MISSING PIECES Economic Development in Chicago Is a Tale of Two Cities, and the South and West Sides Struggle with the Worst of Times PAGE 27
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These 50 NOTABLE WOMEN EXECS OVER 50 jumped hurdles to get where they are. PAGE 13 JOE CAHILL: Coronavirus has weakened Gogo’s governance. PAGE 4 CHICAGOBUSINESS.COM | APRIL 6, 2020 | $3.50 FORUM: INFRASTRUCTURE MISSING PIECES Economic development in Chicago is a tale of two cities, and the South and West sides struggle with the worst of times PAGE 27 FIND THE COMPLETE SERIES ONLINE STEPHEN J. SERIO J. STEPHEN Big insurer pushes Virus poses mortal envelope on exec pay threat to Sears Blues brass pockets double-digit raises while cutting sta Battered chain has few defenses against retail collapse BY STEPHANIE GOLDBERG CEO in July. Her total compen- Sears on April 3 announced sation surged 120 percent to $31 BY DALTON BARKER it would close stores at least Executive pay keeps climbing at million—about $12 million of Paula Steiner, who stepped down as CEO in A weakened Sears is facing until April 30, and furloughed Blue Cross of Illinois’ parent com- which was severance pay. July, received total compensation last year of what looks like its toughest test a majority of its employees. pany, even as the health insurance Board member David Lesar, who $31 million, including severance pay. yet: retail apocalypse. In addition, it enters the crisis giant lays o workers and took over as interim CEO, Traditional department stores with distinct vulnerabilities. looks for a new strategy. EXECUTIVE PAY: pocketed $6.2 million; rising uncertainty for the en- like Sears are su ering un- e Ho man Estates-based e 10 highest-paid Boards will walk Maurice Smith, who was tire health care industry, and precedented sales declines as company still counts on brick- employees at Health Care a tightrope amid named president, got $3.6 HCSC in particular. e nation’s coronavirus lockdowns keep and-mortar stores for the vast Service Corp. got a com- outbreak. PAGE 3 million; and board Chair- sixth-largest health insurer cut “a consumers at home, except for majority of sales at a time when bined $70 million last man Milton Carroll got a few dozen” sta ers late last year— essential trips to buy groceries. even more shopping is mov- year, up 58 percent from 2018. 429 percent boost to $4.9 million. followed by an additional 400 in Rivals Macy’s, Kohl’s and J.C. ing online. It relies heavily on e biggest winner was Paula e massive raises come amid Penney have shuttered stores as Steiner, who stepped down as increasing cost pressures and See HCSC on Page 40 customer tra c dries up. See SEARS on Page 36 NEWSPAPER l VOL. 43, NO. 14 l COPYRIGHT 2020 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2 APRIL 6, 2020 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS How did we get here? Soon we’ll need to nd out. You might call it the latest act Not enough progress has been I want to know. To use the old now playing at the theater of made, Pritzker declared, leaving Chicago political expression, the absurd—otherwise known some doubt as to whether China who wears the jacket? And when as the Washington response to or the Trump administration this is over, America will demand GREG HINZ the COVID-19 pandemic now has been the least helpful. But to know, too. ON POLITICS raging in Chicago and the rest of he’s still trying, using the kind of Our national leader is point- America. personal connections that only a ing to Barack Obama and the ere, at his daily press brief- rich guy like Pritzker has. governors, saying they should ing, was Gov. J.B Pritzker, talking So it goes in a city and a state have done more to prepare. And By Feb. 25, according to Wired peting with other states and the about his eorts to secure more hunkered down for the indeter- China, as if anyone in their right magazine, the demand for federal government to buy the masks, gowns and other person- minate future. Call it a metaphor mind would trust them. Let’s masks was so great that Amazon material that even now remains al protective equipment from for a surreal situation in which nd out. Let’s appoint a non- warned its vendors against price in short supply. Yet, the evening China, the very place where the the city’s convention center is partisan, high-level commission gouging. before I wrote this, Trump said being converted into one to discover who screwed up—if Yet, according to the Bulwark, that states facing a crush ought huge hospital ward, rst only to prevent another screwup a conservative publication, “at to “work it out themselves.” And I DON’T GIVE A PROVERBIAL DAMN responders are falling, later. Let’s have them look at ev- the beginning of March, Trump he said it right after invoking ABOUT THE POLITICS. TOO MANY school likely is out until erything, from Obama to Donald promised a capacity of 4 million his powers under a defense law the fall and the local Trump. tests. Mike Pence promised that to order a Minnesota company OF US ARE SICK OR WORRIED SICK. economy is poised on the But while we wait, Pritzker’s we’d reach 5 million by March to produce more safety masks edge of a depression. Yes, experience is instructive. 13. A White House ocial prom- for the American market. at, pandemic began but also the depression. Consider, on Jan. 28, two for- ised 27 million by month’s end. too, is the sort of action Pritzker place where most PPE happens How did it get to this? How mer Trump administration o- When we reached March 31, urged weeks ago. to be produced. And he talked did the most prosperous and ad- cials warned in an op-ed piece in the U.S. had nally reached the I don’t give a proverbial damn about how he’s counting on a vanced country in the world fall the Wall Street Journal that what 1 million test mark, far short of about the politics. Too many of home-state boost from North victim to the type of disease that was happening in China with what is required.” us are sick or worried sick. I, and Chicago-based Abbott Labs to medical experts have warned coronavirus was a dire threat to at’s what Pritzker has been I suspect you, care about the get early delivery of new testing of for years—we got a taste of it the U.S., and that measures like complaining about every day for results as Chicago and Illinois kits and equipment crucial to with SARS—and which raged for broader screening and other weeks now, the real-life game of shudder in place. Why are we in track and eventually control the two full months in China before steps to prepare immediately musical chairs in which his team this place—and how do we get spread of the virus here. our national “leaders” did much? here in America were “critical.” of acquisition specialists is com- out of it? We need answers. Inside the push for Pritzker’s ‘fair tax’ Gov. J.B. Pritzker is planning time of two staers. nizing. But Lewis concedes that to spend untold millions to sup- I’ve detected some worry neighborhood canvassing may port his graduated income tax among Pritzker types that this not be the same as it was before proposal this year via his Vote other group could go o-script the COVID-19 pandemic. e RICH MILLER Yes For Fairness ballot initiative and weaken the overall message. same goes for holding local committee. But Vote Yes for Fair Tax informational meetings all over ON SPRINGFIELD But another group has formed spokesman Jake Lewis says he the state, as the group has been to help with the eort. e Vote wasn’t worried about muddying planning to do. Yes for Fair Tax committee has the message. “e folks who are Lewis, who is also the spokes- by the pandemic. “I don’t agree that this crisis reported raising almost $600,000 involved in Vote Yes for Fair Tax man for the Chicago Federation “I think it’s absurd,” he says. means we should keep the state’s in cash and in-kind contribu- have been working on this issue of Labor, also pushed back hard “Look, the bottom 20 percent in unfair tax system,” Lewis says. tions to date. for years and years,” he says. against some groups that have this state pays twice as much of A few years ago, a ballot ini- Many of the people involved, been calling for the Fair Tax to be their income in state and local Crain’s contributor Rich Miller tiative committee with almost including Bauman at the Shriver removed from the ballot because taxes as the top 1 percent, and publishes Capitol Fax and Capi- $600,000 in the bank several Center, have long been working of the economic damage done that is patently unfair.” tolFax.com. months ahead of a vote would be to pass a progressive income tax a sign of strength. In these times, through the Responsible Bud- with a billionaire governor who get Coalition. “e more folks succeeded a near-billionaire working on this,” Lewis says, “the governor, it looks almost small. more eective we’re going to be.” But the Vote Yes for Fair Tax To prevail at the ballot box, the committee won’t be running Fair Tax constitutional amend- expensive TV ads, says its chair- ment will need 60 percent of the vote or a majority of all votes cast in the election.