Voters across the city who got reports from a phony organization about their voting history — and how it compares to their neighbors — deluged Chicago elections officials with complaints Friday — but officials said that while the letters may be “creepy,” they aren’t illegal.

Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners spokesman Jim Allen said whether someone voted in an election is public record — even if who they voted for is private information — and is considered “protected political speech” under the First Amendment.

“This is a cheap stunt,” Allen said. “The best thing you can do to pitch it. It is creepy.”

The letters from the Chicago Voter Report — with a return mailing address pointing to a Loop office tower — purport to list whether the recipient, along with their neighbors, voted in the March 2016, November 2016 and March 2018 elections.

The letter also had a phony city seal — “which any one who has lived in the city for more than three months would recognize,” Allen said.

Residents of the 1st, 43rd and 47th wards reported getting the letters. That indicates the letters may have originated with a citywide campaign, most likely for mayor, Allen said.

The letter is designed to “take a new approach to try to” increase turnout and warns — or promises — “to send an updated chart to you, your friends, and your neighbors so we can see how we did together.”

In 2015, 43 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the municipal election, according to Chicago Board of Elections data.

The letters are designed to use public shaming and peer pressure to get people to vote, Allen said. And recent studies have shown it could increase turnout between 2 percent and 3 percent, Allen said. Similar letters have popped up before elections in 2016 and 2018, he said

“These letters are a nuisance, an irritant,” Allen said. “Ignore them.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to build a $95 million training facility for Chicago police and fire departments advanced Thursday with the unanimous recommendation of the Plan Commission, despite fierce protests.

By Kelly Bauer, Block Club Chicago

Early voting in Tuesday’s general elections is on track to be the highest in recent years.

Approximately 60,000 early voting ballots have been cast and another 18,500 vote-by-mail ballots have come in, said Jim Allen, spokesman for the Board of Election Commissioners.

On Thursday alone, 10,000 early votes were cast — the most of any day during this election, Allen said.

That puts the city on pace to surpass the early vote totals it saw in the most recent comparable elections of February 2011 and February 2015.

Those totals don’t even include include military overseas voters and grace period voters, Allen said.

And the board has received nearly triple the amount of vote-by-mail applications as it has in the past, with about a quarter of those returned so far, Allen said.

“We’ll have a solid turnout at this rate,” Allen said.

Election Day is Tuesday. Early voting continues through Monday night. Click here for a list of voting sites.

The Chicago Plan Commission is set to advance Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to build a $95 million training facility for Chicago police and fire departments Thursday.

Jesus Chuy Garcia, who forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff in 2015, said Wednesday he hasn’t made up his mind in the wide open race to replace Emanuel. Jeanette Taylor will stay in the 20th Ward race, despite the death of her mother — and early voting continues to lag, according to elections officials.

Cook County commissioners Wednesday advanced a measure to permanently destroy the records in the county’s gang database and hold hearings to detail the impact of the database had on people’s lives.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel — who has vowed to help his allies on the City Council win re-election — cut new checks for two of his supporters facing tough re-election fights. Mayoral candidate Gery Chico said he would push for extended parental leave for city workers, and early voting picked up the pace after a sluggish start.

Defying intense criticism from several aldermen and calls for delay from parks advocates and good government stalwarts, the city’s Community Development Commission unanimously endorsed plans Tuesday for a $900 million subsidy for Lincoln Yards, which is set to reshape the North Branch of the Chicago River.

The commission’s 10-0 vote sends the plans for the new 168-acre Cortland and Chicago River Redevelopment Area (F2018-72) to the City Council’s Finance Committee for consideration, perhaps as soon as next month.

The commission, whose members are all appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, also approved the Department of Planning and Development recommendation that Sterling Bay be allowed to develop the property.

The City Council has not yet given the developer approval to rezone the property, much of which was once part of the now-defunct Finkl Steel plant. That approval could also come next month.

Eleven aldermen have vowed to vote against the project because it fails to combat Chicago’s affordable housing shortfall or reduce the economic or racial segregation plaguing the city. Twenty-six aldermen could kill the project.

Before the meeting, a coalition of community groups and civic leaders said the process should be halted until after the next mayor and City Council take office in May — a position endorsed by mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle.

That coalition includes local entertainment venue owners that have mobilized to block the project, which they fear will unleash a wave of displacement and gentrification that will wipe them out.

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) said the project should be put on hold because it would do nothing to reduce economic or racial segregation in the city.

“This will exacerbate the tale of two cities we are faced with,” Waguespack said.

Ald. John Arena (45) called the creation of the new TIF nothing more than a “shell game.”

TIF districts capture all growth in the property tax base in a designated area for a set period of time, usually 20 years or more, and divert it into a special fund for projects designed to spur redevelopment and eradicate blight.

Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26) called that a “rip-off for all taxpayers.”

Ald. Michele Smith (43) said the new TIF should be halted until Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi can determine whether all 300 properties set to be included in the district have been properly assessed.

"This is not an academic exercise," Smith said. "The largest TIF district ever created in Chicago deserves real scrutiny."

The TIF district is set to include the city's former maintenance yard, which was assessed as worth nothing, since it was owned by the city. That means all property tax generated by that land will be scooped up by the TIF.

The current plan is "insulting," Smith said.

Dozens of speakers echoed Smith, and called on commissioners to slow down the process.

But Ald. Brian Hopkins, whose 2nd Ward includes the proposed development, said the new roads, bridges and sidewalks set to be built as part of the Lincoln Yards development are urgently needed.

"We can't wait any longer," Hopkins said. "We need to act now."

Members of unions and firms that stand to get a slice of the 55-acre project — expected to bring 10,000 construction jobs and 24,000 permanent jobs — urged commissioners to go full speed ahead. Under the city’s rules, $1.9 billion of the project’s cost will be set side for firms owned by blacks, Latinos and women.

Zoning Committee Chairman Ald. James Cappleman (46) has said he would insist developer Sterling Bay commit to building affordable units earmarked for the city’s poorest residents in the 2nd Ward — but not as part of the development itself — before allowing the project to advance to the full City Council.

However, the development has the support of Emanuel as well as Hopkins. Under aldermanic prerogative — the city’s unwritten policy of giving aldermen the ultimate authority over projects in their own wards — that’s all a development typically needs to be approved by the City Council.

Once completed in 10 years, the development is set to include 6,000 new units.

Because the project is set to get $900 million from the new TIF district, 1,200 of those units must be set aside for low- and moderate-income Chicagoans.

Sterling Bay plans to include only 300 of those units as part of the development itself, the minimum required by the city’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance.

The developer also plans to pay $39 million into the city’s Low-Income Housing Trust Fund in lieu of building another 300 units.

The remaining 600 units would be allowed to be built outside the development, but within three miles, according to the original plan. Sterling Bay would also have the option of paying into the trust fund instead of building some of those remaining units, or including them as part of Lincoln Yards.

The $900 million in TIF funds will be used to reimburse Sterling Bay for new bridges over the Chicago River, a new Metra station, an extension of the 606 trail, water taxis, dedicated bicycle lanes as well as potentially a light-rail transit way and extending the city’s street grid to the city’s specifications

Efforts are already underway to unsnarl the intersection of Armitage, Ashland and Elston avenues, officials said.

If Chicago’s 50 City Council members received a grade for how often they showed up to required meetings and hearings at City Hall, the average alderman would get an D, according to a joint analysis by WBEZ and The Daily Line.

The average alderman showed up to just 65 percent of committee and City Council meetings between the start of the current term in 2015 and the end of last year, according to available attendance logs obtained through open records requests. Eight showed up less than half the time.

Next week, voters will decide which Chicago aldermen deserve another four-year term — and the six-figure, taxpayer-funded salary that comes with it.

Want to see how your alderman stacks up? Search your address here and scroll down to see how all 50 stacked up.

Traditionally, that job has been more associated with tree-trimming and garbage pickup than crafting city policy and watchdogging government. But every honorary street sign, zoning amendment, multi-billion dollar bond sale, airport lease agreement and tax hike must be approved by one of the City Council’s 16 committees before advancing to become law.

Still, some aldermen just don’t show up to the meetings where all of that happens.

“Some of my colleagues, they prefer to be show horses as opposed to work horses,” said Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th Ward, a freshman who had the council’s best attendance rate at nearly 95 percent.

While many aldermen complained of conflicting meetings schedules, those with the lowest attendance rates argue that trudging over to meetings at City Hall just isn’t the most vital part of the job.

“I don't really have to show up,” said powerful South Side Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th Ward, who had the council’s worst attendance rate at 34 percent, according to available records. Austin said she often listens in to what’s happening in the council chambers over the speaker system in her office. “And if my vote is that important, I do show up.”

In fact, it’s largely because of Austin that it’s impossible for voters to get the full picture of how many other aldermen don’t show up for committee meetings. To calculate aldermanic attendance rates, WBEZ and The Daily Line combed through nearly a thousand pages of monthly meeting reports from the start of the current term in June 2015 through December 2018.

All committees filed their attendance data with the City Clerk’s office — except for the Budget Committee, which Austin chairs. After weeks of stonewalling, WBEZ sued the committee in Cook County court to get the documents ahead of the Feb. 26 election. Ultimately, the committee produced only a quarter of the documents that it’s legally required to keep.

Poor attendance common among council veterans

Including Austin, eight aldermen attended less than half of the meetings they were supposed to: Leslie Hairston, 5th Ward, George Cardenas, 12th Ward, Howard Brookins, 21st Ward, Danny Solis, 25th Ward, Roberto Maldonado, 26th Ward, Pat O’Connor, 40th Ward, and Ameya Pawar, 47th Ward.



Maldonado cited the death of his wife as a reason for many of his absences.

But other aldermen said they view their role the same way old school ward bosses of The Machine days did: They’re the person you call when you want to start a new business, when a squirrel eats through your garbage can, or when the pothole outside your garage dings up your car.

Hairston, who represents parts of the South Shore neighborhood and Jackson Park, said courting development to her ward “creates a whole other job.” When asked about her 49 percent attendance record, she said her work on the massive Obama Presidential Center, the Tiger Woods golf course, and efforts to get a grocery store have kept her “very, very busy in the ward.”

“What I think is most important is to be in the ward doing the work that the people expect you to do,” Hairston said.

For Cardenas, from the McKinley Park neighborhood, the simple numbers don’t tell the whole story. He said looking at attendance is like basing a student’s aptitude on the frequency they show up to class.

“You could have a perfect attendance,” said Cardenas, who had a 41 percent attendance rate. “It doesn't mean you are there, there. I mean mentally there, you know what I mean?”

“What good would it do for [an alderman] to be 100 percent in committee meetings and 100 percent absent from his community?” he said.

In addition to busy schedules in the ward, the average alderman sits on seven committees, which often hold simultaneous meetings at City Hall.

“Obviously, I can’t be in two places at once,” said Ald. Proco Joe Moreno, 1st Ward, echoing a common refrain from aldermen.

Some aldermen blamed their absences on the pedestrian, hyper-local votes that clog the vast majority of the council’s legislative docket. Rogers Park Ald. Joe Moore, 49th Ward, is a nearly 30-year veteran of the City Council and has only attended about 51 percent of the meetings he was required to, according to the analysis.

Moore is chairman of the Housing Committee, and said he’s present for nearly all of its meetings. But he argues that he’s got better things to do than travel downtown to vote on a street light or stop sign for a colleague on the other side of the city.

“My top priority is serving my constituents. And sitting Downtown in a committee meeting on a bunch of ward-specific matters that have nothing to do with my ward — I don’t think is the best use of my time,” Moore said.

For Ravenswood Ald. Ameya Pawar, 47th Ward, who attended less than half the meetings he was required to attend, time is better spent on citywide public policy.

He is now running to become the city’s treasurer.

“I’m proud of my record and I personally don’t know that it makes a whole lot of sense to be voting on every single sidewalk cafe, stop sign, every minor adjustment that we make, and so I’ve been on the record of that,” he said.

Brookins and O’Connor declined to comment on the story. Solis did not respond to requests for comment. All three are committee chairs.

‘This is what we’re here to do’

The City Council has long been derided as a rubber stamp for the mayor’s agenda, a body where vote outcomes are predetermined by behind-the-scenes deals before legislation hits the council floor. Before every monthly City Council meeting, most legislative work is cooked up by the mayor’s office and handed down to committee chairmen to put before members for a vote.

Aldermen who more regularly show up to City Hall said committee meetings are the only time in the legislative process where aldermen can flex their power. They can make line edits, force entire rewrites of legislation, and invite local organizations and business groups to weigh in on new laws.

For aldermen with high attendance, even sitting through the mundane meetings is essential to what they believe it means to represent their ward.

“Most of the grunt work, the meat and potatoes of legislation-making happens in committees, that’s when you get to have more discussion, you get to hear more outside opinion,” said Lopez, the freshman alderman with the council’s highest attendance rate.



*Correction: Due to a typographical error, a previous version of this graphic included incorrect attendance rates for two aldermen. Michael Scott Jr.'s rate is 84 percent. John Arena's attendance rate is 73 percent.

Northwest Side Ald. Ariel Reboyras, 30th Ward, who chairs the Committee on Public Safety, attended 82 percent of the meetings he was supposed to over the past term. When constituents call and ask him whether he voted on a specific issue, he said he wants to be able to give them an answer.

“But if nothing else, this is what we’re here to do,” Reboyras said. “And if nothing else, we should attend the meetings. That’s what we get paid for.”

The type of work aldermen do – or can’t do – could be affected by who wins the race to become Chicago’s next mayor. Former White House Chief of Staff and U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, for example, has proposed cutting the City Council’s size by more than two-thirds, which would likely put pressure on aldermen to beef up their legislative roles and leave menial ward-related tasks to city staff.

And several candidates want to ban aldermen from holding outside jobs, following the corruption scandal involving once-powerful Ald. Ed Burke’s 14th Ward allegedly illegal efforts to hustle business for his private law practice.

“For me, this is my full time job,” said freshman Ald. Michael Scott Jr., 24th Ward, who had an 88 percent attendance rate. “I’m in the ward every day. I’m not one of those aldermen who don’t come to work, and when I’m called to be here to a committee meeting, I think it’s important to show up.”

But for now, City Council members must juggle the pressures of being a hyper-responsive “alley alderman” for constituents in their wards, and helping shape a city-wide agenda in committee rooms downtown.

One recent weekday, Moreno had just finished up chairing a meeting about economic development, at the same time the Finance Committee on which he also sits was taking big votes about workers compensation and a $1 million legal payout to the family of someone who died in police custody.

And then he got call on his cell phone: Someone in his ward was upset their recycling hadn’t gotten picked up.

“I mean, of course you could make changes. But the system in Chicago has run so long that aldermen are responsible for everything,” Moreno said. “I don’t think Chicagoans would like that.”

Claudia Morell reports on City Hall for WBEZ. Follow her on Twitter @claudiamorell.

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Data Explained

1. How we calculated ranking: An alderman’s rate is based off of the total number of meetings the alderman attended divided by the total number of meetings the alderman should have attended, based on committee assignments.


2. Incomplete budget data: By deadline, the Council’s Budget Committee provided only 19 of the 78 meetings it held between June 2015 through December 2018. The Budget Committee “hand-searched through dozens of boxes looking for the attendance sheets,” Amber Ritter, an attorney for the city, wrote in an email. “They are stored with other records from each meeting, etc., as opposed to being stored in one place.” Austin, the committee chair, told The Daily Line she “can’t believe” the records are missing, and is “checking in on that.”


3. We only count meetings were attendance records have been provided: In addition to the missing Budget data, not all offsite meetings have attendance records. Those meetings are excluded from the analysis.


4. Committee version lists: Committee assignments are set on the first full City Council meeting of the term, which is usually held at the end of May. Over the course of our analysis, membership lists were amended two additional times. To address the changes, there are three membership lists: (1) the original assignments, (2) committee reshuffle when Sophia King replaced Will Burns in the 4th Ward in 2016, (3) committee reshuffle when Silvana Tabares replaced Mike Zalewski in the 23rd Ward in 2018.


5. Joint meetings: Joint committees are when two or more committees meet together as a single body. Sometimes, aldermen are members of both committees. In those cases, an alderman’s attendance is only counted once.


6. Attendance could include/exclude drop-ins: Sometimes, aldermen leave a meeting shortly after they’re marked present on attendance sheets. Sometimes, aldermen show up late and are not marked present on attendance sheets. The documents only reflect attendance at the time it was taken.

The $6 billion Lincoln Yards development is set to advance Tuesday with the endorsement of the Community Development Commission — despite continued calls for delays from opponents.

With precisely one week until Election Day, mayoral candidates Bill Daley and Gery Chico are out with new ads they hope will close the deal with voters — many of whom are still undecided, according to recent polls — and are being inundated with campaign mail.

Cook County commissioners will receive a pension update from the new executive director of the county and Forest Preserve employee funds.

Voters concerned about racial inequity in Chicago picked education as their top area of concern, according to a survey of more than 2,000 Chicagoans conducted by a coalition of groups.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle unveiled her closing argument with a new television spot. Cook County Republican Party Chairman Sean Morrison tossed his support behind mayoral candidate Willie Wilson, while 1st Ward aldermanic challenger Daniel La Spata lost another endorsement because of a photo from his bachelor party that City Council Black Caucus Chairman Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) said was “racist.”

Sarah-Ji Rhee, a local photographer, says that Ald. Joe Moore used her photo without permission. [Facebook/ Sarah Ji Rhee]

A local photographer and a Los Angeles-based photojournalist are accusing Ald. Joe Moore (49th) of using their photos on campaign mailers without permission — but Moore’s campaign contends they did nothing wrong.

On Friday, photographer Sarah-Ji Rhee accused Moore and his campaign of stealing her photo for a campaign mailer in a Rogers Park Facebook group. She called it the most “egregious violation of professional courtesy” she’s experienced as a photographer.