Flight volume at O’Hare Airport was about 73 percent of pre-pandemic levels this summer, Chicago Department of Aviation Comm. Jamie Rhee said Friday. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Domestic travel to Chicago’s airports — especially Midway International Airport — is steadily rebounding from its pandemic doldrums, but international travel will take longer to complete its comeback, the city’s top aviation official told aldermen Friday.

Chicago Police Department Supt. David Brown is set to face questions during a marathon budget hearing on Monday.

The City Council is poised on Monday to kick off its final week of budget hearings by picking apart the $1.9 billion proposed budget for the Chicago Police Department, typically one of the longest and most contentious of departmental hearings aldermen attend to each fall.

Taste of Chicago, one of the signature events organized by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, is set to return in 2022 after being canceled two consecutive years. [Facebook/Taste of Chicago]

A parade of aldermen on Thursday rapped Comm. Mark Kelly, the outgoing head of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, for leaving them out of discussions on events being planned in their ward.

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5) asks questions of Department of Assets, Information and Services Comm. David Reynolds during a hearing on Wednesday.

Chicago has already kicked the tires on a decade-long, $400 million endeavor to upgrade its outdated constellation of information technology — but the work isn’t moving fast enough, some aldermen said on Wednesday.

Comm. Allison Arwady is set to return to the spotlight on Thursday afternoon as she presents the Chicago Department of Public Health’s budget proposal to the City Council.

The City Council Committee on Budget on Government Operations is set to probe a grab bag of city departments on Thursday, as the Board of Ethics seeks to maintain its modest budget and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events seeks a cash infusion to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

And on Thursday afternoon, the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability and Department of Public Health will defend new staff positions they hope to add to their teams.

Ald. Harry Osterman (48) asked Department of Human Resources Comm. Christopher Owen on Friday what the department is doing to speed up hiring to fill “critical” vacancies.

Under historic pressure to staff up Chicago’s workforce, the city’s human resources department is set to grow its own staff and put in place a series of procedural fixes in an attempt to speed up hiring, officials said during a budget hearing on Tuesday.

A Chicago Animal Care and Control worker returns a duck to the Chicago River. The department is called to round up stray animals. [Instagram/Chicago Animal Care and Control]

City Council budget hearings are set to continue on Wednesday with the city’s Department of Procurement Services, promising to resurface long-running complaints from aldermen about the city’s record on hiring minority-owned construction firms. Committee members are also set to quiz animal control officials on their efforts to round up and care for stray animals, as well as leaders of the Department of Assets, Information and Services about upgrading the city’s technology and public buildings.

Ald. David Moore (17) questions Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin during a City Council budget hearing on Monday.

Updated Tuesday, 3:20 p.m. Only about 40 percent of the money allocated from a long-dormant city fund to help businesses survive last year’s spring lockdown actually made it to applicants, Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin told aldermen during a budget hearing on Monday. The rest remains tied up with private intermediary lenders, in part due to a quirk in city rules, she said.

The City Council during its February 2020 meeting. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

The City Council is months away from adopting a system of electronic voting that could forever put an end to lengthy and confusing roll call votes, Clerk Anna Valencia said during a budget hearing on Monday.

Nearly 8,800 people as of last week were either incarcerated in Cook County Jail or confined to electronic monitoring, about a 10 percent jump from just before the COVID-19 pandemic. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Changes could be coming to Cook County’s controversial home surveillance programs designed to pigeonhole pre-trial defendants who have been released from jail.

Clerk Anna Valencia and Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin are set to face questions during budget hearings on Monday.

Following the City Council’s all-day grilling of city budget officials on Friday, aldermen are set to begin drilling down into the city’s individual departments Monday morning as they quiz Clerk Anna Valencia and Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin about their expanded budgets for the 2022 budget year. And in the afternoon, the Committee on Budget and Government Operations will hear from the leader of the city’s License Appeal Commission and the chief of the Department of Family and Support Services.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed revised legislative maps into law on Friday afternoon.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law the revised legislative maps that Democratic lawmakers pushed through the General Assembly last month, saying the new boundaries “align with the landmark Voting Rights Act and will help ensure Illinois’ diversity is reflected in the halls of government.”

Cook County Comm. Kevin Morrison (D-15) talks to Comm. Bridget Degnen (D-12) during a hybrid meeting of the county Board of Commissioners on Thursday

Cook County would sever all ties with companies that financially support anti-abortion legislation under a resolution proposed by a county commissioner on Thursday.

Chicago Budget Director Susie Park briefed aldermen on the city’s 2021 year-end balance sheet during a committee meeting last month.

The Chicago City Council’s expedited two-week round of budget hearings is set to kick off on Friday with a high-level overview from city finance officials, promising to offer an early look at aldermen’s appetite for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to pair a mild property tax hike with a panoply of new federally backed spending.

County mapmaking consultant Peter Creticos presented the final version of the new Cook County district map on Wednesday.

Cook County commissioners voted unanimously on Wednesday to approve a new district map they called a paragon of fairness and transparency, but at least one good government group says their self-congratulations are overspun.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s budget proposal includes the addition of a new “full-time recruitment team” to swell the ranks of the Chicago Police Department, she said. [Colin Boyle/Block Club]

Chicago’s sharp rise in violent crime this year has forced Mayor Lori Lightfoot into the center of a debate over whether the city should work to beef up the ranks of the Chicago Police Department or invest in alternative programs like mental health supports and antiviolence intervention.

With the rollout of her $16.7 billion budget proposal, she gave her answer: both.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that her 2022 budget proposal does not include "any new taxes, no reduction in city services, and no layoffs." [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is proposing to use a combination of leftover tax-increment financing, federal aid from the American Rescue Plan and a smorgasbord of brightened cost and revenue projections to balance the city’s 2022 budget.

Attorney Frank Avellone of the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing (left) and lobbyist Tom Benedetto of the Chicagoland Apartment Association sparred during a Friday committee meeting over the Just Cause Eviction ordinance.

The Just Cause Eviction ordinance would bring to Chicago a badly needed set of rules already working in other cities to protect vulnerable families from displacement — or it would crush property owners with burdensome fees and restrictions, driving them out of the city.

Members of the Chicago Housing Justice League held a rally and marched to Ald. Harry Osterman’s (48) office last month to demand a hearing on the Just Cause Eviction ordinance. [Chicago Housing Justice League]

The chair of the City Council’s housing committee will make good Friday on a year-old promise to bring a sweeping eviction crackdown up for discussion — but the measure faces long odds in its current form.