Melvin Brooks' house in Bellwood on Friday. As of last week, nearly 2,900 second installment bills that were supposed to go out last November were still unsent — including the bungalow pastor Melvin Brooks has owned since 1982. (Credit: Josh Boland/Chicago Tribune)
Melvin Brooks' house in Bellwood on Friday. As of last week, nearly 2,900 second installment bills that were supposed to go out last November were still unsent — including the bungalow pastor Melvin Brooks has owned since 1982. (Credit: Josh Boland/Chicago Tribune)

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A.D. Quig covers Cook County government, City Hall and the Obama Presidential Center. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after covering politics for Crain’s Chicago Business and The Daily Line.

Alex Nitkin is a government finance and accountability reporter conducting investigations on systemic problems and the public policies that are meant to fix them in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois government. Before joining Illinois Answers, he worked as a reporter and editor for The Daily Line covering Cook County and Chicago government. He previously worked at The Real Deal Chicago, where he covered local real estate news, and DNAinfo Chicago, where he worked as a breaking news reporter and then as a neighborhood reporter covering the city's Northwest Side. A New York native who grew up in Connecticut, Alex graduated Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism with a bachelor’s degree.