Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) cites four examples where Lightfoot has failed to deliver for progressives with potential to undermine the mayor’s chances for reelection.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was accused Friday of “going her own way” or “putting up roadblocks” on four issues pivotal to progressive voters — civilian police review, search warrant reform, police spending and an elected school board.

Ald. Maria Hadden (49^th) is the prime mover behind a more sweeping search warrant reform ordinance embraced by Anjanette Young, the innocent woman forced to stand naked, crying and pleading while an all-male team of Chicago Police officers raided the wrong home.

On Friday, Hadden vowed to “forge ahead” with her own ordinance, arguing that it is stronger in “17 different ways” than the reforms outlined by executive order by Lightfoot and Police Supt. David Brown.

“We need to come up with our own solutions. We need to do it with the community. We need to win back the trust that all of Chicago government has lost over many decades,” Hadden said.

“Working through a legislative process — this is not leaving the accountability or the value or the perception of a policy change up to one person.”

Hadden noted that Lightfoot has been under fire for her changing story about what she knew and when she knew it about the botched raid on Young’s home.

The mayor initially said she knew nothing about the raid until Channel 2 aired the shocking bodycam video in December. But her own internal emails revealed that she was informed of a “very bad” raid on Young’s home in November 2019 and that Lightfoot was so alarmed by that warning, she asked for a meeting with her top aides to discuss it that same day.

“The mayor has lost some credibility on this issue. So, why would people trust her executive order?” the alderman said.

What troubles Hadden most is that the search warrant reforms are part of a pattern for Lightfoot.

She is also “going her own way” on civilian police oversight by postponing a showdown vote to buy time to introduce a substitute ordinance that would empower the mayor to break disputes whenever she and the commission disagree on proposed changes to police policy.

Lightfoot has also objected to empowering the civilian board to take an advisory vote of no-confidence in the police superintendent that would trigger the superintendent’s firing if it’s followed by a two-thirds vote by the City Council.

“The responsibility lies squarely in the lap of the mayor on this. … We’ve got two fantastic ordinances that have been on the table since before I came into office. The mayor worked directly [to help develop] with one of those. She’s had plenty of time. … We can’t afford to wait any longer,” the alderman said.

The elected school board is yet another example. Lightfoot campaigned as a staunch proponent of an elected school board, only to repeatedly block what she calls an “unwieldy” bill that would triple the size of the board.

Last month, she fueled speculation about whether she will ever deliver on that pivotal campaign promise by telling the New York Times that CPS would “never have opened without mayoral control.”

“There’s no dancing around this one. She’s absolutely wrong on this. … We need elected representation to take the very unique brand of mayoral politics out of how our schools are run. It is not working for us,” Hadden said.

“I don’t why she’s gone back on her promise. I don’t know why she’s putting up roadblocks. But I know that residents of the 49^th Ward are absolutely tired of it.”

Finally, there is the issue of police spending and police reform as evidenced by the Chicago Police Department’s slow compliance with a federal consent decree and by Lightfoot’s recent decision to spend $281.5 million of federal stimulus money on police payroll and benefits.

Asked to assess Lightfoot’s reelection chances, Hadden would only say that residents of her Far North Side ward are “not very pleased with the mayor’s performance so far.”

“The lack of police reform, civilian accountability, consent decree. Chicago is one of the only major cities to not make movement on really changing our budgetary structure around how we fund police in comparison to other things. Some of them were very displeased with my vote on the budget,” she said.

“I’m committed to making sure we’re really shifting our focus and our funds and listening to the community. I hope the mayor will do the same.”

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The Chicago Bears are expected to make a serious run at Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson according to a new report from Brad Biggs.

The post Report: Chicago Bears to make a run at Russell Wilson? first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

Chicago Blackhawks: Brent Seabrook retires an all-time great by Vincent Parise

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Chicago Bears (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

When the 2021 NFL league year begins in mid-March, the Chicago Bears will have a number of needs to address. While many of the Bears’ needs are on offense (quarterback, wide receiver, and offensive line), Chicago must acknowledge that there are some minor needs on defense to address as well.

For many, adding to the defense in 2021 shouldn’t be an option. There is truth to such a statement. Besides slot cornerback and strong safety, the Bears starters on defense are set for 2021. Adding a few depth pieces to shore up positions like a linebacker, safety, and slot cornerback shouldn’t be out of the question.

Who are some underrated defensive free agents the Chicago Bears should look into signing?

Every year after the first wave of free agency passes, there are still a handful of players left to pick from. Usually, these players consist of older veterans who are looking for one last chance to prove that they have something left in the tank or players that have merely slipped through the cracks because their market value isn’t as high as anticipated.

While Chicago doesn’t have much cap space this offseason, the Bears still should keep an eye on the free-agent market. While new defensive coordinator Sean Desai gives Chicago a lot of hope moving forward, adding more depth is never a bad thing for a few reasons.

First, adding depth ensures that the Bears will be in a situation where if a key player goes down, someone can step in right away and the defense doesn’t lose a beat. Second, Chicago’s lack of depth on defense in 2020 was noticeable at positions like the middle linebacker. For the last few years, Chicago had guys like Nick Kwiatkoski to back up Roquan Smith and Danny Trevathan. However, when Kwiatkoski left via free agency in 2020, the lack of depth was visible.

As NFL Free Agency gets closer, who are some underrated defensive players that the Bears need to be keeping an eye on to potentially sign? Let’s examine some names and find out.

Next: Number One

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Chicago Bulls: Three ways Andre Drummond would impact the Bulls by Ryan Taylor

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(Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)

Every year, the best and teams in Major League Baseball are in danger of losing depth players after the upcoming season. That is the case for the Chicago Cubs after 2021 of course but they are also in danger of so much worse. There are plenty of star players on this team and none of them are locked up really long. If they lose more than one of these star players, a rebuild is more than likely on the horizon. These are the three stars that the Cubs are in danger of losing before the 2022 season starts:

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Kris Bryant

3B, Chicago Cubs

Kris Bryant‘s name has been in trade rumors for two years now. He got his career started off so well as he won a Rookie of the Year, National League MVP, and a World Series championship all within a few years. For a little bit of a stretch there, he was looking like he is the second-best (Mike Trout) baseball player in the world. He has come down to earth a little bit but is still a really good player.

2020 was tough for Bryant but it was tough on almost everyone who wears that uniform for some reason. In the year prior, the league’s last full year, Bryant was outstanding. He has so much value in this league and he can help any good team win. The problem for the Cubs is that he has one year left on his deal and then he is a free agent.

There have been contract-rumors, free agent rumors, and a bunch of speculation about his future. We don’t exactly know what his future is going to bring but it is certainly uncertain right now. For that reason, he is a star player that is in danger of being gone before 2022.

Next: Player Two

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Chicago Cubs in danger of losing these three stars before 2022 by Vincent Parise

A lot of people consider the 2003 NHL Draft to be the best in the history of the league. Well, the Chicago Blackhawks struck gold when they selected Brent Seabrook with the 14th overall pick in that year’s entry draft. It was a move that helped them build a team that would become a dynasty. Today, he retires as one of the greatest defensemen in the history of the franchise. That is some high praise because there have been some good ones and Seabrook deserves it.

Brent Seabrook is one of the greatest Chicago Blackhawks of all time.

Winning the Stanley Cup three times with the Hawks in 2010, 2013, and 2015, Seabrook’s name is a legend. He was also so good that he was selected to play with Team Canada at the Olympics where he has a Gold Medal. In his career, he tallied 103 goals and 361 assists for 464 points. In the playoffs, he managed to have 20 goals and 39 assists for 59 points. He was certainly productive in the offensive zone.

As good as he was on offense and joining the rush, he was so tough to play against. He used his big frame to make bone-crushing hits and backcheck as good as any defenseman in the league. Plus-minus isn’t the best stat to evaluate a player anymore but when you are +111 in your career, you did something right.

Seabrook formed one of the best defensive pairs (if not the very best for a few years) with Duncan Keith. When those two were on the ice together, it was borderline impossible to score. Some people might think of those Hawks teams as high-octane because of all the skill they had upfront but those forwards also knew how to defend and Seabrook really helped them with it. This top pair also allowed the rest of the defensemen on the team to play their game comfortably.

You are a stud defenseman in the NHL when you can do it all. That was the name of the game for Brent Seabrook. He killed penalties, was able to run a power play, and played dominant five-on-five hockey. We can’t ignore that blast of a shot he possessed as well. Goalies never liked facing that.

He played in 1114 regular-season games and 123 playoff games. That is a whole lot of hockey. He is retiring on the early side (35) but it makes sense when you consider all of the hockey he has played. Not only is it a large game total, but he also played the hardest minutes. He had the be out there for over 25 minutes a night playing against the team’s top players. All of this wore down his body by the end but he should certainly be proud of his career.

Related Story: Jack Eichel would look so awesome with the Blackhawks

Congrats to number seven. He is one of the franchise’s all-time great players and deserves to be remembered as such. Hopefully, in a few years, we see that number seven hanging from the rafters of the United Center.

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See Red Fred and Doug Thonus recap the Bulls’ performance through 34 games. Can the improvement continue resulting in the Bulls making their triumphant return to the playoffs? Join the discussion on the Big Red Bus!

The post The Big Red Bus – Episode 56 – Chicago Bulls Midterm Grades first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

The shooting happened early Friday near 119th Street.

A man was killed and two others seriously hurt in a shooting early Friday on Interstate 57 near 119th Street.

Occupants of two vehicles were wounded in the attack, which happened about 12:45 a.m. in the northbound lanes, according to a statement from Illinois State Police.

The wounded men drove to the 22nd District police station at 1900 W. Monterey Ave., state police said. Three men were then taken to hospitals, where one of them died. His name hasn’t been released.

Initially listed in serious condition, two men went to Christ Medical Center while another went to the University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago fire spokesman Larry Merritt said.

A woman in one of the vehicles was uninjured, state police said. All northbound lanes of I-57 closed until 6:15 a.m. for an investigation.

Shootings on Chicago-area expressways more than doubled in 2020 over the previous year, according to state police. Earlier in February, the state allocated more than $12 million to state police to install high-definition cameras to help solve expressway shootings.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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Chicago Bulls: Four best players over last twenty seasons by Vincent Parise

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Chicago Bulls (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)

The Chicago Bulls’ interest is drawing high with Andre Drummond before the trade deadline. How much impact can he bring to the Bulls?

The Bulls have been reported to be interested in acquiring Andre Drummond, 27, from the Cleveland Cavaliers before the trade deadline (Mar. 25). It seems that Arturas Karnisovas kept his plans a secret from the press in his media session last Monday.

Due to the differences between Drummond and the Cavaliers, he has not played since Feb. 12 and has sat out of every game since. The Cavaliers and Drummond are on completely different pages and the Cavs have expressed their devotion to the newly acquired Jarrett Allen.

If your memory serves you right, Drummond was traded a little over a year ago to the Cavaliers. What did it take the Cavs to acquire him? How about John Henson and Brandon Knight, who played a combined 20 games and are no longer in the NBA. They also gave up a second-round pick.

The Bulls have all of their draft selections in the foreseeable drafts and many young assets to work with. Not to mention, Bulls fans know how high Thaddeus Young’s trade value has risen this season. It may be time to use that trick up the Bulls’ sleeve.

The Cavs have engaged in conversations with the Raptors in the past months regarding two-time All-Star center Andre Drummond.

The Bulls have also registered interest in Drummond, per @ShamsCharania: https://t.co/gl5GOjUmum pic.twitter.com/xyPxh55rZT

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) March 4, 2021

Let’s get into specifics. Andre Drummond could be a huge help for the Bulls in many ways. Check out why the Bulls need to make a move on the two-time all-star and four-time rebounding champion before the trade deadline:

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Pauline Anna Strom’s new album, Angel Tears in Sunlight, features the first new work in 30 years from the legendary Bay Area electronic music composer. Strom made her album debut with 1982’s Trans-Millenia Consort, a limited-edition vinyl and cassette release she’d recorded in her San Francisco home.…Read More

It’s nearly a year since COVID-19 became real for many of us, if only from a distance. Here’s what I’ve learned from survivors of family members whose deaths I wrote about.

It was one year ago this coming Thursday, March 11, when COVID-19 became real for many Americans.

That was the day when, in short order:

• Actor-couple Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had tested positive for the coronavirus, sending a message that everyone was at risk, regardless of their station in life.
• Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert also tested positive, causing the sudden cancellation of one NBA game and quickly prompting the league to suspend its season in recognition of the growing danger to players and fans.
• And President Donald Trump announced a ban on most travel from Europe, an indication even he knew it was serious.

By that point, of course, COVID-19 already was a global pandemic. The danger had existed for weeks, if not months, by then.

For most of us, there was a slow and gradual awakening to understanding the extent of this disruptive new force in our lives. On that day, though, it came at us fast.

It would be another five days before Chicago’s first known coronavirus victim, Patricia Freeson, succumbed on March 16.

And it wasn’t until March 20 that Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “stay at home” order went into effect, shuttering many businesses, though some companies had told their employees weeks earlier to start working from home.

No matter when the pandemic became real for you, it has changed all our lives. Depending on our own circumstances, the changes might range from minor inconvenience or major buzzkill to crushing personal and financial disaster.

I think about the many families I have written about in the past year who paid the ultimate price during the pandemic: losing a loved one.

In hopes of finding some wisdom gained from their experience, I checked back with some of those families over the past few days.

Like the relatives of Irvin Kaage Jr. and his wife Muriel Kaage, whose family-operated newsstand is an Edison Park landmark.

Like many COVID-19 victims, they were elderly. He was 92. She was 90. At the time they fell ill, both lived at an assisted-living facility in Park Ridge.

What made their deaths resonate was their enduring love story that began on a bus ride downtown and ended with them dying within 36 hours of each other in April, just two months after their 70th anniversary.

Even at the end, “They couldn’t be apart,” their son Irv Kaage III said then.

Close to a year later, Kaage choked up all over again talking about his parents’ funeral procession, when neighbors lined the 7300 block of North Olcott Avenue, where the Kaages had long lived, paying their respects even though many did not know the couple.

The son said that, until then, the Kaage family worried their popular parents “weren’t going to get their due” because of the COVID restrictions that limited funerals to immediate family. But an outpouring of affection from the community filled the void.

Until we experience it ourselves, some assume the death of a parent who has lived a long, good life somehow is easier to accept. Maybe. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Kaage said his sister Patricia, who used to talk with her mother several times a day, reminisces about her.

“She’ll say, ‘I miss them so much,’” Kaage said.

As he looks back at their deaths, Kaage believes the cruelest aspect of the pandemic is that it isolated people like his parents right in their hour of greatest need, at a time all they wanted was to see their loved ones.

Provided

Quarantined in their assisted-living facility, the Kaages were deprived of face-to-face contact with their children and grandchildren.

“They couldn’t understand it,” their son said.

“When you’re older like that, you realize that what’s most important in your life is your family,” he said. “The elderly were deprived of that.”

It wasn’t only the elderly who suffered this way.

Larissa Maya, who was born with Down syndrome, was only 31 when she died alone in a hospital from COVID on April 17.

Carmen Maya, her 70-year-old mother, says she’s still confused and upset about the circumstances of her daughter’s sudden death.

Maya wonders how doctors could have missed the warning signs, treating her daughter as if she had a simple case of the flu, until it was too late and pneumonia had set in.

“I still have the antibiotics in the refrigerator,” she said.

When she took Larissa to the emergency room because she was having trouble breathing, “I never in my wildest dreams thought it was a one-way ticket,” Maya said.

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She devoted herself to raising her daughter, protecting her from danger but always pointing her toward an independent path.

Now, she said she’s trying to learn how to let her daughter go.

“I miss my daughter Larissa a lot,” Maya said. “She was my inspiration. We were both learning from each other.”

Maya said she hasn’t touched Larissa’s room since her death. But she has started in on remodeling her own bedroom in her Skokie home, ripping out the carpet herself.

“Eventually, I will start moving stuff,” she said. “But I’m not there yet.”

Still, Maya said she has made peace with Larissa’s death.

“The peace comes from within,” she said. “Otherwise, how can I survive?”

Survival was a real battle for Luis Tapiru of Rogers Park, who had to fight for his life after he was hospitalized with COVID last April and placed on a ventilator.

While Tapiru was in the hospital, his wife Josephine, 56, a nursing home nurse, and their son Luis II, 20, both died from the disease.

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Doctors didn’t give Tapiru the devastating news until days later, not till they felt he was strong enough to handle it. His other son Justin, now 29, had to help break it to him.

Tapiru and his wife are natives of the Philippines who immigrated with their sons to Chicago from Canada around 2007.

After the deaths, Tapiru sold his Rogers Park condo and moved back to Ottawa, Canada, to be near relatives.

Before his illness, Tapiru worked a manufacturing job and as a part-time caregiver.

Justin Tapiru told me his father hasn’t gone back to work because he no longer can lift heavy objects, which for some seems to be a longterm side effect from the virus.

He’s also still suffering emotionally.

“He didn’t get a chance to bury my mom and little brother due to the pandemic, which is what he really wanted,” Justin Tapiru said by email. “He still has their ashes in an urn, and he’s kept them in his room because it makes him feel close to them.”

He said that he and his father have talked about how his mom and brother, who had a fast-food job, were terrified about not going to work in those early days of the pandemic, fearing they’d end up jobless, without health care benefits, even being left homeless.

“What my dad wants is for the health care system to change and to have better protection for frontline and service workers,” Justin Tapiru wrote. “He wants people to be kinder and more thoughtful of others.”

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Jessica Tapper hasn’t had much time to reflect about the death of her partner Matthew “Turk” Agostini, a 50-year-old house music producer who died of COVID-19 just before Thanksgiving.

Matteo, her son with Agostini, was born less than a month after his father’s death. The Logan Square couple already had a precocious daughter, Violet, age 3.

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“I’m just trying to get on with my life for the kids,” said Tapper, who said she’s “doing OK” and sounded like it.

“I don’t even know that I’ve spent enough time grieving. This is life. You have to embrace your struggles. Life goes on even without the people you care about. You still got to show up. I’m all they got.”

Hold tight to your family. Peace comes from within. Be kinder to others. No matter what life throws at you, life itself goes on.

The pandemic hasn’t changed any of that. It only reminded us.

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