Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) has urged his colleagues to support a tax break for the lab building at 2017 N. Mendell St. over the objections of city planning officials. [Baker Development Corporation]

A disputed plan to offer a tax break for a burgeoning pharmaceutical lab overlooking the Chicago River North Branch is set to resurface on Tuesday, six months after it ran into resistance from city planning officials.

The proposed class 6(b) property tax incentive for Baker Development Group to build out tenant renovations at 2017 N. Mendell St. in the 2nd Ward is one of four tax sweeteners due for consideration by the City Council Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development during its 1 p.m. meeting on Tuesday.

The James Sneider Apartments in Rogers Park [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Aldermen are set on Monday to hold a hearing on the heat-related deaths of three women at the James Sneider Apartments in Rogers Park last month.

Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16) and Kamm Howard, national co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, speak during a committee meeting Thursday.

Advocates and aldermen continued during a committee meeting Thursday to push city officials on progress in creating a plan to offer reparations to Chicago’s Black residents and descendants of enslaved Africans as little work on the effort has gotten off the ground since a subcommittee was created to explore the issue nearly two years ago.

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33), left, and Chicago Federation of Labor deputy chief of staff Andrea Kluger speak during a City Council committee meeting on Thursday.

Chicago is broadening its funding for mental health services, but the spending boost won’t mean much if it keeps outsourcing services to organizations that underpay their workers, multiple aldermen and labor groups said Thursday.

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33) called the chronic underpayment of nonprofit mental health workers contracted by the Chicago Department of Public Health key “context” behind a resolution she sponsored (R2022-144) expressing the City Council’s support for a unionization drive by workers at the Howard Brown Health Center. The City Council Committee on Workforce Development unanimously advanced the resolution, as well as a seven-year extension on a deal with Cook County to fund workforce programming, during its meeting on Thursday.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27) voices an endorsement for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s campaign alongside fellow West Side elected officials Ald. Emma Mitts (37), Ald. Jason Ervin (28) and retiring Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Comm. Barbara McGowan.

A trio of West Side aldermen showcased an early mark of political force for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s fresh-off-the-ground reelection campaign, highlighting her efforts to jump-start economic activity in historically overlooked neighborhoods while she faced unprecedented headwinds.

Kenneth Williams has been chief administrative officer of the City Council Office of Financial Analysis since 2020. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line; City of Chicago]

A City Council office designed to give aldermen an unclouded lens into the city’s finances is falling short of its mandate, according to a former employee and a city watchdog agency.

The council’s Office of Financial Analysis, which is housed under the Committee on Budget and Government Operations, has failed to file multiple mandated reports, and the work it has produced has been met with allegations of sloppiness and even plagiarism. Critics say the result is that aldermen must rely on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration for guidance and information.

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.