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AUSTINWEEKLY news
■ Mayor Lightfoot basks in birthday serenade at Mitts’ Gospel Festival, PAGE 11
Vol. 33 No. 32
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August 7, 2019
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Lightfoot announces plans for ticket reform
Life’s Grand West Side native and Crane High School graduate Lil Rel Howery, the comedian and actor who starred in the Netflix movie “Bird Box” and the cult classic “Get Out” will be the official Grand Marshal of the 90th annual Bud Billiken Parade, which will take place on Saturday, Aug. 10, at 10 a.m., along Martin Luther King Drive in Bronzeville. Bud Billiken is the largest African American parade in the country.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposes end to practice of suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid parking tickets By MELISSA SANCHEZ & ELLIOTT RAMOS ProPublica Illinois & WBEZ Chicago
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed last month an end to the city’s punitive practice of suspending driver’s licenses over unpaid parking tickets and said she would support legislation to change state law, moves that are likely to bring relief to tens of thousands of mostly black, low-income motorists and lead to a reduction in bankruptcy filings here. Lightfoot unveiled an array of significant reforms to the city’s system of ticketing and debt collection, beginning to fulfill a campaign promise to stop balancing the budget on the backs of those least able to bear the burden. “We know this hurts black and brown families the most,” Lightfoot said during a press conference at UCAN, 3605 W. Fillmore St. in North Lawndale on July 23, alongside dozens of advocates and elected officials. “It doesn’t make sense to punish people for not paying for their fines by taking away their ability to pay their fines.” The announcement is significant as it marks See TICKETS on page 8
Boykin k eyeing run for f State’s Attorney, page 5
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Amara Enyia sued by campaign workers Twenty-four ex-staffers say activist owes them nearly $57K
By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
Twenty-four staffers who worked for Amara Enyia’s 2019 mayoral campaign have filed a grievance with the Illinois Department of Labor against their former employer and the campaign’s senior staff, alleging unpaid wages, unreimbursed expenses, bounced checks and violations of the state’s minimum wage laws. The ex-staffers allege that Enyia, a prominent West Side activist, owes them $56,825. According to the Illinois State
Board of Elections, as of June 30, her campaign had $5,296 — $4,000 of which came from two donations. The workers allege that, even though Eniya knew she couldn’t pay them, she let the staffers believe that they would be paid. In their complaint, the campaign workers accuse Enyia, campaign manager Joshua Gray, field director Marcus Ferrell, operations director Pilar Audain-Reed and campaign treasurer Deanna Grant of “the failure to disperse wages and overtime to 24 junior level staffers, the failure to reimburse for promised expenses,” giving
them paychecks that were bounced for being “fictitious and insufficient,” and not telling the staff the campaign wouldn’t be able to pay them. They also allege that, while the campaign originally promised to pay them by March 15, after the Feb. 26 municipal election, Enyia and her senior staff instead “continued to engage in a pattern of deflection, minimization and neglect.” In a statement on her campaign Facebook page, Enyia described the allegations
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See ENYIA on page 10
Larry Williams,Agent 5932 W. Lake Street Chicago, 60644 (773) 379-9010 larry.williams.b0bk@statefarm.com