News Coverage: University of Illinois at Chicago

Kenneth E. Pannaralla — once a top precinct captain for Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan — has made a good living in government. Pannaralla, 63, gets a pension from the city of Chicago in addition to the three paychecks from his three current government jobs, including one as the executive director of the Southwest Home Equity Assurance Program, a government agency created under a law Madigan co-sponsored. 

In a damning new report, experts from the University of Illinois at Chicago paint a grim portrait of conditions at a Chicago psychiatric hospital, describing an environment of chaos, physical attacks and sexual assaults that regularly puts its young patients in harm's way.

Forrest Claypool, the county commissioner who left the Democratic party to run as independent candidate for Cook County assessor, says he'll file petitions today signed by more than 90,000 voters in his bid to get on the ballot in November.

Claypool is running against Democrat Joseph Berrios, a board of review commissioner and chairman of the party, Republican Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall, a former Evanston assessor, and the Green Party's Robert Grota.

Claypool announced his candidacy in early April, angering Democrats by leaving the party and running without having participated in the primary. He needed to garner 25,000 signatures to get on the ballot, and expects a tough challenge from election lawyers retained by the Berrios campaign. Read more...

Republican nominee for County Board President Roger Keats today announced he would embrace a number of reform proposals supported by anti-corruption watchdogs, and said he hopes lawmakers in Cook County and Springfield will put such reforms into law.

Keats says he has support from some county commissioners and state lawmakers to make some of the reforms outlined in a February report from the University of Illinois at Chicago law.

“What we’re trying to remind people is that as corrupt as this place is, there are some of us who are trying to do something about it,” said Keats, who is running against Democrat Toni Preckwinkle and Green Party nominee Tom Tresser. Read more...

Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool already faces an uphill battle in gathering 25,000 petition signatures to get him on the ballot in his independent run for assessor.

A caveat in state election law might present another challenge for the erstwhile Democrat.

The law states that no one who has sought petition signatures for a campaign can gather signatures for another candidate in the same election cycle. That could pose a problem for Claypool, as he ramps us bid for assessor. Read more...