The Quebec-based electric school bus maker found eager customers in Illinois school districts, which wanted to take advantage of generous federal grants, reduce pollution and give kids a cleaner, quieter ride to school.

But the bad news about Lion, which has been building for months, got worse Monday, with a court-appointed monitor saying there is a “very high” likelihood that the company will be liquidated, according to the Globe and Mail and other outlets.

“It’s a bit of a sad story, because it’s the right company with an interesting product,” said Yan Cimon, a professor of business strategy at the Université Laval in Québec City. He said Lion followed an ambitious path — including a bold expansion into the United States — and ultimately the company’s sales didn’t keep up.

“Had Lion been a bit more conservative, maybe they wouldn’t be where they are,” he said.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a strong proponent of clean energy, attended the opening of Lion’s now-shuttered Illinois plant in 2023, along with both Illinois senators.

“Illinois has made tremendous strides turning the state into a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles,” the governor’s press secretary, Alex Gough, said Monday in a written statement.

“Governor Pritzker remains committed to maintaining an ecosystem where EV companies and their employees are able to thrive,” the statement said. “Just this morning, (electric vehicle-maker) Rivian made a major commitment to their growth in Illinois by bringing a supplier park to Normal.”

Rivian is constructing a new 1.2 million-square-foot supplier park in Normal, according to a news release from the company. As part of that, Rivian will invest nearly $120 million, which will enable the company to develop the supplier park and create nearly 100 new direct jobs.

Lion announced in December that it was suspending operations at its Illinois plant and temporarily laying off approximately 400 workers in Canada and the United States.

Then last week the company suffered another major setback when Quebec announced it would not invest $24 million in an effort to relaunch the company, according to the Globe and Mail.

“It does not bode well for Lion,” Cimon said. “It may be worth more if it’s dismembered and its assets are sold individually than if the company is kept whole.”

Workingman Capital, a company that helps sell or liquidate manufacturing assets, is listing an equipment auction at its website for a “Lion-Electric Chicago Facility,” at the address of Lion’s Illinois plant.

Susan Mudd, a senior policy advocate at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said Lion’s apparent failure is very unfortunate, but she sees it as a small step back rather than a reflection of broader trends.

“It doesn’t mean that electric school buses themselves are the problem. A particular company expanded in too many ways, too fast,” she said.

She pointed to new players in the electric school bus business, such as GreenPower in West Virginia, and she noted that big legacy school bus companies such as Bluebird, which sell both electric and diesel buses, have a “huge advantage” over newer, electric-only companies like Lion.

Electric buses are still “where the future is going,” Cimon said.

“The long-term trends are there,” he said. “The whole world is moving toward electric. You see it in China. You see it in Europe. Europeans are really interested in electric. There are other North American companies that look toward electric. So in that sense, it will come.”

nschoenberg@chicagotribune.com

Police responded just before 4:30 p.m. to the branch at 11960 Western Ave., after reports three men armed with handguns robbed an armored vehicle, according to the FBI.

The men wore dark-colored sweatpants and hooded sweatshirts, a black facial covering and light grey gloves, the FBI said. They fled in a car and are still at large, the FBI said.

The FBI said no injuries were reported.

The FBI asks anyone with information to call 312-421-6700 or go to tips.fbi.gov.

The study, which began in August, is evaluating building a roadway within an existing right of way along Calumet Avenue between 141st Street and 143rd Street, according to Jesse Elam, director of strategic planning and policy for the Cook County Department of Transportation and Highways.

“Anything beats nothing,” Dixmoor Mayor Fitzgerald Roberts said. “So the grant is doing a study on it, where we can pretty much make a throughway to get around these trains. I think it’s a great move and I have great respect that they’re trying to help us with this. It’s been going on for so many years.”

The county earmarked $95,000 for the study, funded through Invest in Cook, a grant program that supports transportation projects at different stages including planning, engineering, land acquisition and construction, according to the county’s website.

Although the village applied for the grant, Elam said the county is handling the study directly under an existing consulting contract, rather than going through the typical grant approval process.

The study is funded with state motor fuel tax revenues shared with the county, Elam said.

Elam said the county has explored the feasibility of building a connecting roadway under the interstate and is now reviewing property records to determine ownership and how it might affect the project.

After the study is completed, the county will share the findings with the village and decide on next steps, Elam said.

“We want to get it done as fast as we can, but the property research part of it turned out a little more complicated than we hoped, so I think that’s really the sort of critical path item there,” Elam said. “So we hope to be able to wrap that up in the next couple months.”

The village applied for the grant in 2024 after identifying an unused right of way that could improve access to neighborhoods east of Western Avenue, Roberts said. The road is in disrepair, covered in gravel and overgrown weeds, he said.

“We looked at an old map that showed that we had Calumet Avenue going through there,” Roberts said. “We went on to find out that one of the mayors back in the day sold it or something, but it’s not on a tax roll. It hasn’t been placed on a tax roll. So basically, we want our street back.”

The project aims to create an alternate route for residents and emergency vehicles, Elam said, particularly for those in mobile home parks along Western Avenue where residents are often trapped when trains block both rail crossings at the same time.

The roadway will provide a backdoor entrance to the Colonial Estates Mobile Home Park near 142nd Street and Western Avenue, Elam said.

If the roadway proves feasible, Roberts said the village will need assistance funding construction.

According to the county, the feasibility study will also help identify potential funding sources and grants for engineering and construction.

While blocked crossings impede residents at crossings on Wood Street and Robey Avenue, residents told the Daily Southtown the problem is worse along Western Avenue, where tracks intersect the road in the 139th and 145th blocks.

Roberts said the proposed route won’t fully solve the problem, as there are other crossings without an easy route to get around the stalled trains, but called it a first step toward addressing an issue that has affected residents for years.

“We’ll be able to get from one side to the other side when the train is there,” Roberts said. “But it’s not going to completely solve it because if we have, per se, two trains on the track, you’re still gonna be blocked one way. So we’re still gonna need help.”

There is no federal statute or regulation that sets a specific time limit on how long trains can block grade crossings, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. That limits the actions the agency can take.

Meanwhile, trains have become longer due to precision scheduled railroading — a strategy used by freight rail companies to boost profits, lower operating costs and streamline service, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Roberts said he plans to seek support from legislators to help secure funding for the route and others that would allow residents to bypass stalled trains.

“There’s a lot of pieces to this, to make this project complete,” Roberts said. “This is just the first phase of getting it off the ground.”

smoilanen@chicagotribune.com

It was, as he called it, a turning point.

“That was about four years ago, when I had 2,000 plants started,” he recalled. “When they were really small they weren’t a problem. But when I had to up-plant them into 4-inch pots, we had them in every room in the house, next to every window I could find.

“My wife put her foot down and said you can’t do that anymore.”

Zeni began his tomato deep dive several years earlier when seeking a late-winter distraction after years of working at home as a graphic designer.

“It gets cold in the winter and I wouldn’t leave the house for weeks,” he said. “My wife claimed I was getting weird, and she insisted that I get a hobby.”

At the same time he was reflecting on the “tasteless atrocities that pose as tomatoes at supermarkets” during the offseason and decided to do something about it. He set up some tables and lights and planted some seeds.

There were mistakes — “overwatering, under watering, not enough heat,” Zeni said. But along with those setbacks were “small successes that gave me enough hope that I was on the right track.”

After a few seasons, he had enough plants that he would give them to any and all interested neighbors, and his tomato operation in La Grange Park kept growing larger. He began selling seedlings at “garage sales” to help fund his hobby, selling 50 to 75 plants.

“We put signage up when people just started showing up, telling me they’d heard about me from other people,” he said. “I got to 500 plants and sold them out. I’d get emails in January asking when’s the sale? That was the first indication I got that maybe this could be more than just a wintertime hobby.”

He decided to go all-in and started calling himself the Chicago Tomato Man.

“It’s spiraled to the point where this year we’ll grow around 15,000 plants,” he said in April.

He still grows at home, but the bulk of his operation is offsite, using contracters who deliver his plants to a warehouse near Western and Ogden avenues in Chicago, where they’re matched to orders and taken to pop-up markets throughout the city and suburbs.

Some of those seedlings are earmarked for other purposes as well.

“We give away lots of plants,” Zeni said. “We hear about efforts by nonprofit organizations or groups that are running gardens that use their harvest to give away produce to food banks. We totally support those efforts, so we give them plants every year.”

Last year, the Chicago Tomato Man organization gave away nearly 1,500 plants, and they’re looking to equal that this year.

Among the organizations that have worked with Zeni is Eden Greens Urban Farm, which provides healthy food as well as gardening resources for underserved communities such as Pullman, Englewood and Greater Grand Crossing.

Tomato plants also went to We Grow We Sow, Inc., an urban farm based in West Pullman that offers produce and education to people in Roseland, Morgan Park and Calumet Park.

Seedlings have even gone to the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, for its Karma Garden project.

“This is good,” Zeni said. “We want to get these plants to any neighborhood that lacks access to food.”

And they’re not getting run-of-the-mill tomatoes. They’re getting the good ones, the heirlooms, some that have been passed down seed by seed for generations of gardeners.

Among Zeni’s seedlings are varieties such as Rutgers, developed in 1928 by the Campbell Soup Company and released to farmers in 1934 by Rutgers University.

There’s also Mortgage Lifter, a large beefsteak tomato developed, as the story goes, in the 1940s by a gardener in West Virginia who crossed varieties for six years before arriving at one so popular he was able to pay off his $6,000 mortgage by selling plants for $1 each.

There’s several varieties, such as the Sandburg yellow, attributed to Millard Murdock, a gardener based farther south in the Blue Ridge Mountains, whose retirement efforts to preserve and promote heirloom tomatoes became legendary in the seed saving community prior to his death in 2019.

Closer to home, fellow legendary seed savers Merlyn and Mary Ann Niedens, whose tomato and sunflower patches were sown in downstate Okawville, are represented by varieties such as Illini Star and Illini Gold. According to his 2009 obituary, Merlyn Niedens acquired at least some of his tomato breeding know-how in River Forest with a bachelor of science degree from Concordia Teacher’s College, now Concordia University.

One variety Zeni just started growing this year is steeped in Chicago history. The Inciardi (pronounced in-chi-ardi) paste tomato was brought over from Sicily by immigrant Enrico Inciardi, who sewed the seeds from his family’s signature tomato into the lining of his jacket because he was afraid they would be taken from him at Ellis Island, Zeni said.

Inciardi ended up settling in Downers Grove, got a job at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Cicero and later attended a company excursion aboard the S.S. Eastland in 1915, surviving the worst marine disaster in Chicago history after the ship overturned in the Chicago River, killing hundreds.

Through it all, he kept growing his family’s signature Sicilian tomatoes.

“Now his descendants started offering them for sale commercially,” Zeni said. “That’s a great story.”

Zeni is helping preserve another family story thanks to an encounter with an older guy he met at one of his pop-up sales at the Percolator Coffee Shop in Portage Park. He showed Zeni some seeds and said, “My father-in-law brought these over from Calabria and has been growing them ever since. He passed away and we continued to save these seeds, and I want to give them to you.”

Zeni asked the man, who came out from River Grove, what the tomatoes were called.

“I don’t know,” was the response. “It’s always just been my father-in-law’s tomato. My family has been growing them for 100 years. I’ve been growing them in my backyard.”

The man’s name was Art Zaino, “so that’s what we called them,” Zeni said. “These are big tomatoes. They’re like 16-inch softball sized tomatoes.”

While the Inciardi tomato has become somewhat more well-known among heirloom aficionados, the Art Zaino is “something that’s exclusive to us,” Zeni said. “I don’t think he gave the seeds to anyone else.”

For Zeni, heirloom tomatoes offer not only the opportunity to share the stories of fellow nightshade aficionados past and present, but also some of the places where he sells seedlings as well.

He’s already kicked off the gardening season with popup sales around the city and suburbs, including Pollyanna Brewing in Lemont, and has more coming up. There’s one from 10 a.m. to noon on May 31 at Two-Mile Coffee Bar, 9907 S. Walden Parkway, near the Metra stop in Chicago’s Beverly community; and another from 1 to 3 p.m. on May 31 at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, 5480 S. Kenwood Ave. in Chicago.

He’ll be at Skokie’s Sketchbook Brewing, 4901 Main St., on May 25. Other Pollyanna locations will be on June 7 in Roselle and later that day in St. Charles.

Also on the schedule is the last of four pop-ups on May 24 at First Presbyterian Church of La Grange, 150 S. Ashland Ave. A full list as well as ordering information is on his website at chicagotomatoman.com.

“These are locally owned places that let us set up, and in exchange we try to recognize and promote them, encourage people to buy a croissant and a coffee, or a four-pack or growler of beer,” Zeni said. “It’s about creating community and helping community, so we all prosper and thrive.”

But his primary goal remains to spread his love of tomatoes.

“I understand why the food industry has done what they’ve done to tomatoes,” he said. “Everyone wants to buy tomatoes in January at the grocery store, so they’ve bred them so they’re durable, they look great and they’re all the same size. But the flavor is gone and I think it’s criminal.

“A real tomato is something everyone should experience. The flavor is so wonderful. It’s so gratifying when someone picks those first few off the vine and realize the experience was worth all the time and effort put in to grow them.”

Landmarks is a column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the region. He can be reached at peisenberg@tribpub.com.

Illinois State Police said Monday they found Tom Mya Lyons, 18, on the Sibley Boulevard ramp northbound to Interstate 94 around 4:30 a.m., and she was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. She was the sole passenger in the vehicle. The 16-year-old male driver was not injured, police said.

The crash followed Homewood-Flossmoor High School’s prom with the theme A Night of Enchanted Elegance at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago that lasted from 8 p.m. to midnight, according to the school’s website.

“Tom Mya was more than just a student — she was a vibrant member of our community, a loyal friend, a dedicated classmate, a committed teammate and a positive presence throughout Homewood-Flossmoor High School,” Principal Clinton Alexander said in a statement. “Her energy, kindness and spirit touched the lives of many, and her absence will be deeply felt by us all.”

A Homewood-Flossmoor High School District 233 statement said Lyons was a dedicated member of the school’s step dance team, which ended its season with a first place win in their division last month.

“Let this time of sorrow bring us even closer as a school community. In moments like these, it is more important than ever to take care of ourselves and one another,” Alexander said in the statement.

The district said members of its crisis team will be available to help students and staff who are grieving or otherwise struggling with Lyons’ death.

Support will be available in each of classes Monday and Tuesday, the district said. There will also be designated spaces in both the high school’s buildings for crisis team members to meet with students.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com

Benet, Carmel, Joliet Catholic, Marian Catholic, Marist, Marmion, Nazareth and St. Viator are joining the GCAC. All of those high schools except Marmion, which will be going coed for the first time that academic year, are members of the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

Benet, Carmel, Joliet Catholic, Marian, Marist, Nazareth, Notre Dame, St. Patrick and St. Viator will be joining the Catholic League. All of those schools also are from the ESCC. Notre Dame and St. Patrick are all-boys schools.

Thomas Schergen, the principal of De La Salle and executive representative of the GCAC and Catholic League, welcomed the development.

“Both leagues are extremely competitive,” Schergen said. “With the addition of these tradition-rich East Suburban Catholic institutions, we have set our respective conferences on a continued path of success and continue to strengthen these premier Catholic athletic organizations.

“We look forward to having these new members under the Chicago Catholic League and Girls Catholic Athletic Conference banners, both athletically and academically.”

Founded in 1975, the ESCC began with Carmel, Holy Cross, Marist, Notre Dame, St. Joseph, St. Patrick and St. Viator. Between 1982 and 2014, Joliet Catholic, Benet, Marian Catholic and Marian Central Catholic entered the mix. Fenwick, Bishop McNamara and Providence joined the ESCC with girls teams before leaving for the GCAC.

Since 1974, the ESCC have won 96 team state championships and 91 individual state titles.

The addition of the ESCC schools and Marmion will boost the GCAC to 24 teams. The Catholic League will expand to 26. The Catholic League was started in 1912. The GCAC was established in 1974.

Dan Tully, principal at Notre Dame and chairman of the board of the ESCC, also was excited about the move.

“The ESCC’s legacy of academic and athletic success, as well as our standards for competitive excellence, align closely with the heritage of the Chicago Catholic League and Girls Catholic Athletic Conference,” Tully said. “Bringing our schools together will expand competitive opportunities based on geography and parity while also maintaining long-standing rivalries for the benefit of our communities, teams and student-athletes.

“As faith-based institutions, we strive to offer a comprehensive educational experience, along with high-quality co-curricular programming. The ESCC’s history of achievement dovetails with the rich traditions of the CCL and GCAC and we look forward to furthering our partnership.”

Sundaram was coached by his mother, Lisa, then played travel ball and loved the sport. But he was cut as a freshman in high school.

“I was crushed,” he said. “I got home and went in my room and I was sulking. I was so sad.”

Two or three days later, Sundaram was contacted by coach Kris Fiore to try out for the Griffins’ storied boys volleyball program.

“At that time, I’d never touched a volleyball in my entire life,” Sundaram said. “But I said, ‘I’m in.’’’

He has developed into what Fiore calls “one of the best liberos in the state.”

On Saturday, Sundaram was named to the all-tournament team of the 33rd annual Lincoln-Way East Invitational as the Griffins finished second in the 24-team event. Glenbard West knocked off Lincoln-Way East 24-26, 25-8, 25-20 in the championship match.

Matthew Muehlnickel led the Griffins (19-3) with seven kills and seven digs, while Carter Geiger contributed seven kills and Joey Abbeduto added five. Sundaram chipped in with three digs, Dylan Nanney tallied 13 assists and Will Hubatch had 11 assists.

Back in 2022, Fiore was intrigued when Sundaram was out of the baseball picture.

“My son (Evan) played baseball with his brother,” Fiore said of Sundaram. “When I found out he didn’t make the baseball team, I hunted him down because he was a good athlete.

“He’s been a great player, so it worked out well.”

Brother Rice (20-5) finished fourth after dropping a 26-16, 14-25, 15-6 semifinal decision to the Griffins and a 25-21, 25-19 decision to Downers Grove North.

Sundaram, Lincoln-Way West’s Andrew Flores, Lincoln-Way Central’s Dylan Brannigan, Brother Rice’s Oliver McNichols and Lockport’s Ryan Dziadkowiec also made the 18-player all-tournament team.

Defending champion Marist did not enter the tournament but sent its JV team. The young RedHawks raised a few eyebrows winning the Bronze Division, beating the varsity teams of Wheaton St. Francis, Hinsdale Central and Yorkville on Saturday.

Still, the weekend spotlight shined on Sundaram. And even though he never picked up a volleyball before entering Lincoln-Way East, he has worked at his craft.

“If you have those two skills of being willing to work and being athletic, volleyball is a game you can pick up and evolve quickly,” Fiore said.  “And he has done that.”

Sundaram looked at the sport as a second chance in his athletic career.

“I was so grateful for the opportunity that I tried my butt off every single practice,” Sundaram said. “No matter how I felt or what day of the week it was or what happened the day before, I always tried to be the best that I could be.

“I tried to treat everything like it was the state championship.”

The Griffins have developed state championship aspirations. The first week of the season, they beat Glenbard West 26-24, 20-25, 25-21 in Glen Ellyn.

After rallying from a 20-15 deficit in the first game Saturday, Lincoln-Way East got destroyed in the second game but played the Hilltoppers (21-3) tight in the finale.

Starting right-side hitter Grant Urban, who also plays football, missed the tournament as he was involved in a national kicking competition in Las Vegas.

Sundaram said that he wrestled with the choice of playing sanctioned volleyball in college or going the club route as Illinois and he chose the latter.

“I had a couple of phone calls and a lot of emails,” he said. “I’m good at volleyball, but I’m a better student. I can get a better education and a better college experience at a bigger university.

“U of I has been my dream school. Both of my parents went there. I have five U of I jerseys. I love the school.”

Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.

Each year, a painted gourd made to house a wren family is hung on a metal pole in our yard. I am told it was specifically built for those chirpy little creatures, each of which, our bird book informs us, is about 4-inches long and weighs about 1 ounce.

Each year it is the male wren who builds the nest as a method of wooing the female by showcasing his ability to establish a snug home. The strong-minded bird focuses on his task, piling small tufts of grass and bits of sticks into the gourd. At times, it struggles to insert larger sticks into the nest and although it often fails in that task, it seems determined to push a 4-inch stick into the gourd.

The bird’s desire to get this nest building done is one thing, but his courtship is not limited to the first pretty female he spies. In Mr. John Wren’s world the chase is always on, and any Miss Jane Wren will do.

This year, however, the wren colony was late in arriving and a house sparrow checked out the gourd, saw that it liked it and started to create its own nest. Unlike the fickle-hearted wren, Mr. Sparrow often picks a mate for his 2- to 5-year life.

It was only a matter of time before a wren showed up, looking for a home and that is when this crazy conflict between the birds began.

While the sparrow was checking out the neighborhood, the wren began to dismantle the nest, dropping small sticks or tufts of grass to the ground.

The wren flew off and shortly thereafter the sparrow returned to find his house in a state of disarray, may have thought he didn’t do something he assumed he did and quickly began rebuilding his once snug home.

This has been going on for nearly two weeks. Sparrow builds the nest and flies off. Wren arrives and begins to demolish what it sees.

Over the weekend the issue was decided in the wren’s favor as it was busy both demolishing what was left of the sparrow’s nest and building its own abode, little stick by little stick. The sparrow was elsewhere, fleeing the coop, so to speak.

We’re number four!

Pardon us for boasting about something in Park Forest. In last week’s Daily Southtown, Olivia Stevens reported that the village’s water was selected as the fourth best in the state by judges at a tasting contest held in Peoria.

The town of Paris was rated Illinois’ best, followed by a plant serving both Roscoe and McChesney Park, two communities near Rockford, The city of Normal was third.

The honor has a downside, however.

Rod Ysaguirre, the village’s public works director, was quoted as saying while Chicago and numerous south and southwest suburbs use Lake Michigan water, Park Forest uses mineral-rich water from underground wells filtered through its own treatment plant, for which local residents pay nearly $22 per 1,000 gallons, compared to $4.89 for lake water for the same 1,000 gallons

All this brings to mind the proposal by former village Mayor Jon Vanderbilt who, when he first ran for village trustee, thought Park Forest should bottle and sell the water it gets from its wells.

Which also reminds me of the time someone told me how he enjoyed drinking Château Lafite Rothschild, a fabulous French champagne. I asked, “how good is it, really?”

“I’ll tell you how good it is,” he replied. “It’s $300 a bottle.”

Jerry Shnay, at jerryshnay@gmail.com, is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.

Homeowners’ bills grew by a total of about 7% over that span as a result of the shift, according to the latest report from the Cook County treasurer’s office, the first to calculate how much shifting burdens have cost on property tax bills. Those increases fell more on lower-income Black and Latino taxpayers, the report found.

The report does not draw conclusions about whether those appeals were correct, but does show “that the county’s assessment appeal system works far more to the advantage of business property owners than homeowners, and at the same time favors wealthier white homeowners over lower-income minority homeowners.”

It looked at the impact of appeals at the county assessor’s office and the three-member Board of Review during the 2021 and 2023 tax years. Though those years corresponded with much of the pandemic, its conclusions echoed similar findings from a Chicago Tribune and ProPublica investigation in 2017 about appeals’ impact on assessments.

Properties are reassessed every three years. Every year, owners have two chances to knock down their assessments via appeals before the value is finalized: once at the assessor, next at the Board of Review. If they’re dissatisfied with those results, they can take their case to the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board or to circuit court.

Owners of businesses have historically been far more likely to appeal. In the span of the study, nearly 64% of commercial building owners appealed, representing more than $100 billion in value. More than 46% of all businesses were “serial” filers, appealing every year, according to the report.

Business appeals “were particularly successful” in the period of the study, the report found, lowering “their taxes through appeals by a total of 12.5%,” or about $3.3 billion.

Owners that didn’t appeal wound up paying for it: Any reduction in assessed value for one property owner shifts the burden onto others. Successful appeals for valuable commercial buildings have a much bigger impact and shift millions in tax burden onto homeowners and other businesses.

While overall 27% of homeowners appealed, the study found “wide variations” in which homeowners filed their own appeals. Just 3.4% of homeowners in West Englewood, a majority-Black and low-income neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, disputed their assessment during 2021 city cycle, while nearly all Loop homeowners — 96% — did so. That could be because assessments dropped in Englewood and went up in the Loop that year as Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi rejiggered the office’s methodology.

In the suburbs, just 22% of south suburban homeowners appealed during that reassessment year, compared with 60% of those in the north suburbs. Homeowners and businesses in lower-income areas were “hit the hardest,” the study found.

“Homeowners in those neighborhoods were less likely to appeal, less likely to win and, when they did win, received lower overall dollar reductions in their homes’ assessed values,” the report said. Appeals led to bills increasing by about 5% for homeowners “in high-income areas and about 10% in low-income areas, most of which had predominantly minority populations.”

The assessor’s office said a major reason for appeal rate disparities by neighborhood could be that median bills in wealthier neighborhoods are much higher.

In some Chicago neighborhoods, the treasurer highlighted particularly sharp hikes where residents could least afford it. The South Deering neighborhood, which is majority Black and has a median household income below $35,000, saw overall tax bills go up 24.3% following appeals during the 2021 Chicago cycle. So did the majority-Latino Gage Park neighborhood, where median household income is about $50,000. It saw bills go up by 23% that year after appeals.

But while all property owners have the right to appeal, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas said the answer isn’t necessarily for everyone to do so. Rather, the assessor’s office and Board of Review need to get on the same page about their data and methodologies so owners trust the assessments in the first place and so reductions for businesses aren’t as dramatic, she said.

Both offices pledged to do just that in December, after a county report concluded decades of communication failures had helped fuel gaps in how each office approached assessments. That study, commissioned by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, found suburban businesses were assessed too low compared with their actual sale prices and that appeals to the Board of Review made assessments less accurate. It also found Kaegi initially assessed Chicago commercial properties too high in 2021.

But the political reality of reaching consensus is thorny. Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele and two board employees with ties to Commissioner Larry Rogers Jr. are running to replace Kaegi in the March primary. Steele and Rogers, meanwhile, are also rivals.

“These two offices are in a war zone, and if they don’t stop their war zone, this is going to go on,” Pappas said. “Can we get to the middle to get to a solution that doesn’t hurt people?”

Assessments for commercial buildings have been a hot button issue since Kaegi took office. The previous Tribune investigation found high-end downtown businesses had been under-assessed. For thousands of those properties, the investigation found, their assessment did not change “even by a single dollar,” while for others, their assessments were “so riddled with errors that they created deep inequities.”

Kaegi pledged to fix those issues. The first commercial assessments he mailed were 82.5% higher in the north suburbs in 2019, 55.6% higher in the south suburbs the following year, and up 76.5% in Chicago in 2021. Business owners, believing Kaegi overcorrected, filed appeals, and the county’s Board of Review, which disagreed with Kaegi’s methodology, often granted reductions.

Kaegi’s office, in a statement, said the latest report backs up its long-held contention that “outsized reductions” granted by the Board of Review to big commercial appellants are what is driving the shift.

“By comparison, the tax bill changes due to differences in residential appeal rates are relatively minor. We don’t believe the problem of property tax unfairness is solved by pitting homeowners against each other, distracting us from the much more consequential inequities at play,” the statement continued, noting that independent analyses found Kaegi’s assessments are more accurate than past years.

Rogers, the chairman of the three-member Board of Review, said the assessor’s “flawed valuations” are to blame. “The buck starts and stops with Fritz Kaegi.”

Pappas’ study suggests if the two offices standardized their data, they might grant smaller business breaks and reduce the massive shifts from the appeals process. The two previously promised to work together, and she said she hoped the report would help “nudge” them to collaborate.

Until then, the report said low-income homeowners should also be given tools to help appeal their assessments. Kaegi’s office, the statement said, participated in more than 200 outreach events for homeowners to help with appeals and exemptions last year.

Top 10

With records through Sunday and previous rankings in parentheses.

1. Brother Rice 23-1 (1)

Arizona recruit Gavin Triezenberg is up to 30 RBIs out of the leadoff spot for the Crusaders.

2. St. Laurence 20-3 (2)

Daniel Coyle homers in 15-0 rout of Loyola as Vikings extend winning streak to 16.

3. Lincoln-Way East 19-4 (3)

Charlie Cosich hits homer in eighth inning of wild 14-13 win over Homewood-Flossmoor.

4. Lincoln-Way West 17-5 (4)

Conor Essenburg piles up three doubles, four RBIs in 15-2 win over Riverside-Brookfield.

5. Lemont 18-3-1 (6)

Another gem for Shea Glotzbach, who strikes out nine over six innings in 8-2 win over Montini.

6. Providence 16-7 (5)

Nate O’Donnell homers and pitches six strong innings in 8-5 win over Mount Carmel.

7. Lincoln-Way Central 11-7 (NR)

Liam Arsich homers then records save as Knights complete two-game sweep of Lockport.

8. Andrew 16-5 (8)

Danny Moss throws six shutout innings as Thunderbolts top district rival Sandburg 8-4.

9. Marist 13-8 (10)

Freshman left-hander Collin Lawlor shuts out Maine South for 4 1/3 innings in 6-2 victory.

10. Richards 14-5 (NR)

Baha Hammad sparks comeback 9-8 win over Tinley Park for Bulldogs’ sixth straight victory.

Player of the Week

Senior left-hander Lucas Grant, a Purdue recruit, dominates for Joliet Catholic in 10-0 win over Nazareth. He strikes out 15 and allows just two hits and no walks over six innings.