Cook County Comm. Sean Morrison (R-17), left, and Cook County Economic Development Bureau Chief Xochitl Flores speaking during a committee meeting on Wednesday

Cook County commissioners are set to unlock nearly $70 million in federally backed funding on Thursday to bankroll a range of long-term economic development initiatives including new programs designed to steer tenants away from eviction, draw more tourists to suburban Cook County, launch justice-involved residents into the workforce and more.

Workers build floating wetlands to become part of the Wild Mile during the first phase of the “Floating Boardwalk and Habitat” project in 2019 [Hannah Boufford/Block Club Chicago]

A City Council committee is set to give a green light on Wednesday to more than $2.5 million in new funding for landscape and park-related projects around the city, including a nearly $1.8 million infusion to accelerate development of the “Wild Mile” ecological restoration corridor on the Near North Side.

Ald. Daniel La Spata (1) and Mayor Lori Lightfoot are locked in a legislative battle over how to expand water access to low-income Chicagoans. [Jonathan Ballew/Block Club Chicago]

A City Council committee is scheduled on Tuesday to debate and potentially vote on a long-delayed proposal that would expand subsidies and protections for people who struggle to pay their water bills. But with the committee set to convene over the objection of its chair, the result of the meeting remains murky — especially as a competing ordinance from Mayor Lori Lightfoot lies in wait.

From left: Chicago Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett, Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) and Deputy Mayor Samir Mayekar speak during a City Council committee meeting on Monday [City Clerk’s Office]

A phalanx of city officials and executives from the Bally’s Corporation spent nearly six hours on Monday fending off questions and challenges to their $1.7 billion plan to build a city-backed casino in River West, arguing the City Council should act fast to put the plan into motion so the city can maximize its tools to close yet another formidable budget gap on the horizon.

A rendering of the Bally’s Tribune casino plan [City of Chicago]

Aldermen who have raised a stink over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s choice of the Bally’s Corporation to build a casino at the Tribune Freedom Center site will get their chance to grill city officials and executives of the Rhode Island-based entertainment company during the second-ever scheduled meeting of the City Council Special Committee on the Casino on Monday.

The meeting will be a critical early litmus test as the mayor looks to wrangle 26 votes for her preferred plan before the end of May while at least two downtown aldermen gear up for an all-out war to stop it.

Right: renderings show what a Bally's casino planned for Tribune Freedom Center site would look like along the banks of the Chicago River North Branch at Chicago Avenue. Right: Mayor Lori Lightfoot announces Bally's as the winning casino bidder during an event on Thursday. [City of Chicago]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday confirmed rumors that have swirled all week suggesting that she would pick Rhode Island-based Bally’s proposal to build and manage a Chicago casino at the Tribune’s Freedom Center in River West. The announcement marks a major leap forward in the city’s decades-long search for gambling revenue but likely kicks off an uphill battle with neighbors and some aldermen as power shifts to the City Council.

A rendering shows what a Bally's casino planned for Tribune Publishing could look like. [City of Chicago]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is set to announce the city's final choice of a location and operator for a Chicago casino on Thursday. She is widely expected to choose the Bally’s River West proposal over the loud objections of neighbors and some aldermen.

From left: Pace Suburban Bus board chair Richard Kawsnesky, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Pace executive director Melinda Metzger during a news conference to share the first-year results of the South Cook Fair Transit pilot on Tuesday; a Metra train [Facebook/Toni Preckwinkle; Flickr/Metra]

Letting commuters cheaply and seamlessly transfer between Metra and the CTA could be just the boost both transit agencies need as they struggle to attract riders back after years of relying on federal rescue funds to stay afloat, Cook County leaders said Tuesday.

But first, the CTA would need to get on board.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during an event in Bronzeville Monday to announce the 26 finalists to receive $33.5 million in combined Community Development Grants. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

More than two-dozen small businesses around the city will get a piece of a $33.5 million chunk of new public money devoted to capital projects, city leaders announced on Monday. The first round of finalists in the city’s “Community Development Grants” program represents an expansion of the city’s business grant programming enabled by $660 million in capital bonds the city issued last year to supplement the $1.9 billion the city received from the American Rescue Plan Act.

An effort to expand the rights of private booting companies to operate freely in all 50 wards was shot down at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30) introduced an ordinance Wednesday that would have granted towing companies permission to expand their private booting practice to lots across the city. Currently the practice is only allowed in 34 wards. It was co-sponsored by Ald. Raymond Lopez (15). 

Ald. Michele Smith (43) and Ald. Daniel La Spata (1) during Wednesday’s City Council meeting. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

An alderwoman sidetracked a new proposal by Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday to crack down on water shutoffs, saying the mayor has ignored a better proposal that has been holed up in committee. It was one of multiple pieces of new legislation banished to the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules during the council’s monthly meeting on Wednesday, including proposals to tighten city ethics restrictions and to legalize car booting across the city.

Ald. Nicole Lee (11) speaks during a news conference on Tuesday. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]

The City Council coalition supporting a new ward map proposed by the council’s Committee on Committees and Rules beefed up its ranks on Wednesday when the council’s newest member, Ald. Nicole Lee (11), became the 34th aldermen to lend their support for the map.

Left: An example of a “stick-built” and modular home built as part of the Reclaiming Chicago Communities initiative in North Lawndale. Right: Ald. Michael Scott (24) speaks during a meeting of the City Council Zoning Committee on Tuesday. [Department of Planning and Development / City Clerk’s Office]

A City Council committee took a step toward implementing an ongoing city program to build 100 affordable new single-family homes on vacant lots in North Lawndale. But that’s just the beginning, said Ald. Michael Scott (24), who set a moonshot goal of “hopefully” seizing on grant funds and partnering with nonprofit builders to put up 1,000 new houses in the hollowed-out neighborhood.

The Cook County Board of Ethics re-upped a finding of a violation against a Board of Review commissioner. A city watchdog office found the Chicago Fire Department has made some progress toward snuffing out sexual harassment and discrimination, but more work remains. Cook County court officials say eviction orders are lower than they were before the pandemic, a sign they see as a result of government interventions. And a working group of aldermen on Tuesday released the names of 14 finalists for the interim civilian commission tasked with oversight of the Chicago Police Department.

Clockwise from top-left: Cook County Board of Review Comm. Larry Rogers (D-3), Comm. Frank Aguilar (D-16), Comm. Kevin Morrison (D-15), county Bureau of Technology chief Tom Lynch and Assessor’s Office chief of staff Sarah Garza Resnick speak during a committee meeting on Monday.

The Cook County Board of Review will try to temporarily claw back some retired staffers to try and catch up from a months-long delay in property tax assessments, officials said Monday. But there’s no telling whether that will be enough to get bills pushed out by December, which is seen as a critical deadline to avoid a financial headache for thousands of taxing bodies and millions of property owners.

Ald. Raymond Lopez (15), right, and Chicago Department of Water Management Deputy Comm. Joel Vieyra during a City Council finance committee meeting on Monday

Aldermen seized on a technical change meant to save money on water infrastructure projects to lash officials on Monday over what they called an unacceptable slowdown in water department projects. The department is slated to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on pipe replacements this year — but they’re already tempering expectations among procurement hurdles and regulatory red tape.

A rendering of the 187-unit affordable housing campus being built near the western end of The 606's Bloomingdale Trail. [Chicago Department of Planning and Development]

Chicago’s Near Northwest Side is set to see a surge of new residential development as at least three significant major new developments in the area are lined up for zoning approval on Tuesday. A 40-story Fulton Market tower, a pair of Goose Island industrial warehouses and an addition to the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s Southwest Side campus are also on the agenda for Tuesday’s 11 a.m. meeting of the City Council Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards.

A lawsuit up for settlement on Monday calls on the city to end its practice of allowing Chicago police to “cover up the misconduct of their fellow officers.”

A lawsuit filed earlier this year called on a judge to order more decisive action to snuff out the Chicago Police Department’s endemic “code of silence” that protects officers from repercussions for their misconduct. Instead, a City Council committee will likely approve a $200,000 payment from taxpayers to make the lawsuit disappear.

The $200,000 payment to settle the lawsuit brought by Esael Morales is one of three police misconduct settlements up for approval by the City Council Committee on Finance during its 10 a.m. meeting on Monday. The committee is also scheduled to approve more than $6 million in tax-increment financing payments for new infrastructure projects at a bundle of schools and parks around the city.

Chicago Department of Housing Comm. Marisa Novara makes a presentation on a state-enabled tax incentive during a committee meeting on Tuesday.

Aldermen voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to override their colleague by approving a tax break for a new 300-unit apartment complex planned near the Cumberland CTA Blue Line station that the local alderman, Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41), has staunchly opposed. The development will be a test case in Chicago for the new tax sweetener, which was signed into state law last year in an attempt to incentivize the construction of more affordable homes.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot teased a potential Chicago budget surplus during a speech on Tuesday. And a City Council committee is set on Wednesday to take up the latest in a series of new appointments to the Chicago Park District Board following the resignation of one of its commissioners.