts a few times in the past.”

But Foxx did not respond to the text message from LaVelle on Aug. 19, according to the records obtained by WBEZ from the state’s attorney’s office.

“The Cook County State’s Attorney has not spoken with Ms. LaVelle on the investigation,” Villareal said.

Foxx has been criticized in the past for discussing issues her office was handling in text messages, particularly after her 2019 decision to drop all charges against TV star Jussie Smollett.

In the case of the lifeguard abuse scandal, however, a letter was quickly drafted and sent to LaVelle and other top park district officials at 2:19 p.m. on Aug. 19, a little more than five hours after LaVelle’s text message to Foxx.

In the letter, Foxx told the park district leaders her office was conducting an active investigation into complaints of “certain criminal conduct, including but not limited to, past and present sexual assault and harassment, obstruction, witness tampering, concealment of criminal conduct and official misconduct of Park District employees and members of the Board.”

The state’s attorney concluded by making clear that the park district leaders were not welcome to contact her directly.

If questions arose about the topic, Foxx wrote, LaVelle and the other park district officials should “feel free to have your legal representative contact First Assistant Risa Lanier.” She is the state’s attorney’s top aide.

WBEZ obtained that letter and revealed the existence of the state’s attorney’s investigation on Sept. 16.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she did not know about the letter or the investigation until WBEZ asked about it weeks after LaVelle and Kelly received it. The mayor has said that was “a mistake” and Kelly and LaVelle should have notified her of the letter from Foxx.

LaVelle’s long history in Chicago politics

LaVelle has been the president of the park district board since she was appointed to the position by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in February 2019. He had appointed her to the board more than 10 years ago, soon after he was first elected.

Her ties to the highest levels of Chicago politics, though, stretch back decades. LaVelle was a press secretary to former Mayor Richard M. Daley and she also worked at one point for President Bill Clinton’s administration.

For 17 years, she has owned and operated A. LaVelle Consulting Services LLC, a public-relations firm that has enjoyed contracts with many local government agencies and with clients who have lucrative deals at City Hall, including the company that runs the Chicago Skyway toll road, records show.

Lightfoot has dodged questions about LaVelle’s future at the parks board. But on Wednesday, Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, became the third City Council member to call for Lavelle to resign, following Scott Waguespack, 32nd, and Michele Smith, 43rd.

Rodriguez Sanchez said LaVelle “needs to step down alongside all who had a role in covering up or not doing their due diligence to address this disaster. Chicago Park District needs new leadership that is up to the task of making our parks safe and creating structures of accountability.”

Waguespack, the Council’s Finance Committee chairman, said LaVelle should take responsibility for the long delay in enacting reforms in response to the lifeguard abuse scandal.

Last week, WBEZ reported that the interim inspector general at the time prepared a detailed briefing on the growing investigation into lifeguard abuse for LaVelle and Kelly in August 2020. Although LaVelle told WBEZ she could not specifically recall that briefing, the document was cited extensively in the special counsel’s report released Tuesday.

The “highly confidential” document revealed that the internal probe quickly morphed into something much bigger than the two original complaints. Within five months, investigators had fielded complaints against “34 subjects” accused of serious misconduct at seven park district beaches, three pools and “offsite” lifeguard parties.

The interim inspector general said potential criminal allegations could necessitate the involvement of law enforcement, but that did not happen for nearly another year.

Foxx’s spokeswoman, Villareal, said this week the state’s attorney’s probe is ongoing, with investigators from the office’s sex crimes and public corruption units continuing to work on the case. Foxx’s office “remains committed to investigating allegations of sexual abuse at the Chicago Park District,” Villareal said.

Last month, Foxx took the unusual — but not unprecedented — step of publicly caling on survivors of sexual abuse at the park district to come forward and contact her office on a hotline, (312) 603-1944.

The park district had launched its own internal investigation in March 2020, after two young female former lifeguards sent detailed, graphic letters alleging serious misconduct against them and others to Kelly and the mayor’s office.

But the investigation dragged on for nearly 17 months before Foxx’s office got involved.

Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter on WBEZ’s Government & Politics Team.

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