The Rock Chicago

@wttw Until CPS is willing to address the wasteful use of resources on nearly empty school buildings it’s hard to take them seriously. Take Douglas for example. Building capacity 900 30 students enrolled 30 staff members Cost per student $95,000

District officials on Wednesday outlined their $9.88 billion budget proposal for the 2027 fiscal year, as they combat “serious financial challenges” including declining enrollment and revenue and greater student need. to.wttw.com/44wMSt2

@ChicagoBreaking @JeremyGorner Rick Pearson @rap30 can’t defend how the press handled this fiasco so he does what Democrats always do. He BLOCKS his critics

Illinois House Speaker Welch’s office knew of harassment claims against disgraced state Rep. Benton years ago chicagotribune.com/2026/07/17/sta…

@rap30 @ad_quig And if Welch knew you can bet the media knew too. Of course he was a Democrat so therefore what ever he did was kept quiet.

Our story: Illinois House Speaker Welch's office knew of harassment claims against disgraced state Rep. Benton years ago chicagotribune.com/2026/07/17/sta…

Governor Pritzker, Fight For Us. dlvr.it/TTX7Y0

@wttw Yet gangbangers and drug dealers have no worries. Why doesn’t she remind the people to call 911 if she wants to keep her community safe.

Reports of immigration-related arrests around the country surged at the end of June. While the recent shows of force in Chicago might not compare to what residents saw during “Operation Midway Blitz,” immigrant rights advocates are seeing the impact. to.wttw.com/3T8H9Hc

I know we Democrats are having a conversation right now about how much we should talk about Donald Trump. But we must fully and honestly confront what he is doing to this country right now.

@TaylorZorro @Austin__Berg Typical CTU lackey. Wants the job and the perks that go with it but doesn’t want to do any work. Whines like a little bitch when he is challenged about not being prepared for Board matters. Surprised they don’t change bylaws to keep him around.

@Austin__Berg Sounds like a P___ y🤷🏿‍♀️

NEW: Incumbent Chicago school board member Angel Velez announced this week he did not secure enough signatures to appear on the November ballot for Chicago school board elections. Velez was appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson and backed by the Chicago Teachers Union. His challenger, Britany Bailey Preston, will run unopposed for District 9a (Englewood, Auburn Gresham).

Governor Pritzker, Fight For Us. dlvr.it/TTPFTq

@SenatorDurbin CNN is reporting that you are still supporting Graham Platner. Anymore Nazi rapist you’d like to have sit with the Democrats in DC? I’m glad you still believe all women.

I’m with a bipartisan congressional delegation in Ankara, Türkiye, to attend the 2026 NATO Summit. As Putin continues to wage his war of aggression against Ukraine and menace our Baltic allies, we must remain unified in our fight for democracy.

@BenBradleyTV What you’re saying without saying it is that he is a Biden Democrat who refused to get on board with Patel’s policies. Didn’t seem to have a problem when the FBI targeted Catholics, school parents or Republicans.

Chicago FBI boss abruptly retires, tells colleagues:“I’ve never backed down from a fight as long as it meant our personnel could continue serving the FBI’s mission.. unfortunately, that has proved unpopular over time & my departure is a consequence of that"wgntv.com/politics-3/ap-…

@Giannoulias Why don’t USPS vehicles have plates? You don’t do anything about them. Check every Post Office parking lot. There are 100’s of trucks used on a daily basis. Not a license plate to be found.

ICE agents aren’t above Illinois law. Visible license plates aren’t optional. They protect our communities & keep our roads safe. If you see a vehicle with a missing, altered or obscured license plate, report it to the Secretary of State’s Plate Hotline: 🤳 312-814-1730

@TheEXECUTlONER_ Many of these umps actually don’t know the rules. Was at a 11U game and batters were running on dropped 3rd strike. No one had a clue when rule applied. 1st base occupied not occupied, 2 outs, no outs, runner stealing, etc…. When asked they just shrugged.

This umpire called a balk on the pitcher. He said the pitcher did not come to a complete stop or pause. I see a pause, I did not think it was a balk. Half the people say balk, the other half say no balk. What’s your call? Did he come to a complete stop/set or was it a balk?

@GolfTourChicago Because it’s “private” and I’m sure the members like it that way.

I had an epiphany pulling into Midlo the other day - “I don’t think I’ve ever played here, let alone have ever seen this course before” If you live in the south suburbs you’ve prob driven by it thousands of times & never knew a course was there. Unlike RCC that’s off a busy street, Midlo is tucked away in the middle of a neighborhood. IMO the course is very underrated and a style that suits my eye. Great green complexes and bunkering. Big fan of the fairway bunker runoffs with no lip. A good mixture of holes and a top tier clubhouse. Why isn’t Midlo talked about enough?

@Giannoulias If my family had a bank and was able to beat the public out of a cool $150M I’d be a pretty satisfied dude too. Not saying that any elected official did, but just maybe.

Tommy - I totally agree. Electeds should love their jobs and the work they do. People can always tell.

@CortesSteve Another parish on the south side is being left to the same fate. Bad management has left Queen of Martyrs school now closed with the church barely hanging on. Intentional? Lot of people think so.

Does the Pope care? I’m at his home parish in Dolton, Illinois…now closed. Broken windows, broken dreams. A once-pleasant middle-class suburb ruined by terrible policies — making a documentary for Cortes Investigates…

@HemishaV TV Remote

@GeneRoyChicago Never thought anyone was taking $. There sure are plenty of high end country clubs, sky boxes, out of town investment conferences, etc that Trustees have access to. Money Managers manage Trustees more than they manage their money.

Now that's a solid question. Let me break it down for you. Generalizing, investment firms have at least two separate functions. To answer your question, the ones that matter are the Sales function, and the actual Money Management functions. The Money Management people do just that, they keep track of the investments and decide when to buy and sell individual stocks and move investments to keep generating the best possible returns. The role of the Sales People is to sell their firm's investment products to Pension Funds and other institutions that need to manage and invest large amounts of money. Sales People develop, build and maintain relationships with the Directors and Trustees of those institutions that are looking to invest large sums of money to generate maximum returns. They develop and build relationships with the Trustees and Administrators who have the authority to make investments with their firms. It's 2026 - I don't think anyone is dumb enough or reckless enough to take a cash gratuity from a salesperson. But "incentives" are a different story. Sales people introduce themselves to the new Trustees and Pension officials over lunch at an upper-crust restaurant. There may be a cash contribution to a trustee's favorite charity, buying tickets to a fundraiser held by a trustee's favorite politician, or something similar. And there maybe invitations to a "meet and greet" in a skybox at a sports venue. And there are numerous "educational seminars" for Trustees and Administrators held at swank resorts. Yes, there are seminars, but afterwards there are "social hours," lunches and dinners, and maybe a round of golf on a PGA level course. Keep in mind that there are literally billions of dollars at play.

Those of you who follow me on this and other social media platforms know that one of my largest concerns is the financial health of the Chicago Police (CPD) and Chicago Firefighters (CFD) Pension Funds. The CPD Fund is funded at a critically low level of 22% while the CFD Fund is in even worse shape at a critically low level of 18%. Yet those of us who point out the critically low funding levels of the two funds are painted as the villains in this ongoing tragedy, rather than those who continue to wring their hands and stick their heads in the sand regarding the critically low funding levels, claiming that Springfield is mandated to save the two pensions and will do so. We all know the fallacy of that claim. I recently came across a recent article by @EdwardSiedle a nationally recognized expert in the field of the mismanagement of Public Pension Funds. It's a lengthy article, but I've condensed it into a number of bullet points, found below. It's well past time the CPD and CFD retirees and annuitants to wake up and start asking the critical questions. · Our nation's public pension boards cannot make informed investment decisions because board members are simply not informed. · Members of the board of trustees overseeing the $600 billion-plus in assets under management at the nation’s largest public pension, CalPERS, are not required to have any professional investment expertise whatsoever, and most do not have investment backgrounds. · The majority are elected from within public-sector employee groups and have backgrounds in labor, education, or public administration. Over the decades, a few board members have had investment or financial industry experience, but they are the rare exception. · Since CalPERS board members are not required to have, and generally lack, knowledge of investments, it follows that far-reaching investment decisions involving hundreds of billions in pension assets are made without the benefit of such knowledge or, at best, with heavy board reliance upon recommendations by pension staff and external Wall Street advisers—recommendations subject to a myriad of potential conflicts of interest which the lay board is utterly incapable of evaluating. · In short, CalPERS’s board does not, and indeed cannot, make informed investment decisions because its members are simply…not informed. The pension’s record amply reveals that the board has long failed to provide meaningful oversight and perform its proper governance function. · We also note that serving on the board of the massive pension is a part-time position, which pays no compensation whatsoever—ensuring that the most qualified candidates will not seek the demanding position. · Canada selects directors to oversee its public pension funds for their financial expertise and pays some six-figure salaries. In the Netherlands, board members must obtain approval from the central bank, while In the US, a lineup of unpaid union-backed reps, retirees and political appointees are the vanguards of a $4 trillion slice of the economy that looks after the nation’s retired public servants. They’re proving to be no match for a system that’s exploded in size and complexity. · The disparity is dragging on state and local finances and—together with headwinds that include a growing ratio of retirees to workers and lenient accounting standards—gobbling up an increasing share of government budgets. Precisely how much it’s costing Americans is hard to say. · In the 10 years through 2015, a group of large Canadian funds delivered excess returns that beat a passive portfolio designed to match their liabilities by 2.2% a year. That return was 0.7% more than US counterparts earned for taking greater risk above a similar index—equivalent to $280 billion in missed opportunities over a decade. · Bloomberg further noted that as inflation and interest rates have jumped, America’s public pensions have turned to riskier alternative investments to boost returns. Where boards’ own expertise has fallen short, they’ve relied on investment staff and outside advisers, “whose appetites for complexity add to costs and eat into returns.” · There’s no such test for the trustees who oversee public pension funds. More than half of US directors are still drawn from rank-and-file employees, more than a quarter from the public and the remainder from government officials, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. While some directors have strong financial credentials, others are novices. “Part-time, lay trustees are simply no match for the agents and complexity they are expected to supervise,” said Richard Ennis, co-founder of consultancy EnnisKnupp. Please note: THIS IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT FOR MEMBERS OF THE CPD PENSION SINCE ENNIS WAS FORMERLY THE INVESTMENT "WATCHDOG" FOR THE FUND UNTIL THEIR CONTRACT WAS NOT RENEWED. · In conclusion, critics—including pension reform advocates, former board members, and some academics—have long argued that CalPERS board elections are politicized, often dominated by union politics rather than qualifications and that the board lacks expertise to properly evaluate increasingly complex investment risks and hold staff accountable. This lack of expertise opens the door to excessive reliance on external consultants and vulnerability to poor performance or ethical lapses. · As a result of lack of comprehensive regulatory oversight, lack of board investment expertise and political interference, America’s public pensions are often referred to by prominent financial journalists and academics as the “dumbest investors in the room”—easily exploited by more sophisticated Wall Street players. · Question: Who pays the easily-avoidable price tag—hundreds of billion over the past decade— for the lack of investment knowledge of the boards overseeing $6.5 trillion in America’s state retirement assets? Answer: Pension stakeholders, including participants and taxpayers like you and me. #ChicagoPolicePension #ChicagoFirefightersPension

@BlockClubCHI What not too long ago was a viable parish and school no longer exists. The Archdiocese sabotaged the parish and the people. By closing the school, all memories of Q of M will be gone. The parish is now St. Gianna.

Queen of Martyrs Elementary School closing due to declining enrollment, archdiocese says. blockclubchi.co/3Q0FMcI

@HeatherCherone Yeah, who does Reilly think he is? Lot of nerve thinking that conforming with Federal Law is acceptable. That makes him immediately unqualified to Democrats for further consideration.

Ald. Brendan Reilly voted to scale back Chicago's protections for undocumented immigrants 5 days before Trump took office; that makes him the wrong choice to lead Cook County, Toni Preckwinkle says. Reilly says that measure was designed “to get violent criminals off the streets."