The city’s year-long endeavor to overhaul the strict manufacturing boundaries of the North Branch Industrial Corridor faces its first legislative hurdle Thursday in a Plan Commission vote.

Plan Commissioners will also be greeted this morning by a neighborhood group in Jefferson Park that has been vocal in its opposition to an item not on today’s agenda.

At 10 am, members of Northwest Side Unite plan to hold a press conference where they plan to hand out copies of a petition that’s received more than 5,000 signatures against the rezone for 5150 N. Northwest Highway.

Cook County Commissioners and aldermen packed a rare joint committee hearing Tuesday to meet face to face with many of the city and county agencies and local groups working to solve low employment numbers for youth. “The county and the city have some of the same functions when it comes to youth employment, and rarely ever talk to one another,” County Workforce Chairman Bridget Gainer (D-10) said. “This was an opportunity to make sure all the money we’re spending on youth unemployment, servicing, mentoring, that people know–the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. This doesn’t happen enough and it’s really useful.”

The City of Chicago’s Department of Aviation released a request for proposals (RFP) for unarmed security at O’Hare and Midway Airports Tuesday. The RFP for a 60-month contract includes a key labor provision that would bring security officers at the city’s airports in line with unionized private security around the city and county. Those security officers are largely represented by SEIU Local 1, who have been pushing for increased wages and benefits for workers employed by private contractors at the city’s airports.

A class 6b tax incentive for a new CTA railcar manufacturing facility in Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza’s (10) ward is the first agenda item of the day for City Council's Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development. CRCC Sifang has promised to create 169 new jobs within five years at the new facility being built at 13535 S Torrence Ave. CenterPoint Chicago Enterprise LLC owns the site, and plans to construct an approximately 380,994 sq. ft. facility to manufacture 864 new CTA rail cars.

City Treasurer Kurt Summers’ General Counsel and Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Drew Beres, served his last day Monday, according to an email obtained by The Daily Line. Beres has been in Summers’ office since January of 2016. He did not return a request for comment, but his automatic email reply notes he’s no longer working at the Treasurer’s office. 

Wednesday’s Finance Committee agenda comprises of an eclectic mix. There’s an order requesting the city fold airport security officers into the Chicago Police Department, a hearing on homeowner protection programs created in the 1980’s as a way to stem white flight to the suburbs, and another hearing on how the city can protect its garbage cans from rodents. The alderman of the latter item, Howard Brookins (21), had his own run in with some overly aggressive squirrels that caused him to crash his bike.

The Council’s Housing Committee meets at 9:30 this morning to consider a plan to sell city-owned land near Midway Airport valued for over a million dollars to Wisconsin-based Culver’s. It’s the largest land sale on the agenda and the burger franchise plans to purchase it for a dollar.

While the Chicago Public Schools is fighting to keep its doors open for a full school year, its next fiscal year, beginning July 1, is sure to be as financially difficult, if not more. For the 2017-18 school year, board members will need to find a way to adequately fund a system while addressing a multitude of growing financial pressures amidst declining student enrollment.

County commissioners and aldermen will gather for a joint hearing of the two bodies Workforce Committees in City Council chambers Tuesday morning to discuss youth unemployment heading into the summer. The subject matter hearing will delve into some striking statistics for Chicago, where 47% of Black men (20-24) and 20% of Hispanic men are jobless and out of school–which the resolution warns leads to “poverty, drug abuse, homelessness and violence in our communities.”

The Chicago Teachers Union is calling for a vote of ‘no confidence’ against CPS CEO Forrest Claypool. The move, though symbolic, is a public demonstration of outrage against the head of the school district and the Emanuel Administration as they “fumble CPS finances and continue to change the number of dollars needed to keep the city’s public schools adequately staffed and resourced,” the release notes.

It was a Friday news dump for the ages, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office rolled out a series of resignations, re-appointments and promotions to major departments. The biggest change, perhaps, is the end of Alex Holt’s tenure as the city’s Budget Director. Holt has stuck by the mayor his entire time in office–through pension overhauls, massive structural deficits, and the gradual phase-out of scoop and toss borrowing.

Happy Saturday!

Earlier this week I drove to Springfield. What I did there was less important than what I experienced: Warm air, sunny skies and the unmistakable smell of late spring, early summer. Birds tweeted, and the scent of lilacs served to remind me that we’re heading into the time of year when living in the Midwest is pretty great.

So if you’re going to be in Chicago this weekend, make sure you take a walk, ride a bike, or maybe set up a radio outside and barbecue. Talk about baseball or nothing at all important so you can absorb the greatness of living in this place we call home. Because for the next five months, it is the best city in the world.

1. Mayor Shuffles His Leadership Team

Maybe Fridays are a good day for announcing personnel changes, since it gives everyone the weekend to settle down with the changes.. So, Mayor Rahm Emanuel teed up a few people for new offices.

• Randy Conner is the new Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Water Management, replacing Barrett Murphy, whom the Sun-Times reports was fired because he tolerated a culture of racism.


• Samantha Fields is the new Budget Director, replacing Alexandra Holt, a 20-year veteran of City Hall..


• Rosa Escareno is the new Commissioner of BACP, replacing Samantha Fields. Escareno was Deputy Chief Operating Officer, working for COO Joe Deal.

The mayor also announced four-year reappointments for Inspector General Joe Ferguson and Chief Procurement Officer Jamie L. Rhee.

It’s important to note that with all of the leadership changes among mayor staff over the last two years, it’s almost entirely internal promotions, with very few hires from outside–never mind recruits from outside Chicago. Yes, we can homegrow good people here, but now and then, shouldn’t we expect an inspired person that wants to work in city government for a change?

2. However Much CPS Owes, They Don’t Have It

No matter how you look at it, funding for Chicago Public Schools is a complete disaster. Yes, CPS has been running a structural deficit and cooking the books for years to cover it up (my favorite move, using 14 months of revenue to pay for 12 months of operations in 2014), but those problems have been magnified many times over by state government’s total gridlock.

As you’ve read here before, CPS was counting on a $215 million bailout package passed through the state legislature in October with a bi-partisan vote. But, surprising everyone, Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the spending. In response, CPS laid administrators off and made $104 million in mid-year cuts. It still wasn’t enough to fill the gap.

Aldermen, anticipating they’ll be asked to bailout CPS with city money (CPS and the City of Chicago are two separate units of government), started agitating for specific details on how much CPS owes and when.

In response, city CFO Carole Brown announced Wednesday afternoon that the state is late in making $467 million in grant payments.

Wait, what? How much?

We checked with the Illinois State Board of Education, and yes, it seems that the state is late on a pretty big bill.

Most of what CPS needs to come up with is for a $720 million pension payment due June 30. So how will it pay the difference?

Brown wasn’t saying on Wednesday and no other plans have been released since, but budget officials anticipate a resolution in the coming weeks.

One more thing: As soon as CPS figures out how to pay that big bill on June 30, they have a close to $1 billion structural deficit they’ll have to work out for the 2017-18 school year.

3. North Branch Developers Rev Their Engines

There isn’t a more anticipated development gold rush than the North Branch Industrial Corridor. Wedged between North Center, Lincoln Park, West Town and Wicker Park along the Chicago River’s North Branch, the area was designated one of Chicago’s first Planned Manufacturing Districts in the late 1980’s. As a PMD, the area could only be used for manufacturing purposes, keeping land values down. But, as the neighborhoods around it became tonier, the number of manufacturing jobs in North Branch fell.

This week, the Department of Planning and Development recognized those realities by releasing an ambitious draft framework that attempts to ensure the area will remain home to some jobs, while giving developers plenty of red meat.

[Listen to DPD Commissioner David Reifman talk about some of what’s to come at our March Event.]

The framework limits residential development to only 50% of the area, while planning for interesting ideas like a new riverwalk, a north-south transitway limited to bikes and public transit, extending the 606 walk across the river and adding new “smart” traffic signaling.

The changes announced are likely only the beginning of many changes for Chicago’s 26 industrial corridors. Last April Mayor Emanuel announced plans to reevaluate every industrial corridor and all 14 of the city’s PMDs.

The biggest winners in this PMD do-over by far are developers, especially Sterling Bay, which snapped up the old Finkl Steel site on Armitage, and Tribune Media, which owns the huge Freedom Center printing plant at Chicago Ave. and the river. Tribune Media has been seeking a developer partner. With the new proposed DS zoning, Tribune will be greenlighted to build a series of new residential towers.

Remember the old Illinois Central air rights area? That’s now called the New East Side, with over 15,000 new residents over the last 15 years and the 93-story Wanda Vista tower is under construction.

Expect North Branch to be as transformative as that.

This week, The Daily Line’s publisher, Mike Fourcher, sits down with Kevin Graham, newly elected president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, which represents all rank and file officers at the Chicago Police Department. Intense and highly politicized negotiations over the FOP’s contract are expected to begin soon. In one of his broadest interviews since taking office, Graham touched on a number of hot-button issues in policing: racism on the force, the Laquan McDonald investigation, trust in police, and some of his priorities going into negotiations.

For the second year in a row, Chicago Public Schools has found itself in the direst of financial positions. Having built a budget on expectations of state funding and then spending a year blaming Springfield, CPS is once again faced with with the challenge of finding enough cash to make its annual pension payment while keeping schools open. When the clock ran out last year and the pension bill came due on June 30th, CPS was forced to borrow $200 million from banks.

It took a minor delay, a recusal, hours of public testimony, and some added conditions for a planned composting facility in the 9th District to pass Board muster Wednesday. Commissioners moved quickly throughout the rest of the day’s business, including a $380,000 payout to a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted while detained at the Cook County Jail, and payments and new oversight for the Department of Homeland Security.