Friend --

November of 2020 was a tragic month at the LaSalle Veterans Home.? In less than a month, 27 of the 120 residents succumbed to COVID-19.

Last week, in response to a request from me, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee held a hearing on the outbreak to determine if more could have been done to prevent this tragedy.

My conclusion from the hearing was that Governor Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health did not do enough during the crucial early days of the outbreak. In fact, I still do not know whether the Governor has even had a person-to-person conversation with the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs about this tragedy.

I wrote up my post-hearing thoughts in an op-ed. You can read it here.

Yesterday afternoon, I spoke with WGN Radio about the tragedy. You can listen to the interview here.

We have moved beyond bad policy choices. It is now clear that, in addition to our budget deficit, Illinois faces a leadership deficit.

Thanks for reading and S/F,

Paul

Paul Schimpf
http://www.schimpf4illinois.com/