Ald. Samantha Nugent (39), president pro tempore of the City Council, is pictured at a council meeting on Nov. 15, 2023. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

The City Council on Wednesday will consider two major mayoral appointments, millions of dollars of city financial assistance for various park, school and housing projects, a measure creating a group to study a citywide proactive apartment inspection policy, changes to the city’s animal cruelty code and a massive legal settlement to the family of a woman killed by suspects fleeing police. 

Alderpeople will also take up a measure to allow one of the city’s police oversight agencies to investigate allegations of Chicago police collaborating with federal immigration authorities, which was deferred last month, and a group of council members will attempt to pass a measure freezing the tipped wage escalator. The council will meet at 10 a.m.

Ald. Samantha Nugent (39) filed notice that she plans to call for a vote on a substitute version of a measure from Ald. Bennett Lawson (44) to freeze the city’s tipped wage escalator in place. 

Last spring, Lawson introduced an ordinance to freeze the tipped wage at where it was last May — undoing the One Fair Wage ordinance — but his ordinance got stuck in the Committee on Committees and Rules, so a statutory tipped wage increase went into effect last July. Nugent’s substitute (SO2025-0017549) accounts for the current tipped wage, which is $12.62 an hour or 76 percent of the $16.60 an hour minimum wage, and proposes freezing it at that current level.  

Chicago’s One Fair Wage ordinance (SO2023-0002995), passed in October 2023, was one of the mayor’s first legislative victories. Under it, the gap between the tipped wage and minimum wage will shrink by eight percent every July until it becomes equal to Chicago’s minimum wage on July 1, 2028. That phased-in process began in 2024. 

Related: Alderperson proposes ordinance to pause elimination of tipped wage, but opponents warn it would cause hospitality workers to ‘suffer’ 

“There’s these unintended and really devastating consequences associated with the tipped wage ordinance,” Nugent told The Daily Line. “It’s resulted in hundreds of businesses lost and a lot of jobs that they once supported also lost.” 

But Mayor Brandon Johnson pushed back during an appearance on WBEZ Monday. 

“At a time in which affordability is top of mind for the entire country, Democrats have to pay attention to what the voters of the city of Chicago are calling for, and quite frankly what voters across America are expecting from leadership,” Johnson said. “At a time in which it's becoming increasingly harder to afford to live in this city, to live in cities across America, cutting the wages of workers, that is antithetical to what we're trying to build.” 

The mayor's office also said that retail food establishment license renewals are up 83 percent and there's little evidence for an increase in restaurant closures tied to the ordinance.

Committee items

The council will also consider the items approved by the Committee on Housing and Real Estate last week, including the appointment of former Department of Family and Support Services Managing Deputy Comm. Alisa Rodriguez to the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund Board, a lease renewal for city clerk office and senior center space in Garfield Ridge and a Low Affordability Community designation for a proposed 28-story apartment tower on the Near North Side.

The council will also consider an ordinance (O2025-0019991) from Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33) that would create a working group to study and make recommendations about the establishment of a citywide rental housing unit registry and a city-sponsored system for proactively inspecting apartments on a regular basis, which was also approved by the housing committee. 

Related: Housing committee approves working group to study proactive apartment inspections and create rental registry 

The council will also consider the final confirmation of Acting Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) Chief Administrator LaKenya White. White’s appointment to lead COPA was approved by the police and fire committee last week. 

White has served in multiple previous iterations of the independent police misconduct investigative body before the agency became COPA in 2017. 

Related: COPA chief administrator nomination advances through police and fire committee 

Alderpeople additionally will consider confirmation of Johnson’s appointment to lead Chicago Animal Care and Control, Acting Executive Director Susan Cappello, whose appointment was approved by the health and human relations committee last week despite some outcry from multiple animal welfare organizations and rescue groups. 

Related: Animal Control director appointment approved by health and human relations committee despite some organizations’ concerns  

Alderpeople will also consider three allocations of Open Space Impact Fee funds that passed the Committee on Special Events, Cultural Affairs and Recreation on Friday, which will benefit projects at local schools in Avondale, Lake View and Irving Park.  

Related: Special events and recreation committee approves Open Space Impact Fee expenditures for school improvements  

The council will also consider the items approved by the Committee on Finance on Friday, including a $27 million legal settlement to the family of Stacy Vaughn Harrell, who was killed in 2017 when a driver fleeing from Chicago Police crashed into her car; the allocation of Multi-Family Program funds to the developers of the first phase of the Park Manor Senior Residences of Chatham; tax increment financing (TIF) assistance for the recently remodeled Clarendon Community Center; additional multi-family loan funds to the Prairie District Apartments project; and a $12.5 million bond inducement for the Morgan Park Commons project’s initial phase.  

Related: Finance committee approves $27M settlement in high-speed police chase case, TIF allocations for parks and school projects, financial assistance for housing projects   

The ordinance (O2026-0022544) creating the Chicago Tourism Improvement District, which also passed the finance committee earlier this month, will be up for a final vote as well. 

Hotels within the proposed district’s boundaries would be charged a 1.5 percent transaction charge annually on gross revenue earned from hotel stays to raise funds to reinvest into marketing Chicago’s tourism and hospitality industry on a national and international scale and to provide certain incentives to lure conferences and other events to the city.   

Related: Finance committee approves measure to establish Chicago Tourism Improvement District  

Alderpeople will also consider an ordinance to make several changes to the city’s animal cruelty code. The ordinance (O2025-0015393) from Ald. Raymond Lopez (15) would increase fines for any animal cruelty offense to a flat $5,000 per violation.  

It also updates various provisions of the animal cruelty ordinance, like adding language to specify someone caring for an animal must provide “breed-appropriate” food, specifying the requirements for sanitary conditions for animals to include ventilation, protection from excess heat and cold and sufficient space to move freely about and exercise, and prohibitions on abandonment of animals, leaving a female dog unattended either on a stake or unrestrained, and tethering an animal outside overnight in the cold.  

The ordinance was approved by the Committee on Public Safety two weeks ago.  

Related: Public safety committee approves enhanced animal cruelty fines, votes down parental responsibility for offenses by minors  

Finally, the City Council is expected to take up an ordinance (O2025-0020004) that was deferred at last month’s council meeting that would enable the COPA to formally investigate alleged violations of Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance by police. 

It was deferred by Lopez and Ald. Silvana Tabares (23), with Tabares telling The Daily Line at the time she thought the ordinance would be “abused” to punish police. But Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26), the sponsor of the measure, has said it shouldn’t be controversial because it only ensures the city can properly investigate violations of existing law. 

Following an incident last summer in which police were alleged to have illegally coordinated with federal immigration agents conducting a civil immigration enforcement operation, the council learned no agency had official jurisdiction over investigating violations. It passed unanimously out of a joint immigration and police and fire committee in January.  

Related: Joint committee advances ordinance giving COPA authority to investigate Welcoming City violations