The ban on chewing tobacco and other smokeless tobacco products at Chicago ballparks takes effect today. The ban includes players on the field. The City Council approved the the ordinance championed by Ald. Ed Burke (14) and Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11), whose ward includes U.S. Cellular Field, in March. Violators will face a minimum $250 fine for the first violation, a $500 fine for the second violation, and a $2,500 fine for each additional violation that occurs within one year of the first offense.

A roll call vote on a proposed ballot question on infrastructure spending ended in a rare tie roll call vote, leaving aldermen unsure if the motion carried or failed. The stymied motion called for creating a referendum to ask Chicago voters this November whether state and federal government should invest more money in local road repairs and new infrastructure projects.

Attendance: Chair Michelle Harris (8), Brian Hopkins (2),  Sophia King (4), Rod Sawyer (6), Sue Sadlowski Garza (9), Patrick Daley Thompson (11), Mary Quinn (13), David Moore (17),  Michael Scott, Jr. (24), Walter Burnett, Jr. (27), Ariel Reboyras (30), Scott Waguespack (32), Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), Anthony Napolitano (41), Michele Smith (43), Deb Silverstein (50)

Aldermen on the Rules Committee were sharply divided on the last-minute proposed ballot question from Ald. Walter Burnett (27). Most committee members had not seen the ordinance language until the morning of the meeting, which convened 30 minutes behind schedule.

Aldermen were originally slated to consider a referendum question from Ald. Joe Moore (49) asking voters if the city of Chicago should divest in fossil fuel companies. But environmental groups opposed the ballot question, saying that putting it to the voters as a non-binding referendum would delay their efforts.

“In Chicago, there is an active campaign for municipal divestment from fossil fuels,” the group Chicago 350 said in a letter addressed to aldermen and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “But the proposed referendum could have the effect of delaying this important effort. The nature of climate change and the science behind it are no longer a matter of debate, and thus divestment is not an issue to take to the electorate. The power to divest lies in the executive and the legislative branches.”

In explaining the reason behind his new ordinance, Ald. Burnett said that he has been trying to get the city’s Department of Transportation (CDOT) and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) to invest in new L stops in his Near West Side ward.

“CTA is [trying] to get me to use TIF money to do it, instead of the federal government and the state government [trying] put cash on it,” said Ald. Burnett. “We need our TIF dollars for something else. And I feel as though everybody else should pitch in. It should not just be burden upon the city and the TIF dollars in those communities.”

But the question Ald. Burnett wants to pose to Chicago voters is vague, a point that Ald. David Moore (17) was quick to point out. “I don’t know what all of that means. It’s all words to me,” said Ald. Moore, adding that the city has “always been pushing for new funds” and that a ballot question on the matter was redundant.

A proposal by the Emanuel Administration to eliminate the $30 fee for the police exam easily advanced out of the Council’s Workforce Development and Audit Committee on Friday. While only four aldermen on the committee were present, which is below the ten needed for a quorum, the group approved a substitute ordinance that would also eliminate the $30 fee for the fire exam, as well.

Aldermen on the Council’s Public Safety Committee will meet back in the Council Chambers today to take care of some regular business: the appointment of Alicia Tate-Nadeau as the Executive Director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC).

Tate-Nadeau was appointed to the position in March. In addition to serving as an Assistant Adjutant General of the Illinois National Guard, Tate-Nadeau made history in 2015 by becoming the first female in Illinois history to be promoted to the position of General. More recently, Tate-Nadeau served on FEMA’s regional team in Flint, Michigan to help address the ongoing crisis with the city’s water system.

The elimination of a $30 fee for the preparation, administration and processing of entry level police exams is the only agenda item for today’s Workforce Development and Audit meeting. The ordinance was introduced by Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the request of the Commissioner of Human Resources, Soo Choi.

Responding to criticisms that their public hearings on police accountability were a “sham”, the two chairmen of the Council’s Public Safety Committee and Budget Committee announced a plan to create “at least three subcommittees” to organize additional public forums on police reform across the city.

Nearly eight months after the death of Laquan McDonald and few structural reforms to show for it, police reform advocates call back-to-back City Council hearings on police reform a “sham”. Meanwhile, another Council Committee approves a plan from the Human Resources Department that would eliminate the $30 fee for the police and fire exam as a way to increase minority participation. 

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has appointed Mark Kelly to head the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Kelly, who is set to begin at the new position in about a month, has been Vice President for Student Success at Columbia College Chicago for more than 30 years. He will replace Michelle T. Boone, DCASE Commissioner since 2011, and the architect of the 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan. The Plan meant “to elevate the City as a global destination for creativity, innovation and excellence in the arts,” but has been criticized as “an expensively out-sourced and pretty much useless epic of self-congratulation.”

As expected, few expert witnesses and no one from the Chicago Police Department showed up to testify at a nearly two hour long joint committee hearing on police reform held at City Hall yesterday, leaving the two chairmen to rethink their strategy to overhaul the department and the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA).

After sitting through more than a dozen witnesses, many of whom testified about the poor decision to hold only two public meetings at City Hall during business hours with limited public notice, Budget Chair Carrie Austin (34) and Public Safety Chair Ariel Reboyras (30) suggested they’d be open to extending the timeline for reform. They said they may hold additional meetings at public venues across the city.

Starting today, two City Council committees are scheduled to hold two days of public hearings on reforming the city’s policing policy, as part of a pledge to bring in subject matter experts and the public together to craft meaningful reforms. The first meeting is scheduled for today at 1:00 p.m., the second will be held on Thursday at 10:00 a.m. But, after a day of reaching out to subject matter experts, the Chicago Police Department, aldermen and their staff, Aldertrack has learned that the hearings Public Safety Chairman Ariel Reboyras (30) and Budget Chairman Carrie Austin (34) promised in a letter released last month are not what is to be expected over the next two days.

Last month, on the same day the chair of the Mayor’s Task Force on Police Accountability (PATF), Lori Lightfoot and more than a dozen other activists released an open letter and held a press conference condemning the Emanuel Administration's delayed response to PATF's more than 100-page report on the structural and racial problems that plague the police department’s oversight apparatus. Hours after the Lightfoot presser, Reboyras and Austin released their own letter announcing their decision to hold two days of public hearings on police reform.

State lawmakers and Governor Bruce Rauner get their act together to pass a budget... even if it’s only a stopgap to get through the rest of 2016. And for the first time in a while, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools’ CEO Forrest Claypool sound fairly upbeat, as they received pension relief and the okay to increase property taxes for CPS. Plus: a new transit TIF has some state legislators up in arms, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle releases a budget forecast, and the issue of race takes center stage as commissioners decide on a ballot referendum to combine the Offices of County Clerk and Recorder of Deeds. 

Chicago has no comprehensive risk management program to identify trends or effectively track millions worth of risks and claims it faces across departments, an examination from the City’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found. “The City cannot analyze the total universe of its claims experience to reveal trends, and it takes no coordinated or proactive approach to reducing the frequency and severity of events leading to claims,” the report from Inspector General Joe Ferguson says.

“This is a matter of significant concern because the City spends many tens of millions of dollars annually to pay claims.” The OIG’s office estimated based on “limited data available” that the city spent an average of $4.4 million per week in claims in 2013 and 2014. The costliest of the two–workers compensation and public safety claims (including police misconduct)–cost the city about $350 million.

Yesterday afternoon the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill (SB2562) that would give Chicago the authority to create new Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts near mass transit as a way to help fund improvements and new infrastructure projects at the Chicago Transit Authority. The bill, which had languished in committee, suddenly sprung to life following successful negotiations between the Assembly’s four leaders and Gov. Bruce Rauner on yesterday's stopgap budget bill.

“This is a TIF omnibus bill,” explained one of the lead sponsors, State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago), on the floor yesterday. “It provides the opportunity in Chicago for the development of transit oriented development around various kinds of subway stations and elevated lines.”

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle released the preliminary forecast for the County budget at a press availability yesterday morning, projecting a $174.3 million operating shortfall, a hike in expenditures, and declining revenues.

“While our costs keep growing, our revenues are flatlining or in some cases, declining,” Preckwinkle warned, mentioning lower than expected revenues from delinquent property taxes, cigarette taxes (due to Chicago’s decision to hike the smoking age to 21), court fees, and the sales tax.

In a tight vote accompanied by tense testimony, Cook County Commissioners approved what sponsor John Fritchey described as a “historic” and “miraculous” binding ballot referendum that would consolidate the Cook County Recorder of Deeds with the County Clerk’s Office. The question reads, “Shall the Office of the Cook County Recorder of Deeds be eliminated and all duties and responsibilities of the Office of the Cook County Recorder of Deeds be transferred to, and assumed by, the Office of the Cook County Clerk by December 7, 2020.”

The final vote, and the debate, broke along racial lines. 

Finance Committee Roll Call:

No (5) - Richard Boykin, Jerry “Iceman” Butler, Stanley Moore, Deborah Sims, Robert Steele

Yes (10)- Luis Arroyo, John Fritchey, Bridget Gainer, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Gregg Gosselin, Sean Morrison, Tim Schneider, Peter Silvestri, Larry Suffredin, Chairman John Daley

Absent (2) - Joan Patricia Murphy, Jeffrey Tobolski

Comm. Fritchey (D-12) said he was disappointed race was brought up in the first place. He and fellow Commissioner Richard Boykin (D-1) had a tense exchange in which Boykin told him constituents had asked why Fritchey was engaged in an “all-out assault on black office holders.”

“It’s Dorothy Brown last month, it’s Karen Yarbrough this month… if you want to rush something through and just say ‘I’m going to ram it through, forget about the costs, we’ll just deal with that after the voters approve it,’ that’s the wrong approach,” Boykin said. He was referring to an effort from Commissioner Peter Silvestri to make the position of Clerk of the Circuit Court, an office currently held by Dorothy Brown, an appointed instead of elected one. He was met with stiff opposition from Brown’s employees and withdrew his ordinance.

While Boykin said he assured his constituents attacking black female elected officials wasn’t Fritchey’s intent, the racial aspect of the vote re-emerged throughout public testimony and in debate among commissioners.

Marshall Hatch, pastor of the West Side’s New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist, asked what Fritchey’s “real motive” was. He said Yarbrough’s office was independent, saved $2 million over the past two years, and looked out for the needs and the interests of poor and minorities. “What political interests are being served by this action? This is not the time for this… not in this year when we celebrate in Chicago the 100th anniversary of the Great Migration,” Rev. Hatch said, also mentioning Dr. Martin Luther King’s march in Chicago. “What is the real motive? It could not be fiscal, it is not in the public interest, and it certainly sends the wrong message in this time of minority empowerment, particularly African American political empowerment.”

Boykin moved to defer the item until a financial impact statement could be prepared describing how much money the consolidation would net. Fritchey pointed to a Civic Federation estimate from 2012 that said the consolidation would lead to a 5% reduction in costs: a savings of roughly $800,000. Boykin’s motion failed.

“Wow, am I disappointed that that comment got made,” Fritchey said of Boykin’s “all-out assault” comment after a sigh. He reminded commissioners he sat on Congresswoman Robin Kelly’s host committee at a fundraising event the night before, supported Barack Obama’s presidential run, and worked for initiatives in the black community. “I will put my record on work I’ve done in the African American community up against most anybody: white, brown or black. This is about reforming government.”

The current Recorder of Deeds, Karen Yarbrough, came to testify as well. She told commissioners she’d been successful in streamlining the office in her term, and said consolidating her office with the “bloated” Clerk’s office would put black and brown constituents who rely on the Recorder’s services at risk. “Making such a drastic and risky move to save pennies is not a tightrope this county should attempt to walk,” she said. “Especially when a rebounding economy could overwhelm a gutted office with a million recordings a year.”

Recorder Yarbrough lives in West Suburban Maywood, and is the Democratic Committeeman for West Suburban Proviso Township. Boykin’s district consists of the West Side and West Cook suburbs, including Yarbrough’s hometown. Yarbrough was on Boykin’s transition team.

Debate lasted more than an hour, with some that voted against the measure in 2012 switching sides, including Comm. Larry Suffredin and Finance Chairman John Daley. Suffredin said the extended timeline of the transition helped change his vote. If voters approved the measure in November, that the consolidation would play out over four years. “I believe in referendums, and the power of the people to make decisions.”

After the vote, Fritchey and Boykin hugged, and Fritchey shook hands with the African American commissioners who voted against. Two commissioners Aldertrack spoke to did not want to comment further. The measure passed the full County Board later in the day with the same roll call.