Still Missing ShotSpotter

The ticker never stops moving up over at the CWB blog:

• A man and a 19-year-old woman were shot on back-to-back nights in two Chicago neighborhoods where the city’s ShotSpotter gunfire detection network once operated—but in both cases, nobody called 911 to report the gunfire.

  Instead, a passerby found the man lying in the street, and a Chicago Fire Department ambulance crew discovered the woman bleeding from gunshot wounds. The 35-year-old man later died.

Still no movement that we've heard of regarding a replacement company or a rebidding of the previous contract. 

Anyone know if ShotSpotter pulled their equipment off of poles and out of neighborhoods? Or was it just left up there for the scrappers to come by with a ladder and get what they could?

Another Teacher Pervert

How many complaints of sexual misconduct were there involving CPS employees the past decade or so? A few hundred? Here's another one:

• A 27-year-old Chicago Public Schools teacher has been charged in federal court with receiving and distributing child pornography online, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday. Federal prosecutors say Jaron Woodsley used the encrypted messaging app Telegram last fall to trade explicit material with a Colorado man who was the subject of an FBI investigation.

  Over the course of four days last September, Woodsley allegedly sent at least 13 videos of child sexual abuse material and received six videos in return, including one that prosecutors say involved a 3-year-old boy the Colorado man “had access to.”

Here's to hoping he gets a lengthy stay in General Population.

Statewide Lagging

With a billionaire governor who inherited every penny of his wealth:

• Illinois’ real gross domestic product fell by 2.2% between January and March of 2025, according to latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

  The national GDP declined 0.5% in the same period. Illinois ranked 42nd for its real GDP growth rate in the first quarter of the year.

  The sharp drop is not isolated. It is part of a long-term pattern of stagnation.

  Since the first quarter of 2019, Illinois’ gross domestic product has only grown by 5.2% – fourth-slowest in the nation. The national economy grew by 15.1% during that time.

And he wants to run for president based on what exactly?

Not success, that's for sure. 

Twenty-Six "Ideas"

What they mean is "twenty-six ideas to relieve you of your hard earned money:"

• Staring down the barrel of a $1.12 billion shortfall, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration on Thursday distributed a list of more than two dozen revenue generating ideas to take the temperature of City Council members who refused to raise property taxes a year ago.

  The itemized list includes 26 ideas — along with high- and low-end revenue estimates. Eighteen of the ideas originated with members of the City Council. Seven came from civic organizations. One simply states “external stakeholder.”

  The biggest potential money makers are an increase in property taxes with a high-end estimate of $396 million, and an increase in the $9-a-month garbage collection fee with a potential yield of $296.9 million.

More:

• Other big-ticket items include: imposing a congestion surcharge ($103 million); raising taxes on liquor ($90 million), restaurant meals ($20 million), bottled water ($27.9 million) and checkout bags ($13 million); extending the amusement tax to resellers ($38 million) and imposing a city tax on sports betting ($17 million).

  Lump sum “payments-in-lieu-of-taxes” imposed on hospitals, churches universities and other non-profits exempt from paying property taxes made the chart compiled by the mayor’s finance team with an annual revenue estimate of $52 million.

Many of these taxes and fees can be avoided by simply shopping in the suburbs. Southeast siders can cross state lines easily. Eat out less, smoke, less, gamble less, etc. More people (and businesses) will simply pack it in and leave. 

Of those twenty-six proposals, not a single one seems to deal with cost cutting. Not a single school has been closed, even when enrollment falls below 10% of capacity. That proposal to only pick up garbage every other week? If you thought the rat problem was bad now....whoa nelly.

They make useless pronouncements about "efficiencies" but make no effort to cut middle management. Here's a clue - if a government job title has the word "assistant" in it, it's a useless spot....and that includes Assistant Deputy Superintendents and Assistant Principals and Assistant Anything at City Hall. 

We're already under a "hiring freeze" as another 200 cops are on tap to retire by the end of the year, but not a single spot has been cut from Conehead's 145 cop detail. It's going to get so much worse.

#1 Again!!!

Leading major cities in total murders for years.

Most rat infested city for a decade or so. Same with bedbugs.

Top of the list for multi-billion dollar industries leaving town.

Now, worst oxygen:

• Chicago officially has the worst air quality in the world.

  As a haze of Canadian wildfire smoke blanketed the metro area, no other major city in the world had air pollution worse than Chicago as of midday Thursday, according a world ranking by IQ Air, a Swiss air-technology company.

  “The air quality is officially dangerous in Chicago,” says Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs at the Chicago-based Respiratory Health Association. “It’s going to send people to the emergency room. Some people may die because of what they’re breathing,” he said.

It's supposed to be Canadian wildfires, but some claim it's the amount of lead in the air, too.

Lollapalooza

We had forgotten this monstrosity was going on this weekend.

Any Department issues with it or have they shifted most of it to private event security and such? 

Man, we do not miss that kind of stuff at all.