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Karin Schluecker Korth says her house is too big for her, but she doesn’t want to leave. It holds the memory of her late husband Bruce, who died in 2015; his spirit is in the house, she says.Her husband had a knack for collecting artistic objects. It shows in the decor of this American Foursquare single-family home with a stucco finish in Edgewater. Walking through the front doors feels like entering a modern art gallery, filled with abstract statues and deep-colored wallpaper.Bruce thought of every small detail about the house’s features. One of Korth’s favorites is the home’s two porches: one facing north, the other facing south.“On the south side, on a beautiful March day, I can grab the lounge chair and sit in the sun,” Korth says. “And then in July and August, I’m on the north side on the shaded porch. I mean, that’s perfect, right?” Karin Schluecker Korth and her husband, Bruce, who passed away in 2015.Manuel Martinez/WBEZ Between its style and the sentimental memories it holds, Korth wants to stay in her home. However, it’s becoming harder for the 67-year-old to remain with the way her property taxes keep increasing, she says. This has motivated Korth to learn all she can about appealing her property assessments.Higher assessments mean higher property tax bills. Tens of thousands of Cook County homeowners file appeals each year with the Cook County Assessor’s Office or the county’s Board of Review in an effort to lower those costs. Most homeowners who file appeals do so after each reassessment in the county’s triennial system. Property owners in the city, north suburbs and south suburbs receive new assessments every three years.However, the appeals process has revealed to Korth many shortcomings in how the county assesses residential properties; she’s found the appeals process to be maddening at times. “Nobody can essentially do this every three years. It’s incredibly exhausting,” she says. “It’s mind-boggling. I’m up in arms about the unfairness.”Government officials acknowledge the county’s system of assessing residential property needs repair. They also say the appeals process can be complicated and often dissatisfying for homeowners.Furthermore, knowing how to successfully navigate the appeals process can tip the scales of the county’s property tax burden for some property owners. Property assessment appeals have helped shift billions of dollars in property taxes from businesses to homeowners since 2021, according to a report from the Cook County Treasurer’s Office released Monday. The shift resulted in higher property tax bills for homeowners, particularly low-income homeowners in Latino and Black communities, the report showed. Property assessment blind spots Korth was able to smoothly appeal her property assessment in 2018 after taking a class with the Cook County Board of Review.“Looking back, I say I have been very lucky, because I was approved and the estimated value of my home — and thus the basic value on which the property tax is calculated — was reduced to where I said, ‘Yes, that’s fair, ’” she says.Her property taxes decreased by more than $700, adding up to more than $2,000 in savings over the three-year assessment period.When her home was reassessed in 2021, Korth says, the estimated market value of her home jumped from $580,000 to $780,000. So, she appealed her home’s assessed value again.She figured there was no way the assessment could be accurate. After all, the house hadn’t been renovated in several decades. It still had a linoleum floor and 40-year-old carpeting, Korth says. “It’s nice wall-to-wall carpeting, but it’s 40 years old, right? I have cracked tiles in bathrooms. I’m struggling with the drainage.”But it’s likely those details weren’t considered when her property was reassessed.When determining the value of a home, the Cook County Assessor’s office considers many different factors, like what the house is made of, how much space it has and what school district it’s in. But the office lacks key information about the interior state of a home. Residents familiar with the appeals process, like Korth, and even Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi himself agree it’s a major blind spot with the county’s residential property assessments.“Our modeling and our analysts are only as good as the information that they have,” Kaegi says.Having key information about the interior state of people’s homes would help make assessments more accurate, Kaegi says. This information is available in the federal Uniform Appraisal Dataset, for which he and assessors from other heavily populated counties, like Miami-Dade and Los Angeles, are seeking access. The dataset has information like the number of bathrooms in a property and the total square footage.“We think this qualitative information that the federal government has is really the single most important step that would make assessments not only more fair here but everywhere in America where that data is made available,” Kaegi says. Cook County officials say having key information about the interior of people’s homes, like Karin Schluecker Korth’s house in Edgewater, would help make property assessments more accurate. Manuel Martinez/WBEZ Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele agrees that more information about what’s inside people’s homes would lead to more accurate assessments. But she says Kaegi should send people out to do in-person inspections to gather that information: State law requires all properties other than farmland to be viewed, inspected and revalued every four years. Farmland is reviewed once a year. The only exception to this law is Cook County, which has its own triennial assessment cycle that does not include viewings.“I’m working with our legislators to require Cook County to have to do a physical inspection. The rest of the state does it every four years,” says Steele, who is challenging Kaegi for the position of Cook County assessor in 2026. “I’m not asking for anything out of the norm.”In a statement, the Cook County Assessor’s Office said it is cost-prohibitive to do a mass appraisal of the magnitude Steele recommends.“In 2019, the Assessor’s Office asked the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) to conduct an audit of our operations. Part of that audit considered the resources required for a mass physical reappraisal of Cook County,” the statement read. “The IAAO audit concluded that the [Cook County Assessor’s Office] could hire an outside contractor to conduct a mass reappraisal. It estimated that this third-party project would take four years and cost $88 million — more than twice the annual budget of the entire Assessor’s Office.”“We believe that a better path to more accurate property data is to invest in field inspection staff and technology,” the statement continued. “In 2024, we hired 10 new field inspection staff, and plan to hire another 3 this year. We also use satellite imaging software such as PushPin and NearMap to track property updates remotely.” An exhausting processAfter her 2021 assessment, Korth filed another appeal. This time, the appeals process was far more painful.The assessor’s office reduced her home’s estimated market value by more than $100,000, but Korth says it still felt too high. She then filed an appeal with the county’s Board of Review; when they didn’t see things her way, she went a step further. “Because I felt sure with my comparables that I’m on firm ground, I decided to do the next step and appeal to the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board,” Korth says.In making a case for her appeal, Korth knew she had to present information about comparable homes in her area to prove her own assessment should be lowered. She spent hours documenting evidence detailing the interior state of her home and those of homes nearby, using photos listed on property brokerage websites.At the end of the day, Korth was able to get her assessment lowered. Between all the back and forth with various agencies, the process took two years. It was hard work, but the whole rigamarole helped her save more than $3,000 in property taxes per year throughout that assessment period.Unlike Korth, many suburban homeowners don’t have to navigate the appeals process on their own. Suburban township assessors provide guidance for homeowners challenging their property assessments.Niles Township Assessor Scott Bagnall says he filed about 1,500 appeals on behalf of his residents for tax year 2024, and he predicts he will file about 1,000 more this year.“We’re basically the taxpayers’ advocate,” Bagnall says. “We’re not adverse to the taxpayer. We’re on the taxpayer’s side. We live in the district and suffer the same taxes and the same problems as the taxpayers do.”Bagnall is an attorney who’s learned the ins and outs of appeal applications after having filed so many. He even wrote a book called "Reduce Your Property Tax," which details the appeals process. The book aims to help readers analyze the assessed value of their homes and understand the responsibilities and limitations of each party involved in the tax system.In filing an appeal, Bagnall says residents have to complete a form with their basic information, like the address and property index number or PIN. He then compiles comparables, which are detailed specs of nearby properties. “Stuff gets a little complicated if you haven’t done it a couple of times and you don’t understand what it is that they’re looking for downtown,” he says.“I feel sometimes like if [township assessors] don’t get in there to do it and help people and tell them what’s going on, they’re not going to be able to do it themselves,” Bagnall says. “Not that they’re not qualified or incompetent or anything. It’s just … a difficult process to learn.” Karin Schluecker Korth looks through several years of tax assessment paperwork on April 29, 2025. She used the documents to support her successful appeals to lower the assessed value of her property and, ultimately, her tax bills.Manuel Martinez/WBEZ Korth knows as much from hard-won experience. She says working through the appeals process feels like a part-time job. Living in the city, she doesn’t have a township assessor who can do this for her.She’s tried property tax lawyers, but Korth says she found it hard to follow how exactly they were helping her. And they required payment up front.“They wanted the money before I had any money back,” she says.Kaegi says homeowners are more successful representing themselves, rather than using a property tax attorney or consultant. “The reason is that the homeowner is the world’s biggest expert on their own property,” he says. In her most recent reassessment, Korth says the assessor’s office set her home’s estimated market value at $860,000. She plans to file yet another appeal, but she’s torn. As Korth ages, the burden of rising property taxes and caring for a large home all by herself is beginning to weigh on her.“There is not really a way to get out of this game, really, except moving away,” she says. “I feel trapped in this situation, but I also kind of choose to fight up to now. How long? I have no idea. But for now, I fight.”

Will Duncan, then general manager of Thalia Hall in Pilsen, was stuck in westbound traffic on the Eisenhower after a long day on the job. He decided to pull off and try Roosevelt Road to get to Elmhurst, where he lived with his wife, Jessica King, and their young son.He passed Fitzgeralds nightclub in Berwyn.Oh my God, I remember that place, he thought, brought back to a night out long ago. That place looks so cool.He stopped for a drink. And, like a person who had spent his entire life in the hospitality industry, he gave it the once-over. The club, he had heard, was for sale.He started stopping by once a week.One thing led to another, and today, seven years out, he and his wife own it.“Never in a million years could I have imagined that,” King said.The chance encounter has perhaps rewritten the history books on live music in the Chicago suburbs. Duncan, 45, and King, 41, turned what could have been another sad closure of a beloved historic venue into a revitalized musical and entertainment powerhouse. With what one employee called the couple’s “new-kid energy,” they set out to keep all the good parts — like the Wisconsin supper-club decor and vital relationships with a stable of American roots musicians — and improve upon everything else. The 100-year-old stage at Fitzgeralds has seen thousands of bands including American roots legends such as Marcia Ball and Clifton Chenier. The backdrop was painted in 1992 for a scene shot in the movie “A League of Their Own”.Manuel Martinez/WBEZ Five years in, they appear to have succeeded. Today, the three-building campus in the western suburbs is bursting at the seams with a staggering variety of music, a side of BBQ from their restaurant next door and offbeat entertainment like storytelling, gangland history and movie nights. Its newly renovated free outdoor patio — which just opened for the season and is flowing with live music, food and drink — will be a destination this summer. At any given time, the club has 150 musicians and events on the calendar at both the main club and in the Sidebar next door, totaling 1,000 over the year. The club’s best-known gathering, the American Music Festival in July, sells out four days of performances by 50 different artists and draws audiences from across the United States.Eut getting here has taken a leap off a cliff of debt, some solid hospitality experience and targeted capital improvements. “What the hell did you buy?”A traffic jam led Duncan to Fitzgeralds at 6615 W. Roosevelt Rd., but soon after the couple signed the papers on March 15, 2020, it felt more like a 10-car pileup.The two were not independently wealthy, and Duncan was giving up a fat check and profit-sharing from his employer, the hospitality group 16 on Center. King worked on a Chicago public school salary. To come up with the $1.7 million purchase price, they did a cash-out refinancing on their home, sold a Ukrainian Village two-flat, secured loans totaling about $1 million from the Small Business Administration and coaxed eight investors — friends, family and colleagues — to throw in another half-million of equity.King was an assistant principal, pregnant with their second child and studying for her master’s in educational leadership. A couple weeks after the deal was signed, she visited their new property for the first time. She saw the former owner’s pontoon boat parked in the middle of the sprawling, ramshackle footprint.King still remembers her incredulity: “I was like, what the hell did you buy?” Jessica King left her public school job to become full-time marketing manager for Fitzgeralds.Brian Ernst/Chicago Sun-Times Within a week, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker ordered all indoor venues closed for COVID-19 protections.“We just figured Will would walk in and keep everything going that was already going,” King said. “That didn’t happen.”She came up with putting bands in the back of a 1984 Chevy pickup and driving around neighborhoods to do truck shows. When outdoor gatherings were allowed that summer, the two fast-tracked a plan to convert the boat-parking space between the buildings into an outdoor patio. “They got very creative and never let it get them down,” retired former owner Bill FitzGerald, 72, said of Duncan and King. Here, he poses outside of the club during an expansion in 2002. Courtesy of John H. White/Chicago Sun-Times “It forced us to keep coming up with ideas and hustle, and [that] honestly made Fitzgeralds a better place because of it,” King said.The patio was converted into a free public gathering place that quickly became one of the club’s most popular features. Carpenters just put the finishing touches on a $250,000 pavilion (financed with more business loans) that will keep the sun and rain off and the crowds spending.“They got very creative and never let it get them down,” retired former owner Bill FitzGerald, 72, said of the new owners.With King generating ideas, she decided it was time to leave the public schools, ditch her salary and benefits and go to work as the venue’s marketing manager.“We honestly never thought about failure,” Duncan said. “We could not afford to fail. This was our family’s livelihood now. We just figured it out as we went.”King’s engaging photos and social media posts fuel a lively online presence, and she was the driver behind the club earning a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Besides some possible tax benefits, the owners wanted to send a message that the club was here to stay for another 100 years.The main building has cycled through a dizzying number of incarnations, beginning in 1919 as the Oakwyn Athletic Club, a speakeasy during Prohibition.Next came Club Ritz in 1933, a place to do the shim-sham-shimmy, a Harlem-born tap-dance routine. The mayor of Berwyn soon put an end to the shim and the sham after reports that Club Ritz had become a notorious hangout for teens. The venue cycled through six other names, including restaurants and cocktail lounges, before becoming Deer Lodge, the dark dive where Bill FitzGerald and his buddies played pool a few times before the fun-loving housepainter bought it for $60,000 on St. Patrick’s Day 1980.Nightclub economics 101In the world of music venues, everything is expensive: supplies and wages for owners and ticket and food prices for customers. Audiences are fickle.Plus, having a house full of people is no guarantee of success, said Duncan, who learned the business at popular Chicago spots like the Empty Bottle and Longman & Eagle on the North Side and The Promontory in Hyde Park.“It is shockingly easy to do a lot of business and not be profitable at all,” he said. “It’s a house of cards.”King added: “It is sometimes down to a handful of tickets as to whether we will make a profit on this show.” While opening a venue is intimidating, failure isn’t a foregone conclusion. “You can thrive if you know what you’re doing,” said Fitzgeralds’ owner Will Duncan.Brian Ernst/Sun-Times Chicago, where new venues like the Salt Shed draw enthusiastic crowds, will soon see an uptick in fresh destinations — the beloved Double Door reopening in Uptown after losing its lease in Wicker Park, the Wirtz family's promised concert hall as part of the United Center megadevelopment. Existing venues frequently stand on a knife’s edge, like Davenport’s, which closed as a cabaret and rebranded as a nightclub earlier this year.It sounds intimidating, but failure isn’t a foregone conclusion. “You can thrive if you know what you’re doing,” said Duncan, who has worked as a busboy, waiter and doorman.First off, the new owners benefit by being their own landlord; they own the whole shebang. And there’s a lot of shebang for the buck, including three buildings with 71 separate doors.Next, Duncan and King decided to own and operate the restaurant, Babygold Barbecue, to sell more food across the campus. It’s lucky if it breaks even most nights, but it’s essential to the financial and hospitality synergy, Duncan said. Private parties and off-site catering bring in additional revenue.So far, the couple has been able to pay themselves a modest salary and distribute some profits back to investors.Staging the next chapterFitzgeralds has a vibe, and the couple want to keep it that way. But they are also slowly broadening the musical menu to appeal to the changing demographics of the neighborhood — and to younger crowds, with indie bands and Latin music nights on Thursdays.Ken Jackson, 73, of Elmhurst, has noticed the musical evolution. The folk-rock fan has been a regular at Fitzgeralds almost since the beginning, going three or four times a month, sometimes without even knowing who’s playing.Jackson is often accompanied by his son, Eric, 34, who is developmentally disabled. Eric is a familiar face to what Jackson calls the “community” of staff and customers there.“To have a place where he feels at home and comfortable is special,” he said. “It’s a friendly and welcoming experience.” The Sidebar on the sprawling Fitzgeralds campus serves specialty cocktails and has a stage of its own for nightly music.Manuel Martinez/WBEZ This is not by accident. Duncan, a self-described people pleaser, works the floor nearly every night, kibbitzing with patrons and staff, moving chairs and tables. He is hands-on, “management by walking around,” if you will.Hospitality is hustle and hard work — and making it look easy. For the 80-some staff, many of whom (such as general manager Michelle Larson) predated the new owners, it is clear that the connection to Fitzgeralds goes beyond the paycheck.“I feel a little spoiled here.” Larson, 40, said. “It’s hard not to feel romantic about this place.”

LAS VEGAS — Yet another new coach, same quarterback, same old song and dance with the Bears, who have posted one winning season in their last 12 campaigns, in 2025-26?This can be a sweet spot on the NFL wagering calendar, post-draft and pre-training camp, that can provide value. Select experts who have supplied profits in this space have been tapped for their insights.A year ago, they helped me fashion a totals portfolio in which I went 5-0, all on under action, so those are the opinions I sought in excavating potential Bears plays here; next week, the overall NFL.I won’t stake a position with the Bears, whose win total opened at 8.5, with a +110 price, at DraftKings about six weeks ago and has been steadily whittled to +105 and, a few days ago, to even.People have been gradually betting that the Bears will win at least nine games.Follow that trend or go against the growing herd?On BetMGM’s recent “Bet Sweats” podcast and show, on the Audacy national radio network (10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 105.9-FM HD2 in Chicago), co-hosts Joe Ostrowski and Sam Panayotovich debated that total.It ended quickly, like Tyson in his prime. Ostrowski noted that, since the sacking of coach Lovie Smith after the 2012 season, the Bears have gone over a projected win total only once, when quarterback Mitch Trubisky went 12-4 in 2018.“Then they got double-doinked in the playoffs, and that’s it,” Panayotovich said. “Yikes!”Since then, the Bears are 49-69 overall, 51-62-5 (45.1%) against the spread, the sixth-worst rate in the league.“Alarming,” Panayotovich said. “I wouldn’t bet the Bears over 8.5, at +115, when I could bet them to make the playoffs at +160,” or risk $100 to win $160.“It’s basically the same fundamental position, but you get an extra 45 cents if you’re right.”Split decisionsA Pythagorean theorem extrapolated by Kiev O’Neil, at OddsBreakers, pegs the Bears winning 6.26 games, or more likely to win six than seven games.However, that’s most accurate, O’Neil wrote me, if everything last season remains the same for this season. This, of course, is former Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson’s maiden voyage as the Bears’ head coach.The “pythag” also can’t account for odd bounces, good luck or bad fortune, penalties missed by zebras or fraudulent calls by them.Do factoring in a new coach, draft and free-agency additions and a fourth-place schedule all merit a two-win increase, the DraftKings win total of 8.5? That, O’Neil wrote, is the question for bettors.For Matt Youmans, senior broadcaster/writer at the Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN) and an Indiana native, under 8.5 for the Bears (and over 8.5 for the Chargers) jumped off the sheets at him a year ago.The Bears went 5-12; the Chargers finished 11-6.On a Honolulu holiday Monday, Youmans took a break between holes of the majestic Royal Hawaiian Golf Club to say he has not yet bet on any NFL totals.“[But] I’m not planning to bet the Bears under this season,” he said, “because the new coaching staff is a major upgrade. I also expect the Lions and Vikings to slip some.”Former UNLV quarterback Jon Denton was raised in Vegas and churns out profit annually betting in and around Iowa, where he resides with his family.And he favors wagering under 8.5 for the Bears, who sport the league’s seventh-toughest schedule this season. Since Smith, Johnson is the team’s sixth new coach.“Where do I start?” he said. “A lot of moving parts here. New coach with a QB-structured system and a freelancer [Caleb Williams] at QB. I’ll start there. Went from seven wins in ’23 to five in ’24.“Should see more than five this season, but Green Bay, Detroit and Minnesota present a tough division. I like under 8.5.”Too tastyThe last words here deserve to be those of Tom Barton, the veteran Long Island handicapper who became a Bears fan during their glorious 1985 season.He said, “That’s what hooked me!” Barton can diagnose a bet on a game as well as anyone I know, even when it comes to his Bears; for him, an ultimate head-or-heart decision.Finally, he said, a Bears regime made serious moves to address the offensive line by drafting Ozzy Trapilo and Luke Newman and acquiring Drew Dalman, Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson.“A big positive,” Barton said. “The experience is massive, and I would say they went from a ‘C’ line to a ‘B,’ maybe a ‘B+.’ That’s a big upgrade … you can’t do anything from the skill positions without [a solid] line.”He never invests in NFL futures until training camps end because too many major injuries can happen, and that provides time to gauge public plays. He does most often lean toward under win totals.“But the Bears certainly look tempting,” Barton said. “I like the over. They’ll be a very public bet this year, but I just can’t get over the offense they are putting together.“They also get [safety Jaquan] Brisker back healthy, a forgotten add for them. I don’t love betting on a new head coach in his first coaching gig [or] a potential sophomore jinx for Williams, but it’s too tasty to do anything but take the over.”

A $1.2 million grant to restore the aged 92-foot bell tower of Pullman's historic Greenstone United Methodist Church was unanimously approved Thursday by the Commission of Chicago Landmarks. Made under the city's Adopt-a-Landmark program, the grant — if approved by City Council — would cover a virtual rebuild of the 143-year-old church's tower, reusing as much of the building's distinctive original green Serpentine stone.Work could begin this year and carry into 2026. The church is located at 11211 S. St. Lawrence Ave."Getting this grant, and restoring the bell tower will be a big shot in the arm for not only the congregation ... but the community of Pullman," said the Rev. Luther Mason, Greenstone Church's pastor.The vote marks the city's second attempt in five years to fund the tower's fix-up.Back in 2021, the commission approved a $1 million Adopt-a-Landmark grant for the church. But the measure failed to get final approval in 2022 after Pullman Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) — who raised concerns about the small congregation's ability to maintain the church — and 15th Ward Ald. Ray Lopez indefinitely tabled a vote on City Council approval of the cash. Lee Bey is the Chicago Sun-Times’ architecture critic. He is also author of “Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side,” an Emmy-nominated TV host and working on a new book about architecture on the city’s West Side. The new grant approved Thursday by the landmarks commission is $200,000 more than the old one — an attempt to account for anticipated inflation-related cost increases since 2021.Beale said he will not stand in the way of funding when the grant comes up for aldermanic approval this time."It's a great day in the 9th Ward," he said when reached after the commission's vote. "Now we can stabilize the building and hopefully turn the building around."But the tower is one of many challenges Greenstone faces. Pullman neighborhood residents started a GoFundMe page in March that has raised $20,000 toward getting the currently unheated church's gas service restored and its furnace fixed.The building also has no air conditioning and its roof needs repair. Greenstone was built for 600 worshippers but fewer than 30 people are members now.The Richardson Romanesque-styled church was constructed in 1882 as part of what was then railroad car magnate's George M. Pullman's company town. Architect Solon S. Beman designed the town, including the church.Greenstone, though in decay, is still largely original, featuring a colorful rose window, cherry wood furnishings, and a 1,260-pipe Steere and Turner organ."This grant opportunity has empowered us to take bold and necessary steps to preserve the church’s exterior facade," Mason said. "Not only restoring its beauty, but ensuring the safety and structural integrity of this sacred space, which is loved by not only the congregation, but the Pullman community and beyond."If Greenstone is ultimately able to turn around, the building would join a renaissance currently happening in the Far South Side neighborhood.In the last decade, the community has become a National Historical Park, with National Park Service rangers and guides operating out of what was once the long-vacant Pullman railroad car factory and administration building at 111th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.The neighborhood also features the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porters National Museum at 10406 S. Maryland Ave. And the state has set aside $21 million to lure developers into reactivating the shuttered Hotel Florence at 111th Street and Forrestville Avenue.

Boss Straw touts its product as the “best, earth-friendly paper straw in the world.” But since February, sales have plummeted 85% at the paper straw maker in Woodstock. Nearly 14 million paper straws are sitting in limbo at Boss’ warehouse, about 1½ hours from Chicago.President Donald Trump issued an executive order “to end the use of paper straws” on Feb. 10 and barred federal agencies from procuring them. Following Trump’s mandate, many U.S. distributors have stopped ordering paper straws even for the private sector and reverted to plastic, said Guy Spinelli, founder of Boss Straw.“If it keeps up the way it is, [Trump] will drive me out of business by the end of this year,” said Spinelli. “It would be the end of the story.” Guy Spinelli, Boss Straw founder and CEO (from right), David Spinelli, and COO Andrew Spinelli.Provided If the company shutters, Spinelli would lose $2 million he invested on equipment and prototype development.“I’m not a billionaire like [Trump]. Two million dollars is a lot of money for me,” he said. “Us little guys, who he claims he’s for — he should be proud of us.”Spinelli, 75, founded Boss Straw in 2022 after starting in the paper industry in 1979 and working in sales and research and development roles. Boss Straw sold $800,000 worth of biodegradable paper straws last year, buoyed by momentum to phase out single-use plastic from federal and local governments, restaurants and other industries, as well as to consumers.A Chicago ordinance in effect from January 2022 requires food businesses to provide single-use foodware only upon request. However, the law isn’t always enforced. In Illinois, as of January, the Large Event Facilities Act requires convention centers, sports stadiums and other spaces to set up recycling and composting bins in order to reduce single-use plastic and food scrap waste.Boss Straw products were previously used in more than 1,000 restaurants, bars, coffee shops and casinos across the country, said Spinelli. But sinceTrump’s executive order, distributors have shied away from them. Boss Straw previously had nine employees but cut back to five by early April after production ground to a halt.The move by Trump — who has long railed against paper straws, and whose 2019 reelection campaign sold Trump-branded reusable plastic straws for $15 per pack of 10 — targets a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027 and from all federal operations by 2035.Paper straws have become an unlikely target of culture wars in recent years. Trump’s executive order said they are favored by “woke activists who prioritize symbolism over science.”According to his executive order, paper straws are “nonfunctional, use chemicals that may carry risks to human health, are more expensive to produce than plastic straws and often force users to use multiple straws.” As he signed the order in the White House in February, Trump said, “On occasion they break, they explode. ... We’re going back to plastic straws.”Spinelli is proud of his company's straws, which he guarantees can last 24 hours in hot or cold drinks. He started the company determined to make a better product than the flimsy ones that fall apart quickly in liquid.Environmental sustainability was also a reason Spinelli started Boss Straws.More than 390 million plastic straws are used daily in the U.S., mostly for 30 minutes or less, according to advocacy group Turtle Island Restoration Network. Plastic straws take at least 200 years to decompose and pose a threat to turtles and other wildlife as they degrade into microplastics, the group said. Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tons of new plastic. About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, according to the United Nations.Plastic straws end up in landfills, waterways and streets, and plastic waste in oceans harms sea life, said Spinelli. There are also health reasons to avoid them since they’re made of petroleum products, he added.Tariffs haven’t had a big impact on Boss Straws because it uses materials from paper mills in Ohio, Texas and New Hampshire. Its straw wrappers are made in Taiwan, and equipment is from Germany and France.Spinelli voted for Trump and supports his tariff policies.“We got to get China out of this marketplace because they’re ruining the world,” he said. “I don’t want anything from China. They’re the worst thieves in the world.”He also supports the president’s goal of tightening U.S. borders and “getting illegal immigrants out of the country,” he said. “The things he has done are exactly what he campaigned on.”But Spinelli takes issue with Trump saying that “all paper straws stink, that they all fall apart” on national TV news networks.“What do you think that does to a paper straw company? It cripples us because the president said it,” he said.Spinelli is also frustrated that Trump has not responded to 25 emails and 10 letters asking him to try straws from his company. He has mailed boxes of them to the White House so the president can try them himself.“I understand your executive order allowing a return to plastic straws, and I fully support the right to choose,” Spinelli wrote in an open letter to Trump. “But as a leader who has championed small businesses and American manufacturing, I urge you to put my straws to the test.”So far Trump has not responded.Contributing: AP