Lightfoot’s COVID-19 spending package passes, despite objections
Mayor Lori Lightfoot got a federal COVID-19 spending package through the City Council on Friday, days after complaints from some aldermen about her earlier decision to use $281.5 million in relief money on Chicago police salaries prompted two members to delay the vote.
At the second council meeting of the week, Lightfoot’s ordinance passed 3710, hours after the mayor welcomed opponents to vote against it if they didn’t like it.
Before the vote, Southwest Side Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, spent several minutes detailing the ways he said the Lightfoot administration failed to justify the hefty outlay for police expenses for COVID-19 costs over a 10-week period from March to May 2020.
After the vote, Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, pointed to problems in Chicago neighborhoods that should be getting more attention and funding from City Hall. “I’d like to ask, what’s going on in our communities around violence, disinvestment and rent relief?” Sigcho-Lopez said.
Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, said he’s concerned federal auditors will find the coronavirus relief money wasn’t spent properly, and make the city pay it back.
The issue became controversial last week, when the mayor brought forward a plan to move $68 million in unspent relief money from the 2020 budget to the 2021 budget.
The administration’s decision to earmark $281.5 million in CARES Act money for police salaries from March to May last year also came to light, and several aldermen protested the money should instead have gone toward programs to help Chicagoans struggling during the pandemic.
On Wednesday, Burke and Lopez deferred the mayor’s ordinance, which appropriates an additional $80 million in federal coronavirus relief for rental assistance and included $179 million in federal money for the city Department of Public Health, as well as the $68 million transfer.
Lightfoot then abruptly ended the meeting and set a new one for Friday, rather than waiting until the regular March meeting to vote on the issue. On Friday before the meeting, Lightfoot slammed the aldermen’s move as “anti-democratic.”
“If they don’t agree on a particular proposal, ordinance or whatever it is, they can simply vote no, and then we move on,” she said Friday before reconvening the council to consider the plan.
Though Lightfoot said opposition to the spending on the Police Department was “just dumb,” Burke last week said the enormous amount “would make most observers highly suspicious,” and Lopez said it seemed like the administration was using the federal money to retroactively paper over structural problems in the 2021 city budget.
Lopez also introduced a measure to end Lightfoot’s special executive power to spend federal money on the virus response without first getting council approval.
While the measure passed easily Friday, there was some chippy banter among council members.
As they prepared to vote, one alderman could be heard on the livestream asking, “How are we voting on this matter?” Lopez responded, “However she tells you, apparently.”
An Addison businessman who allegedly advocated overthrowing the government and kept an arsenal of weapons in his basement is facing federal charges alleging he sold a high-powered gas-canister launcher and ammunition to an undercover agent earlier this month.
Michael Frobouck, 65, was charged in a criminal complaint made public this week with possession of an illegal destructive device. He has since been released on a $25,000 recognizance bond and is due in court again March 5, records show.
According to the complaint, an informant told the FBI in November that Frobouck “has expressed a desire to raise an army and take the country back” and also had referred to various politicians as “enemy combatants.” Frobouck’s Facebook profile contains numerous posts supporting former President Donald Trump and calling for the potential use force to keep him in power.
The informant had gone to the FBI after visiting Frobouck’s home in the 1000 block of South Ellsworth Avenue on Nov. 25 and seeing a gun vault in the basement where Frobouck kept rifles and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, according to the complaint.
Two days later, the informant secretly recorded another meeting with Frobouck at the home where they discussed Frobouck’s desire to sell off of his arsenal. During the meeting, Frobouck told the informant to be careful who he talked to be cause law enforcement could be watching, the charges alleged.
“If you’ve got something you really shouldn’t have, you’re taking a hell of a chance even with your best friend, because you’re giving them information,” Frobouck was quoted in the complaint as saying. “They might get nabbed, they might turn on you.”
In December, the informant introduced Frobouck to a purported buyer for the weapons who was actually an undercover agent, the complaint alleged. Over the next several weeks, Frobouck sold “various military surplus items, including ammunition, explosive materials and explosive precursor chemicals” to the undercover agent, according to the charges.
During a recorded meeting at Frobouck’s home on Jan. 22, Frobouck said he believed the “government was coming for him” and would seize his weapons, the complaint alleged. He then showed the undercover agent several large guns, including a 37 mm break-action grenade launcher and ammunition.
“I mean like this is a (expletive) big gun,” Frobouck allegedly said.
At their next meeting on Feb. 2, Frobouck sold the undercover agent the launcher, described as a “gas riot gun,” along with a case of 37 mm rubber anti-personnel rounds and 44 gas canisters for a total price of $450, the complaint alleged.
Frobouck is the president
of Phoenix Home Construction, a remodeling business based in Addison, records show.
Court records show Frobouck suffers from an undisclosed medical condition that led to his immediate release on bond. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole ordered that he be
allowed to remove his electronic monitoring device for any necessary medical tests.
Frobouck’s attorney, Timothy Whelan, did not immediately return calls seeking comment Friday.
A judge on Saturday set bail at $1 million for a woman accused of two carjackings on the Northwest Side, one in which an 8year-old boy escaped by jumping from a moving SUV after his mom was run over by its back tire.
The SUV later was involved in an Avondale neighborhood hit-and-run car crash that critically injured an avid bicyclist. The carjacking suspect, Veronica Harden, was not charged in connection with the crash involving the bicyclist, officials said.
Harden, 36, was hospitalized and did not physically appear before Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz during her Saturday afternoon bond court hearing that was audio streamed live on YouTube.
Harden was charged with aggravated vehicular hijacking of a passenger under age 16, aggravated vehicular hijacking of a person older than 60, aggravated battery of a victim older than 60, aggravated battery, and aggravated kidnapping of a person younger than age 13, police said.
Prosecutors said Harden was arrested Thursday when police spotted her driving a vehicle she had allegedly stolen from a 64year-old woman in a Walgreens parking lot on Wednesday.
On Feb. 6, in an Aldi grocery parking lot in the 3300 block of North Belmont Avenue in the Avondale neighborhood, Harden allegedly jumped into the driver’s seat of a Buick SUV with the 8-year-old boy in the back seat.
His mother was nearby, returning her boy’s friend to his family. As Harden began driving away, the mother noticed it reversing and “ran towards the vehicle,” prosecutors said.
She grabbed the SUV’s handle while “screaming her son was in the vehicle,” according to prosecutors.
After the SUV moved 20 feet, the woman was run over by its back tire, but she continued to chase it as it traveled down Belmont. When it turned a corner, she spotted her 8-year-old son opening the back door. She yelled at him to jump out and he did, prosecutors said.
The child suffered soreness and bruises, and his mom was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center after suffering a punctured lung, a broken foot and broken ribs.
On Wednesday, Harden was captured in video surveillance at a Walgreens parking lot confronting a 64-year-old woman, who was returning to her vehicle after shopping in the 4300 block of North Kedzie Avenue in the Albany Park neighborhood.
Harden demanded the car, and when the woman refused, she opened the door, grabbed her by her clothing, and threw her out of the car and sped away, prosecutors said.
Before Harden’s arrest, she had allegedly tried to use the mother’s credit card at a Target store, and other items belonging to her were discovered in her possession, inside one of the carjacked cars, which police found near where Harden lives, prosecutors said.
Inside the vehicle, police found the mother’s house keys, a child’s yellow water bottle with colored stars on it, an engraved necklace and other items including Harden’s cellphone bill.
Additionally, witnesses identified Harden as being allegedly involved in both carjackings, according to prosecutors.
Though Harden’s public defender reserved giving any mitigation until the next court date because Harden was not present, Ortiz set bail at $1 million for Harden, citing that a child had to jump out of a car, injuries the victims’ suffered and her “significant” criminal history.
Early on in the bond hearing, a Chicago police officer testified that Harden was hospitalized at Swedish Covenant Hospital, suffering from sepsis, open sores on her legs and collapsed veins.
According to prosecutors, Harden has six prior felony convictions, including an escape charge from 2014, retail theft from 2014, two forgery cases from 2007 and a 2004 aggravated battery of a government employee case.
On Feb. 10, police said the same Buick SUV involved in the Feb. 6 carjacking in the Aldi parking lot was northbound in the 3500 block of North Kimball Avenue about 2:20 p.m. in Avondale when a collision happened.
As the Buick approached Addison Street, it was in the left lane of traffic and made a right turn onto Addison, heading east, police say.
A cyclist, 31-year-old Alexandra Lee Betzel, also was traveling north on Kimball to the right of the Buick. Betzel was struck by the vehicle as it turned right from the left of two lanes, sideswiping her and running her over, according to a police report.
Two tires rolled over her chest and face, leaving her with bruised lungs, a broken orbital bone and a damaged rib cage that required more than five hours of surgery, Betzel’s family earlier said.
Betzel was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition, where she remained as of last week in the ICU on a ventilator. She was wearing a helmet and does not appear to have suffered any longterm brain or skull damage, the family said earlier.
The Buick did not stop and fled east on Addison, witnesses told police, where the driver ran a red light at Elston Avenue and a camera snapped a photo of the license plate.
“She’s a very caring, loving child. Who’s not such a child anymore, a woman, I should say,” said her father, Shaun Betzel, said in an earlier interview with the Chicago Tribune.
“She advocates for people on bikes. She advocates for all sorts of people.”