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Dog, owner reunited after three years When Debra Mejeur lost her dog, Lola, in October 2017, she never thought she would see her furry friend again. But thanks to a microchip, DuPage County Animal Services reunited Debra and her husband Steven Mejeur with Lola on Saturday.

Lola, black Labrador mix, wandered away from a home in Elk Grove Village where her owners were visiting friends in 2017. Mejeur, a Kalamazoo, Mich., resident, searched the area for a month before giving up hope of finding the dog again.

Earlier this week, a Glendale Heights resident found the dog and was able to bring her in to DuPage An-

imal Services. That’s when staff found the microchip and were able to determine Mejeur was the owner.

“I just lost it,” Debra Mejeur said, referring to the phone call she received from Animal Services. “I started crying.”

Animal Services Committee Chairman Brian Krajewski said this story underscores the importance of microchipping pets.

“It’s extremely important to microchip your animal. If someone comes across a stray and brings them to us, we can scan them and reunite them with the family. If you don’t microchip, it’s a lot more difficult,” Krajewski said.

DCHD planning for vaccine distribution In anticipation of COVID-19 vaccine availability, the DuPage County Health Department (DCHD) is preparing to receive and distribute vaccines later this month. This work includes developing plans to ensure equitable and timely distribution, assessing logistical capabilities, and communicating vaccine safety and effectiveness to diverse populations in multiple sectors.

Additionally, DCHD officials are working with partners at all levels, including hospitals, health care providers, and community leaders, on flexible COVID-19 vaccination programs that can accommodate different vaccines and scenarios.

In accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) and their Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations, DCHD will follow a multi-phased approach. The following priority groups have been recommended for vaccination at this time.

These are subject to change.

Phase 1a: Health care personnel and long-term care residents will be prioritized for initial vaccine allocation.

Phase 1b: Essential workers (e.g., Education Sector, Food & Agriculture, Utilities, Police, Firefighters, Corrections Officers, Transportation).

Phase 1c: Adults with high-risk medical conditions and adults 65 years and older.

Additional information on the

implementation and local availability of a COVID-19 vaccine will be shared as it becomes available.

“This vaccine provides us a significant tool in battling this pandemic, however, it will be several months until there is significant supply to get most adults immunized. So, it is important to maintain other public health prevention measures which we know will help us stop the spread of this virus and protect our communities,” said Karen Ayala, Executive Director of DuPage County Health Department. “Our plans for vaccine distribution to these critical workers and residents is the next step toward getting back to normal. I encourage everyone to be patient and continue to follow the actions

we know work to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in our communities.”

As plans for vaccination continue to develop everyone is reminded to continue following public health guidelines to slow the spread of COVID-19: • Wash your hands often; • Wear a mask whenever outside your home or with anyone not from your household; • Watch your distance, staying at least 6 feet from people outside of your immediate household and avoid in-person gatherings; and • Stay home if you are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or if you have been in close contact with a person infected with COVID-19, and contact your healthcare

provider for appropriate evaluation, testing, and care.

For people seeking COVID-19 testing in DuPage, there are two drive-thru community-based testing sites (CBTS) available: DuPage County Complex Drive-Thru Test Site • 421 N County Farm Rd, Wheaton, IL • Monday – Friday, 7 a.m. to noon, or until tests are available.

Odeum Expo Center DriveThru Test Site • 1033 N. Villa Avenue, Villa Park, IL • Sunday – Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., or until tests are available.

For additional testing locations, please visit www.dupagehealth. org/covid19testing.

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santa send-off set; new business coming to town Join the City of Joliet and Mayor Bob O’Dekirk on Saturday, December 19, 2020 for the city-wide Santa SendOff. Members of the Joliet Police and Fire departments will escort Santa through Joliet to say good-bye to all of our residents before heading back to the North Pole to prepare for his journey on Christmas Eve. Everyone is welcome to meet the small parade of City vehicles at a convenient location of their choosing along the parade route. The route will work its way through Joliet from east to west beginning at 10 a.m. un-

til completion. The route and additional details can be found at www. joliet.gov/santa. The event can also be found on the City of Joliet Facebook page (facebook.com/TheCityofJoliet).

Location updates on the day of will be provided via Facebook and Twitter (@ TheCityofJoliet) as well.

Anyone who chooses to come out to see Santa should practice social distancing and wear a mask. Candy will NOT be distributed at any point during the parade. Residents should remain on the sidewalk at a safe distance from the street.

TONY’S FRESH MARKET PURCHASES KMART PROPERTY The City of Joliet is happy to announce a new development coming to Joliet. Tony’s Fresh Market has a contract to purchase the property at 1801 West Jefferson Street, commonly known as the former Kmart building. The property totals 9.5 acres. The existing building is approximately 100,000 square feet. The building is over 55 years old and has been vacant since Kmart closed its doors in 2016.

Tony’s Fresh Market plans to re-

develop the existing structure into a multi-tenant building. The full-service grocery store will occupy approximately 70,000 square feet and will be complete with hot bars, salad bars, sushi, deli, bakery, an extensive meat department, fish counter, massive produce section, and all other typical grocery store staples. Tony’s will employ 100 full-time employees and 150 part-time employees. The remainder of the building will be occupied by a junior anchor and other small retailers to be determined later.

“This is a great development for the Joliet community. Tony’s operates a clean operation with an excellent selection of products for its customers.”

O’Dekirk said. “The business will also increase the City’s tax base at a prominent property that has shown no signs of life in 5 years. We are very excited about the Tony’s opening up here in Joliet and the development that will follow.” y’s Fresh Market plans to begin working on architectural drawings and engineering immediately and hopes to open in 2021.

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goP gains 1 seat in House; Dems gain 1 in senate

BY PETER HAnCoCK Capital news illinois

Republicans made a net gain of one seat in the Illinois House while losing one in the state Senate, according to certified official results from the Nov. 3 general election.

Friday was the deadline for the Illinois State Board of Elections to complete its statewide canvass of the election. Just under 6.1 million ballots were cast in the election for a turnout rate of 72.92 percent, which was about average for recent presidential elections.

In state House races, GOP candidates won four seats that had previously been held by Democrats, but also lost three seats to Democratic challengers.

The seats they gained included the 45th District, where Seth Lewis defeated Rep. Diane Pappas, 5347 percent; the 51st District, where Chris Bos edged out Rep. Mary Edly-Allen, 51-49 percent; the 111th District, where Amy Elik defeated Rep. Monica Bristow, 54-46 percent; and the 116th District, where David Friess defeated Rep. Nathan Reitz, 65-35 percent.

They lost seats in the suburbs, where Democrat Dave Vella unseated Rep. John Cabello in the 68th district by 239 votes; Janet Yang Rohr unseated Rep. Grant Wehrli in the 41st district by a vote of 52-48 percent; and Suzanne Ness unseated Allen Skillicorn in the 66th district, also by a vote of 52-48 percent.

In the Senate, Democrat Karina Villa edged out Republican Jeanette ward, 51-49 percent, in a race to fill a seat vacated by Republican Sen. Jim Oberweis, who stepped down this year to run for Congress.

Oberweis narrowly lost that congressional race, 51-49 percent, to incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, although Oberweis has said he will ask for what’s known as a “discovery” recount.

“The votes in this race have been counted and Mr. Oberweis lost,” Un-

PHOTO CREDIT DONHARMON.ORG

sen. Don Harmon (D-oakPark) has been reelected to a full term as President of the illinois state senate. He was elected in January to fill out a vacated term. derwood’s campaign spokeswoman said in a statement Friday. “As he has acknowledged, a discovery recount cannot change the outcome of this election. Congresswoman Underwood is in Washington focused on the job she has been elected to do.”

The results mean Democrats will still control the House with a 73-45 majority, which is still above the three-fifths supermajority needed to override a veto or pass a constitutional amendment. They will control the Senate by a 41-19 margin, which is also a supermajority.

Late Thursday, Democrats announced that Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, had been reelected to a full term as president of the Senate.

Harmon was first elected to that job

in January to fill out the remainder of the two-year leadership term that was vacated when former President John Cullerton retired at the end of the 2019 session.

“I am honored and humbled to have the support of my colleagues to serve as president of the Illinois Senate,” Harmon said in a statement.

“We have a fantastically talented collection of Senate Democrats who are ready to make their mark, solve problems and lead Illinois through an upcoming year that will be filled with both challenges and accomplishments.”

Other Senate leadership posts will be chosen after the new General Assembly is sworn into office in January.

On the House side, however, the contest for speaker could become a hotly-contested battle. Current Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has been embroiled in scandal since being implicated in July in a bribery scheme involving utility giant Commonwealth Edison.

Although he has not been charged with a crime and has denied wrongdoing, at least 19 Democrats in the House have publicly stated they will not vote to reelect him as speaker, meaning he does not currently have the 60 votes needed to win the election. Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, DOswego, is the only other person to announce that she will seek the position.

Both Madigan and Kifowit were

expected to speak at a virtual meeting of the House Black Caucus on Saturday, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. That caucus is considered critical to anyone’s chances of winning the speaker’s race.

Meanwhile in the presidential race for Illinois, Democrats Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris defeated President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence by just over 1 million votes, 56-41 percent, according to the final tally, giving Biden and Harris Illinois’ 20 electoral votes.

The state’s electors are scheduled to meet in Springfield at 10 a.m.

Monday, Dec. 14, to formally cast their ballots.

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goP House members urge special session to handle jobless claim delays, fraud BY sARAH MAnsuR Capital news illinois

Three Republican lawmakers on Friday put pressure on Illinois Department of Employment Security officials to answer for the backlog in unemployment claims and the rising number of fraudulent unemployment claims filed, which has reached nearly 297,000 since March.

During a Zoom news conference, state Reps. Tom Bennett, R-Gibson City, Terri Bryant, RMurphysboro, and Mike Murphy, R-Springfield, urged Gov. JB Pritzker to call a special legislative session and allow for hearings to address the agency’s delays in processing unemployment claims, as well as the 296,914 fraud claims that had been filed as of Nov. 19, according to IDES. “You (Gov. Pritzker) should lead at this point and call us into special session to address many of these issues,” Bryant said. “I’ve said before, and I’ll repeat it again: Congress is meeting; other state legislators are meeting. We met safely in May with nobody contracting COVID-19, so we know it’s possible.”

Murphy said his office continues to hear constituent complaints about delays in receiving unemployment benefits, and about fraudulent claims being made on their behalf.

“As a matter of fact, during this press conference, I just got a text message from a constituent who said that they haven’t got a call back in over 30 days,” Murphy said. “But the majority of my complaints, recently, have been in regards to fraud.”

Bennett said the lawmakers

must begin with finding the facts and answers to outstanding questions.

“The problem is we’re not getting the answers on why there are so many failures going on. We need to be able to figure out why the administration and IDES can’t handle the job requirements. We know that COVID-19 has changed everything in so many ways, but we got to be able to respond,” Bennett said.

When asked about the dollar amount associated with fraudulent employment claims in Illinois, Bryant said they don’t have enough information to determine how much the state has paid out in fraud claims.

“We don’t have an answer on the dollar amount because we’re not sure yet on what is actual fraud, and what’s being called fraud,” Bryant said. “How do we know what is fraudulent and what is real, until we’re able to have some hearings on this and get some answers?”

Last month, IDES acting Director Kristin Richards spoke during Pritzker’s daily briefing to share how the agency has lessened the long delays that unemployment claimants have faced, by increasing IDES staff and implementing a “callback only” system, in which calls are returned in the order they are received.

Richards said the agency handled more claims in the first three weeks of the pandemic than it had during all of 2019.

In order to meet this enormous demand, IDES increased its call center staffing by about 600 percent, Richards said on Nov. 23. She said the agency also redeployed about 100 staffers to deal with

MiKE MuRPHY, R-sPRingFiElD

claims maintenance and adjudication, and brought back dozens of retired workers.

As a result of these changes, Richards said many claimants are now receiving callbacks “within one to two weeks or less.”

In an email, an IDES spokesperson said the agency has paid out nearly $19 billion in benefits since March, which is more than 16 times the amount of benefits paid over the equivalent period in 2019.

“As IDES has been saying for months, we are working hard to respond to an economic crisis and stand up five new, complex federal programs while battling fraudsters who have used stolen identities

to file for benefits nationwide,” wrote IDES Information Strategy Director and Public Information Officer Rebecca Cisco.

IDES reported last month that the state’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.8 percent in October, down from 10.4 percent in September. Meanwhile, the total number of nonfarm jobs in the state fell by about 1,100, to roughly 5.7 million.

The state agency reported more than 74,000 newly filed regular unemployment claims for the week ending Nov. 28, which is a 13 percent increase from the prior week.

Those state unemployment claims are in addition to those filed under the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which provides an additional 13 weeks of benefits for those who have exhausted their regular jobless benefits, and the

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides benefits to gig workers, independent contractors and other selfemployed individuals who don’t normally qualify for traditional unemployment insurance.

According to U.S. Department of Labor data, 228,583 Illinoisans filed new claims for extended benefits under the PEUC for the week ending Nov. 14, which is roughly 10,000 more than the week before.

During the same period, nearly 144,000 self-employed workers were receiving continuing benefits under the PUA. Both the PEUC and the PUA programs are funded entirely by the federal government, and were created under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES Act, which Congress passed in March. Funding for those programs is set to expire Dec. 26.

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state Police significantly reduce DnA backlog

BY RAMon TRonCso Capital news illinois

Representatives of the Illinois State Police say the backlog of forensic evidence in Illinois has been reduced significantly, but the support of lawmakers is needed to further address delays and deficiencies in the process.

Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly made those comments to the Illinois Senate Public Health Committee during a Thursday hearing on the DNA backlog and evidence processing.

According to Kelly, since 2019, ISP’s Division of Forensic Services has reduced the number of “biology DNA pending assignments,” referred to as the DNA backlog, by 48 percent. In March of 2019, the backlog had 9,829 pending assignments, which has fallen to 4,857 pending assignments as of November 2020.

In a January hearing before the same committee, the ISP director told legislators that the average time for processing DNA evidence was 215 days—roughly seven months— and that the number of DNA biology assignments that were older than a year was over 1,300. As of November, Kelly said the average time for processing DNA evidence has dropped to 110 days and the number of cases older than a year has fallen to 196.

The improvement in the rate of processing the backlog was done with a reduced staff as well, he said.

Many forensic scientists from ISP were temporarily reassigned to the Illinois Department of Public Health for over four months to assist the state’s COVID-19 testing system.

State Sen. Patricia Van Pelt, DChicago, who chairs the Public Health Committee, apologized that the Chicago Police Department and other local law-enforcement agencies were not present at the hearing in response to repeated criticism of the department from community witnesses. Van Pelt said future hearings would involve more stakeholders including municipal police departments.

Witnesses from Youth Opposed to Violence Everywhere, the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Missing and Murdered Black Women and Girls and members of the clergy throughout Illinois testified about the community’s frustration with the number of unsolved murders and sexual crimes in Chicago and throughout the state.

“I have personally given up on Chicago Police Department in solv-

ing crimes when it comes to Black men or women. I’ve given up,” Rev. Robin Hood, representing Mothers Against Violence Everywhere, said in his testimony.

Many witnesses expressed praise for the reduction in the backlog but asked for more to be done on behalf of victims at the local level, such as more transparency regarding the status of DNA evidence in their cases and compassionate communication between law enforcement and the families of victims. Organizers during the hearing also stressed that any commission or legislation being considered to address the DNA backlog should have community representation.

“I want to thank the efforts that was put forth, the great work that’s been done and how forensics have improved,” Hood said. “When you talk about legislation, we need to be part of that conversation. We need to make sure that we part of that conversation so we can have some say-so in it.”

Kelly requested that both houses of the General Assembly pass legislation to create a permanent, full-time commission on forensic science. He said the commission should be made up of the stakeholders on all sides of forensic science, and should be based on SPAC, the Sentencing Policy Advisory Council, which analyzes the consequences of sentencing laws and policies and delivers reports and recommendations based on their findings to the General Assembly, the Illinois Supreme Court and the governor’s office.

The commission could discover new deficiencies in the process and devise ways to solve them. One example given was the removal of 1,200 pending tests in the backlog when it was discovered they were for cases that had already been closed.

“If we see a 48 percent reduction in the DNA backlog, well, where’s the 48 percent increase in arrests.

Where’s the 48 percent increase in charges, where’s the 48 percent increase in convictions, where’s the 48 percent increase in closure of cases so that victims and their families can get some type of closure,” Kelly said. “That’s really going to be the continuing challenge as we reduce this metric of figuring out what are the obstacles, what are the biases, what are the barriers that are preventing a greater degree of justice and better outcomes throughout the entire system.”

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