The stage is set for Tuesday’s budget hearing as a public forum for the intensifying dispute between Cook County Board of Review Comm. Tammy Wendt (D-1) [right] and her counterparts, Comm. Larry Rogers (D-3) [center] and Comm. Michael Cabonargi (D-2).

Cook County commissioners are set on Tuesday to hear two competing budget proposals for the Cook County Board of Review in the latest sign of tension between the board’s veterans and its newest commissioner.

Ald. Pat Dowell (3) presides over Friday’s budget committee meeting. 

Aldermen on Friday gave quick approval to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed $16.7 billion budget plan with some added changes from the City Council, including the creation of an oversight subcommittee to monitor the city’s spending of federal stimulus money. 

Cook County had banked on $1.7 million in tax revenues from guns and ammunition sales in 2022. The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the tax on Thursday. [ripster8 on Unsplash]

The Cook County Board of Commissioners is set to plunge into a full week of departmental budget hearings on Monday, days after the Illinois Supreme Court blew a nearly $2 million hole in board President Toni Preckwinkle’s budget proposal.

The City Council Latino Caucus says its proposed map takes its cues from census data and federal law. But the chair of the Aldermanic Black Caucus says it would be illegal. [City Council Latino Caucus; Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

A new Chicago ward map filed by the City Council Latino Caucus would bring the city’s representation closer in line with its population and unify neighborhoods sliced up under the existing map, proponents say.

Budget Director Susie Park [left] and Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett answer questions during a finance committee meeting on Thursday. 

Several aldermen initially balked on Thursday before advancing an ordinance giving the city the greenlight to borrow $660 million to help fund Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed Chicago Recovery Plan, saying they don’t trust city officials to fully carry out plans for the money in their respective wards. 

A plan by developer Trammell Crow to build two new towers at the corner of May Street and Carroll Avenue cleared the Chicago Plan Commission despite pushback from some members.

Plans for a two-tower development that would add a gush of new apartments and offices to the booming Fulton Market district cleared a key hurdle on Thursday despite myriad questions over whether the developer has done enough to satisfy the city’s shifting affordable housing policies.

One provision of the budget Management Ordinance set for approval on Friday would extend the authority of the Department of Water Management commissioner to replace the city's lead service lines. [Pexels] 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s $16.7 billion budget plan is set to clear another major hurdle on Friday, as her administration’s more than 600-page budget appropriation ordinance (O2021-4238) comes up for a committee vote.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed ordinances to fund next year’s spending plan are set to face a committee vote on Thursday. 

Aldermen are set on Thursday to take an initial vote to approve the funding mechanisms for Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed $16.7 billion spending plan. And while the plan may not technically include new fines, it does propose to capture revenue from hiked fines for environmental violations and a modest property tax increase.

A trio of aldermen are pushing for the 2022 budget plan to include a “formalized” mechanism for oversight of how the city spends nearly $2 billion in American Rescue Plan funds. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Aldermen are furiously negotiating with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration this week to finalize an array of tweaks they hope to insert into the city’s spending plan before it reaches a final vote next week.

A rendering of Cabrera Capital Partners’ plan to rebuild the LeClaire Courts, which were torn down in 2011. [Department of Planning and Development]

A sweeping but overdue plan to rebuild a demolished Southwest Side public housing complex is set to clear a key city hurdle on Thursday, laying the groundwork for a new health center, grocery store and 725 homes in the Garfield Ridge area.

Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin more than doubled the money in her campaign account between July and September. 

Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin added more than $111,000 to her campaign fund during the past three months, more than her account had in it at the beginning of July and significantly more than she’s raised during past quarters. 

A meeting of the Chicago Board of Ethics in 2019. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]

Jay Doherty, the indicted former president of the City Club of Chicago, faces a $75,000 fine from the Chicago Board of Ethics for repeatedly breaking city lobbying rules.

Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady [right] disagrees with a proposal drafted by Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33) and backed by more than half of the City Council to reopen shuttered public mental health clinics. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is pushing back hard on a proposal from the City Council to reshuffle mental health spending to reopen city-backed clinics, saying the plan would veer the city off its existing path to widening psychiatric outreach.

Dijana Cuvalo of the Department of Planning and Development presents plans during a committee meeting Monday for a Class L tax incentive to support the Morton Salt redevelopment

Aldermen swiftly advanced more than $19 million in tax incentives on Monday to boost four separate developments, including two new industrial warehouses on the Near South Side and a plan to transform a former West Town industrial space into a concert venue.

Former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson during a virtual City Council committee meeting in April. “On the basis of the existing record, I don’t have high confidence” in Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Supt. David Brown’s ability to oversee police reforms, Ferguson told the CloutCast last week.

Chicago’s City Council lacks the resources and wherewithal to be an effective check on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, imbuing an “incredible concentration of power” in the mayor’s office, former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson said on The Daily Line’s CloutCast podcast as his city tenure came to a close.

CloutCast: Joe Ferguson on Chicago’s struggle for good government