I never imagined that after graduating from college and working in the offices of a respected consulting firm in the Midwest, one day I would walk away from what looked like a secure and enviable path. But after months spent helping companies squeeze out higher profits, I began to wonder, like Leo Tolstoy, whether a life devoted entirely to success could ever feel meaningful.

So I left.

I traded corporate perks for the uncertainty of a spiritual vocation and committed myself to religious leadership, social entrepreneurship, adult education, academia and activism. In the years since, I have founded nonprofits, launched incubators, taught thousands of students and worked alongside people confronting some of the most pressing injustices of our time.

Such decisions are rare, exposing an unsettling moral decline in American life. The issue isn’t talent but moral guidance. Many capable youths chase high pay, influenced by peers, families and looming debt. Fields such as tech, finance and medicine are vital, but fewer opt for work that benefits the human spirit, such as teaching, supporting vulnerable populations or advocating for justice.

A generation seeking meaning faces intense economic pressures. A 2024 Deloitte survey shows 75% of Gen Z and millennial professionals value an employer’s social impact when choosing jobs. They desire purpose beyond personal gain, but few pursue nonprofit or public roles, highlighting a gap between their aspirations and actions.

The central issue is structural. Nonprofit and public-sector jobs typically pay 40% to 60% less than their private-sector counterparts. These organizations often face turnover rates exceeding 19%, a sign that idealism cannot substitute for stability. Noble motives may inspire people to begin, but they rarely sustain them through years of financial strain.

This imbalance echoes Harvard University philosopher Michael Sandel’s warning about market reasoning infiltrating civic life. We’ve commodified vocation, reducing work to cost-benefit calculations rather than a calling. This isn’t just an individual moral crisis, but a breakdown in our moral ecology, the fragile web of norms and institutions that support the common good.

As artificial intelligence takes over routine tasks, our appreciation for qualities such as empathy, compassion and wisdom becomes even more important. Sadly, our economy often doesn’t recognize the true value of those who dedicate themselves to this vital work. While we celebrate analysts for improving click-through rates, we tend to overlook teachers, social workers and caregivers, who tirelessly strengthen our social bonds each day.

To truly nurture a healthy society, then, it’s essential that we value ethical and emotional intelligence as much as technical skills.

The responsibility for correcting this imbalance should not rest solely on idealistic young people who face impossible decisions. The common idea of “earning to give,” implying one should first amass wealth and later use it for good, is based on a limited view of human nature. Aristotle noted that we become what we consistently do. If a person’s genuine calling isn’t lucrative, society ought to support making that career path sustainable, rather than expecting them to compromise their integrity.

True change will require coordination across sectors:

Philanthropic leaders must invest directly in people powering social impact. Multiyear grants and salary stabilization funds can prevent burnout and high turnover. Foundations should dedicate 15% to 20% of their budgets to competitive compensation rather than limiting funds to short-term projects. Nonprofit leaders must adopt transparent pay scales and management practices that foster trust and retain talent.
Government and higher education institutions must play a larger role. Rising tuition and mounting student debt discourage graduates from pursuing careers in modest-income service. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program needs to be strengthened, and states should consider experimenting with wage supplements or targeted loan-forgiveness initiatives for teachers, social workers and civil servants. These policies are investments in the moral infrastructure of our communities.
Communities and families must share responsibilities too. When someone leaves a lucrative job to teach in a struggling school or join a small community nonprofit, that decision should be recognized as a courageous act, not a failure. We must redefine prestige, shifting it away from those who maximize profit toward those who strengthen the common good.

Mission-driven work needs financial sustainability. Traditional charity leaves organizations financially vulnerable while serving those who can’t pay. If the Giving Pledge launched by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett successfully channels billionaire wealth into systematic support, then those relieving suffering will be shielded from financial risks. Expanding programs such as AmeriCorps through guaranteed public-private funding would realize this. These aren’t just moral acts, but economic necessities.

As automation boosts productivity, we must focus on what machines can’t do: caring for the sick, inspiring students, rebuilding communities. The Jewish concept of tikkun olam — repairing the world — reminds us that kindness, service and virtue can’t be outsourced. Young people deserve the chance to serve without financial anxiety. Idealism should not be a sacrifice; it reflects the belief that a meaningful life is worth pursuing.

Without leadership and policies that make such paths possible, we risk losing what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called “the drive to redeem the world.”

The consulting firm I left long ago continues to recruit ambitious graduates every year. Some stay, others move on, but nearly all eventually confront the same question I once asked: What does success really mean? We owe them more than polite encouragement. We owe them structures that make moral purpose and material stability compatible.

Changing that system is not a utopian fantasy, and the choice before us is clear. We can continue to measure worth in terms of profit margins or we can begin, at last, to measure it in terms of improved lives. We’re losing the greatest young talent to the most lucrative careers.

What would be possible in our society if the most brilliant minds and committed hearts were working on social problems? We need to make it possible for them.

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is president and dean of the Valley Beit Midrash, founder and president of Uri L’Tzedek, founder and president of YATOM and the author of 30 books on Jewish ethics.

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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/opinion-idealism-human-service-job-training/ 

Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday held a news conference at which he unveiled a new electronic tool for aldermen to submit their ideas for “efficiencies” addressing Chicago’s $1.2 billion budget deficit for next year.

While the mayor spent time on that little stunt, designed to put those aldermen opposed to the mayor’s corporate tax head in an uncomfortable political corner, elsewhere a small group of aldermen interested more in solutions than ideological grandstanding were preparing their own alternative budget.

Led by Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, the Finance Committee chair who earlier this week was among 25 on the panel who voted against the mayor’s revenue package, these pragmatists are expected to unveil it as early as Monday.

The Dowell-led group of aldermen aren’t just talking among themselves. We hear they’re huddling with representatives of the business community, leading civic organizations like the Civic Federation and the Commercial Club, and, yes, even people from unions representing city workers.

From what we are given to understand, the head tax will not be part of the Dowell plan. Not at any level. But we are likely to see some of those “efficiencies” the mayor and his supporters on the council keep deriding as impractical or impossible.

Like all Chicagoans worried about the city’s future, we await with anticipation what this rump group will put forward.

We’ve called consistently for shared sacrifice to address the budget crisis, including from a largely unionized city workforce from which Johnson has refused to demand concessions. As we’ve written before, Democratic mayors in numerous other cities have forced unions to the table — often through the threat of layoffs — in order to spare taxpayers from having to shoulder the entire burden of plugging budget holes. To date, Johnson has refused to follow this path.

But he needs at least 25 aldermen to go along with this folly in order to pass a balanced budget by the end of next month, and so far he hasn’t come close to that number. So these responsible aldermen are taking it upon themselves to perform the hard work the mayor’s office ought to be doing.

They deserve our gratitude. And, after they make public their ideas, they surely will need support from the mayor’s budget and finance teams as they go about trying to stitch together a compromise spending plan with the clock ticking toward a Dec. 30 deadline.

If Johnson won’t make the hard choices needed for a balanced budget, at the very least he should make his team available to those doing his job for him. The plain fact of Chicago governance is that only the mayor’s office has the resources and expertise to number-crunch, and council members simply don’t. Until now, Johnson implicitly has held that reality over the heads of his detractors, and his team dutifully has poured cold water on virtually any cost-cutting idea as unrealistic, at least in the current budget.

We say where there’s a will, there’s a way. And to say there has been no will on the fifth floor to honestly assess the ethics and practicality of various cost cuts is an understatement. That must change.

Next week, we hope, will mark the first concrete step to producing a 2026 budget that’s balanced in every sense of the word and that will preserve the city’s wobbly credit rating while giving businesses confidence to invest again in Chicago.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/editorial-budget-brandon-johnson-pat-dowell-head-tax-alternative/ 

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed head tax on companies with more than 200 employees appeared dead after the City Council’s Finance Committee on Monday rejected the mayor’s budget. 

But oh, no, no, mayoral ally Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, chair of the Budget Committee, said at the City Club on Wednesday. The mayor has a veto, and opponents of his head tax don’t have the votes to override. They’ll need to work with the mayor’s budgeteers on a plan the council can approve and the mayor will sign. 

While it’s true Johnson’s City Council opponents lack the votes to override a Johnson veto, the mayor can’t yet pass his $16.6 billion budget, filling a $1.19 billion budget gap, either. And both sides face a hard deadline — Dec. 31, after which city spending must stop until a new budget is passed.

This is a classic political standoff, and the major players on both sides need to get to work, on behalf of the people of Chicago, to work through their differences and build a path toward a budget that can run an efficient, safe, equitable and fiscally sound city. Already, city workers are worried about their jobs, residents are concerned about city services and Chicago’s credit rating is suffering from the uncertainty. 

For weeks, there has been talk that opposition leaders in the City Council might offer their own alternative budget. Well, put it on the table if it exists. The city can ill afford a first-ever government shutdown because the mayor and council can’t get a budget passed.

It did not need to play out this way. After last year’s long budget impasse, all parties promised to do better. The Johnson administration said it would float meaningful ideas to council members early in the year. That did not happen.  

Johnson did appoint a task force to scour for new ideas. And he did pay the Ernst & Young consulting firm — which now calls itself EY — $3.2 million to come up with its own ideas, while also providing data to the city task force. 

But those cries for outside help came up short. The budget task force was told to focus on ways to grow revenue, less so on the cost cuts that are sorely needed. EY was allowed to look for savings, but only in carefully constrained channels. Even so, EY still found as much as $1.3 billion in annual cost savings, alongside additional revenue sources.

Editorial: Death of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s head tax should lead to negotiations with unions

The biggest category of potential savings was in optimizing the delivery of city services, from which EY found economy measures in public safety — police, fire, emergency management and safety administration — that could save nearly $600 million, by its math.

But consider this reality check: Of the major tactics EY tallied in its 101-page report, “none were identified as being both highly feasible and having high fiscal impact,” the firm stated. The practical reality is that few of EY’s proposals will be put into practice. 

Results of the city’s budget task force could be more tangible. The Johnson administration has claimed $200 million in savings from task force proposals integrated into the mayor’s budget — but it provided scant detail to support the claim. This has Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson, whose organization served on the task force, scratching his head. 

“Use is claimed. Itemization is incomplete,” he said in a text exchange.

That said, the itemizations listed by the task force and EY do offer interesting ideas. Many are small, but persistence and practical problem-solving can help fill a $1.19 billion budget hole, or largely reduce it, by stacking such fixes one at a time. 

It’s well past time for Johnson and his growing legion of City Council opponents to get to work, using the semi-official data from the outside sources, the deep knowledge and capabilities of the mayor’s finance team, and whatever the council has to offer to find ways of getting to “yes.”

Preconditions won’t help. The administration and aldermen need to stop drawing red lines and start talking about what they’re willing to consider. 

It’s understandable that the city’s largest cost center — the Police Department’s proposed $2.1 billion budget — is ring-fenced against cuts. A decline in homicides and other violent crime shows progress; this is no time for public safety cutbacks.

Other departments have explaining to do. According to a department-by-department analysis of Johnson’s spending plans published by the Better Government Association, the Department of Water Management is due for a $357 million increase, aviation is penciled in to spend $119 million more next year and the Department of the Environment is budgeted for $50 million, up from $2.4 million, the largest percentage increase of any department.  

Are there meaningful trims to be found in these department budgets, as well as others? 

Johnson, who saw his negotiating leverage weaken last year as the Dec. 31 deadline approached, would be well advised to find compromises now.

The mayor still evidently hopes to lean almost exclusively on the revenue side of the ledger — and on the “ultra-rich” in particular. But unless he can find ways to soften opposition to the head-tax plan, he’ll need to find answers elsewhere.

There’s no stomach for a property tax hike, either in Johnson or the City Council. And those positions hardened this week after Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas announced that property taxes last year jumped nearly 17% citywide, and the city’s South and West sides are paying a disproportionate part of the increase.

There are only so many categories that can stay off the table as time passes and the pressure mounts.

Johnson and his progressive allies say a grocery tax would affect poorer residents most. But the money it might generate could tempt them as Dec. 31 approaches.

An automatic inflation-connected escalator to property taxes — passed under Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who stopped using it as she faced reelection, and unused by Johnson — could deliver roughly $56 million in new revenue, the budget task force estimated. Might Johnson and the City Council be tempted to implement that tool? After all, it was designed to reduce the political heat surrounding property tax increases.

In its way, what we’re seeing in city government is a sign of progress: The City Council for a second year is acting independently and setting its own agenda for the city budget. The next step would be to start building, or helping build, a budget that represents its agenda, not just the mayor’s.

The council should also work constructively with the Johnson administration to consider all reasonable options, then pass a budget that is balanced, fair and fiscally responsible — before the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31.

David Greising is president of the Better Government Association. 

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/column-chicago-budget-mayor-johnson-city-council-deadline/ 

Public policy achievements never arrive neat and tidy. The historic transit bill just passed in Springfield was an eleventh-hour reprieve from an unthinkable fiscal cliff and an improved framework for funding going forward.  

But the law also creates significant concerns for those of us who believe that the city of Chicago’s transit system should be ultimately governed by (and responsible to) Chicagoans. It’s important to be transparent and clear-eyed about what this new law delivers. 

The transit bill is, without question, a landmark moment for our region. For decades, our funding system was inequitable — leaving the CTA to shoulder a disproportionate share of the cost to keep our buses and trains running. The new law finally corrects that imbalance. It establishes a funding model that better reflects the true cost of service and provides the stability needed to sustain the workforce and operations that millions of riders depend on every day. This historic funding averts devastating service cuts and layoffs, and for the first time in years, our agencies — CTA, Metra and Pace — can operate without the threat of a fiscal cliff. 

This is a victory for riders, workers and businesses across Chicago and the region. The backbone of our city’s transit is secure, at least for now. 

But as we celebrate this moment, we must be honest with the people of Chicago: This funding victory comes with a price for the city of Chicago and the CTA. And it’s fair to ask: What did we give up in exchange for this historic investment?  

Alongside new funding, the bill introduces sweeping regional governance reform meant to improve coordination and accountability among agencies. The bill establishes the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, a 20-member board that will oversee the CTA, Metra and Pace. 

Chicago’s mayor will appoint only five members. The rest will come from the governor, Cook County and the collar counties. Under this new structure, practically all policies and operational decisions that previously received final approval from the CTA will now be subject to the final authorization by the NITA board — an arrangement that, while designed to promote coordination, risks diluting the local accountability and autonomy that have been essential to delivering responsive, community-centered service. The CTA — and by extension, Chicago — now faces limits on how we can acquire property, procure goods and services for our daily operations, lead construction projects and manage programs that have long driven economic growth. Those changes may seem technical, but they have real implications for how we serve our riders.

For one of the nation’s largest and most complex transit systems, this could challenge our ability to operate efficiently and responsively. This bill marks the end of Chicago’s autonomy over its own transit system. 

I want to be clear: I support the funding this legislation delivers and the spirit of regional cooperation it represents. I also support accountability and reform that ensure every public dollar is well spent. But in the urgency to avert a fiscal crisis, I fear we may have surrendered too much of what makes local transit work best — its ability to be responsive to the people it serves. 

For now, the new structure may function smoothly under the capable leadership currently in place in our region. But governance frameworks endure well beyond individual administrations. Leadership changes, priorities shift and history shows us that once autonomy is ceded, it rarely returns, and when it does, it’s after years of inequity and effort to restore balance. A timely example is the regional funding formula this legislation finally corrects. The old formula was originally implemented as a political maneuver to limit Chicago’s autonomy of its transit system, and it persisted for 40 years, causing a disproportionate burden on the CTA, the city and its riders. Time will determine whether this new model strengthens our region or undermines the CTA’s ability to deliver service effectively on behalf of our riders. 

Editorial: Springfield’s adults in the room averted horrific transit taxes, but we still have questions

The new governance structure is set to take effect in June, pending the governor’s signature. In the months ahead, I look forward to working closely with our partners, stakeholders and legislative leaders to ensure these changes are implemented in a way that mitigates potential negative impacts and preserves the progress we’ve made as an agency.

This past summer, I met with members of the General Assembly, including members of the task force that authored this bill, and offered amendment recommendations that restore some key authorities to the CTA that have been essential to providing service to our riders — such as bonding and procurement authority, property acquisition rights and eminent domain authority — while establishing reasonable dollar thresholds to balance local autonomy with appropriate regional oversight. I continue to support and recommend these adjustments to the bill. As we move forward, I urge all stakeholders — especially those outside Chicago — to remain committed to our city’s riders, businesses and communities.

I am pleased that the legislature is finally funding public transportation in a meaningful way. But the lack of focus on local governance raises serious concerns about the CTA’s future.  

My commitment to the CTA and its riders will not waver. I will continue to fight for the best service and economic opportunities for all. I call on the future CTA board to honor the legacy and promise of public transit in Chicago. Transit is not just about budgets and governance; it is about people, opportunity and the future of our city. 

Lester L. Barclay is an attorney and the chairman of the Chicago Transit Board.

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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/opinion-transit-bill-cta-authority-power/ 

I am writing to express my outrage at the moral bankruptcy on full display by our elected officials — specifically Gov. JB Pritzker and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart. The continued two-faced behavior that Chicagoans and Illinoisans are forced to endure is no longer something I can sit by and ignore.

I was present at the protest led by faith leaders last Friday in Broadview. I witnessed the prayer, music and love shared by members of the faith community and clergy from all traditions for our abducted immigrant brothers and sisters. The governor and the sheriff have spoken openly about their faith and how it informs their views on social justice. Both have publicly condemned the president and his federal agents operating in Chicago.

Let me be clear: It was not Immigration and Customs Enforcement that attacked me and my fellow members of the faith community. It was not ICE who raised a baton and struck the hand of a man only steps from me as he held his arms in the air. It was not ICE who, with hate and rage in their eyes, knocked over women and elderly protesters.

It was the Illinois State Police and the Cook County sheriff’s officers who committed these sins.

I call upon the governor and the sheriff to stop stepping up to the microphone to say one thing while turning around and ordering their forces to enforce President Donald Trump’s agenda of hate.

Illinois deserves better. God demands better.

— Brandon Fuhr, seminarian, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago

We need human truth

Silverio Villegas González was a single father who worked over 12 hours a day, and to say that the Tribune unfairly portrayed him is a complete understatement (“Autopsy shows father of 2 fatally shot by ICE struck in neck, had cocaine in system,” Nov. 18). Bringing up that fact that minor traces of cocaine were found in his system is irrelevant to what happened and only serves to shift attention away from the fact that a father in our community died after being detained and handled with unjustifiable force. That detail did nothing to explain or justify his death — it simply blamed the victim, fed harmful narratives about immigrants and distorted the public’s understanding of what actually matters.

In moments like this, reporting should focus on accountability and human truth, not on distracting details that create bias and undermine justice.

— Gabrielle Barber, Franklin Park

Advice for enforcement

The continued back and forth on immigration enforcement in the press, courts and in practice has been more spectacle than actual meaningful progress.

How about the following for starters? The government provides “hold” documents for individuals they are pursuing who have “the worst of the worst” records. The police in Illinois honor these for the individuals they agree have these issues and turn them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Then let’s see where we go from there, before more large-scale public raids are conducted. It is called compromise, and it seems reasonable to me.

— Gregory A. Staky, Glendale Heights

Reform US immigration

Now that the government shutdown has ended, I would like to ask that Congress and the executive branch turn their focus to developing and passing a 21st century immigration law. For a nation of immigrants, it is odd that this should be so contentious. But our country is divided along party lines and viewpoints on immigration — some believe we should allow anyone who enters the U.S. to remain, and others claim we should admit very few immigrants, if any. Irrational thinking follows to support these beliefs: Immigrants are stealing our elections or immigration agents are Nazis.

The current problems with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents in our cities reflects the problem with our current policies. Of course, Congress is divided on this issue, but I believe it is time to address immigration head-on, creating a 21st century policy. It is a very important issue for our country, our citizens and our relationship to the world.

I do not know what such a law might entail, but I would like the following:

Amnesty and a path for citizenship for people who have been living and working in our country for a number of years (20? 10? two?).
A path for citizenship for children who have been born here, or brought here, by undocumented workers, and grown up here and now face the threat of deportation.
An increase in the number of refugees accepted (the number has plummeted under President Donald Trump.) Refugees are women, children and men who have been vetted and approved for refugee status, often waiting for years to be accepted into the U.S. Let’s do the humane thing and let in more refugee families.
Tightening of the borders, because amnesty does not make sense if we continue to allow people to enter illegally.
Setting clear standards for the number of immigrants who will be accepted to enter, to work in agriculture, construction and other trades, and to study in school.

I know that passing such a bill would be contentious and require compromise, something our nation does not seem to be good at doing these days. But let’s do the difficult thing and reform immigration.

— William Carroll, Chicago

A path to citizenship

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was given an additional $30 billion for operations and $45 billion to build detention centers.

Wouldn’t a more effective, humane approach be to direct a portion of this enormous amount into improving the legal and administrative process that provides a path to citizenship in our great country?

I’m not talking about criminals who should be deported through our due-process legal system. I’m talking about the overwhelming majority of immigrants who have been detained without access to family or legal representation. Most are hardworking people contributing to our society as farmworkers, landscapers, construction workers, etc.

This approach is not performative for political reasons but reflects far better who we are and who we want to continue to be as a country.

— James Keough, Palos Heights

Preserve ACA subsidies

The front-page story “Health insurance rates set to surge” (Nov. 16) underscores how insured people will be hit hard financially if the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies are eliminated by the current administration. I have sold individual and group health insurance policies for 40 years. I know firsthand that health care costs are always increasing, not just insurance premiums, which reflect those increases. Federal officials have suggested that people could be given checks or find other ways to get coverage. These are not viable solutions.

People must make a decision by Dec. 15 in order to have a policy in place by Jan. 1. The ACA has increased participation in the insurance marketplace because it prevents rejection based on preexisting conditions. This spreading of risk benefits all insureds.

But eliminating the ACA’s subsidies would mean that healthy people would drop their policies, leaving mostly chronically ill people in the pool, which would increase costs to the system over time.

No one has presented a better solution than the current ACA with subsidies.

— Richard Sazonoff, Sazonoff Insurance Services, Chicago

Note to readers: As part of our annual Thanksgiving tradition, we’d like to hear from you about what is making you feel thankful this year. (Sincere thoughts only, please.) Email us a letter of no more than 400 words by Sunday, Nov. 23 to letters@chicagotribune.com. Be sure to include your full name and your city/town and use the subject line “Thankful.”

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/letters-police-broadview-ice/ 

Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to take out $283 million in loans to pay for police settlements, but his plan has left aldermen wondering how a lot of the money will be spent.

The borrowing proposal revives a practice past mayors discontinued and derided as financially reckless. While members of the City Council raise concerns and questions, Johnson’s team is defending the move as a way to finally clear a backlog of looming police misconduct lawsuits and save money.

“The Department of Law has been very focused on settling cases and lowering our costs by getting them settled quicker,” Johnson’s chief financial officer, Jill Jaworski, told aldermen Monday. “Instead of increasing those costs all in the budget this year and spiking up our expenses, we’re spreading that out over a five year repayment period.”

The plan would spread the $283 million in settlements over five years, starting in 2027 and ending in 2031. It would also force the city to pay an additional estimated $42 million in interest, according to the Johnson administration.

A $90 million chunk of the borrowed money would pay for the so-called global settlement to resolve almost 200 wrongful conviction lawsuits involving disgraced police Sgt. Ronald Watts, according to a statement shared by the Law Department and Jaworski’s office.

Former Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts, center, leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Oct. 9, 2013, after being sentenced to 22 months in prison. Watts pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of dollars from a purported drug dealer who turned out to be an informant for the FBI in an undercover sting. (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune)

But it remains unclear how the remaining $193 million would be used, an omission aldermen say makes them fear Chicago is taking a financial misstep as City Hall slowly crafts a 2026 budget.

One possibility, said Northwest Side Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, is that the money would go toward another global settlement to resolve the around 40 remaining cases involving disgraced Detective Reynaldo Guevara. The handful of Guevara cases already settled by the City Council have cost around $10 million each, an ominous portending of the exorbitant price Chicago will likely pay by settlement or verdict, now or later.

City officials might also be planning to use the money to pay off the record-setting costs of settlements approved by aldermen this year, said North Side Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th. Aldermen have approved over $258 million in settlements in 2025, a massive total that towers above past high marks — and dwarfs the dollar figures underlying some of the city’s most contentious budget fights, like Johnson’s controversial $100 million corporate head tax.

That 2025 sum excludes the $90 million Watts settlement, a $120 million pair of wrongful conviction verdicts the city is appealing and an array of smaller settlements that don’t require aldermanic approval. It is also likely to rise further before the end of this year.

City officials declined to comment on the possibility of a Guevara global settlement. Their statement said the $193 million “will be used for settlements approved and expected to be paid in 2025 and 2026,” but they did not answer questions about what types of settlements, or whether it will go toward specific cases.

Former Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara hides his face as he leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on June 8, 2018. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

There’s a big difference between using the money to pay for global settlements and using it to pay for the individual settlements Chicago approves monthly, said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a nonpartisan fiscal policy think tank.

The oft-approved individual settlements have become more like an operating cost for the city as they regularly pass through the City Council and onto the city’s ledger.

“You never want to be incurring debt to cover operating costs, just as a general principle,” said Martire, whom Johnson named to his budget working group in May. “That’s Fiscal Policy 101.”

But the global settlements are more akin to an “exceptional, one-time” liability, he said. And if the city paid them off in one year, it would have to take money out of basic services, like policing, firefighting or street maintenance, to cover the cost, he said.

For cash-strapped Chicago, there are not a lot of “fun options” to plug long-term holes or respond to expensive challenges, Martire added.

“It’s still not ideal, right?” he said. “It gets to the bigger picture that the city does need structural revenue reform, and that’s very difficult to accomplish.”

The $42 million in interest would be better spent to shore up underfunded pensions or bolster violence prevention programs, Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, said. Because many of the lawsuits have been expected for years, the interest costs could have been avoided by using better planning to pay more quickly, he argued.

“We don’t need to send that money to banks if we can avoid it,” Martin said. “It’s really challenging for me to go to my community and say, ‘I think we should spend $42 million on interest payments alone for costs that we knew were coming.’”

To hold the department accountable, the city should budget for the actual amount it expects to spend on police-related settlements in its police budget, Martin said. Chicago has overspent on its police settlement budget in all but two years since 2010, according to a Tribune analysis. Johnson’s 2026 spending plan proposes $82.6 million be budgeted to cover police-related lawsuits, the same amount that has been budgeted since 2020.

Martin praised former Mayor Rahm Emanuel for weaning the city off its old practice of borrowing to pay for police settlements. He also credited former Mayor Lori Lightfoot for continuing the practice. Lightfoot slammed the debt for settlements as a “bad borrowing practice” in her final midyear budget forecast.

Still, Martin said he supports the city’s pursuit of more global settlements. City Council members, including Johnson’s most committed opponents, broadly praised the Watts deal as a smart, money-saving move.

Martin hopes the Johnson administration’s plan to more quickly resolve long-standing lawsuits will “bend the cost curve.” Johnson’s administration in its statement predicted costs will be concentrated over the next two years, but “settlements and judgements will return to being within the budgeted levels” after the spike.

The Law Department is weighing global settlements and created a division specialized in resolving old, potentially high-cost lawsuits, the statement added.

Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, speaks outside Chicago City Hall on Dec. 3, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

Waguespack, often a Johnson critic, said he is frustrated by the lack of clarity on how the borrowed money would be spent. But, like Martin, he supports the global settlements approach. He believes it is being used to settle the Guevara cases.

Waguespack, 32nd, said he can understand why the Law Department might stay tight-lipped publicly on its plans: Nodding to a future global settlement could give attorneys bargaining against the city an advantage in high-stakes negotiations. But he wishes aldermen could get details about Johnson’s intentions in confidential meetings.

“It’s hard to find trust when you can’t get the documents until the last possible second,” he said.

And Vasquez, chair of the aldermanic Progressive Caucus, shared similar concerns about a lack of communication over the borrowing plan.

“I need more insight, more transparency,” Vasquez said. “When the budget gets presented as us being taxing the rich to get all this revenue, then why are we creating larger deficits and larger debt on the other side of it?”

The two got only limited details during the Monday hearing, when Jaworski argued the city’s efforts to decisively resolve cases were creating a temporary “extraordinary cost.” While it would take five years to pay off the debt, it would also take five years to settle many of the involved cases at the city’s normal pace, she said.

Settlements are typically an “operating cost” because they occur every year, she said.

“This is more one time because of the size and the nature of it,” she said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/mayor-brandon-johnsons-plan-to-borrow-money-to-pay-police-settlements-raises-questions/ 

A young woman aboard a Blue Line train Tuesday in the Loop was set ablaze by a stranger. 

This is a horrifying story. Before we go any further, we feel compelled to point out that this 26-year-old woman was an innocent victim whose life has been changed forever. The most recent reporting indicates she remains in critical condition at Stroger Hospital. 

The man suspected of setting her alight was charged Wednesday with committing a terrorist attack against a mass transportation system by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois.

“Burn alive, b––––,” he reportedly yelled while being transported by police.

According to the federal complaint filed Wednesday and an abundance of media coverage on the story, the suspect poured liquid onto the woman’s head and body. She fled, but he caught up and set her on fire. We can only be grateful that good Samaritans were on hand to extinguish the flames when the woman reportedly tumbled out of the train car and onto the platform at the Clark and Lake station. We cannot imagine her agony.

Trains and buses have become the front lines of the city’s twin crime and mental health crises, and the casualties are innocent riders. 

We agree with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s assessment of system failure in this case. This unspeakable act was part of an escalating body of work committed over many years by someone who is clearly troubled. 

“He was clearly seriously mentally disturbed and was a danger to himself and to others,” Johnson said Thursday. “The system that we had failed to intervene, and now we have a woman who is fighting for her life.”

Lawrence Reed, the 50-year-old suspect who allegedly immolated the unidentified woman, has a long history with the criminal justice system. WGN reported he had previously been arrested 71 times in Cook County and convicted in 13 of those cases. Mugshots portray a man becoming increasingly more troubled and unwell. 

In 2020, Reed set a fire outside the Thompson Center. He’s also suspected in an apparent arson outside City Hall last Friday. In August, he allegedly assaulted a social worker at MacNeal Hospital, hitting her so hard she lost consciousness. 

The state’s attorney’s office told us they  requested that Reed be held in detention over the alleged August assault. Incredibly, their request was denied. 

Not every act of violence on public transit involves people with serious mental health issues, but it would seem that this alleged random attack on the Blue Line does. We cannot believe that any person in their right mind would set a stranger on fire with the intent to kill them. 

Unfortunately, the system as it exists today often cycles severely mentally ill people in and out of hospitals and jails — unless they commit a crime terrible enough to put them away for a long time. 

We need to stare this problem directly in the face and see it for what it is: A time bomb that puts innocent people in danger. 

What we can’t do is write off this matter as a one-off.

“This is an isolated incident, and I don’t see this as some sort of trend,” the mayor said. Trend might not be the word, but then neither does “isolated incident” describe the situation either. 

What happened Tuesday, while extreme, cannot simply be treated as a single act. It’s part of a pattern of violence, often random in nature, playing out on trains, buses and transit stops.

We are grateful that overall crime at CTA locations is down slightly year over year, but the most serious violent offenses are rising — homicides are up 40% and shootings have increased by 33%, according to police data.

Beyond the Blue Line horror detailed above, crime on public transit continues to make headlines. A woman sitting on a bench at the UIC-Halsted Blue Line stop Nov. 10 was stabbed in the chest by a man wielding a large knife. In July, a 56-year-old man was beaten to death in the Loop at the Clark and Lake CTA stop. The list goes on. 

The mayor should have clearly and unequivocally said that he is committed to a whole-of-government approach to addressing the problem of crime on public transit, including increasing the number of police on and around trains. The public needs to be reassured that our elected officials are taking this seriously.

Chicago is not alone in this crisis. In August, 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was killed on a city train in Charlotte, North Carolina. In December 2024, a man set a sleeping woman on fire on the subway in New York City. She died from her injuries. 

We hope this most recent victim in Chicago survives. 

But we cannot continue on hope alone. This situation requires us to grapple with serious questions. Why did this happen? How could it have been prevented? 

Honesty and courage are required to prevent more attacks from happening. The state’s attorney’s office is taking transit crime seriously and has committed to seeking detention in cases of violent crimes on public transit. Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling, too, understands the importance of tackling transit crime. The U.S. attorney’s office is clearly focused on this issue; the man has been charged with the federal crime of “committing a terrorist attack against a mass transportation system.”  That might seem more applicable to those who set off bombs, but who could argue that the woman in this case was not terrorized? (Not to mention the other passengers on the trains). 

Whichever office is in charge of the prosecution, we need to identify the gaps that led to this horror and fix them. That means City Hall, state and federal prosecutors, police and mental health providers coming together to examine and explain where the system failed and how they intend to keep riders safe.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/lawrence-reed-cta-crime-arson-blue-line/ 

Little has to be said about the damage Operation Midway Blitz has done to Chicago society.

It has terrorized our communities, ripping apart families, badly damaging our businesses, depressing tax revenues and intentionally creating a climate of fear that has the potential to fundamentally pervert our civic life forever.

The Chicago City Council must act forcefully — it must act now — before too much is lost. What is being done by the federal government to us under the color of law and order has turned into an immoral farce.

This has been made worse by a feeling of hopelessness as our state and city governments are confounded by a lawless administration that does whatever it wants, whenever it wants, at whatever cost to the lives and livelihoods of this city.

This terrorization of our city by the Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino not only has had an impact our immigrant and Latino communities, but it’s also spilled over into every corner of our city, including our Black neighborhoods.  

But Chicago is not without power — and it is time we reclaim it.

I’m not talking about our moral authority — you just need to listen to Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Rev. Charlie Dates or any number of faith leaders who condemn the daily outrages on the streets here.

No, I am talking about the one thing this administration — and the forces that enable it — still listen to, and that is the power of the purse.

The Sun-Times recently detailed how the DHS, flush with unlimited resources thanks to the recent spending bill that made more money available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement than what the Marine Corps is budgeted, has signed contracts with locally based vendors. This includes $267,000 to West Loop-based Motorola to provide a radio network to DHS agents. Another Loop-based firm, SP Plus, formerly known as Standard Parking and which has city contracts at Midway and O’Hare airports, has been tapped by ICE for its operations in California.

With a gravy train of government contracts right now for this hastily planned “blitz” of Chicago, it stands to reason there are plenty of other vendors who do business with a city that is under direct attack by a federal government that needs to be brought to heel.

Chicago is under no obligation to do business with any company that helps the conduct of these out-of-control agencies. 

The Sun-Times article was a great start, but we need a full picture of just which city vendors are putting their own finances over the well-being of our city. I’m calling for a full-scale audit of all city contractors to see which ones are taking part in this operation. A generation ago, the City Council was a leader in boycotting businesses that propped up the South African apartheid government. We have the same opportunity to use our power of the purse again.

And this time, it’s not about achieving justice a continent away — it’s about saving ourselves.

We need to use alternative businesses to those that have chosen to facilitate the stripping of our residents of their dignity. It’s time do an audit to see the lay of the land and be prepared to use our financial power.

A fire fundamentally transformed our city a century and a half ago. Now ICE threatens to do the same. Let’s act before it’s too late.

Ald. William Hall represents Chicago’s 6th Ward and is chair of the City Council’s Subcommittee on Revenue. He also is senior pastor at St. James Community Church.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/opinion-chicago-contractors-business-ice/ 

Visualizing The Impact Of Terrorism Around The World

Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/21/2025 – 05:45

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/visualizing-impact-terrorism-around-world 

Associated Press

DUBÁI, Emiratos Árabes Unidos (AP) — Un avión se estrelló el viernes durante una exhibición en el Dubai Air Show.

El HAL Tejas indio se estrelló alrededor de las 14:10 de la tarde mientras realizaba un vuelo de demostración ante una multitud.

Por el momento no estaba claro si el piloto se eyectó del aparato.

Un humo negro se elevó sobre el Aeropuerto Internacional Al Maktoum en Dubai World Central mientras la multitud observaba. Las sirenas de los vehículos de emergencias sonaban tras el siniestro.

El segundo aeropuerto de la ciudad-estado alberga la feria bienal Dubai Air Show, durante la que se han anunciado importantes pedidos de aviones tanto por parte de la aerolínea de larga distancia Emirates como de su filial de bajo costo FlyDubai.

___

Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/21/un-avin-se-estrella-durante-una-exhibicin-en-el-dubai-air-show/