An ordinance up for consideration Tuesday is designed to extend the life on affordability covenants tied to homes sold through city housing programs.

Affordable housing covenants imposed by city programs would renew more frequently under a measure set for consideration by aldermen on Tuesday.

The ordinance (O2021-446), introduced last month by Mayor Lori Lightfoot on behalf of the Chicago Department of Housing, is scheduled for a vote by the City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate during its 10 a.m. meeting.

As Chicago gears up to redraw boundaries of its 50 wards, leaders of Chicago’s Aldermanic Black Caucus and City Council Latino Caucus have a goal to keep communities in their wards together and to retain or expand the number of council seats they currently hold.

The aldermen put a high priority on maintaining their power to shape policy in the City Council and ensure their constituents’ needs are met and their concerns are addressed. Using the 2020 census data to redraw the wards in such a way that keeps the communities they represent together gives the caucasus a better chance of ensuring they hold onto seats.

Aldermen overwhelmingly approved a proposal allowing Mayor Lori Lightfoot to remake the Chicago Board of Health, overcoming concerns from multiple members of the City Council’s Democratic Socialist caucus who said the measure should be amended to carve out more room for public participation.

The ordinance (O2021-458) vacates all nine seats on the board and allows the mayor to re-nominate them or replace them. The reconstituted board would have nine members each serving three-year terms, staggered so that three members’ terms expire each year.

Ald. Maria Hadden (49) was an unlikely champion of Indian religious minorities, until a groundswell of her South Asian constituents alerted her to human rights abuses perpetrated at the hands of India’s government, she said. Her months-long effort culminated on Thursday, when her colleagues voted to advance her resolution (R2020-583) condemning religious violence in the world’s largest democracy.

Even less likely was that her predecessor, former Ald. Joe Moore (49), would become one of her fiercest adversaries in the effort.

The city’s Streets and Sanitation commissioner agrees with some aldermen and recycling advocates that the department could use help from another city department to make sure large apartment and office buildings separate recyclables, he said Wednesday.

Members of the City Council Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight and the Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy on Wednesday grilled streets and sanitation department leaders, Inspector General Joseph Ferguson and Chief Sustainability Officer Angela Tovar on why the city’s recycling program for large buildings is not being properly enforced.

News in brief: Chicago, suburban Cook chart out ‘roadmap’ to restaurant expansions; aldermen approve aviation security labor agreement

News in brief: Chicago, suburban Cook chart out ‘roadmap’ to restaurant expansions; aldermen approve aviation security labor agreement  

Aldermen are scheduled Thursday to consider a series of new rules and requirements that would expand Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s control of the Chicago Board of Health, an advisory body that dates back to the city’s founding.

Introduced by Lightfoot last month, the ordinance (O2021-458) set for a vote by the City Council’s Committee on Health and Human Relations during its 10:30 a.m. meeting would vacate all eight seats on the board and allow the mayor to re-nominate them or replace them. The reconstituted board would have nine members each serving three-year terms, staggered so that three members’ terms expire each year.

Aldermen are expected Wednesday to demand answers from leaders of the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation on reported gaps in the program used to pick up recycling from large buildings.

The subject matter hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. by the City Council Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight and the Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy comes out of a resolution (R2020-1071) introduced by Ald. Michele Smith (43) in December.

Property owners filed more than 223,000 appeals to their tax assessments to the Cook County Board of Review since last year, a historically heavy volume of requests that nevertheless fell far short of the record number of appeals submitted to the board during the 2019 tax year.

A city employee violated the city’s ethics ordinance by entering into a private subcontract with the Public Building Commission on a project being furnished by city funds, the Chicago Board of Ethics ruled on Monday.

Board members voted to stick the employee, whose name they did not publicize, $500 — the minimum allowed under city rules for the violation incurred.

After aldermen on Monday continued a push to get library employees vaccinated sooner than scheduled, Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady left open the possibility it could happen in some areas of the city.

Arwady updated aldermen on the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and answered their questions for three hours during a regular  meeting held by the City Council’s Committee on Health and Human to discuss the pandemic Monday.

Tens of thousands of Chicago Public Schools educators mourned the death of former Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis on Monday as they faced a critical choice over whether to accept a plan to gradually return to in-person learning beginning this week.

When the day was over, the union’s house of delegates voted overwhelmingly to endorse a reopening agreement with the school district, kicking the final decision to a full vote by the union’s approximately 25,000 members. About 85 percent of delegates voted in favor at a Monday night meeting, according to a union official.

Cook County health officials had vaccinated 300 jail detainees by Friday with hundreds more in line for shots, as county officials look to crush the coronavirus inside a facility widely blamed for helping spread the virus across the county.

With the first round of doses getting to detainees last Monday, more than 5 percent of the jail’s population had received Moderna shots by Friday, according to a spokesperson for the Cook County Health system, which is overseeing the immunization effort at the jail.

News in brief: CPS, union reach ‘tentative’ reopening agreement; Austin to challenge ethics ruling; Arwady to face grilling from aldermen