Vol. VII No. 38 Westchester mayoral candidate emerges, PAGE 4
SEPTEMBER 21, 2022
vfpress.news
Small Batch closes, PAGE 7
What happens when cash bail ends?
As task force works to ready justice system, amendments could be forthcoming By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois
SPRINGFIELD – Beginning Jan. 1, 2023, cash bail will be abolished in Illinois. The measure that will eliminate it has been on the books since early 2021, giving the justice system two years to plan for the major overhaul of the state’s pretrial detention system. It’s also given time for the measure to become politicized to a point where the reality of the law has become indistinguishable from the political rhetoric surrounding it. “As I’ve said many times, what we want to make sure doesn’t happen is that someone who’s wealthy and commits a terrible violent crime – it could be, by the way, a wealthy drug dealer – doesn’t have an easy time getting bail compared to somebody who maybe commits shoplifting and for a couple of hundred dollars is stuck in jail,” Gov. JB Pritzker said at a news conference in August. But opponents and advocates of the reform agree that, beyond simply ending cash bail, the law seeks to reduce the number of people incarcerated before a guilty verdict by limiting the circumstances in which a judge can order pretrial detention. See CASH BAIL on page 8
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Herbert Avenue in Berkeley, between Madison and Prospect. The street has a PCI score of 27, meaning it’s in very poor condition. The village may embark on an ambitious plan to fix many of its streets. Read the story on page 5.
Maywood could explore ‘village hall-built homes’ As it plans to demolish vacant properties, board flirts with idea of emulating suburbs like Bellwood that have built single-family homes By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
As Maywood officials identify eyesore properties throughout the village to demolish, they’re also looking at what
to do with the vacant lots that will replace them. And Bellwood’s popular experiment in home-building came up recently during village board talks as an example of what Maywood might do to make its housing base more viable. At a regular meeting on Aug. 16, the village board was presented with a memo identifying two dozen vacant or abandoned structures in Maywood that the building and code department recommends for demolition. Over the years, the village has torn down dozens of properties through a fast-track demolition process, which allows municipalities to bypass the courts and demolish properties, no
higher than three stories, that are “open and vacant and determined by the Village to be continuing hazard to the community,” according to a 2017 memo drafted by the village’s law firm, Klein, Thorpe and Jenkins. Mayor Nathaniel George Booker urged residents who want other properties added to the list to contact LaSondra Banks, the village’s community engagement manager, at (708) 450-6366 or lbanks@maywood-il.org. “When people say we need to tear these things down, some we can and some we can’t,” Booker said at the August See VILLAGE-BUILT HALL on page 8