A new state tax assessment program is set to benefit a planned apartment complex near the Cumberland Blue Line station. [Glenstar/Department of Planning and Development]

A plan to kick-start a state-enabled tax break for affordable apartments on the city’s Far Northwest Side, a pair of land seizures to advance city-backed development initiatives and a bundle of appointments to city-backed housing boards are among the top items on the crowded agenda for a meeting of the City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate on Tuesday.

Ald. Pat Dowell (3) said Monday that she does not support Hard Rock's casino proposal. [City of Chicago; Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Ald. Pat Dowell (3) “cannot support” Hard Rock International’s plan to open a casino as part of a proposed mega-development in her ward, she announced Monday, citing neighbors’ fears of crime and overcrowding.

Her position leaves just one casino proposal — Rhode Island-based Bally’s plan to build a resort in River West — whose local alderman has not come out against a gambling site in their own ward.

The Clear Path Relief program allows income-qualifying drivers to wipe away parking ticket debt that is more than three years old. [DNAinfo file photo]

The latest effort by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration to offer an off-ramp for drivers who are mired in ticket debt has already wiped away more than $1 million in collective fines owed by about 1,100 Chicagoans, officials said.

Ald. Tom Tunney (44) grills Chicago Commission on Human Relations Comm. Nancy Andrade on a proposed measure to toughen the city’s sexual harassment rules.

A legislative push to firm up the city’s guardrails against workplace sexual harassment cleared a key committee hurdle in a unanimous vote on Wednesday, even as some aldermen — including the newest member of the City Council — aired reservations over the toll a punitive plank of the ordinance could take on businesses.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is looking to intervene in a federal corruption case in an attempt to keep a former alderman from escaping consequences. And the application window for the city’s guaranteed income pilot program is set to open later this month.

Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38) poses in his Chicago Fire Department uniform in a photo posted on his political Facebook page.

Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38) has run afoul of city ethics rules by posting images of official city property on his political social media channels, putting him on the hook for at least a $5,000 fine, the Chicago Board of Ethics ruled on Monday.

All Chicago employers would be required by July to develop sexual harassment policies under an ordinance set for committee approval on Wednesday. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

An ordinance designed to crack down on sexual harassment across Chicago’s workplaces and a proposal to mandate salary disclosures in job postings are both due for discussion in a City Council committee on Wednesday. But only the former appears ready to move forward.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and candidate Willie Wilson speak at news events on Monday. [City of Chicago; YouTube/WGN News]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot stepped closer than ever to the precipice of a reelection campaign plunge on Monday, announcing a trio of high-level hires her political team said will help her “gear up” for an announcement. And while the mayor once again demurred when asked to make the news official, she did not pass up the chance to implicitly knock philanthropist Willie Wilson hours after he announced a bid to unseat her.

 Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) speaks during a Senate floor debate on Friday. [Blue Room Stream]

A controversial effort to rein in spending on judicial races, a bill to crack down on housing discrimination and an effort to alleviate nursing shortages were part of a burst of varied legislation the Illinois General Assembly sent to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk on the last day of the spring legislative session on Friday and early Saturday morning.

Photo by Manuel Martinez, WBEZ / Treatment by Jason McGregor, Crain’s Chicago Business/iStock photo

Virtual public meetings and better systems of accountability have sharply boosted aldermanic attendance rates at City Council meetings since 2019, according to a joint analysis by The Daily Line, WBEZ and Crain’s Chicago Business. The average Chicago alderman showed up to do the work of the City Council about four out of every five times they were required to since the start of the term in May 2019.

Cook County Board of Review Comm. Larry Rogers (D-3), left, and Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners is set to leap into the public battle between county Assessor Fritz Kaegi and the Board of Review to get to the bottom of a nagging delay in property tax assessments that could imperil property owners and taxing bodies alike in the coming months.

Lanetta Haynes Turner, chief of staff to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, speaks during an event to announce the first allocations from the county’s Equity Fund.

A reset of the county’s grant distribution calculus, an “information exchange” for social service agencies, a resource center for disadvantaged pot purveyors and an intensive place-based economic development regime modeled on Chicago’s Invest South/West initiative will be among the first products of a new Cook County funding stream dedicated to reversing the effects of systemic racism, county officials announced Thursday.

Ald. Leslie Hairston (5), left, and Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady during a City Council committee hearing on Wednesday

Chicago is about to mightily expand its on-the-ground efforts to stop gun violence before it starts thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars incoming from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, city public health and social service officials said Wednesday. But many aldermen remain skeptical of whether the money is headed into the right hands.

A rendering of the Discover Call Center at 8560 S. Cottage Grove Ave. in Chatham. [City of Chicago]

Cook County commissioners are set on Thursday to green-light a tax incentive for a celebrated new banking call center in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood that was once the husk of a Target store that closed at the busy South Side intersection. The tax break — designed to give a boost to abandoned commercial properties — is set to save the property owner millions in potential real estate taxes as the call center ramps up during the next decade.

The class 7b tax incentive (22-2222) is one of seven local property tax breaks and dozens of other items set for final approval during the Board of Commissioners’ monthly meeting at 10 a.m. Thursday.

Chicago Department of Planning and Development Comm. Maurice Cox and Ald. Michael Scott (24) during a City Council committee meeting on Wednesday

City planning officials are using federal dollars to fuel a top-to-bottom environmental review of Chicago’s 10,000-plus publicly owned vacant lots in an effort to uncork a persistent bottleneck in the city’s vacant land rehabilitation efforts by the end of the year, they announced Wednesday.

Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth (D-Peoria), left, and Rep. Deanne Mazzochi (R-Elmhurst) sparred on Wednesday over criminal justice legislation.

House Democrats hit the gas pedal Tuesday on a flurry of bills designed to throw life rafts to struggling police departments and tamp down historically high crime rates across the state. Most Republicans joined their colleagues across the aisle to advance seven proposals out of the House Judiciary - Criminal Committee and through the House, but not before warning that the measures were little more than band-aid fixes.

A $54 million allocation for a “vacant buildings rehabilitation program” envisioned under the Chicago Recovery Plan is one of multiple topics set for dissection by aldermen on Wednesday. [Eric Allix Rogers on Flickr]

Chicago aldermen will get a chance on Wednesday to grill city officials about how they plan to spend $316 million in federally sourced money to get ahead of a dreaded surge in summer crime and revive thousands of vacant or abandoned properties.

Chicago will pilot a three-year program to offer free legal representation to people facing eviction. And Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans is touting relationships with business groups to crack down on retail thefts.

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25) says he “cannot support” a Related Midwest and Rivers Casino’s proposal for The 78 until it proves it can earn community backing. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago; Related Midwest]

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25) wrote in a letter to a powerful colleague this week that he “cannot support” a proposal for a casino to be built as part of “The 78” mega-development brewing in his Near South Side ward, imperiling the proposal’s chances as it competes with two other plans.

From left: Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38), then-Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety Deborah Witzburg and Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25) during a City Council joint Finance and Public Safety committee meeting last year

Mayor Lori Lightfoot put an official stamp Thursday on her nomination of Deborah Witzburg, a former deputy in Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General, as her choice to lead the office on a permanent basis. The long-awaited pick brought comfort to good government advocates and some aldermen who feared the mayor would pick an outsider over Witzburg, an acolyte of former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, with whom the mayor has repeatedly clashed.