The new Jewel-Osco under construction in Woodlawn would be allowed to sell alcohol under a measure that cleared the License and Consumer Protection Committee Wednesday, clearing the way for the full City Council to act next week.

With petition challenges finally drawing to a close, early voting will start 11 days late, officials said. Meanwhile, a dozen challengers won the backing of a national progressive organization, and the ad wars in the mayoral campaign continued full speed ahead.

Chicago and Cook County’s watchdogs released their regular reports this week, with one finding an abuse of the city’s family and medical leave policy, and the other tallying up the cost to taxpayers for a Recorder of Deeds staff team building retreat in Wisconsin.  

Aldermen will weigh Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s call to expand the city’s transit-oriented development ordinance to include buildings planned near busy bus routes.

Aldermen moved Wednesday to undo one of the most controversial City Council votes in recent years by endorsing a plan to create a task force to determine whether to reopen the mental-health clinics closed in 2011 under Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first budget.

The unanimous vote of the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection — which is expected to be approved Jan. 23 by the full City Council — came over the objections of Chicago Department of Public Health Dr. Julie Morita, who accused the aldermen of playing politics.

Attendance: Chairman George Cardenas (12); Pat Dowell (3); Sophia King (4); Leslie Hairston (5); Willie Cochran (20); Scott Waguespack (32); Deb Mell (33); Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35); Emma Mitts (37); John Arena (45); James Cappleman (46); Harry Osterman (48)

Morita, who was not present because she is traveling out of state with her family, sent a letter to be read by Chief Medical Officer Allison Arwady to the committee that expressed her “disappointment” that the hearing was not rescheduled — and urged aldermen to rethink their effort.

“We must be careful not to politicize a taskforce,” Morita wrote. “We must not be handicapped by forcing ill-conceived, political-driven recommendation on the task force before members are even selected.”

Ald. George Cardenas (12) — who is facing four challengers, all of whom are still facing objections to their nominating petitions — said the effort was not designed to “harp on the past, but to look to the future.”

More than seven years after all 50 aldermen went along with Emanuel’s proposal to close six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics, triggering vehement protests and national attention, several aldermen have said they regret that vote — and have been working to reopen the clinics over the administration’s objections.

Ald. Sophia King — who authored the measure (R2018-1398) to create the Public Mental Health Clinic Service Expansion Task Force — said the closures of the mental health clinics had led to “increased 911 calls and jailings.”

“We all know what’s been happening,” said King, who was appointed by Emanuel to the City Council in 2016. “We need to take a hard look at the decisions that were made and decide how to move forward.”

Dr. Arturo Carrillo, the manager of the St. Anthony Hospital Community Wellness Program, told aldermen that his clinic’s wait lists had grown by 80 percent — and would not be reduced by the creation of a task force.

More than 250 privately-run clinics vetted by the federal government provide both primary health care and mental health care to Chicago residents as part of an  “ideal” model, Arwady said.

The clinics were on “a path to failure” when they were closed because of 90 percent cut in state funding, Arwady said, calling the clinic’s closures “the right decision.”

“We believe there are ways to strengthen Chicago’s mental health system,” Arwady said. “However, moving the clock back and re-opening stand-alone clinics are not the answer.”

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) — who became the measure’s 43rd co-sponsor Wednesday — bristled at Arwady’s remarks and Morita’s letter, calling their statements “very aggressive” and said the accusation that aldermen were motivated by politics was not appropriate.

The Collaborative for Community Wellness, led by Carrillo, found that only 59 percent of the agencies identified by city officials as offering mental health services responded to a request for information from the group.

Another 11 percent had a disconnected or not in service phone line, 8 percent were actually duplicate listings, 18 percent did not respond to two voicemail messages and another 4 percent had closed, according to the survey presented to aldermen.

“This shows major, major gaps in service,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “The data does not support your conclusions.”

King said she would urge Morita — or whoever represents the Chicago Department of Public Health — to keep an open mind on the question of whether the clinics need to be reopened.

The task force would include two aldermen from wards which contained one of the six mental health clinics closed in 2012, two representatives of the Chicago Department of Health, two representatives of American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31, and two representatives of the Chicago Community Mental Health Board.

The measure requires the Health Committee to hold a public hearing in 45 days — which would be just about the same time aldermen are up for re-election — to allow Chicagoans to weigh in on the need to reopen the clinics. The task force will have 180 days to report its findings to aldermen.

Mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle backed a push to raise the minimum wage in Chicago to $15 by 2021, winning applause from some of her union supporters. Amara Enyia will start the home stretch of the campaign flush with cash thanks to a massive donation from Chance The Rapper. Susana Mendoza rolled out a new Spanish-language ad, and a new union endorsement, while Ald. Matt O’Shea (19) backed lifelong friend Jerry Joyce in the mayor’s contest.

More than seven years after all 50 aldermen went along with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposal to close six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics, triggering vehement protests and national attention, aldermen will call for a new task force to consider reopening some of the clinics.

Gov. JB Pritzker’s first official acts in office Tuesday benefited the labor unions and progressive groups that helped get him elected, and a reversal of policy of his predecessor, former Gov. Bruce Rauner.

A lawsuit over the city’s home-sharing rules was given new life by an appellate court decision, while the Chicago Teachers Union laid out their demands for a new contract — and city officials celebrated a continuing decline in the number of babies born to teens.

Jake Campbell was one of a number of Chicagoans annoyed by text messages sent by Paul Vallas’ campaign for mayor promising to “win the war on crime” and offering a link to click for more information.

So Campbell — whose Twitter account is typically focused on all things soccer — turned to social media to vent and typed out a quick message.

“I don't know who Paul Vallas is but he can get f----- in any and all elections for bringing this bull--- to my texts,” he posted on Jan. 2.



But Campbell did more than just vent about the unwanted message.

He and another Chicagoan, Jeff Klueh, filed a class action lawsuit Monday against the Paul Vallas For All Chicago mayoral campaign, alleging the texts violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The suit asks the campaign to pay each person messaged by the campaign up to “$1,500 per call.”

Vallas called the lawsuit a politically motivated “dirty trick.”

“Clearly, the strength of my candidacy is a threat to the political machine and their pay to play candidates,” Vallas said in a statement. “Our communications platform has been thoroughly vetted legally and is legal under [Federal Communications Commissions] guidelines. Everyone has the option of opting out if they so choose. Our vendors follow all rules and regulations.  The nation's preeminent telecommunications law firm will be responding accordingly and I have no concerns."

Attorney James Vlahakis, who filed the complaint, said the case is not political.

“The goal is not to stop the Vallas campaign from issuing text messages,” Vlahakis told The Daily Line in an email. “Rather, the goal is to cause the Vallas campaign to comply with a well-known federal statute which requires that a sender have the consent of the recipient of a text message before sending an auto-generated message.”

Vlahakis declined to allow The Daily Line to interview Campbell and Klueh.

Texting campaigns to cell phones are perfectly legal, even without the voter’s prior consent, so long as the messages aren’t being sent through what’s known as an “autodialer,” according to FCC rules.

FCC rules also allow campaigns to make autodialed or prerecorded voice calls to landlines, even without the recipient’s permission.

However, autodialed live calls and prerecorded voice messages are not allowed to be made to cell phones, pagers or other mobile devices without the recipient’s express consent.

“All campaigns should follow the law,” Vlahakis said. “So if this lawsuit has the effect of raising awareness of the law, it will have a positive impact as it may result in a decrease in unsolicited auto-generated text messages.”

The Vallas campaign began texting Chicago voters back in August with cryptic messages that campaign observers told The Daily Line walked a fine line between polling and advertising.

Related: Mayoral hopeful Vallas hired firm behind mystery texts, but says poll was conducted by ‘independent firm’

Vallas is certainly not the first local candidate to use text messages to campaign. In recent months, Toni Preckwinkle, Kwame Raoul and JB Pritzker have all let their fingers do the campaigning in hopes of reaching voter groups that might not be reached by typical television ads or mail programs.

There are a number of ways campaigns can access cell phone numbers — services like Hustle claim to allow teams to text more than 1,000 people per hour. Those contacts see a normal SMS from a local number with customized messages. Hustle say it “is built for organizations to text contacts that they have a pre-existing relationship with, in a compliant way.”

Organizations can text anyone who previously provided their contact information, including past donors or those who provided a phone number in a petition. Hustle boasts that the “Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 45 State Democratic Parties, 1,300+ campaigns and dozens of advocacy organizations… rallied more than 50,000 volunteers to exchange 200 million messages back-and-forth with over 47 million voters” in the 2018 midterms.

Among the messages Vallas’ campaign sent in December and January, two link to issues pages with short videos and bullet points on his proposals:

• FREE MSG. Candidate for Mayor, Paul Vallas,solves problems & gets results. Read his plan to make Chicago safe, affordable, & prosperous for all: http://v-9c.com/v4


• FREE MSG: Crime is getting worse in EVERY neighborhood. Read top mayoral candidate Paul Vallas’ plan to reduce crime & protect your rights: http://v-9c.com/v5


• FREE MSG: Paul Vallas will win the War Against Crime by bringing investment, jobs, & opportunities to ALL of Chicago. Learn more: http://v-9c.com/v8

Like other texts Vallas has sent, the websites are registered to a company called Link2Tek, a data company that offers candidate organization, data analytics, voter modeling and voter communication, including texts and voice calls.

“Link2Tek enables your campaign to utilize a uniquely interactive and multi-channeled platform to perform political and policy research, polling and candidate campaigning,” its website says. “Vital information is specifically targeted, gathered, processed, and then disseminated through an easily organized set of data and communication activities. This allows you to generate specific outcomes with a large number of individuals AND within a specified period of time.”

Link2Tek’s sales pitch offers candidates the ability to merge voter files “with consumer information to provide for in-depth understanding of voters at a granular level” and finding voter “hot buttons” to ensure that candidates are aligned with them.

Vallas paid the company $200,000 for its services on July 20, according to the Vallas campaign's third-quarter report, and another $100,000 on Oct. 29, according to the campaign's fourth-quarter report filed late Tuesday with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Jay Young, the interim director of Common Cause Illinois, said such text campaigns are not anti-Democratic, but an indication ”of the money that’s flooded in our system” and the declining impact of other forms of advertising and the deluge of political news.

“People feel like they needed to find a way to cut through the constant din of political speech,” Young said. “It tends to push people further away from their political process as opposed to bringing them closer. I do not know a single person who is excited to see yet another political ad. I get them every time I’m on YouTube. Google well knows my preferences.”

Illinois Reform Executive Director Mary Miro said it can be challenging for outsiders to determine how Vallas’ team got its information.

“There are a number of ways to sneak in permissions language into apps, ads, and other downloaded items,” Miro said.

Clerk Karen Yarbrough detailed Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s overwhelming win in suburban Cook County — fueled by a huge turnout and more millennial and early voters than in 2014. The Chicago Teachers Union will kick off their effort Monday to negotiate a new contract for their 25,000 members by hand-delivering their demands to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The holiday break will end in earnest, as the first committee meeting of 2019 calls aldermen back to City Hall.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) failed to pay the rent on his Logan Square office, and then abruptly moved his ward operations to a new location, according to Mark Fishman, Ramirez-Rosa’s landlord and one of the most well-known property investors in the gentrifying neighborhood.

Mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle backed reforms proposed by Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability, which would create a district council with 66 elected representative — three for each of the city’s 22 police districts — and a seven-member Community Police Commission. Rival Garry McCarthy also had oversight on his mind, as he became the latest mayoral candidate to propose ethics reforms.

The latest round of applications are open in one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s signature programs to fuel development on the South and West sides, while the mayor makes his pitch for ethics reforms in the wake of the criminal charge facing Ald. Ed Burke (14), while another politician rid himself of Burke’s cash.

Mayoral candidate Garry McCarthy became the latest candidate to hit the airwaves, with his first ads touting his commitment to public safety, while a 13th candidate officially joined the ballot. State Rep. Theresa Mah, the first Asian American elected to the Illinois General Assembly, backed Hilario Dominguez in the race to replace retiring Ald. Danny Solis (25), and Bill Daley extended his cash advantage over his rivals, reporting $430,000 in contributions.