Dijana Cuvalo of the Department of Planning and Development presents plans during a committee meeting Monday for a Class L tax incentive to support the Morton Salt redevelopment

Aldermen swiftly advanced more than $19 million in tax incentives on Monday to boost four separate developments, including two new industrial warehouses on the Near South Side and a plan to transform a former West Town industrial space into a concert venue.

Former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson during a virtual City Council committee meeting in April. “On the basis of the existing record, I don’t have high confidence” in Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Supt. David Brown’s ability to oversee police reforms, Ferguson told the CloutCast last week.

Chicago’s City Council lacks the resources and wherewithal to be an effective check on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, imbuing an “incredible concentration of power” in the mayor’s office, former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson said on The Daily Line’s CloutCast podcast as his city tenure came to a close.

CloutCast: Joe Ferguson on Chicago’s struggle for good government

The Morton Salt shed at 1357 N. Elston Ave. would be turned into a concert venue with space for up to 4,000 people under a plan set to be boosted by city-backed tax credits. [Department of Planning and Development]

A ballyhooed proposal to convert the former Morton Salt shed in West Town into a 4,000-ticket concert venue and dining destination is set to clear another hurdle on Monday as aldermen consider awarding the developer a key tax break.

The City Council rules committee is planning a hearing to consider overhauling the City Council's decennial remap process, but this year’s process is already well underway.

The City Council had been poised during a Friday afternoon hearing to consider pitches for an overhaul of the council’s once-in-a-decade remap — even as aldermen are already waist-deep in this year’s redrawing process. But the meeting was abruptly canceled on Thursday.

A Lime worker places scooters during the city's 2019 scooter pilot. [Hannah Alani/Block Club Chicago]

Up to 6,000 e-scooters will be scattered across the city next spring, potentially more than doubling soon thereafter, under an ordinance set for final approval by the City Council on Thursday.

From left: Ald. Matt Martin (47), Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29) and Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) speak during a committee meeting on Wednesday

Aldermen advanced a measure on Wednesday to make it easier for people to get their names taken off a police-held criminal registry — but not before agitating over being left in the dark on a long-awaited overhaul of the intelligence-gathering system.

From left: Ald. Daniel La Spata (1), Ald. Howard Brookins (21) and Ald. Walter Burnett (27) join representatives of Lime, Bird and Spin spoke during a Tuesday morning news conference touting an ordinance to legalize e-scooters. [Lime]

More than two years of tests, debates and handwringing over the safety and viability of e-scooters in Chicago are set to culminate Wednesday as the City Council weighs making the devices a permanent fixture of the city’s transportation network.

Small, independent motels like the Heart O’ Chicago Motel would be allowed for the first time to apply for Small Business Improvement Fund grants under an ordinance up for consideration on Wednesday. [Tim on Flickr]

A major city-backed grant program is set to be expanded to cover businesses once considered too “seedy” for public help, according to the sponsor of an ordinance up for consideration on Wednesday.

The City Council’s rules committee voted to set two separate proposals from Ald. Anthony Beale (9) back on track, but Beale wants the items approved this week. The public safety committee is set to meet Wednesday afternoon, but a previously scheduled hearing on ShotSpotter has been kicked to next month. And the council’s budget committee is set to advance the appointments of two key senior city officials.

The Illinois Indigenous Peoples Day Coalition will host a news conference and protest at Pottawattomie Park at 10 a.m. Monday to “escalate actions against Cook County Board members who are clinging to a racist past by refusing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ day instead of the man responsible for rape, murder, genocide and the origins the trans-Atlantic slave trade.” Speakers will include Cook County Comm. Brandon Johnson (D-1), Ald. Maria Hadden (49), Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Chicago), Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and Sen. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago). The event will be streamed on Facebook Live. 

Corporation Counsel Celia Meza answers questions from Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) during a budget hearing on Friday.

Dozens of critical positions remain unfilled in the Chicago Department of Law, complicating the department’s efforts to fend off lawsuits that cost the city’s taxpayers tens of millions of dollars every year. And uncompetitive salaries are making it harder to address the shortage, the city’s top lawyer told the City Council on Friday.

Harold Washington Library. “It would be wonderful” if the Chicago Public Library took on its own capital budget for building construction and maintenance, library system Comm. Chris Brown said Friday. [Facebook/Chicago Public Library]

The Chicago Public Library system has no dedicated funding source for new construction or maintenance of its 81 citywide locations — and that should change, the head of the system and multiple aldermen said Friday.

Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson addresses the City Council during a budget hearing Thursday evening. [Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line]

Chicago departments have been slow or worse at fixing issues exposed by Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s office, threatening to put the watchdog’s work to waste, he warned aldermen during a Thursday evening budget hearing.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle highlighted non-police public safety measures and a guaranteed income pilot in her budget address on Thursday.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Thursday trumpeted alternatives to policing and a new guaranteed income program as highlights of the $233 million in new federally backed spending she is proposing to include in the county’s 2022 budget plan.

Chicago Fire Department Comm. Annette Nance-Holt answered questions during a more than three-hour budget hearing on Wednesday.

Updated 4:24 p.m. Oct. 7 The Chicago Fire Department is dominated by white men — but the department’s first-ever Black woman leader vowed on Wednesday to change that, thanks in part to a long-awaited new opportunity to bring on fresh recruits. 

Cook County is budgeting 23,467 full-time positions for 2022, more than any other year since 2015.

Backed by $1 billion in federal support, Cook County is set to explode spending and hiring to new heights under the 2022 budget proposal unveiled on Thursday by county board President Toni Preckwinkle. The plan calls to add nearly 1,600 new employee positions, including an army of new public health workers, bringing the county’s headcount to its highest level since 2015.

Citywide public approval for the Chicago Park District fell by 13 percentage points between June and September, the latest Chicago Index survey found.

The Chicago Park District, typically one of the city’s most popular agencies, is losing favor with city residents as it becomes consumed with a widening sexual harassment scandal and faces the Chicago Bears’ departure from Soldier Field, a new Chicago Index poll suggests. The poll also shows flagging approval for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and stubbornly low marks for Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Chicago Department of Buildings Comm. Matthew Beaudet answers questions during a budget hearing on Tuesday. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]

Chicago’s top building regulator mulled a series of strategies on Tuesday to crack down on dangerous “problem properties,” including by barraging by deadbeat landlords with fines and working with the city’s housing department on a new program to put buildings in more responsible hands.

The Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection plans to dedicate $5 million from the American Rescue Plan to fund new “community farms” around the city. [Neighborspace]

The Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection will next year oversee spending of about $46 million of federally sourced money for a suite of programs aimed at improving neighborhoods’ food options, boosting first-time entrepreneurs, padding the budgets of local nonprofits and more, officials told aldermen Tuesday.

Leaders of the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation are primed to field a barrage of questions and complaints from members of the City Council on Tuesday. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Departmental budget hearings are set to push forward on Tuesday as aldermen interrogate leaders of the Chicago Department of Buildings, Departments of Streets and Sanitation and Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. The departments represent three of the most public-facing corners of city government and rely on tight relationships with ward offices, promising hours of rigorous questioning by the City Council.