The Spin: Valencia vs. Lightfoot | Senate, House returning to Springfield to take up controversial legislation on energy, elected school board in Chicago | Durbin says bipartisan negotiations on Biden infrastructure plan petering out

The Tribune’s Dan Petrella reports that the Illinois Senate is returning to Springfield next week to take up energy legislation negotiated by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The deal would set aside hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for nuclear plants owned by the parent company Commonwealth Edison, whose lobbying scandal has rocked state government.

Meantime the Illinois House will return to work to take up the controversial proposal for an elected school board in Chicago.

Last month, as Mayor Lori Lightfoot marked the halfway point of her four-year term, the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt offered a look at her struggles in policymaking as well as some of the folks who might be lining up to run against her in 2023.

Notable in that piece was the apparent strained relations between the mayor and Chicago City Clerk Anna Valencia, a rising star in the Democratic Party who just announced she’s running for Illinois secretary of state.

Now we know just how tense things got. Pratt obtained emails via Freedom of Information Act requests that showed Valencia fired off an email to the mayor suggesting Lightfoot poached a staffer and one of her ideas. The mayor sent back her own email, a copy of which Pratt just obtained via FOIA request. The mayor instructed Valencia never again to email such an “unhinged screed” and told her to “be professional.”

Meantime, Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says bipartisan discussions on President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package are petering out, CNN reports. While Biden is supposed to talk with the lead GOP negotiator today, Democrats are making plans to figure out a way to pass a package without Republican backing.

And as a new grocery store opens on the North Side, Lightfoot reflected on the need to draw such businesses to the South and West sides. And a couple of high-profile bureaucrats have exited Park Ridge government amid disagreements over affordable housing.

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Valencia vs. Lightfoot

As Mayor Lori Lightfoot marked her two-year anniversary in office last month, the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt wrote that “the mayor has at times struggled to translate her political goals into policy wins” and noted that City Clerk Anna Valencia made the same point to Lightfoot in an email.

“I shared my fines and fees platform with you, that my team built and had been working on since November of 2018, which handed you your first win with community groups,” Valencia said in the email, which also complained that Lightfoot hired away her communications director. “I’ve kept community group relationships healthy for you in the Fines and Fees Collaborative, smoothed over ruffled feathers when they felt as if your office was stonewalling them or ignoring them.”

This week, Pratt obtained a copy of Lightfoot’s response to Valencia, wherein she denied poaching staff and criticized the clerk right back.

“And Anna, don’t send me again an unhinged screed, dredging up every petty grievance, real or imagined,” Lightfoot wrote. “If you have an issue, pick up the phone and call me, instead of writing a bunch of accusatory nonsense where you got everything wrong except she accepted a job. Be a professional.”

As Bob Mariano’s newest grocery concept opens in Lincoln Park area, Mayor Lightfoot talks about need in food deserts

We’ve all read the stories about the food deserts in pockets of Chicago’s South and West sides. So after Mayor Lightfoot joined grocery store executive Bob Mariano and his business partners for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of their newest grocery venture on the North Side, she was asked by a reporter: What’s standing in the way of a sparkling new store like this from opening in, say, Chatham or other South Side or West Side neighborhoods?

The mayor said there’s a lesson to be learned, particularly for businesses, from the success of the Mariano’s grocery store in Bronzeville.

“I think what we’ve got to demonstrate to businesses — and believe me I’m going to pull Mr. Mariano aside today” and show them there are “other opportunities in a city with food deserts where they can partner with local leaders to stand up other opportunities on South and West side neighborhoods in particular,” the mayor said this morning outside Dom’s Kitchen & Market at Diversey Parkway and Halsted Street.

Bob Mariano, who ran Dominick’s grocery stores before launching his namesake chain, is behind the latest grocery store and dining venture; Mariano’s parent company Roundy’s was acquired by Kroger back in 2015.

The plan is for the new location to serve as a launchpad for more markets.

The mayor said it’s important for businesses to understand that neighborhoods they may not be thinking of opening up shop in “have real buying power.” She pointed to a “leakage study” the city conducted in Austin about a year ago that showed residents in the West Side community were spending $200 million every single year outside of the neighborhood in places such as neighboring suburb Oak Park.

“I’ve got to use my platform, as the mayor to make the case, and advocate for neighborhoods like Chatham, like Austin, like Englewood and other places around the city that need these resources that have the buying power, but need the amenities in these neighborhoods,’ the mayor said, pointing to her Invest South/West program, which uses $750 million in existing city funds to prioritize investments in 10 areas: Auburn Gresham, North Lawndale, Austin, Englewood, Humboldt Park, Quad Communities, New City, Roseland, South Chicago and South Shore.

The concept behind Mariano and company’s latest venture: Roughly “one-third the size of a traditional grocery store. A significant portion is dedicated to prepared foods and spots to eat, drink or attend a wine tasting or cooking demonstration,” the Tribune’s Lauren Zumbach reports. Read the full story here.

Barack Obama, on CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360,’ discusses mentoring young men in Chicago, gun violence and policing, the Tribune’s Paige Fry writes.

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Illinois Senate, House reconvene next week to take up controversial legislation on energy, elected school board in Chicago

From the Tribune’s Dan Petrella: “Illinois Senate President Don Harmon is calling members back to Springfield next Tuesday to vote on an energy package negotiated by Gov. J.B. Pritzker that will include hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear plants owned by the parent company of scandal-plagued Commonwealth Edison.

“Lawmakers adjourned their spring session June 1 without reaching an agreement on an energy plan that also would meet Pritzker’s goal of setting the state on a path to 100% carbon-free power by 2050. ComEd parent Exelon has said it will shut down its Byron and Dresden nuclear plants this year if the state doesn’t provide more financial support.”

Harmon said today he’s calling members of his chamber back for one day to vote on the measure “Pritzker negotiated.” More here.

The House is following suit, taking up the most recent iteration of a proposal to create an elected school board in Chicago - one that Mayor Lightfoot opposes. More here.

Planning for Park Ridge’s future on hold as key staff members leave city, disagreements on affordable housing surface: Pioneer Press reporter Jennifer Johnson has the story here.

Durbin says bipartisan talks for infrastructure plan have run their course: CNN

For weeks now, President Joe Biden has been in talks with Republican senators trying to strike a compromise on his top legislative a priority, the infrastructure investment package. The price tag, along with how to fund the proposal, are at issue, and while the two sides appear to have narrowed the gap “between his initial $2.3 trillion proposal and the GOP’s $568 billion opening bid, they remain far apart on the scope of the deal and how to pay for it,” The Associated Press reports.

Yesterday, U.S. senator and majority whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said that he believes bipartisan talks to strike a deal have run their course, CNN reports.

“Biden wants to raise corporate taxes to generate revenues for the infrastructure investments, a nonstarter for Republicans,” the AP notes in this piece. “The GOP senators propose tapping unspent COVID-19 relief aid to pay for the roads, bridges and other projects, an idea rejected by Democrats.”

Biden was to speak today with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the lead Republican negotiator on infrastructure, “as prospects appear to be dimming for a bipartisan agreement,” CNN notes in this story.

Meantime, “Democrats are setting the ground work for a go-it-alone approach,” the AP reports. “Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has indicated that Biden will look to act without Republican support if there is no consensus.”

North Shore man arrested on federal charges stemming from Jan. 6 US Capitol breach: Christian Kulas, 24, of Kenilworth “was at least the ninth Illinoisan to be federally charged as part of the ongoing investigation into the Capitol attack, which prosecutors have described as one of the largest criminal investigations in American history,” the Tribune’s Jason Meisner reports.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth announces vaccine donation while visiting Taiwan

From The New York Times: “The United States will donate 750,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan, said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, one of three U.S. senators who made a brief visit to the island Sunday morning as it battles its worst coronavirus outbreak of the pandemic.

The Illinois senator traveled with fellow Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, of Delaware and GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan, of Alaska, as part of a wider trip to the region, the Times reports.

“Although the United States has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, it is the island’s most important ally and its main weapons provider,” the Times reports, noting that the senators’ visit may draw thumbs-down from China, which claims Taiwan is part of its territory.

Duckworth said the vaccine donation was part of a wider White House plan to distribute 25 million doses this month across a “wide range of countries” struggling to control the coronavirus, the Times notes in its piece here.

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