Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle rolled out her preliminary budget projection for 2023 on Wednesday. [The Daily Line/Alex Nitkin]

Just two years after Cook County leaders faced their most dire budget gap in a decade, the county is poised to cruise into budget season with nearly a $263 million year-end surplus and its smallest projected shortfall in more than a decade, they announced Wednesday.

From left: Ald. Maria Hadden (49), Chicago Department of Buildings Comm. Matthew Beaudet and Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) speak during a meeting of the City Council zoning committee on Tuesday.

Apartment building owners will face a wave of new cooling requirements under an ordinance advanced on Tuesday with the goal of preventing the kinds of excessive indoor heat that saw three elderly Rogers Park women die in their apartments last month. While the proposal faced headwinds in committee, it passed with unanimous support after its sponsor agreed to keep negotiating on its most controversial provision.

The ordinance (O2022-1753), a collaboration between Ald. Maria Hadden (49) and the Chicago Department of Buildings, was the only citywide measure among dozens of other zoning proposals that earned the unanimous endorsement of the City Council Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards on Tuesday. They included a major adaptive reuse project in Austin and the latest proposed addition to Fulton Market’s growing skyline.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle presides over a meeting of the Board of Commissioners on Thursday. [The Daily Line/Alex Nitkin]

Thousands of local governments across Cook County will likely have to bear the financial headache of waiting until 2023 to reap all the property taxes they’re owed this year, county Board President Toni Preckwinkle acknowledged on Thursday.

She made the pronouncement hours after the county’s Board of Commissioners pushed forward the county’s marathon slog to modernize its tax collection technology, and one day after a fired senior official at the county’s Board of Review threw new fuel into the frenzied debate over who is to blame for the delay.

Spouses of first responders who die by suicide or drug overdose will be eligible for city death benefits under an ordinance set for a vote on Thursday.

A proposal to repeal a controversial speed camera crackdown is finally set to meet its fate on Thursday, potentially burying the protest ordinance for good after months of delays.

Ald. Anthony Beale’s (9) ordinance (O2021-1227) to repeal the city’s 2021 rule allowing speed cameras to fine drivers who exceed the speed limit by 6 mph near schools and parks is one of more than a dozen items set to come before a 10 a.m. meeting of the City Council Committee on Finance on Thursday. The committee is also scheduled to take up an alderman’s proposal to expand death benefits for the spouses of fallen police officers, create the city’s first new tax-increment financing (TIF) district of the Mayor Lori Lightfoot era, approve nearly $40 million in new TIF funding for CTA infrastructure projects and more.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is set to roll out a gush of new federally backed funding for anti-violence and other programming.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is set to roll out about $20.8 million in new federally backed funding for anti-violence intervention programs among a host of new American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) initiatives as the county faces mounting threats to public safety and economic stability.

Commissioners are scheduled to fast-track the approval of five separate new spending initiatives during Thursday’s 10 a.m. meeting of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. The board is also scheduled during the meeting to approve dozens of other measures, including the adoption of the county’s new flag design, the appointment of a new public health director and a half-dozen new commercial property tax breaks.

From left: Matt Podgorski, Frank Coconate and Mark Hosty are competing in the Republican primary to succeed retiring Comm. Peter Silvestri (R-9) on the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Cook County Comm. Peter Silvestri (R-9) shocked the Chicago political world in January when he announced he would not run for an eighth term on the county’s Board of Commissioners, where his unique brand of centrism earned him deep popularity among his constituents and colleagues.

His announcement also sent a stampede of candidates into the open race for one of the only remaining Republican-controlled seats in Cook County government.

Ald. Derrick Curtis (18) advertised a campaign kickoff event he hosted for Mayor Lori Lightfoot in his June 2 ward newsletter. [18th Ward]

Ald. Derrick Curtis (18) could be on the hook for at least a $5,000 fine over an apparent violation of city ethics rules surrounding a campaign kickoff event he hosted for Mayor Lori Lightfoot last week, the Chicago Board of Ethics ruled on Monday.

The ethics board also opted to give Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38) a chance to escape a similar fine for mixing political and government messaging. And board leaders called on the mayor and City Council to put the gas on a proposed amendment to the city’s ethics ordinance that has been stuck in legislative purgatory since April.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) has urged his colleagues to support a tax break for the lab building at 2017 N. Mendell St. over the objections of city planning officials. [Baker Development Corporation]

A disputed plan to offer a tax break for a burgeoning pharmaceutical lab overlooking the Chicago River North Branch is set to resurface on Tuesday, six months after it ran into resistance from city planning officials.

The proposed class 6(b) property tax incentive for Baker Development Group to build out tenant renovations at 2017 N. Mendell St. in the 2nd Ward is one of four tax sweeteners due for consideration by the City Council Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development during its 1 p.m. meeting on Tuesday.

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33), left, and Chicago Federation of Labor deputy chief of staff Andrea Kluger speak during a City Council committee meeting on Thursday.

Chicago is broadening its funding for mental health services, but the spending boost won’t mean much if it keeps outsourcing services to organizations that underpay their workers, multiple aldermen and labor groups said Thursday.

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33) called the chronic underpayment of nonprofit mental health workers contracted by the Chicago Department of Public Health key “context” behind a resolution she sponsored (R2022-144) expressing the City Council’s support for a unionization drive by workers at the Howard Brown Health Center. The City Council Committee on Workforce Development unanimously advanced the resolution, as well as a seven-year extension on a deal with Cook County to fund workforce programming, during its meeting on Thursday.

Kenneth Williams has been chief administrative officer of the City Council Office of Financial Analysis since 2020. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line; City of Chicago]

A City Council office designed to give aldermen an unclouded lens into the city’s finances is falling short of its mandate, according to a former employee and a city watchdog agency.

The council’s Office of Financial Analysis, which is housed under the Committee on Budget and Government Operations, has failed to file multiple mandated reports, and the work it has produced has been met with allegations of sloppiness and even plagiarism. Critics say the result is that aldermen must rely on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration for guidance and information.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27) voices an endorsement for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s campaign alongside fellow West Side elected officials Ald. Emma Mitts (37), Ald. Jason Ervin (28) and retiring Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Comm. Barbara McGowan.

A trio of West Side aldermen showcased an early mark of political force for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s fresh-off-the-ground reelection campaign, highlighting her efforts to jump-start economic activity in historically overlooked neighborhoods while she faced unprecedented headwinds.

A City Council committee is set to renew its relationship with a labor force nonprofit and to cement symbolic support for a local unionization drive. Also on Thursday, the City Council’s Subcommittee on Reparations is set to meet for the first time in more than a year. And the mayor’s office released names of the 19 people who applied to be the next 24th Ward alderman.

A still from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reelection campaign announcement video. [YouTube/Lightfoot for Chicago]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot put an end to months of questions and speculation on Tuesday with a nearly three-minute ad confirming the news Chicagoans have long suspected: she’s running.

The splashy 155-second campaign video plows head-first into the mayor’s notoriously brash temperament and habit of making enemies in government — qualities some of her opponents have already seized upon — and wielded them as part of her own argument for why she deserves another four years in power.

Chicago has not had an active franchise agreement with ComEd since 2020. [Facebook/ComEd]

Last June, executives from Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) told aldermen they were confident they could strike a deal with city officials to carry on as the city’s sole provider of power with a commitment to reliability, affordability and environmental sustainability.

As the City Council readies for its next annual public check-in with the utility mega-firm on Tuesday, little has changed.

Metropolitan Reclamation District of Greater Chicago President Kari Steele, left, is challenging Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi in the June 28 primary.

With three weeks remaining until Cook County voters decide his fate, Assessor Fritz Kaegi is pointing to a fresh round of assessment data he calls a sign of follow-through on campaign promises to right the scales of the county’s byzantine property tax system. The information push represents the incumbent’s attempt to reset the public conversation around assessments following more than two years of delays, slip-ups and finger-pointing in the county’s tax system.

Meanwhile, Keagi’s campaign is pummeling his challenger Kari Steele over bigoted remarks her husband Maze Jackson has made in public, a charge Steele’s campaign is increasingly resisting. And Kaegi continues to run laps around Steele in fundraising and campaign spending, in part thanks to his own personal largesse and in spite of the real estate groups that have put their collective weight behind Steele.

Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) speaks at a City Council meeting on July 21, 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) is running for mayor of Chicago, hoping to oust Mayor Lori Lightfoot from City Hall in 2023.

The South Side alderman, who has represented parts of Chatham, Englewood and West Englewood since 2011, aims to follow in the footsteps of father, Eugene Sawyer, who served as mayor after Harold Washington’s sudden death.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot touts her “Connected Communities Ordinance” proposal during an event on May 27.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration balked last week on its expected rollout of a sweeping new proposal to boost housing options near transit and whittle away at the city’s endemic racial segregation.

The mayor and her top deputies are vowing to push forward after some additional tweaks to the ordinance, which would also blunt aldermen’s powers to veto new housing proposals in their own wards. But as an anxious City Council awaits the final language of the ordinance with reactions ranging from qualified support to outright hostility, nearly everyone can agree on one prediction: the plan won’t survive a vote without a hard-fought battle.

A food truck participates in the Chi Food Truck Fest. [Facebook/ Chicago Business Affairs & Consumer Protection]

Business regulation officials in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration will have to wait a little longer for their turn in the spotlight to explain how they plan to spend $157 million in federally sourced cash on a combination of small business supports and direct help for Chicago families.

The Chicago Recovery Plan unveiled by the mayor last year charted out plans to spend $157 million on “direct assistance to families” and “small business & workforce support.” Both topics had been due for consideration in the third of six planned semi-monthly meetings of the City Council Committee on Budget and Government Operations Subcommittee on Chicago Recovery Plan on Wednesday — but the meeting was canceled one day in advance. Both topics had been due for consideration in the third of six planned semi-monthly meetings of the City Council Committee on Budget and Government Operations Subcommittee on Chicago Recovery Plan on Wednesday — but the meeting was canceled one day in advance.

A rendering of the LeClaire Courts redevelopment plan proposed by the Chicago Housing Authority and two private development firms [Department of Planning and Development]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot brought to the City Council this month a plan to create the city’s first new tax-increment financing district — a controversial financing mechanism that siphons new property tax revenues into a fund for capital projects — since Mayor Rahm Emanuel spearheaded the creation of a new district around the Lincoln Yards development in 2019.

If approved, the new Cicero/Stevenson tax-increment (TIF) financing district (O2022-1742) will seize future property taxes to pay for street infrastructure, water pipes and other public works around the site of the Chicago Housing Authority’s pending redevelopment of the LeClaire Courts housing complex near the city’s southwest border. The local alderman says the new district has his full support, and the support of his constituents.

Ald. Michael Scott, Jr. (24) and his wife Natashee Scott are set to pay $8,000 to buy a pair of vacant city-owned parcels next to their home in the 1200 block of South Albany Avenue. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line; Byrnes & Walsh LLC]

Departing Ald. Michael Scott (24) is on track to benefit from a city-backed land deal in his own ward shortly after he leaves office that would allow him to and his wife Natashee Scott to buy a pair of vacant lots adjoining their North Lawndale home.

The alderman has defended the move as above board, saying he had no personal involvement in the pair of land sales that his wife pursued through Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration so that his young children can enjoy a safe outdoor play space in the shadow of their home. And planning officials in Lightfoot’s administration also say the pending sales cross no legal or ethical lines.

Still, the Scotts were able to take advantage of a city-led appraisal that undercut nearby property values, and of a city program that offers discounts to property owners who buy publicly owned parcels next-door to them.