Behind closed City Hall doors, aldermen are meeting to put more regulations on home sharing sites like Airbnb–we talk about possible next steps. And a committee passes a new amendment to the city’s Human Rights Ordinance that aims to prevent discrimination against transgender people, even though some worry about “knuckleheads” abusing the new rules. Plus we dive into Cook County’s pension woes and a "stable" outlook from ratings agencies.

A state bill to overhaul the city’s payment schedule for its police and fire pension funds clears big hurdles in Springfield, and gives the Mayor some breathing room on property taxes. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson highlights ongoing reforms at CPD, while the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) publicly releases videos and police records for more than 100 pending police misconduct investigations. And City Council Zoning Chairman Danny Solis (25) flexes his local control powers to push out a new development in Pilsen.

Uber and Lyft faced tough questioning from aldermen at a joint committee hearing this week over tighter regulations for rideshare drivers. Both companies say those regulations would keep part timers from signing up, and effectively end rideshare as we know it in Chicago–and a lot of aldermen seem fine with that. Plus, we preview some of the most fascinating bits from our one year anniversary panel: on Chicago’s shrinking population and how the shifting political landscape might affect municipal elections in 2019.

At a day long, often boisterous City Council Joint License and Transportation Committee hearing on a plan to increase regulations for drivers of ride-hailing companies to “level the playing field” with the yellow taxi industry, executives of Uber and Lyft threatened that a regulatory crackdown would “end ride-sharing as we know it” in Chicago.

There was no vote, only debate and public testimony, on Transportation ChairmanAnthony Beale’s (9) ordinance requiring Uber and Lyft drivers apply for a public chauffeur's license, be subject to background checks and fingerprinting, and make 5% of their fleet handicap accessible. Uber and Lyft supporters and yellow cab drivers packed the gallery, often cheering and jeering at testimony. At one point, Chairman Beale threatened to clear the gallery if the disruptions continued.

The meeting was heated, with Uber and Lyft supporters often on the receiving end of fact-checking responses from pro-regulation aldermen, and pro-regulation aldermen receiving taunts from boisterous audience members. Most present agreed on the need for more wheelchair accessible cars, but could not agree on how to work that out. Division of opinions was especially prominent on the issue of requiring fingerprinting for ride-hail drivers.  

At one point Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1), one of the few vocal Uber sympathizers on the Council, said, “I have more security when I get out of Uber or Lyft than I do with the taxi cab,” a cab driver in the gallery stood up and yelled, “You lie!” City Hall security had to intervene to get the driver to sit down.

“This is the Jetsons versus the Flintstones,” Moreno continued. “I am all for an even playing field, but why are we taking a very entrepreneurial industry and trying to have them go back to 70’s regulations?”

Both Ald. Moreno and Ald. Joe Moore (49) asked whether easing regulations on the taxi industry was an option–a suggestion also pitched by Uber Chief Advisor David Plouffe. Moreno claimed that the taxi industry was only interested in “killing” Uber, not working with them, citing the new fingerprinting rule. “I’d rather have a discussion about what we can do to lessen the restrictions on taxi cabs...bring them at least into 1990.”

But Moreno seemed to be in the minority. More than half the City Council has signed up to support Ald. Beale’s ordinance for more strict rideshare regulations, and few sounded off in support of deregulating cabs. Ald. John Arena (45) and Chairman Beale suggested Lyft and Uber should conform to new standards or leave Chicago.

“It’s simply ensuring we are doing the best we can to protect consumers," Arena said, arguing proposed changes were reasonable, and could be completed in a day. "If the industry doesn’t want to meet a very low standard, then go somewhere else where those standards are acceptable.” Arena noted if Uber and Lyft drivers could take a day off to testify, they could do the same to take an expedited one day class to achieve their chauffeur's license. 

And former 17th Ward Ald. Latasha Thomas, now counsel for law firm Reyes Kurson, which represents the taxi lobbying group the Illinois Transportation Trade Association, the taxi lobby, said it didn’t make sense that beauticians jump through more hoops than Uber drivers to get a license. “There’s more risk to getting in someone’s car than doing my nails,” she said.

Joseph Okpaku, Vice President of Government Relations for Lyft, said there is a greater risk of Chicagoans losing citywide transportation access and a chance to make extra money if the regulations were approved. He said there was a “distinct possibility” the company would leave Chicago if their drivers had to spend time and money to conform to the new rules. Part time drivers represent a “critical mass” of the service, he said. Extra barriers to access might dissuade them from signing up in the first place.

“We have never operated in a city with requirements like that,” he said of the proposed chauffeur’s license rule. Both sides frequently mentioned the company’s withdrawal from Austin, Texas, after voters there approved a ballot referendum requiring fingerprinting for drivers a few weeks ago.  

Marco McCottry, a General Manager for Uber, agreed, saying Chicago already has some of the strictest regulations on the books. “If this ordinance were to pass, ride-sharing as we know it would no longer exist in Chicago," he said. Chairman Beale shot back, saying a multi-billion dollar company could eat the cost. He also chastised the representatives and accused them of spreading lies about his ordinance through “scare tactics.”

Uber and Lyft have both actively lobbied riders and drivers online, on the radio, and on TV, encouraging supporters to contact their local alderman to vote against Beale’s ordinance. Uber has claimed changes would nearly double the cost of rides.

Chairman Beale said the hearing was supposed to be about “increasing safety” and creating parity between the two industries, but race, the lack of jobs and transportation to the city’s South and West Sides were brought up frequently.

“The taxi industry had a monopoly in this town and they didn’t have to innovate.” Ald. Moreno said prompting cheers from the gallery. “And now here comes Uber, and Latinos and African-Americans are driving more cars because of Uber and Lyft than ever in the taxicab industry.”

Okpaku and McCottry said their platforms filled a void. 80% of drivers for Lyft drive less than 15 hours a week and most are full time students, retirees or in between jobs, Okpaku said. McCorry testified that Uber has led several recruitment efforts in neighborhoods on the South and West Sides, adding about 11,000 new drivers from those areas to the platform.

Both Okpaku and McCottry said requiring that their drivers get fingerprinted would unfairly impact communities of color where there are higher concentrations of arrests. But two former police officers on the Council, Aldermen Chris Taliaferro (29) and Anthony Napolitano (41) said it’s the only way to get an accurate portrayal of a person’s criminal history.

“One thing I don’t want to do, no matter what, under any circumstance, is compromise safety,” said Ald. Taliaferro. “There was a reason why we did fingerprinting with the police department. Fingerprinting tells us things you don’t want us to know.”

“I’m upset when I hear these arguments about discrimination, against workers, against people of color,” said Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35). He said he was offended that a multi-billion dollar company was pitting workers against each other and trying to evade regulations by claiming their companies help predominately low-income Chicagoans.

By the four hour mark, when it was the public’s time to testify, Ald. Beale employed a buzzer to prevent people from going over a two minute limit. Most of the public testimony came from Uber, Lyft, and cab drivers, with a handful of advocates for more handicapped accessible vehicles.

Ezzedin Abdelmagid, a member of Cab Drivers United, said, “the taxi industry is on the verge of collapse”, echoing previous testimony he made earlier this year at a previous License Committee meeting. “You must create a fair set of rules for all of us.” He said that deregulating the taxi industry was a “terrible” idea.

Parallel to Beale’s ordinance, the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection is working on its own compromise, spurred, in part, by a U.S. District Court decision that said the distinctions between regulations taxis and “transportation network providers” (TNPs) appeared “utterly arbitrary” and that “the requirements for taxis are far more onerous than for TNPs.” The decision allowed taxi interest to pursue equal protection claims against the city.

After the meeting, Chairman Beale said he plans to schedule a vote on his plan ahead of the next City Council meeting. Beale said he might tweak the plan, but “doesn’t scare easy.”

The Chicago City Council spends two days debating ever-evolving Airbnb regulations from the Mayor’s Office. The City Council approves a new zoning tool to link downtown development to some of the city’s most blighted and economically underserved neighborhoods–even as one alderman labels it a “slush fund.” And we recap the monthly Council meeting: bonds, settlements, and an attempt to curb dog poop from piling up on people’s lawns.

The Council’s Housing Committee approved all items on yesterday’s agenda, including an affordable housing advocate’s move from the Chicago Plan Commission to the Low Income Housing Trust Fund Board, $1 lease agreements with three healthcare providers, and an $810,000 land sale in the “hot market” in the 27th Ward.

Attendance: Chairman Joe Moore (49), Vice Chair Gregory Mitchell (7), Pat Dowell (3), Sophia King (4), Leslie Hairston (5), Michelle Harris (8), Susan Sadlowski Garza (10), Patrick Daley Thompson (11), George Cardenas (12), Walter Burnett (27), Ariel Reboyras (30), Deb Mell (33), Carrie Austin (34), Tom Tunney (44), James Cappleman (46)

The top of the meeting was dominated with talk of affordable housing, and aldermen declaring their sorrow at the departure of Juan Linares, the Executive Director of LUCHA, from the Plan Commission after serving less than a year to move to the Trust Fund Board. Ald. Walter Burnett (27) wondered aloud whether Linares could serve on both boards, and thanked him for his vocal affordable housing advocacy on the Commission.

Linares often pressed developers about their plans for on-site affordable housing, which some other commission members reminded him was not part of their purview. As one of fifteen members on the Low Income Housing Trust Fund Board, Linares would decide whether buildings receive rental subsidies or interest-free forgivable loans to create more units for very low-income individuals or families.

Lease agreements for three city-owned clinics, in Lakeview, Englewood, and Pilsen, were approved by the committee. The city will lease those clinics until 2022 for $1 each. 6,400-square feet at the Lower West Side Health Clinic would be leased to the University of Illinois to deliver primary care, maternal health, and preventative medical services, according to the ordinance. Ald. Walter Burnett (27), whose ward borders the clinic’s home in the 25th, told fellow members, “whatever we can do to help this economic engine continue, I support.”

Ald. Tom Tunney (44) voiced support for lease of roughly 14,000-square-feet of clinical office space in the Lakeview Neighborhood Health Clinic to The Thresholdsfor mental health and substance abuse services, group therapy, and wellness classes. “This is an area that needs public health services. The ability to reinforce the city’s commitment to public health, plus the wraparound services, is really instrumental to my neighborhood,” Tunney said. He plans to use some of his menu money to upgrade the building’s facade.

Just one person testified on the third clinic up for committee approval: Marc Loveless, an LGBT civil rights and social justice organizer. He said Howard Brown, which would lease space at the  Englewood Neighborhood Health Clinic, is a North Side organization with a multi-million dollar budget. He said the city should have reached out to smaller grassroots organizations made up of constituencies still greatly impacted by HIV in the city: gay black men. “There is no agency that is led by African American LGBT men on the South or West Side. All of them have been cannibalized and re-contracted out by the major North Side organizations.” Ald. Burnett suggested Loveless not “player hate” against Howard Brown, and suggested Loveless speak with the chairs of the Black and Latino caucuses about his issues.

Ald. George Cardenas (12) questioned what he described as an “unusual” item, the $810,000 sale of a city-owned plot in the Kinzie PMD in the 27th Ward. The buyer, Peppercorn Capital LLC, offered $400,000 above the appraised value of the site. “Anything else we’re missing here?”  

Mary Benone, a representative with the Department of Planning and Development, responded, “This is good industrial property in the Kinzie industrial PMD,” which she described as a hot market, and the city decided to go with the highest bid. The administration submitted a substitute ordinance withholding the closing of sale, putting the money in escrow “until the grantee is ready to commence construction,” DPD’s Efrain Hernandez Diaz said.   

“We’re encouraging them to move with all deliberate speed to get the deal done,” Chairman Moore said.

The debate over how to regulate room-sharing companies like Airbnb boils to the surface as the City Council prepares to hold hearings on the matter next week. An alderman who wants to further regulate Uber and other ride-hailing services says he’s got the support he needs to get it through the Council. And Cook County Commissioners vote on massive redevelopment in the Illinois Medical district, and after some vociferous public support, pulled back on whether to make Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown's position an appointed one. (Correction: We mistakenly said the new Cook County Health and Hospitals building would cost $18 million. The correct estimated cost is $118 million.)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks at a press conference on January 13, 2016.

On December 9, 2015, in a rare early morning speech to the City Council after protests against police brutality had engulfed the city, a teary-eyed Mayor Rahm Emanuel addressed growing demands for police reform, saying, “We can either be defined by what we failed to do or what we choose to do.”

“We have to be honest with ourselves about this issue,” Mayor Emanuel told a packed City Council Chamber ahead of the last Council meeting of 2015. “Each time when we confronted it in the past, Chicago only went far enough to clear our consciences so we could move on.”

The city's Budget Office says it will begin working with aldermen to create a city-run property tax rebate program in time for this summer, when the next property tax bills are sent out. Loyola Law School holds a public forum to discuss reforming the Chicago Police Department. And the council’s Zoning Committee relaxes regulations on where in the city medical marijuana dispensaries can set up shop.

Another week of back and forth between Chicago Public Schools and the teacher’s union over stalled contract negotiations. Mayor Rahm Emanuel outlines new police reforms plucked from a task force he assembled after the Laquan McDonald video release. And newly appointed 4th Ward Alderman Sophia King flexes some political muscle getting a land-use board to table a parking lot expansion plan in her ward, because she says it’s not open to the public.