The Chicago Blackhawks have been connected to Seth Jones for a few weeks now. He told the Columbus Blue Jackets earlier in the offseason that he would not be resigning with them so that began all of the speculations. When the Hawks entered the conversation, things started to get interesting. They aren’t close to contention but adding someone like him would help them along. Well, now he is coming to Chicago via a Draft Day trade.
Seth’s younger brother Caleb Jones came back in the trade that sent Duncan Keith to the Edmonton Oilers. Now it is a family affair on the Blackhawks blue line. Jones is officially the team’s new number one defenseman. Upon his arrival, he has an extension with the Hawks for eight years. He is going to get 9.5 million as an average annual value.
Jones is everything you want from a defenseman. He is 26 years old and is already a good number one defenseman. He will help their roster in every way. Everyone else on the defense will slot into better roles with a player like this on the roster. All of the forwards will benefit as well as Jones is as good as anyone at breaking out plays from his own end. This is a great move by the Chicago Blackhawks.
It is a hefty cap hit for the Hawks. If he does live up to his potential, however, he will be worth it. The cap is going to go up once the new TV deal money comes in along with expansion money. He could be a Norris Trophy-type guy as he has shown in the past. He had a down year in the 2020-21 season but the Columbus Blue Jackets didn’t do much to help him. Expect a big bounce-back going forward.
The Chicago Blackhawks are going to be well off with Seth Jones in the lineup.
Seth Jones is being traded to the Chicago Blackhawks, sources tell ESPN.
It took a while for the return to be announced when it came out that Jones was coming to Chicago. They are also getting a first-round pick (32nd overall) as a part of the deal along with Columbus’s 6th in 2022. Adam Boqvist is believed to be a part of the package going to Columbus in the deal along with the Hawks’ first-round pick.
There are going to be a lot of people that don’t like this trade because they like Adam Boqvist and that they are going to sign Jones for a lot of money. The truth about Boqvist is that he isn’t very good. He is very one-dimensional and the one thing he is good at isn’t even on an elite level. This is actually a very good trade for the Hawks and Jones will be loved in short order.
Javier Baez homered, Robinson Chirinos went deep twice, Zach Davies earned his first win since a combined no-hitter last month and the Cubs beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-3 on Friday at Wrigley Field.
Baez gave the Cubs a 3-0 lead in the first inning with his long three-run homer to left. The Cubs added three more in the third, capped by Nico Hoerner’s two-run single.
Chirinos made it 7-0 leading off the fourth against Zac Gallen (1-5). He also homered to start the sixth against Matt Peacock after Arizona scored two in the top half, helping Chicago win for just the sixth time in 23 games since Davies and three relievers no-hit the Dodgers in Los Angeles on June 24.
In between, the Cubs fell from a first-place tie with Milwaukee in the NL Central to nine games back of the Brewers at 47-50 entering this one.
Davies (6-6) threw 107 pitches in 5 1/3 innings, allowing two runs and seven hits. The 28-year-old right-hander struck out a season-high eight while walking two, and came away with the win after going 0-2 in his previous four starts.
Davies exited leading 7-0 with runners on second and third before Daulton Varsho greeted Adam Morgan with a two-run double.
Rookie Keegan Thompson worked the final three innings for his first career save.
Varsho also homered in the ninth. But the Diamondbacks, owners of baseball’s worst record, came up short after matching a season high with four straight wins.
Gallen tied a career high by allowing seven runs and matched a season worst with six hits in four innings. The 25-year-old right-hander is 0-5 in eight starts since beating Atlanta on April 25.
This past May, Illinois House Deputy Majority Leader Jehan Gordon Booth, D-Peoria, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker worked out a deal with some key state business groups to mandate seven days of paid leave per year for every employee in Illinois. Workers wouldn’t have to give any reasons for the guaranteed paid leave.
But organized labor, in particular some Chicago union leaders, angrily came out against it, arguing that the bill’s home rule preemption language would prevent Chicago from eventually enacting an even broader ordinance.
I asked Gov. Pritzker the other day if he planned to bring the paid leave bill back next year.
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“I want to expand paid leave,” the governor said. “We’ll continue to work with legislators to make sure that we’re overcoming the hesitancy. But yeah, I’m not going to stop fighting for more paid leave for people across the state.”
I had talked to some downstate legislators and labor folks after the bill fell apart and they were clearly upset because the legislation would’ve been a boon to workers in their part of the state.
“It’s been deeply concerning to me that when you get outside the City of Chicago, and particularly when you get to central, southern Illinois, paid leave is non-existent. Non-existent,” Pritzker said, repeating himself for emphasis.
“Nothing happens instantaneously, usually, in Springfield,” Pritzker said. “And sometimes it takes a session or two to get something done, and sometimes more than that, but I’m impatient. So, I’m going to keep working.”
Pritzker’s Springfield recent news media interviews to kick off his reelection campaign were held at the downtown office of the Laborers Union. Early union support was crucial to his 2018 primary victory and Pritzker has trumpeted their causes.
But some cracks beyond the paid leave proposal emerged during the spring session. A small union local held up an important bill for the state’s burgeoning data center industry over the hiring of a tiny handful of non-union workers. Labor had targeted a non-union contractor at a refinery a few years ago, then agreed to set aside their bill, but when it reemerged this year a host of industries were targeted by what some business groups labeled as “forced unionization.”
And, of course, organized labor has put a brick on the climate/energy bill that Pritzker wants passed over worries that coal and gas-fired electric power plants will be closed. Almost two months after talks broke down, little to no progress has been made.
So, I asked Pritzker how he can maintain his relationship with organized labor while still saying, “Folks, maybe you’re going a little too far here.”
As expected, Pritzker claimed he has an “excellent” relationship with organized labor. “We talk all the time. And I think that having a good relationship means that you say what you really think, and you share your concerns with one another. And we do that with one another. So, there are going to be disagreements that occur, and you got to work through these things.”
On the climate/energy bill, Pritzker said he believes there’s a “misunderstanding about whether we’re talking about 2035 or 2045” for his decarbonization goals.
“The reality is that the industry itself, the coal industry for example, has said that they can get [carbon] sequestration to 90 percent by 2035. They’re the ones who volunteered that to begin with. And so, we want to make sure that happens. But we’re not trying to close them down in 2035, we want to go to 2045, 24 years from now.”
I’m pretty sure it’s far more complicated than that, and I’ve been hearing from some very depressed folks in the past week when I’ve asked about the prospects for a deal anytime soon.
When an energy bill was negotiated while the anti-union Bruce Rauner was governor, the unions agreed to drop their demands for some all-important prevailing wage language in order to get a deal done to save a couple of nuclear power plants. Now, the unions have prevailing wage in this new bill, but are also pushing the pro-union Pritzker hard to stand with them against his own stated desires to eventually decarbonize the electric power industry.
Union leadership isn’t as cohesive as it was when they were all banding together against Rauner. And now that Michael Madigan is no longer the House speaker, there’s nobody in Springfield with the authority and might to convince the politically powerful unions to back down a bit. Pritzker has to find a different, uncharted way.
Over a few days last week, the promise and peril of life in Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods came into stark relief for participants and staff of the READI Chicago program.
Tuesday, with cheerful officers from Chicago Police Department’s 10th District and the furry mascots of Chicago’s major sports teams looking on, READI participants painted the program’s slogans — REAL TALK. REAL LOVE. REAL HOPE. BE BOLD — in 3-foot-tall letters on a mural behind St. Agatha’s Catholic Church in North Lawndale.
Wednesday, a READI participant was among the eight people wounded in a pair of mass shootings that took place just blocks from the church. Fifteen-year-old Damarion Benson was killed and two others wounded when a gunman opened fire near the intersection of Douglas Boulevard and Christiana Avenue around 6 p.m. Five more people were wounded in a chaotic shootout on Douglas near Ridgeway Avenue, including a 19-year-old who was in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest.
The READI teen suffered a gunshot wound to the arm and graze wound to the head, but was later released from the hospital, organizers said.
But when READI’s Thursday morning therapy class began, the teen gamely logged onto the online session. READI organizers, wary of the danger of being on the street in the aftermath of the shooting, had canceled in-person classes that day.
“This is the population, the people we are trying to help, the ones who are at the greatest risk,” said Senior Director Eddie Bocanegra, who was among the city leaders who met at St. Agatha’s with Merrick Garland during the U.S. Attorney General’s visit to Chicago to announce a new federal gun violence task force.
READI is one of a growing network of anti-violence programs in the city that targets residents — mostly young, Black men involved in gangs — who are at the greatest risk of being shot, or shooting someone else. On average, READI Chicago participants have been arrested 18 times, and three-quarters of them have been victims of violent crime. They are 45 times more likely to be shot than the average Chicagoan, READI officials said.
The 12-month program begins with 100 hours of cognitive behavioral therapy, paid employment as READI outreach workers, and preparation for employment. Despite COVID restrictions that made near impossible the one-on-one outreach and the “relentless engagement” that are key program features, more than 600 participants have graduated, with more than 70% finding employment. A 2019 report found the program had reduced participants’ likelihood of getting shot by 32%, and 80% avoid arrest or charges for violent crime while enrolled.
There are about 60 people involved currently, down from about 130 in 2019 after participation fell off dramatically during the pandemic.
Participants spent months planning the design with artist Haman Cross III, alongside their usual slate of cognitive behavioral therapy sessions and job training intended to steer participants from high-risk lives on the street into steady jobs, said Eddie Bocanegra, senior director of the program.
Artist Haman Cross III helped designed the mural. Tuesday, July 20, 2021.Brian Rich/Sun-Times
“Hearing the young men go through the planning, sharing anecdotes from their lives, was heartbreaking at times, but also so rejuvenating,” said Bocanegra, a 45-year-old former gang member who grew up a few blocks away from St. Agatha’s in South Lawndale.
“They were really proud to be able to tell their story.”
That story includes a few tragic chapters. The mural, which sits outside one of the classrooms used for READI classes at St. Agatha’s, includes the names of eight “fallen soldiers”– program participants that have been killed since READI began in 2017, including two who died this spring.
Bernida Davenport-McWhite, known as “Mrs. B” or “Mama B” to READI participants, has a locket with a picture of Devon Taylor, one of her former charges who was killed two years ago as he headed home from morning classes.
“It is a daily struggle not to relive those memories,” Davenport-McWhite said. “These boys have seen a lot of loss in their lives.”
After mugging for photos Tuesday with the mascots of the Bulls, Blackhawks, Bears, Cubs and Sox — all part of program sponsor Sports Alliance — 24-year-old Darryl Robinson said the program had helped him get his life on track after he picked up a gun charge.
“It started off just as a way to get off house arrest,” Robinson said. He began the program skeptical of components like cognitive behavioral therapy but quickly came around.
“I actually liked the cognitive behavioral therapy. It helps me maneuver like I want to in situations.”
Program staff provided him and his girlfriend with baby supplies and groceries during the pandemic, even as classes moved to the internet.
“I was ugly when I came in here. … I probably would have been thrown under the jail,” said Robinson, who said he’s assembling his transcripts in order to enroll at Chicago State University. “You come around when you see that they don’t want to do nothing but help you.”
The mural was dedicated Tuesday.Brian Rich/Sun-Times
COVID-19 cases have almost quadrupled across Illinois over the past month, nearly a quarter of counties have hit a coronavirus warning level, and more patients are filling hospital wards.
Troubling figures released Friday by the Illinois Department of Public Health suggest the state’s latest coronavirus surge is showing no signs of letting up days before daily crowds of 100,000 and up descend on Grant Park for Lollapalooza.
City officials have insisted the massive festival will be safe — and Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said he’ll be there himself — but University of Chicago epidemiologist Dr. Emily Landon called it “a bad idea” to move forward with the jam-packed event, especially with the more infectious Delta variant looming.
“Lolla is too crowded. That’s the bottom line,” she said, acknowledging odds are slim Mayor Lori Lightfoot would pull the plug on the lucrative attraction.
“It’s about harm reduction. You have to make the decision for yourself. These cases that happen because of Lolla aren’t likely to be a huge drag on the health care system. But will we see a bump? Yes, and Delta will probably make it higher,” Landon said.
“A bunch of people are going to get COVID at Lolla, but a lot of people are getting it from other places now, too.”
Fans attend Day 2 of Lollapalooza in Grant Park in 2019.Santiago Covarrubias/For the Sun-Times
They’re getting it across the state, especially in downstate counties with lower vaccination rates. Cases started rising a few weeks after the state fully reopened June 11.
Nearly 8,000 Illinoisans tested positive over the past week alone, an average of 1,140 new cases every day. The state was logging just 294 cases per day at the start of the month, and 238 per day in mid-June.
Since then, the average statewide case positivity rate has increased fivefold, from a pandemic low of 0.6% up to 3.3% — the highest it’s been since the first week of May. Hospitals were treating 670 coronavirus patients Thursday night, the most they’ve seen since early June.
New COVID-19 cases by day
Graphic by Jesse Howe and Caroline Hurley | Sun-Times
State public health officials on Friday singled out 25 of the state’s 102 counties for being at a coronavirus warning level. DuPage is the first Chicago-area county to land on that list in several months, due to an increase in hospital visits for COVID-like symptoms.
Most of the other warning-level counties are in central and southern Illinois, where vaccination rates are sometimes less than half the statewide rate. About 72% of all Illinoisans have gotten a shot, with about 56% fully vaccinated.
Counties marked orange are considered at a COVID-19 warning level.Illinois Department of Public Health
Even though Lollapalooza takes place in the heart of Chicago, it could have a devastating impact on far-flung areas, said Landon, who urged attendees to “assume you’ve been exposed” and get tested afterward.
“It can amplify the spread in areas with low vaccination rates. The people who go home to some south suburbs, to central Illinois, to Missouri — they’re going to set off little wildfires,” she said.
But as far as personal risk, Lollapalooza “can be done safely,” according to Dr. Vishnu Chundi, chairman of the Chicago Medical Society’s COVID-19 Task Force.
“Outdoors is the safest place you can do it,” Chundi said. “If you’re vaccinated, you’re safe. If you’re vaccinated and masked, you’re really safe. If you’re not vaccinated and not masked, you’re not safe.”
Attendees at the four-day music festival, which opens Thursday, have to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test from within three days of entrance, according to Lollapalooza.
Anyone who is unvaccinated will be required to wear a mask while attending the event. And even those who got the shot are urged to consider masking up.
Chundi said the check-in process could actually result in more transmission than other parts of the fest.
“The bathrooms themselves are porta-potties, the vendors, they’re open-air — that all is basically OK. It’s getting huge crowds of people in and then getting them out of these choke points that causes concern,” he said.
Thousands of music fans arrive in Grant Park for the first day of Lollapalooza in 2019. Erin Brown/Sun-Times file
Still, Chundi said the likelihood of Lollapalooza turning into a super-spreader event “is very low.” He expects cases to keep rising in the short term no matter what.
“You’ve got 30,000 people going to Sox games, Cubs games and soon Bears games. In the U.S., we’ve decided the decision about getting vaccinated is your personal responsibility and your right. That’s getting us into some trouble,” Chundi said.
“If we could get everyone to just mandate vaccination, we could get out of this whole mess. But that needs to happen at a national level. … It’s not rocket science. Everyone knows how this works by now.”
Maria Taylor has joined NBC less than a week after her contract with ESPN expired.
NBC is formally making the announcement during its primetime Olympic show Friday before a replay of the opening ceremony.
Taylor had been with ESPN since 2014 but her contract expired Tuesday. Her last assignment for the network was Tuesday night at the NBA Finals, where she was the pregame and postgame host for the network’s “NBA Countdown” show.
ESPN and Taylor announced Wednesday that they could not agree on a new contract. Her first assignment for NBC will be the Tokyo Olympics.
Taylor had hosted “NBA Countdown” since 2019 as well as being a reporter for “College GameDay” and ABC “Saturday Night Football” since 2017.
ESPN had been discussing a contract with Taylor for over a year but things reached a boiling point over the past month. Taylor rejected an extension last year and the two sides were far apart heading into the NBA Finals. Then came a New York Times report detailing comments her colleague Rachel Nichols made about Taylor last year during the NBA’s restart in Florida.
Nichols, who is white, was introduced in September 2019 as the NBA Finals host but the network later decided to promote Taylor, who is Black.
Nichols said in an accidentally recorded phone call obtained by the Times: “I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball. If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.”
Nichols apologized on July 5 while hosting “The Jump.” She was slated to be the sideline reporter for the Finals, but was pulled off the assignment.
A Black-owned music marketing platform — co-founded in part by two Chicago natives — aims to create a lane for independent artists.
Music Breakr, an app bridging the gap between DJs and creatives who aim to have their music heard, continues to foster collaborations with about 50,000 creators across 133 countries, the group said in a press release.
The quartet — Ameer Brown, Anthony Brown, and Chicagoans Dan Ware and Rotimi Omosheyin — met as students at Florida A&M University and became Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity brothers, founding Music Breakr in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic as a pivot from party promotions.
“We started doing day parties, which was a multi-city tour, and we noticed that independent artists had trouble getting in touch with DJs to get their music played at the clubs,” said Rotimi Omosheyin, Music Breakr CMO. “If you’re ever in that environment, there’s always independent artists with a CD, or flash drive, and $50 in their pocket running up on a DJ like: ‘Yo, I’m trying to get my music played.’ Ameer, who ended up going to work at Adobe, came back to us and he’s like: ‘Yo, there’s definitely a way that we could put some technology in the middle and make this a seamless process for independent artists.'”
Music Breakr co-founder Rotimi Omosheyin.Music Breakr
While Music Breakr raised $4 million in seed money to fund their endeavors, they lined up an impressive group of investors including hip-hop artist Nas, DAZN chairman Kevin Mayer, and retired NBA All-Star Baron Davis, among others.
The group has partnered with concert series Rolling Loud Miami 2021, where the artist with the best song will have the chance to perform with headliners Travis Scott, Post Malone and A$AP Rocky.
“It was just networking, and people were putting us in contact with these different investors that were interested in the platform,” said Omosheyin, a Morgan Park High School alumnus. “I’ve become addicted to these ‘magical moments’ that happen on Breakr. And we’ve always felt for Breakr to really work, we have to break in artists. What’s the epitome of breaking the artist or providing a magical moment and being able to put them on stage? … That’s the Grammys for an independent artist.
“For us being able to come together with Rolling Loud builds the narrative that we’re here for indie artists; we’re here to provide these moments, and provide access for them.”
CLEVELAND — While riding his bike over a bridge across the Cuyahoga River near Progressive Field, Indians owner Paul Dolan rarely paid much attention to the eight giant stone figures that seem to guard the city.
They have new meaning,
After more than 100 years, Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team is getting a new name — Guardians.
The Indians are going, going, soon to be gone.
The ballclub announced Friday that at the end of the 2021 season, the Indians will transition from the name they’ve been known as since 1915 and replace it with Guardians, one they hope inspires a new generation of fans.
The name change, which has its supporters and critics among Cleveland’s fan base, ends months of internal discussions triggered by a national reckoning for institutions and teams to drop logos and names considered racist.
“We do feel like we’re doing the right thing and that’s what’s driving this,” Dolan said following a news conference at the ballpark. “I know some people disagree, but if anything I’ve gotten more and more comfortable that we’re headed in the right direction.
“And actually, the selection of the name solidifies that feeling because of the values that the name represents.”
The organization spent most of the past year whittling down a list of potential names that was at nearly 1,200. It was a tedious process, which included 140 hours of interviews with fans, community leaders, front office personnel and a survey of 40,000 fans.
Dolan has said last summer’s social unrest, touched off by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, spurred his intention to change the name — a move that came a few years after the Indians stopped wearing the Chief Wahoo logo on their game jerseys and caps.
Cleveland’s new name was inspired by the large landmark stone edifices — referred to as traffic guardians — that flank both ends of the Hope Memorial Bridge, which connects downtown to Ohio City.
As the team moved closer to making a final decision on the name, Dolan said he found himself looking closely at the huge art deco sculptures.
“Frankly, I hadn’t studied them that closely until we started talking about them and I should emphasize, we’re not named after the bridge, but there’s no question that it’s a strong nod to those and what they mean to the community,” he said.
The team did not reveal the names of any of the other finalists, but Brian Barren, Cleveland’s president of business operations, said trademarking issues eliminated several potential candidates.
In the end, the team felt Guardians was a perfect fit.
“We think Guardians is unique and authentic to Cleveland,” Barren said. “It’s less about the Guardians of Traffic and more about what the Guardians represent and that idea of protection. For us and our research, Cleveland folks are very protective of one another.
“They’re protective of our city, they’re protective of the land and everything about it. That’s one key component, the resiliency of people here in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio and the loyalty.”
Cleveland’s name change comes as the Washington Football Team continues to work toward a similar makeover. The franchise dropped its contentious Redskins name before the 2020 season and recently said it will reveal a new name and logo in 2022.
While dropping Indians, Cleveland will keep its red, white and navy team colors and the Guardians’ logos will incorporate some of the team’s lettering style on past uniforms as well as architectural features found on the bridge.
Numerous Native American groups have protested Cleveland’s use of the Wahoo logo and Indians name for years, so the latest development brought some comfort.
“It is a major step towards righting the wrongs committed against Native peoples, and is one step towards justice,” said Crystal Echo Hawk, executive director and founder of IllumiNative, a group dedicated to fighting misrepresentations of Native Americans.
The name change has sparked lively debate among the city’s passionate sports fans. Other names, including the Spiders, which is what the team was called before 1900, were pushed by supporters on social media platforms.
Dolan knows there’s a portion of Cleveland’s fan base that may never accept the change.
“I’m 63 years old, and they’ve been the Indians since I was aware of them, probably since I was 4 or 5 years old, so it will take a long time,” he said. “But we’re not asking anybody to give up their memories or the history of the franchise that will always be there. And for people my age and older, most our life is going to be living as an Indian and not as a Guardian.”
Manager Terry Francona’s ties to the ballclub run deep. His father, Tito, played for the Indians in the 1960s.
As a stirring video narrated by Oscar-winning actor — and die-hard Indians fan — Tom Hanks was shown to kick off the news conference, Francona moved his seat closer to get a better view.
Francona, who is in his ninth season as Cleveland’s on-field leader, planned to show the video to his players before Friday’s game. Francona has gotten some negative backlash about the change, but feels the team is doing it for the right reasons.
“What’s important is how people that are different — not less, just different — how they feel about this,” he said. “We’re trying to be respectful and trying to be unified. And change is not always easy, I get it, it doesn’t happen overnight.”
Guardians is the fifth name in franchise history joining the Blues (1901), Bronchos (1902), Naps (1903-1914) and Indians (1915-2021).
Chicago’s most important news of the day, delivered every weekday afternoon. Plus, a bonus issue on Saturdays that dives into the city’s storied history.
This afternoon will be partly sunny with isolated thunderstorms and a high near 88 degrees. Tonight will be partly cloudy with a low around 74. Tomorrow will be hot and humid with a chance of showers, a high around 90 and a heat index pushing toward 100. Sunday will be mostly sunny with a high near 91.
“We overcame major opposition from the [Chicago] FOP and the mayor to eventually pass this historic ordinance,” Jazmine Salas, co-chair of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, said during an online news conference.
The ordinance — seen by many as critical to restoring trust between residents and the police — passed the City Council on a 36-13 vote earlier this week.
“The mayor tried to pass her watered-down version of oversight and had a really minor advisory role. She was forced to negotiate with us after her bill failed to garner any excitement or any support,” Salas said.
Salas said the rest of America is watching Chicago.
“We created the most democratic police oversight system in the nation, and we must keep fighting until we finally put an end to police impunity,” she said.
The final language would empower a seven-member commission to take a vote of no-confidence in the Chicago police superintendent. The commission also could take no-confidence votes for the chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and any Police Board member. Such votes would need the support of at least five of the seven members to pass.
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota are asking a judge to punish a Galesburg man with nearly a decade in prison for burning down a Sprint store amid last year’s protests in Minneapolis before turning his sights on Chicago. His sentencing is set for Aug. 10.
The program known as “Fishing at the Jetty” has returned to the Riverwalk in downtown Chicago after pausing last year due to the pandemic.
Located on the west of “The Jetty: Floating Gardens” part of the Riverwalk between Wells and Franklin streets, the program allows visitors to learn the basics of fishing.
“Fishing at the Jetty” also educates people on the revival of the Chicago River.
“One camp is people who look it as water and see water,” said Matt Renfree, senior program specialist. “Second camp know fish are in water, but they think the Chicago River is [too polluted]. But every day we’re catching all kinds of fish. Nearly everybody catches fish. Most days, we are at 80 or 90 fish. [The first weekend] we had 484 people out.”
Hannah Zhang holds a bluegill caught at “Fishing at the Jetty” on the Chicago Riverwalk.Dale Bowman/Sun-Times
All species when first caught are logged. In 2019, when nearly 7,000 people participated, a high of 21 species came. American eel is the rarest fish so far.
In its first four years, “Fishing at the Jetty” basically ran the summer break of the Chicago Public Schools. This year it will continue through the end of September.
The program runs Thursdays and Fridays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“Unless there is thunder and lightning, we are out rain or shine,” Renfree said.
With COVID-19 cases on the rise, how do you feel about the city hosting Lollapalooza next week?
Reply to this email (please include your first name and where you live) and we might feature your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.
Yesterday, we asked you: What isn’t an Olympic sport but should be? Here’s what some of you said…
“Chicago stepping and Chicago foot working. Dance is waaaay underrated.” — Lisa Morrison Butler
“Horseshoes — it would be summer’s curling.” — Matt Gaul
“Putting clothes on a toddler, exiting Soldier Field after a sold-out event and changing a tire on the side of a highway should all qualify as Olympic events, in my opinion.” — Lisa Morgan
“Running out of your garage before the door closes while avoiding the sensors.” — Antonio Rodriguez
“Spades.” – Myna Mack Shegog
“Opening the produce plastic bags in the grocery stores.” — Ronda Kroeschen
“Bowling.” — Vera DeFelice
“Hanging wallpaper with your significant other.” — Matt Barth
“Lacrosse or rugby.” – Jim Bissell
“Uno.” — Levora J.
“Successfully doing an 8-hour packaging equipment changeover in three hours with half the people and no outside support.” — Frederic Raymond Lefferts V
“Cheerleading!” – Claire Bear
“Tabletop football.” — Dominic Del Vecchio
“Roller Derby.” — Heather M.
Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
A month before teachers and students return to Chicago Public Schools buildings and amid a surge of the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant, district leaders are still finalizing who will be cleaning classrooms — and are making plans to rehire Aramark despite a history of problems with the janitorial behemoth.
With Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s support, CPS leaders announced last year that they would dump private facilities managers Aramark and SodexoMAGIC, which for years had near full autonomy in maintaining schools, including many that remained filthy. The plan was to return control and oversight of the cleaning and upkeep of hundreds of schools back to CPS employees while finding a new vendor to help run those operations.
But even with a new company in place, the move to a different model of facilities management has dragged on and left little time for a complicated transition. The compressed timeline led SodexoMAGIC to warn the schools system of “putting itself and potentially its vendor partners at high risk for failure” as the clock ticks on summer break.
Pressed for time a year after declaring its relationship with Aramark over, CPS reversed course and planned as of Friday to ask the Board of Education as soon as next week to authorize rehiring Aramark to clean all its school buildings, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
District officials are promising more oversight this time around.
Though masks, social distancing good ventilation have proven most effective to combat the airborne coronavirus, the stakes around clean schools are still as high as ever this fall. Families and health experts are concerned about COVID-19’s latest mutation, the worryingly transmissible Delta variant that’s behind a surge in cases in Chicago and around the world.
About two-thirds of CPS’ 340,000 students are under 12, still too young for shots. Just 36% of Chicago kids over 12 have been fully vaccinated.
Since Chicago reopened June 11, COVID-19 case rates have nearly doubled and in the past week jumped by 69% with a daily average of 115 new infections — well off last year’s peak but trending in the wrong direction. About 17 children a day have been diagnosed with the virus over the past week, city data shows.
He said some kids will eat breakfast and lunch in classrooms, not just in cafeterias, to keep children three feet apart when possible. That means more sources of food and garbage, more potential messes to clean up.
Most new janitors not on job yet
However, the vast majority of the 400 new custodians CPS vowed to bring on during the pandemic and keep for the upcoming school year haven’t been hired.
The Sun-Times has documented serious problems with Aramark and SodexoMAGIC’s performance, long a source of complaints to the Board of Education from parents and school staffers.
Prior to 2014, school engineers and principals managed their own buildings. But under the outsourced system first introduced that year, the two companies ran all operations, including managing various other vendors that each specialized in services such as groundskeeping, snow removal, pest control and cleaning.
A few months into the pandemic lockdown, district leaders announced that supervision of cleaning and other services would return in-house by the 2021-22 school year, with CPS employees overseeing the private companies carrying out those services. Contracts with Aramark and SodexoMAGIC were to be phased out before July 1.
The new management model authorizes one vendor, working hand-in-hand with CPS staffers, to oversee different service contracts. A request for bids went out last September but the bidding was cancelled a day after responses were due because CPS wanted to “increase competition,” according to a letter to district officials from SodexoMAGIC complaining this summer about the process.
An almost identical second request followed a few days after the cancellation, garnering bids from Aramark and SodexoMAGIC, plus Jones Lang LaSalle Americas LLC, or JLL, which sat out the first round.
Chicago-based JLL prevailed, with Board of Education members authorizing a deal in June to spend up to $125.5 million per year for three years.
CPS won’t say whether its contract set to start on July 1 with JLL has been finalized. JLL typically manages commercial real estate and facilities and doesn’t show any work in K-12 schools on its website.
A JLL representative did not return messages seeking comment.
Chicagoland Janitorial, a local company consisting of seven firms owned by minorities and women, was informed months ago saying they didn’t make the cut, leaving ABM and Aramark in the running.
CPS spokeswoman Emily Bolton said at some point in the process the district accidentally told ABM it would be awarded the new janitorial contract but cleared up that mistake.
Then, for reasons it won’t explain, CPS chose Aramark, sources said. Bolton denied a decision has been made.
A teacher gets disinfecting wipes during a class at Jordan Community Elementary School in the Rogers Park neighborhood, Friday morning, Jan. 15, 2021.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Best of bad options
A source with knowledge of the process said there were issues with each of the bidders and, to some in the district, Aramark represented the best of bad options.
Asked about the deal, ABM spokesman Michael Valentino was unaware Aramark would be picked and said, “It is our understanding that the bid process remains open.”
CPS would not make any officials available for an interview ahead of Monday morning when the agenda is published for Wednesday’s school board meeting.
Bolton said in an email that the district was “not in a position to discuss the recommendation of a custodial services vendor at this time,” but stressed that under the new system, JLL would work with CPS to “reshape facilities support for schools.” The role of the custodial vendor, Bolton said, would in turn be less prominent with “significantly more oversight and transparency.”
Mayoral spokesman Cesar Rodriguez and Aramark spokeswoman Heather Dotchel declined to answer questions, directing them back to CPS.
SodexoMAGIC, partly owned by ex-NBA superstar Magic Johnson, only bid for the broader facilities contract, according to a spokesman.
But delays in installing a new company — a transition CPS told bidders would happen last February or March now slated for October 1 — led Sodexo leaders to warn CPS twice in writing that their new timelines were unfeasible, especially as CPS’ top three leaders were about to leave.
“If CPS proceeds, it could be putting itself in a ‘disaster waiting to happen’ scenario,” read an 8-page May 7 email to the district’s outgoing chief operating officer that was obtained by the Sun-Times.
A day before the Board unanimously approved the JLL deal last month, Sodexo also filed an 8-page bid protest with CPS, renewing its warnings about decisions that could allow the Chicago Teachers Union to “raise unsubstantiated claims and create political theater and negative media attention” — and questioning the legitimacy of the bidding process.
CTU negotiations continue with the district over health and safety measures for the fall.
All students will have to wear masks in schools this fall — except while eating in classrooms or the cafeteria.Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Union predicts problems ahead
The timing of the re-bid, CPS answering questions from JLL after a deadline to do so had passed and “JLL’s decision to respond to the New Solicitation after declining to respond to a nearly identical RFP raises red flags regarding the process,” SodexoMAGIC’s letter read. “The award of a new contract to a vendor who lacks experience in the public school system at this point in time is ill advised and poses grave risks for the Board, the students and parents it services, and the principals, teachers and other staff at the Board’s 600-plus schools.”
Both times, SodexoMAGIC proposed extending its own multi-million contracts to buy CPS more time to settle into its new model.
CPS’ Bolton said the district has “ample time” for the transition. Asked about SodexoMAGIC’s letters, Bolton said existing vendors “continue to have the same resources and staffing, and are expected to fulfill their contractually obligated duties for the safe opening of schools on August 30 and a smooth transition to the new model on October 1.”
SEIU Local 73, the union that represents Board of Education-employed custodians, predicted problems would arise with the new facilities management model as they have with previous systems.
“Any private organization that takes over, we have a concern. Our experience hasn’t been positive,” union executive Science Meles said. “We went through all of those changes and every single time they said this time is going to work. And it has not worked.”
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