Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during a news conference after Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

Aldermen overwhelmingly approved a plan to move forward with Bally’s $1.7 billion blueprint for a Chicago casino, more narrowly endorsed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s curfew crackdown plan and threw another hurdle in front of a proposed ethics crackdow during a marathon City Council meeting on Wednesday.

Ald. Michael Scott during a political event in March 2020 [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

A popular West Side alderman and key ally of Mayor Lori Lightfoot is calling it quits at the end of next week, setting up the mayor’s second opportunity to fill a vacancy on the City Council.

Ald. Raymond Lopez (15) filing notice Monday for a special City Council meeting scheduled for Wednesday [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]

The City Council is set to give its official blessing on Wednesday to a plan tying the fate of Chicago’s finances with Bally’s $1.7 billion blueprint for a casino, hotel and entertainment district in River West. The council is also on track to take a vote on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s controversial proposal to move up the city’s youth curfew to 10 p.m.

Following the abbreviated City Council meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday, aldermen are set to reconvene for an impromptu 3 p.m. hearing forced by aldermen to grill police, parks and school district officials on their plans to get ahead of summer violence.

Clockwise from top-left: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Comm. Larry Suffredin (D-13), Comm. Stanley Moore (D-4) and Civic Federation president Laurence Msall speak during a virtual meeting on Tuesday.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners quickly approved a measure on Tuesday to hike the salaries for all county elected officials — including themselves — by 10 percent, with step-ups set to follow every year through 2026.

Commissioners defended the pay bump as a long-overdue and necessary step to keep up with inflation and to keep the county’s top positions attractive to candidates. But with just five weeks until the primary election, it proved an awkward maneuver for incumbents and a gift to their challengers. All four commissioners who are facing primary challenges voted against the measure.

Aldermen convene for a special City Council meeting on Monday. [The Daily Line/Alex Nitkin]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and her City Council allies stuck the landing Monday on a series of procedural acrobatics designed to tee up preliminary approval for Wednesday of a $1.7 billion Chicago casino plan, overcoming a flurry of late questions to advance an ordinance and corresponding public benefits agreement in a lopsided vote.

The City Council Special Committee on the Chicago Casino launched the casino measures to approval in a 27-3 vote just after the full City Council gave final stamps of approval to dozens of other items, including a program designed to speed the installation of water meters and a new licensing apparatus to allow major concert venues like the upcoming “Salt Shed” to hold outdoor concerts.

However, Lightfoot’s allies punted on a plan to codify her controversial push to push forward the city’s youth curfew, throwing the ordinance’s chances of passage into doubt.

From left: Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Department of Housing Comm. Marisa Novara and Bickerdike Development CEO Joy Aruguete speak at the grand opening of the Lucy Gonzalez Parsons apartments in Logan Square on Friday. [Twitter/Chicago Department of Housing]

Three years after promising to overhaul the city’s housing policies to attack Chicago’s bone-deep legacy of racial segregation, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is poised this week to roll out her most consequential housing plan to date. The “Connecting Communities Ordinance” cobbles together nearly a dozen new rules and policies aimed at supercharging construction near transit stations and building safer environments for pedestrians in busy corridors.

It would also forbid neighborhoods from banning new two-flats or three-flats in wealthy, transit rich parts of the city, and it would force affordable housing proposals into the City Council spotlight — two changes that would meaningfully erode, but not eliminate, aldermen’s power to call the shots on what gets built in their own wards.

Bally’s Corporation Chairman Soo Kim describes his firm’s casino proposal during a May 9 City Council committee hearing.

A committee meeting scheduled for Friday morning will mark a critical test of the City Council’s faith in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration as her top deputies prod aldermen put to Bally’s plan into motion to build a $1.7 billion casino and entertainment destination on the banks of the Chicago River.

Lightfoot’s team has argued the City Council must approve an ordinance this month authorizing a city-backed casino to open in Chicago so that officials can push forward with an application to the Illinois Gaming Board with enough time to cash in on a $40 million upfront payment from Bally’s before this budget year runs out. But scarcely three weeks after Lightfoot announced Bally’s as her administration’s pick, she must overcome a handful of aldermen who are deadset against the plan and many more who are reluctant to offer “yes” votes without more time to study the plan.

The City Council Committee on Finance has approved more than $36 million in police-related settlements so far in 2022. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

A City Council committee quickly teed up a $14.25 million legal settlement up for approval on Monday in what stands to be the costliest legal payout the City Council has approved so far this year. 

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle speaks with county officials and Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs at the Chicago Cultural Center on Wednesday

Cook County is pushing forward with a plan to funnel $42 million in federal stimulus money into a guaranteed income pilot program that aims to start sending out checks by the end of 2022, officials announced Wednesday. The program is set to dwarf Chicago’s $31.5 million cash assistance program to become “the nation’s largest publicly funded guaranteed income initiative,” according to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s office.

Speed cameras have captured drivers who exceed the speed limit by 6 mph or more near schools or parks since March 2021. [Anjali Pinto/ProPublica]

After spending more than a year ping-ponging through various stages of City Council purgatory, a proposal by Ald. Anthony Beale (9) to roll back a controversial speed camera penalty is finally set for a vote on Thursday — but only after city transportation officials make their case for why the extra fines should stay in place.

Left: Ald. Michele Smith (43) speaks during a City Council committee meeting on Wednesday. Right: Tyler Quast of Blue Star Properties describes the Salt Shed proposal.

Aldermen on Wednesday steamrolled two of their colleagues to advance an ordinance (O2022-1279) opening the door for mega-event spaces to hold outdoor concerts on a permanent basis. The measure will most immediately give a boost to the “Salt Shed” concert venue that is on the verge of opening on the Chicago River — but two nearby aldermen warned that the legal change could lead to a “slippery policy path” that threatens public and natural access to the river.

From left: Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26), Chicago Department of Housing policy director Daniel Hertz and Ald. James Cappleman (46) speak during a City Council Housing Committee meeting on Tuesday.

The city’s fledgling effort to bless the construction of backyard coach houses and basement dwelling units is working just as housing officials hoped it would, a department leader told aldermen on Tuesday — but plenty of barriers remain that hold the program back from its potential to expand affordable housing options across the city.

City officials and multiple aldermen signaled during a committee hearing on Tuesday that they’re ready to expand the program, but some aldermen remain skeptical of the policy.

A rendering of the outdoor event space planned for the Salt Shed at 1357 N. Elston Ave., which is lined up to be the first recipient of a new Outdoor Entertainment Venue liquor license from the city. [Lamar Johnson Collaborative]

Large event venues would be able to regularly play music and serve alcohol outdoors — with restrictions — under a new ordinance set for consideration by a City Council committee on Wednesday.

A coach house on Chicago’s Northwest Side. [Lichter Realty]

Chicago property owners have applied to build 361 new basement or attic apartment buildings and 166 new backyard coach houses in the approximately one year since their construction has been legal, city officials said Monday as they weigh whether they should accelerate the legalization push. But while some aldermen point to the numbers as a sign that the new homes — known as Accessory Dwelling Units or Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) — have been a success, others remain skeptical.

Ald. Daniel La Spata (1) showing an example of public bathrooms some cities have installed.

It would be “doable” and worthwhile for Chicago to build a network of freestanding public toilets around the city, a cluster of progressive aldermen argued in a City Council hearing on Monday. And while the effort has yet to gain the backing of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration or of most aldermen, it may have gained a powerful ally in the chair of a key council committee.

The Chicago Police Department has ordered hundreds of hybrid squad cars, but city leaders have no current plan to electrify all city vehicles. [Jason Lawrence on Flickr; Chicago Climate Action Plan]

City officials are due to update aldermen Tuesday on their efforts to streamline city data-sharing practices — an overhaul that is well underway — as well as efforts to electrify city vehicles, which have barely gotten off the ground. 

A rendering of the Butcher & the Burger restaurant set to open in O’Hare’s Terminal 5 as part of a concession agreement that advanced on Friday. [Chicago Department of Aviation]

A $28 million, four-part agreement to bring new shops and restaurants to O’Hare Airport cruised through a City Council committee on Friday as aldermen praised city aviation officials’ efforts to make sure entrepreneurs of color get a substantial piece of the business.

Cook County Chief Financial Officer Ammar Rizki is set to move to the Obama Foundation next month. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Three of Cook County’s most senior officials were showered with praise on Thursday for steering the county’s finances and public health efforts through the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic as all three head for the exits, opening up a new chapter as county leaders look to the 2023 budget and the 2022-26 elected term.

A pending concession agreement will allow new food options to open in O’Hare Terminal 3 and Terminal 5.

Travelers at O’Hare Airport can expect to start seeing names like Butcher and the Burger, Bar Siena and Sparrow Coffee under a sweeping new concession agreement set for a vote before a City Council committee on Friday.