A City Council committee is set to renew its relationship with a labor force nonprofit and to cement symbolic support for a local unionization drive. Also on Thursday, the City Council’s Subcommittee on Reparations is set to meet for the first time in more than a year. And the mayor’s office released names of the 19 people who applied to be the next 24th Ward alderman.

AIS acting Comm. Sandra Blakemore and ComEd President Terry Donnelly speak during a committee meeting on Tuesday.

Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) executives on Tuesday painted an optimistic picture for aldermen on their progress toward a new franchise agreement with the city that would set updated ground rules for the company’s operation as Chicago’s sole electricity provider. But nearly 18 months after the last agreement expired, a deal remains elusive.

Some scooter companies are seeing a delay in the launch of their scooters across the city due to an administrative dispute. [Hannah Alani/Block Club Chicago]

One month after city transportation officials allowed Lyft to pepper its electric scooters around the Chicago’s downtown, appeals filed by two competing e-scooter companies that were denied licenses are holding up the proliferation of scooters across the city’s neighborhoods.

A still from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reelection campaign announcement video. [YouTube/Lightfoot for Chicago]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot put an end to months of questions and speculation on Tuesday with a nearly three-minute ad confirming the news Chicagoans have long suspected: she’s running.

The splashy 155-second campaign video plows head-first into the mayor’s notoriously brash temperament and habit of making enemies in government — qualities some of her opponents have already seized upon — and wielded them as part of her own argument for why she deserves another four years in power.

Chicago has not had an active franchise agreement with ComEd since 2020. [Facebook/ComEd]

Last June, executives from Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) told aldermen they were confident they could strike a deal with city officials to carry on as the city’s sole provider of power with a commitment to reliability, affordability and environmental sustainability.

As the City Council readies for its next annual public check-in with the utility mega-firm on Tuesday, little has changed.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday launched a program that offers residents and business owners rebates for new surveillance cameras and car GPS trackers. An indicted Chicago alderman suffered a decisive defeat in court. And Lightfoot raised eyebrows when she said people accused of violent crimes should all be considered guilty.

Metropolitan Reclamation District of Greater Chicago President Kari Steele, left, is challenging Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi in the June 28 primary.

With three weeks remaining until Cook County voters decide his fate, Assessor Fritz Kaegi is pointing to a fresh round of assessment data he calls a sign of follow-through on campaign promises to right the scales of the county’s byzantine property tax system. The information push represents the incumbent’s attempt to reset the public conversation around assessments following more than two years of delays, slip-ups and finger-pointing in the county’s tax system.

Meanwhile, Keagi’s campaign is pummeling his challenger Kari Steele over bigoted remarks her husband Maze Jackson has made in public, a charge Steele’s campaign is increasingly resisting. And Kaegi continues to run laps around Steele in fundraising and campaign spending, in part thanks to his own personal largesse and in spite of the real estate groups that have put their collective weight behind Steele.

More than 500 people cast ballots during the beginning of early voting last week. And Mayor Lori Lightfoot last week spoke about gun violence at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Reno, Nev.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during a news conference last Friday. [Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line]

Nearly five months after the city hired its first employee to staff the first-of-its-kind civilian commission charged with overseeing the Chicago Police Department, city leaders have yet to hire a second.

Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) speaks at a City Council meeting on July 21, 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) is running for mayor of Chicago, hoping to oust Mayor Lori Lightfoot from City Hall in 2023.

The South Side alderman, who has represented parts of Chatham, Englewood and West Englewood since 2011, aims to follow in the footsteps of father, Eugene Sawyer, who served as mayor after Harold Washington’s sudden death.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot touts her “Connected Communities Ordinance” proposal during an event on May 27.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration balked last week on its expected rollout of a sweeping new proposal to boost housing options near transit and whittle away at the city’s endemic racial segregation.

The mayor and her top deputies are vowing to push forward after some additional tweaks to the ordinance, which would also blunt aldermen’s powers to veto new housing proposals in their own wards. But as an anxious City Council awaits the final language of the ordinance with reactions ranging from qualified support to outright hostility, nearly everyone can agree on one prediction: the plan won’t survive a vote without a hard-fought battle.

Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas officially launched his campaign for mayor on Wednesday. And Mayor Lori Lightfoot named Joyce Chapman as the newest member of the Chicago Board of Education.

A food truck participates in the Chi Food Truck Fest. [Facebook/ Chicago Business Affairs & Consumer Protection]

Business regulation officials in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration will have to wait a little longer for their turn in the spotlight to explain how they plan to spend $157 million in federally sourced cash on a combination of small business supports and direct help for Chicago families.

The Chicago Recovery Plan unveiled by the mayor last year charted out plans to spend $157 million on “direct assistance to families” and “small business & workforce support.” Both topics had been due for consideration in the third of six planned semi-monthly meetings of the City Council Committee on Budget and Government Operations Subcommittee on Chicago Recovery Plan on Wednesday — but the meeting was canceled one day in advance. Both topics had been due for consideration in the third of six planned semi-monthly meetings of the City Council Committee on Budget and Government Operations Subcommittee on Chicago Recovery Plan on Wednesday — but the meeting was canceled one day in advance.

The Cook County Board of Ethics is turning to the courts to enforce an order against an elected official. Mayoral hopeful and state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) unveiled his public safety platform on Tuesday. And the city’s Office of Inspector Genral launched a search to find the city’s next deputy inspector general for public safety.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot (left); Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez (right) [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago; Provided]

This article was first published in Block Club Chicago.

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25) filed a complaint with the Inspector General’s office against Mayor Lori Lightfoot, accusing the mayor of interfering in the rezoning of St. Adalbert’s Church to favor the Archdiocese of Chicago.