Changes are once again coming to Jewel – Chicago Tribune

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A monthslong delay in the mailing of Cook County property tax bills has been resolved: Bills will be posted online as soon as Tuesday, mailed by Dec. 1 and due by Dec. 30.

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, who is responsible for sending out the bills and collecting payment, told the Tribune her team is running tests this weekend to post bills Tuesday, “assuming there’s no glitches,” or Wednesday.

“Everybody wants to know” what their bill will look like, Pappas said, especially commercial property owners fretting about the first reassessment of the city of Chicago under Assessor Fritz Kaegi.

Taxpayers will be able to download their bill to print and mail their payment in, pay online at the treasurer’s website, at Chase bank branches or at the treasurer’s office downtown.

Read the full story from the Tribune’s A.D. Quig.

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In October, the largest traditional grocery company in the country — Kroger — announced plans to acquire the second-largest such company — Albertsons — for $20 billion. In Chicago, the news meant one thing: Mariano’s parent company, Kroger, wants to buy da Jewels.

For years, Chicago was largely a two-grocery town: as recently as the late 1990s, Jewel and its No. 2 rival at the time, Dominick’s, controlled two-thirds of the local grocery market. But the grocery landscape in 2022 is vastly different.

Kim McAuliffe was glancing out the window of her favorite restaurant on the Far Northwest Side when she noticed an unfamiliar banner reading: “Smokes N Kicks.” Hanging above a storefront on Northwest Highway in Edison Park, the canvas was emblazoned with an illustration of a hookah instrument wrapped around a pair of red-and-white Nike flattop gym shoes as smoke billows in the background.

McAuliffe later spearheaded an online petition against the business, which appeared to be closed to the public on a recent visit and whose owner could not be reached for comment. McAuliffe said she and neighbors are fed up with what they view as an unfettered encroachment of smoke stores in their close-knit community.

With Gov. J.B. Pritzker winning a second term and Democrats holding onto their supermajorities in the General Assembly, Illinois lawmakers this week head into their final session of the year with an agenda that could include tweaks to key provisions of a controversial criminal justice law.

The law, known as the SAFE-T Act, generated extreme heat during the just-completed election, as Republicans painted Pritzker and the Democrats as soft on crime for backing a measure that, among many other things, does away with cash bail as of New Year’s Day.

Illinois’ Republican Party teeters on the edge of irrelevance from the shellacking it received Tuesday when voters backed a blue wave of Democrats and rejected the GOP’s further rightward movement that has been accelerated by former President Donald Trump and its lockstep ideology.

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Nominating the most conservative candidate for governor in modern times, state Sen. Darren Bailey of Xenia, proved too much for general election voters in Illinois. Bailey’s rural, regional and evangelical Christian campaign theme to challenge progressive Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker was soundly repudiated, particularly in the suburbs, where voters rejected his opposition to abortion and gay rights, support of gun rights and labeling of Chicago as a “hellhole.”

Residents of Chicago’s South Side overwhelmingly voted to oppose the removal of thousands of trees because of construction around the Obama Presidential Center and a proposed golf course project.

The nonbinding referendum was added to the ballot in seven precincts through the efforts of Save Jackson Park, a group that advocates for the park and South Shore Cultural Center Park. This group is fighting for the city to stop removing trees for the sake of development and instead preserve existing ones due to ongoing public health concerns for the city’s tree canopy.

10 thoughts after the Chicago Bears had another banner day running the football — the league’s top-ranked rushing offense steamrolled the Detroit Lions for 258 yards on the ground — and still managed to lose 31-30 Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field.

It was the first road victory for the Lions in more than 23 months. Of course, that previous win came in the same place against the Bears on Dec. 6, 2020.

Arcade Fire wasted no time declaring its purpose Saturday at a mostly full United Center, writes Bob Gendron. “Gotta get the spirit out of me,” vocalist-guitarist Win Butler repeatedly sang on the opening “Age of Anxiety I.” As if answering in agreement, his wife — multi-instrumentalist/singer Régine Chassagne — echoed the line right back at him.

The release of raw emotion and search for authenticity defined the nearly two-hour show, which never fully transcended an aura of tension caused by allegations leveled at Butler this summer.