City officials hope a new ordinance partnering with the Cook County Land Bank Authority will help speed efforts to rehab long-vacant and neglected properties. [Eric Allix Rogers on Flickr]

Chicago housing and planning officials are asking the City Council to sign off on a plan that would let them snag long-neglected properties off the Cook County tax rolls so they can turn the lots over to rehabbers. They say the ordinance is part of a longer-running effort to lure residential investors back to neighborhoods long plagued by blight. 

Chicago Public Schools plans to make masks optional in one week, district leaders announced on Monday. And dozens of county candidates hoping to get on the June 28 ballot for races ranging from Cook County Board President to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District filed their nominating petitions on Monday. 

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33), left, and Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady speak during a committee meeting on Friday. 

Since it launched in late last summer, Chicago’s pilot program that has embedded mental health professionals in mental health call responses has made 134 emergency runs — and on none of those occasions did they make any arrests or use force. 

Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s office remains under the thumb of a monitor appointed by a federal judge to keep tabs on hiring policies. [A.D. Quig/The Daily Line]

As Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi faces a tough reelection campaign this year, the incumbent was on pace to escape court oversight of his office’s hiring regime in May, setting him up to boast of a major reform milestone in the final stretch before voters go to the polls.   

But a fresh delay last week will deny him that opportunity. 

A demolition site in Bucktown [Arvell Dorsey Jr. on Flickr] 

Last month, city housing officials were trumpeting the success of an experimental policy to make demolitions more expensive in two of the city’s most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, saying they hoped to extend the fees and potentially replicate them in other neighborhoods.  

Weeks later, city leaders are on the verge of letting the policy sunset.  

Advocates of the demolition fee policy say they’re still working to prevent the pilot program from ending on April 1 as scheduled, and housing officials say they’re committed to keeping it alive. But landlords and real estate groups are rooting for its demise, saying the fees have choked off construction and will only hurt the city’s affordable housing efforts in the long run. 

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33) and Matt Richards with the city’s Department of Public Health speak during a September committee hearing. 

City health officials are set on Friday to update aldermen on the “co-responder” pilot program they launched in late August that sends different combinations of mental health professionals, paramedics, police officers and recovery specialists to calls of residents experiencing mental health crises. 

Sponsors of the so-called “Coalition Map” and the CHANGE Illinois-backed “People’s Map” held a press conference before the February City Council meeting [Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line] 

As ward remap negotiations among competing groups of aldermen have ground to a halt, a group of aldermen that has already filed paperwork to put their map to voters in a referendum wants to make modifications to the map they originally proposed to accommodate a new group of supporters. 

But legal teams representing multiple agencies and parties are discussing whether or how the proposed “Coalition Map,” which is backed largely by the City Council Latino Caucus and filed to be placed on the June 28 Primary Election ballot as a referendum question, can be legally changed, Chicago Board of Elections spokesperson Max Bever told The Daily Line on Wednesday. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during a news conference on Wednesday. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line] 

Chicagoans may be softening their pessimism on the city’s crime and other quality-of-life issues as the COVID-19 pandemic fades into a new lull, but Mayor Lori Lightfoot remains as unpopular as ever, a new Chicago Index survey found last month. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot rolled out the beginnings of a cross-department city strategy to snuff out crime. And Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said business leaders have been “on the sidelines” as crime has spiraled out of control. 

Black drivers were the targets of more than 80 percent of traffic stops that involved police use of force between 2017 and 2020, according to a new report. [stock] 

Black drivers have been the recent targets of about 68 percent of police stops and 84 percent of documented uses of force by Chicago Police officers despite comprising less than one-third of the city’s population, a city watchdog found in a report published Tuesday.  

Police responded by highlighting a number of tactics they’ve introduced to close the gap since the report’s findings were gathered, including expanding and revamping use-of-force training for officers. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants Russia’s status as one of Chicago’s “Sister Cities” to be suspended. And city licensing officials tallied the hundreds of citations they issued during the nearly two months the city required masks and proof of vaccination in most public indoor settings. 

(Illustrations: Cori Lin/City Bureau)

While communities continue to mobilize to have a say in the developments coming to their neighborhoods, policy experts see some positive changes at the city level, signaling the importance of community input in proposals citywide. Though residents fighting for equitable development say a few recent ordinances, as well as pending legislation, would increase community engagement requirements or strengthen regulation for certain types of new developments, they also say there are policy gaps that still need to be filled.

Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady speaks during a committee hearing on Monday. 

As masks and proof of vaccination are no longer required in most indoor settings and the number of new COVID-19 cases continues trending downward, Chicago has graduated to a “new phase” of the pandemic, the city’s top doctor told aldermen on Monday. 

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability published a summary of its work in 2021 saying it’s ramped up transparency efforts. And dozens of aldermen filed a City Council order finding a new way to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10) and public health Comm. Allison Arwady speaking during a committee hearing in January.

On the same day the city is set to lift both its indoor mask mandate and requirement that people show proof of vaccination at restaurants and entertainment venues, public health department Comm. Allison Arwady is set to brief aldermen on the city’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.