By Brandon Chew
Chicago environmental groups are pushing to protect urban gardens from fines levied for having too many weeds.
The proposal, introduced in the city council in late January, would create a Managed Native Garden Registry to protect gardeners who follow sustainable landscaping practices from weed ordinance citations.
“We have over a dozen co-sponsors I think strong support from across city council,” said Colleen Smith, the deputy director of the Illinois Environmental Council.
Smith said that she expects the proposal to go into effect soon, possibly when the City Council meets on March 24. She also said the city’s weed ordinance is overenforced.
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Five years ago, Illinois lawmakers trotted out a lot of ridiculous arguments to justify ending protections for bobcats that had been in place for 44 years.
They called the elusive animals, which have never been known to kill a single person, ferocious. They compared them to saber-toothed tigers. They conjured up unsubstantiated stories of bobcats raiding chickens and killing pet cats on farms.
The Legislature voted, by a razor-thin margin, to create an Illinois bobcat hunting season. This year’s season ended on Feb. 15.
Since bobcat hunting has resumed, more than 1,500 bobcats have been killed in Illinois, the Humane Society of the United States says. Before that, bobcats, which had been on the state’s threatened species list, had barely managed to recover from being overhunted in the past. Bobcat hunting remains illegal in Chicago and the northeast portion of the state.
Lawmakers from both parties told officials from Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration on Thursday, March 11 that the General Assembly should have some say in how the state spends the $7.5 billion in federal funds that Illinois expects to receive from the newly-enacted American Rescue Plan.
Those comments came during a virtual hearing of the House Revenue and Finance Committee that took place just hours after President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill into law.
“I think the legislature would like a say in appropriating money, given our role,” Rep. Michael Zalewski, D-Riverside, said to the director of the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget, Alexis Sturm. “So my hope is that you could convey that to the governor’s office and we can develop a framework to work together on that.”