The City Council’s Committee on Transportation & Public Way advanced Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s appointment of Paul Connolly to the City’s Board of Local Improvements, a five-member board in charge of overseeing private development on city streets and sidewalks. Ald. Marty Quinn (13), one of the least vocal members of City Hall, gave Connolly and his union work a ringing endorsement.

Members Present: Chairman Anthony Beale (9), Vice Chair Pat Dowell (3), Will Burns (4), Michelle Harris (8), Sue Sadlowski Garza (10), Marty Quinn (13), Jason Ervin (28), Chris Taliaferro (29), Gilbert Villegas (36), Michele Smith (43), Anthony Napolitano (41)

Before a private developer can build anything along the public way, the board must approve the plans and financing. The appointment went through Chairman Beale’s Committee because the board serves under the capacity of the Department of Transportation. Two other appointments to the Board of Local Improvements,Christopher M. Michalek and Edward T. McKinnie, Sr., were approved earlier this month by the full Council.

At his preliminary confirmation hearing with the council committee yesterday, Connolly mentioned his 34 years experience with the Laborers Local Number 4. During his tenure representing 1,400 local unionized construction laborers, Connolly served as an organizer, instructor, and eventually as a recording secretary treasurer and business manager, a title he’s held since 2008, he said. Serving on the board, “fits within the category of construction, which is what I do,” Connolly explained, “I think I will do a good job.”

The position used to be paid, but in 2011, Mayor Emanuel eliminated the stipend as a way to cut costs. That year, according to the Chicago Tribune, the Board of Local Improvements met once, but members walked away with a $19,000- $23,000-per-year stipend.

About half of the aldermen on the committee, many of whom who represent union-heavy wards, praised the Mayor for Connolly’s appointment. A handful, including Pat Dowell (3), Marty Quinn (13) and Michelle Harris (8), said they knew Connolly in some personal or official capacity. Dowell recognized him from a few South Loop construction projects. Harris mentioned his work with the Department of Streets and Sanitation. Quinn remarked that he has known the Connolly family for more than 30 years, dating back to what he called the “Mozart days” at Mozart Elementary School. Quinn, who represents Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s ward and is usually silent during committee meetings, took an opportunity to defend the importance of unions.

“Thank you for what you have done the past 30 years, working on behalf of the working people, many of whom who live in my community right now in the 13th Ward. Right now, their rights are under siege in this state and I think it’s really, really important that you continue your advocacy on the working people,” Quinn remarked.

The rest of the 40 minute meeting was spent approving hundreds of routine items, such as sidewalk cafe permits, planters, honorary street designations, awnings and more. The meeting ran longer than usual because George Blakemore, a Council fixture, signed up to testify on every item he could fill out a pink witness slip for. Chairman Beale suggested that he’d be better served sitting up front by the witness mic for the whole meeting, to save energy walking back and forth from his seat.

Another mayoral appointment to the City’s Board of Local Improvements awaits Council consideration today. The Council Committee on Transportation and Public Way will consider Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed appointment of Paul Connolly to the board in charge of approving any public way improvements by private developers.

Last month, the City Council approved a pair of appointments to the five member board:Christopher M. Michalek, a partner at McGuire Woods LLP, and Edward T. McKinnie, Sr., President of the Board of Directors for Black Contractors United. Connolly, a business manager for the Chicago Laborers’ Pension and Welfare Funds, will fill the remaining vacant seat. All board members serve without term limits or compensation.

In his second State of the State as governor, Bruce Rauner doubled down on his Turnaround Agenda, again reaffirming his commitment to his pro-business, competitive strategy for the state while offering vague education reforms that didn’t include any specific solutions to help Chicago Public Schools and its projected one billion dollar deficit for 2020.

“Change is hard. Reform is difficult, but we can’t just raise taxes again,” Gov. Rauner said during his roughly 30 minute speech as he again called for local control as a way to freeze local property taxes and strip collective bargaining rights for unions. “Let’s give local control now, so homeowners can afford their houses and our communities can compete for jobs with neighboring states that have far lower property tax burdens,” he urged.

On the union issue, he was particularly peeved with AFSCME, the state’s largest public sector union, dedicating a page of his speech calling their demands “out of touch with reality,” and its members overpaid and their overtime-pay purposefully “manipulated.”

Offering a “first step toward bipartisan compromise,” Gov. Rauner affirmed his support for Senate President John Cullerton’s pension plan that would save the state $1 billion by giving state employees a choice over cost-of-living increases to their retirement benefits. He said his lawyers will work with Cullerton’s staff to, “finalize the language as soon as possible.”

He concluded the speech with a ten-point plan for education reform, which he described as “bold and transformative,” and includes long-term goals to increase school choice and funding for low-income and rural students, cut administrative costs at state-run universities and city colleges, and “flexibility” for local school districts when it comes to collective bargaining and issuing contracts. Senate President Cullerton and other Democrats in the state legislature have been calling for reforms to the state’s school funding formula for years.

In a statement released hours after the governor’s speech, the Chicago Teacher’s Union called the governor’s education proposals the “clearest evidence of his continued support for the status quo.” The union took particular issue with the governor’s call to give local school districts more flexibility, claiming that local control is what led Mayor Emanuel and the Chicago Board of Education “to go broke on purpose.”

The Chicago Public Schools “pulled” a planned issuance of $875 million in bonds yesterday, throwing into question the school system’s ability to issue further long-term debt and jeopardizing its ability to get through a major cash crunch in the coming weeks.

Yesterday morning, the school system planned to offer the debt at an exorbitantly high rate of 7.7%, but then pulled the deal before finalizing pricing, typically the last step before a sale. In a call with financial reporters yesterday afternoon, City of ChicagoCFO Carole Brown said, “CPS did not pull its deal, the deal has not failed…[We] had numerous discussions with investors and they are making evaluations of the credit on structure, terms and price. They asked for more time.”

PDF of bond offering document.

However, Brown’s claim did not go over well on the call with financial press, at one point resulting in a shouting match on the call between Brown, CPS Vice President of Finance Ron DeNard and reporters over whether or not it should be termed a “pulled” deal or a “failed” deal.

“We’re still on course to issue CPS’ bonds,” said Brown yesterday. “The fact that the CPS bond deal has not sold today has not altered the funding plan.”

CPS is now planning to go “day-to-day” on the sale, which means that it will keep the terms open until underwriters can assemble a large enough group of buyers to complete a sale. In yesterday’s call, CFO Brown said that the size, structure and yield of the bond offering could still change.

“For bond buyers to be shirking a deal, the issue of the state takeover was likely the last straw. People don’t like to buy bonds that have uncertainty,” said Kristi Culpepper, Executive Director of the Kentucky School Facilities Construction Commission, which manages school bond offerings statewide in Kentucky.

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s announcement last week of plans to attempt a CPS takeover and enable Chapter 9 bankruptcy in Illinois likely impacted this week’s CPS bond offering, said Culpepper. Even if it wasn’t politically likely.

“A lot of muni market participants aren’t digging into the details of the credit,” said Culpepper. “Now you have people looking at it, and evaluating the risk. When you have a giant headline with the governor saying ‘We’re going to take it over,’ people think about it differently.”

CPS’ bond rating is four notches below investment grade, according to ratings agencies Standard & Poors and Fitch.

The 7.7% rate originally offered for the bonds is unusually high for munis, 5.24% higher than the standard rate investment grade bonds get. Because yesterday’s offering was not successful, CPS has two options: Raise the offering to a higher rate to attract more investors, or reduce the amount offered to the number of investors willing to buy. A higher rate means more costly borrowing, a lower amount offered means a more likely cash crunch later in the year.

As Aldertrack reported last week, CPS is heading into a dire cash position, projecting to end the school year in June with about $33 million in the bank. At the start of 2013, the Board had $1.07 billion in the bank. This month’s bond issue will help CPS get through a tight cash position and allow the school system to avoid more borrowing at high short-term rates. In December, CPS announced it had already incurred $1.065 billion in short-term debt.

If the current offering is not completed soon, CPS may fall back on even more costly bank debt, said DeNard. “We will make our cash flow needs. We do have short term financing available,” he said yesterday to reporters.

Meanwhile, if CPS is unable to complete the $875 million bond offering, or it has to reduce the size of the offering, there are few funding options available because the district has already met its property tax cap and Gov. Rauner has refused to approve a bailout without passage of his Turnaround Agenda. Chicago CFO Carole Brown alsosaid earlier this month, “The city has no plans to directly, financially assist CPS.”

There are ten contentious Democratic ward committeeman races in Chicago and five vacancies on the Republican side now that the objections process has ended, and several longtime Democratic committeeman will have a challenger.

On the city’s northwest side, Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30) will face Noe Favela, an assistant vice president and project manager for Bank of America for the 30th Ward Democratic Committeeman seat. Longtime 33rd Ward Democratic Committeeman and former alderman Dick Mell will be up against attorney Aaron Goldstein. Despite defending Mell’s son-in-law, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, in both his federal corruption trials, Goldstein has on multiple occasions equated the Mells to a political dynasty controlling the ward.

There are vacancies for 39th and 41st Ward Democratic seats. The former will be a matchup between Patrick Molloy and Robert Murphy. Molloy, the Director of Government and Public Affairs for the Chicago Public Library, a life-long 39th Ward resident, and former Chairman of Friends of Margaret Laurino, was appointed to the seat in August 2015 to finish out the term of Laurino husband, Randy Barnette. Murphy is an architect who lives in Forest Glen and is a co-founder of the anti O’Hare noise group FaIR Coalition.

A three-way race in the 41st Ward between Tim Heneghan, Goran Davidovac andAndrew Devito will determine who will take over the vacancy left by former 41st WardAld. Mary O’Connor, who chose not to run for re-election after losing her seat on the City Council to Anthony Napolitano. Napolitano is backing DeVito, a former Streets and Sanitation and Department of Aviation worker and retired business agent for the International Laborer's Union of North America (LiUNA). O’Connor has thrown her support behind Heneghan, a veteran firefighter and member of a local school council.Davidovac is a local school council member for Taft High School. The local community group The 41st Ward Citizens has endorsed both Heneghan and Davidovac. Citing both candidates’ records of “extensive community volunteer work and leadership,” on their Facebook page, the group said it could not “come to a consensus on just one candidate.”

Another three way race on the city’s southwest side is the open 16th Ward Democratic Committeeman seat formerly held by the late Ald. JoAnn Thompson and more recently filled by a special appointment of Ald. Toni Foulkes (16). Foulkes will face off against Stephanie Coleman and Nathan Wilson. Coleman (the daughter of former 16th Ward Ald. Shirley Coleman) and Foulkes duked it out in the recent aldermanic election. Theirs was one of the closer runoff elections, with Foulkes beating Coleman by 143 votes. Wilson was the ward superintendent under Thompson, but we cannot confirm his current job title.

Another potentially heated race on the city’s Southwest side is in the 12th Ward. The incumbent Democratic Ward Committeeman, State Sen. Tony Munoz, is being challenged by local alderman George Cardenas. While Cardenas has been on the council since 2003, this is the first time he’s running for Democratic committeeman.

There’s also some confusion over who controls the political action committee for the organization, the 12th Ward Regular Democratic Organization. The State Board of Elections lists Cardenas as the chairman of the campaign, which, under state law, gives him the authority to transfer funds from the organization to his personal campaign fund, but the stated purpose of the committee is to “elect Antonio Munoz to public office.” When Aldertrack reached out to the campaign’s treasurer, Patricia Rodriguez,she confirmed the campaign is fundraising for Munoz, not Cardenas. She said Cardenas should no longer be listed as the organization’s chairman. Regardless, the group barely fundraised for the 4th Quarter of 2015, reeling in $1,920 in total receipts between October 1st and December 31st.

Another Southwest side alderman, Mike Zalewski (23), who represents Midway Airport, has a challenger: Charles Hughes, who tried to run for alderman in 2015 but never made it on the ballot. Hughes is an employee of Nicor Gas, according to his Sun-Times candidate questionnaire. He has yet to create a fundraising committee. Meanwhile, between his personal campaign fund and the ward’s PAC, the 23rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization, Zalewski has about $56,600 in the bank.

Further south, in the 10th Ward, Ald. Sue Sadlowski-Garza is up against Fred Carrizales, a Specialist in Aging with the Department of Family and Support Services who also has ties to the defunct Hispanic Democratic Organization. Garza’s newly created PAC, 10th Ward Democratic Organization, has $100 in cash on hand, while her personal fund has about $21,500. Carrizales has yet to create a committee.

On the city’s north side, aldermen Joe Moreno (1) and Pat O’Connor (40), Mayor Emanuel’s unofficial floor leader, each face a challenger. Maria Teresa Gonzales will try to unseat Moreno in the 1st Ward and Dianne Daleiden, a public school teacher and CTU member, who ran and lost for alderman in the 40th Ward, will face O’Connor again in March. O’Connor beat Daleiden with 58% of the vote.

As for five Republican vacancies in the 10th, 21st, 22nd, 30th, and 39th Wards, the Chairman of the Cook County Republican Party, Aaron Del Mar, will fill those seats after the March Primary.

As we discussed in last week’s podcast, it’s been a hectic couple of weeks for Chicago Public Schools. The Board’s agenda includes approval of debt payment, a renewal of Aramark’s food contract with CPS, transfers ranging from $4 to $19 million to fund some capital improvement projects, and what promises to be an interesting public participation portion. Here’s a rundown of the issues confronting CPS heading into today’s Board of Ed meeting at 10:30 a.m.

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  Last Wednesday: Republican Bailout Illinois Republican leaders Sen.Christine Radogno, Rep. Jim Durkin and Gov. Bruce Rauner proposed a State Board of Ed takeover of the Chicago Board of Ed, and possible municipal bankruptcy legislation. As we reported, Radogno tied the change to the governor’s Turnaround Agenda. Democratic leaders in the legislature shot the proposal down almost immediately. Senate President John Cullerton (D) called the proposal “mean-spirited.”

  
  


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  Last Thursday: Democratic Retort Illinois Democratic state legislators, along with some aldermen, held a press conference saying they’d push legislation re-allocating Chicago’s TIF surplus to CPS. Chief bill sponsor and Illinois House Democratic Leader Barbara Flynn Currie asserted that the city has anywhere between $150 and $350 million in uncommitted funds that could be declared surplus. She said in this emergency situation, instead of those funds being dispersed to local taxing bodies like Parks and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, all of those TIF funds would be given to CPS. Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) introduced a similar city resolution calling for full TIF surplus accounting at the January 13th full City Council meeting. He plans to testify at the Board of Ed meeting today on the issue.

  
  


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  Last Friday: Pink Slips CPS announced a round of layoffs at its central office heading into this past weekend. 227 employees received layoff notices, CPS spokeswoman Emily Bittner said. 57 were on teams being downsized, and can reapply for 35 positions. The Sun-Times reports special education programs were hit especially hard: a total of 69 were let go, and another 18 positions were eliminated.

  
  


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  Monday: Cullerton Fair Funding Pitch Illinois Senate President John Cullerton proposed a statewide revamp of school funding at a short speech in front of the City Club. "Our state has the most inequitable system of school finance in the country. We give less to the students who need more and cover barely a third of the total cost of public education when most states cover half,” he told the crowd. “If the National Football League operated like our school funding system, the Super Bowl champ would be guaranteed the top draft pick." He said, echoing Rauner's frequent reference to Illinois’ status quo, that the state's funding system is the perfect one to break. Here’s the full speech text, video, and other info from IL Senate Democrats.

  
  


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  Yesterday: Claypool Org Chart Redo CPS announced an organizational overhaul, including, according to Catalyst, a separation between CPS CEOForrest Claypool and Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson; new offices being headed up by old Claypool colleagues from the Chicago Transit Authority; a whole slew of new names and the elimination of some offices.

  
  


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  Today: Bond pricing, debt payment approval, and Gov. Rauner’s State of the State Address The Board’s first agenda item is a resolution to allocate 2016 tax collections to debt service funds. The second is to move about $95,000 in debt service interest to the Education Fund. At about the same time, the bond market is expecting pricing of CPS’ latest offering. As we reported last week, the Board will use the timing of this month’s bond offering to get through a major cash crunch. Yvette Shields, a reporter with The Bond Buyer, yesterday characterized pricing talk as all-caps “BRUTAL” for CPS. Pre-marketing interest rates were offered at 7.7%, she tweeted, “more than 5% what top rated folks pay and 4% than lowly BBB govs.” Talk of possible bankruptcy legislation from Gov. Bruce Rauner impacted spreads, Shields said. Gov. Rauner is scheduled to make his State of the State address at noon today, fresh on the heels of a possible pension deal Cullerton mentioned at his City Club talk.

  
  


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  Tomorrow: Emanuel Q&A Mayor Emanuel will be on “Chicago Tonight” withParis Schutz to take questions from viewers tonight. A brief glance at the comments section, where WTTW will be pulling some questions, shows a lot of CPS focus.

  
  

A Chicago Housing Authority reform ordinance is getting a subject matter hearing, but no vote, in the Housing and Real Estate Committee February 17th. The ‘Keeping the Promise’ Ordinance, which calls for tighter Council oversight of the Chicago Housing Authority, has been sitting in the doldrums for months, but was the subject of a BGA profile over the weekend. Staff for Ald. Joe Moore (49) sent out a notice on the hearing midday Monday.

Moore, the chair of City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate, and once a sponsor of the ordinance, has been under pressure from the Chicago Housing Initiativeto hold a hearing since the summer, when the ordinance was re-introduced. The group accused Moore in September of delaying the hearing and backtracking on his support, which he denied at the time. He told BGA he no longer supports the ordinance because it would have “unintended consequences.”

Leah Levinger, Executive Director of the Chicago Housing Initiative says the organization has plans to demonstrate outside Ald. Pat Dowell (3) and Ald. Gregory Mitchell's (7) offices today for their "failure to sign on to the Keeping the Promise Ordinance despite repeated approaches over the last 12-24 months."

In a Facebook post, Ald. Joe Moreno (1), the ordinance’s chief sponsor, said he’s “proud to lead this effort and I will keep working hard to increase access to affordable housing opportunities in my ward and throughout Chicago.”

Moreno blasted Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) at last week’s Plan Commission hearingfor not pressing developers to include on-site affordable housing at a new residential building. The development group opted to pay an in-lieu fee to the city. Ald. Waguespack was not at the meeting.

The ordinance calls for quarterly reports from the CHA on several items, including accumulated unspent revenue, progress reports on replacement public housing units, and updates on the Housing Choice Voucher Funding utilization rate. The ordinance also includes a provision for one-for-one replacement of affordable housing units that are demolished or converted to another use, and suspension of the use of city funds until CHA effectively uses its Housing Choice Voucher revenue and increases its commitment to mobility counseling for those voucher holders.

Six city-run mental health clinics face declining revenue and unfilled vacancies, and have been using contractors to fill psychiatry positions for more than a year, according to Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) documents and a recent Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report. A new ordinance from Ald. Jason Ervin (28) immediately calls for new contracts so clinics can take on more patients, take "whatever steps are necessary" to fill vacancies, and expand neighborhood outreach.The ordinance has 29 cosponsors.

Jo Patton, Director of Special Projects at AFSCME Council 31, consulted with Ald. Ervin on the ordinance and says vacant psychiatry positions at city clinics have long been a concern, but worries without some aggressive recruiting from CDPH, clinics might be forced into a “vicious circle.”

“If you don’t have enough psych hours, you can’t take in new patients, then the client base shrinks and the rationale for keeping those centers going also is diminished,” she told Aldertrack.

Ervin’s ordinance says the number of care hours at city clinics has been cut in half over the past two years. That drop can partly be attributed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’smove, and City Council’s unanimous approval, to shutter six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics in April of 2012.

Five of the six remaining clinics are scattered throughout the South and West Sides, one is on the Northwest Side.

Just one full-time psychiatrist serves at those six clinics, Public Health Commissioner Dr. Julie Morita told aldermen this past fall at the department’s budget hearing. Other psychiatry positions, she said, are being filled by contractors. Those contractors are budgeted for 2,185 hours in 2016. Those temps have been there longer than a year, according to a recent OIG report, which violates the city’s Contractor Policy. Patton says AFSCME started becoming concerned when the clinics were down to four full-time psychiatrists.

CDPH says they’ve made progress on finding another full-time psychiatrist, and filling other vacancies. The department also points to spending on targeted mental health programs for victims of sexual assault and family members of homicide victims.

Matt Smith, from CDPH’s Media Affairs, says there are 58 full-time positions across CDPH’s clinics. As of this summer, 27 of those positions are therapists, between 3 and 6 therapists at each site. Some therapists see as many as 40 patients a month.

Morita has blamed a national shortage in psychiatrists for the lag time in finding permanent psychiatry staff. During budget hearings, Ald. Leslie Hairston (5), who is co-sponsoring Ervin’s ordinance, countered that the city couldn’t attract candidates because of low starting salaries. In an effort to make those positions more attractive, Morita said that Chicago had recently won federal designation as a Health Shortage Service Area. The designation allows applicants with outstanding medical school loans to be repaid by the federal government in exchange for working in underserved areas.

But Ervin’s ordinance also says that while CDPH is understaffed, it is also turning away revenue by failing to join managed care networks and not seeking reimbursement for Medicaid recipients.

CDPH says their clinics do mostly focus on uninsured patients, and have faced declining revenue. “We continue to provide services to clients regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay,” CDPH’s Smith says. In 2015, CDPH was allocated $9.5 million for mental health services, most of which went to direct services at those clinics.

By contrast, the Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS) has started to bounce back from precarious financial footing in part by setting up its own managed care system, CountyCare, a Medicaid program through the Affordable Care Act. CCHHS currently gets a 100% per member per month (PMPM) federal match payment for each member enrolled in CountyCare. Revenues from the program have helped the County cut down its tax allocation to CCHHS by tens of millions this fiscal year.

Smith tells Aldertrack the Department has “retained a consultant to facilitate new contracts with insurance companies, including managed care entities.”

Patton says the contract with that consultant includes a two year window, which she says is too long to get into straightforward agreements with local insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and Illini Health. With the recent focus on policing and mental health in the wake of Quintonio Legrier’s death at the hands of Chicago police, Patton thinks the political will might be enough “for the mayor to put a little bit of money into mental health instead of [policing].”

On January 15th, every campaign committee registered with the State Board of Elections had to file a quarterly report detailing all campaign contributions received and money spent for the last quarter of 2015 (October 1-December 31). All 50 Aldermen had to file these reports, although one, Ald. Derrick Curtis (18), did not.

Here's a link to our full spreadsheet, including contributions, expenditures, and funds at the start and end of the quarter

This is what we found:

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  Ald. Matt O'Shea (19) reported the biggest difference. He finished out the quarter $79,464.44 less than he started.

  
  


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  Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) spent the most money: $123,121.56. While Ald. Marty Quinn (13) spent the least: a whopping zero dollars, which is also the amount he fundraised. But despite the lack of money raised, Quinn did not finish out the quarter with the least amount of money. Three Aldermen closed out the quarter in the red: Ald. David Moore (17) reported a negative balance of -$6,631.49; Ald. Willie Cochran (20) was -$3,682.34 in the red; and Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22) closed out with a negative balance of -$1,944.06

  
  


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  In terms of “Total Receipts” for the quarter, which is a tally of all individual contributions, transfers in, and miscellaneous contributions (excluding “in kind” contributions), Ald. Ed Burke (14) fundraised the most: $366,000.00. Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) trailed behind with $227,238.62, followed by neighboring Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) who reported $122,850.00, and Ald. Pat Dowell (3) with $107,030.00.

  
  


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  The top spenders, in terms of total reported expenditures, were: Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) ($123,121.56), Ald. Matt O’Shea (19) ($122,539.44), Ald. Ed Burke (14) ($113,915.42), Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) at ($77,521.98).

  
  


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  Three aldermen, Joe Moreno (1), Ameya Pawar (47), and Brendan Reilly (42), racked up a total of $2,478.25 in Uber charges.  Ald. Reilly also racked up $240 in four separate charges to the Chicago Transit Authority.

  
  


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  Only one alderman, Brendan Reilly, used personal campaign funds at a liquor store (Washington Square Liquors, Inc.). In eight separate charges, Reilly spent a total of $1,256.40 in alcohol for meetings and one holiday party.

  
  


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  Aldermen spent a cumulative $5,337 in charges to NGP VAN, “the leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations, offering clients an integrated platform of the best fundraising, compliance, field organizing, new media, and social networking products,”according to their website. It’s the same company involved in the Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton data breach. Ald. Tom Tunney (44), John Arena (45),James Cappleman (46), and Brendan Reilly (42) paid the company for “database services.” Ald. Michelle Smith (43) used the company for “technical services,” Ald. Rod Sawyer (6) for “robo calls,” and Ald. Will Burns (4) for “website.”

  
  


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  $41,750 went to KJD Strategies, a fundraising and campaign consulting firm founded by Katelynd Duncan in 2011. The home page features a picture of Duncan with a very cheerful Mayor Rahm Emanuel and City Clerk Susana Mendoza. Ald. Joe Moreno (1), Brian Hopkins (2), Will Burns (4), and Joe Moore (49) all used the company's services.

  
  


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  $844 is how much two aldermen, Toni Foulkes (16) and Ameya Pawar (47), spent on parking at Government Center Self Park near City Hall last quarter.

  
  


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  Ald. Gregory Mitchell reported one expense: a $500 charge to Caribbean restaurant Banana Leaf for a holiday party.

  
  


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  DEBTS: Ald. Anthony Beale (9) loaned himself $3,000 on Oct. 14, 2015. Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30) has an outstanding loan from the now defunct Hispanic Democratic Organization. The original amount he received in January of 2003 was $15,000, and the remaining balance is $5,000.

  
  


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  Ald. Michelle Harris (8) created a new campaign committee, Citizens for Michelle Harris on January 7, 2016.

  
  

A handful of new political action committees have been created in the Chicago area, one of which was created by an activist who helped freelance journalist Brandon Smith in his efforts to get the Emanuel Administration to release the Laquan McDonald video.

Activist William Calloway filed a D-1 with the State Board of Elections to create the Christianaire Political Action Committee. Its purpose, according to form he filed with the state, is to “raise awareness towards socialism, civil, and political issues.”Kenya Atwater is listed as the group’s treasurer, but we could not confirm her identity or background and their D-1 is illegible.

Another group, Chicago Organizing for Blackroots Action, created with the purpose of, “promot[ing] issues, candidates, and initiatives which directly impact Black Communities.” That group, according to the D-1 filed with the State Board Of Elections (SBOE), was created by two members of Action Now, a grassroots organization that promotes working families. The chairman of the new PAC, Alvesta Sanders, is a Chicago-area tax preparer and member of the grassroots group. The PAC’s treasurer,Katelyn Johnson, is the executive director for Action Now. The group has been a major player in the “Fight for 15” movement, the campaign to raise the minimum wage, and made recent headlines over the Christmas holidays when one of their members,Bettie Jones, was fatally shot by police who were responding to a domestic violence incident.

Judge Denise Bradley and Charles Morris (no background information found) filed a D-1 with the SBOE to establish the Illinois Voter Education Project to, “educate Illinois Voters about new ways to vote and participate in the political process.”

Then there’s Illinois United for Change, a PAC created by Nick Antonacci, an Chicago-area attorney in areas of DUI/Traffic and Estate Planning, according to hisLinkedIn page. The group, according to the D-1 Antonacci filed with the SBOE, will support, “reform-minded candidates and other political movements in Illinois.”

The stated purpose for the so-called Progress Chicago PAC is vague: “To better government in Chicago and Cook County, IL.” The group was formed by Anthony Boylan, a former journalist who now owns a public relations company that, “handles everything from public affairs issues to small and mid-sized corporate Public Relations,” according to Boylan’s LinkedIn.

Another ill-defined PAC, Young Independents United, lists “Non-partisan PAC” as their purpose. That group is led by Quovadis Green, owner of KalQulated Entertainment, and Maurice J. Robinson, a native of the city’s West Side. He made a run for alderman of the 29th ward but withdrew his candidacy during the objection process.

None of these groups have raised a cent.

The Chicago Police Department plans to roll out a pilot program to divert drug offenders away from local jails and into treatment, according to testimony during the first hearing of the Chicago-Cook County Joint Task Force on Heroin, chaired by Ald. Ed Burke(14) and Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin.

Police Chief Anthony Riccio, who worked under Interim Supt. John Escalante at the Bureau of Detectives, told task force members Escalante tasked him and the Commander of the Narcotics Unit to come up with ways to keep first-time offenders out of jail. Riccio said the Department plans to roll out an “innovative” pilot program for first-time arrestees stopped for possession or dealing to head to treatment instead of central booking to be charged with a crime. The goal is to “get more treatment rather than all this charging and this incarceration that’s costing the criminal justice system so much money to lock up kids for the first time… We’re hoping to get that rolled out in the next 30 days or so.”

The pilot, Riccio says, would take place in the 11th and 15th districts, along what Comm. Boykin described as “Heroin Highway” in his district.

Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Julie Morita said Chicago leads the nation in heroin overdoses, and described the problem as an “epidemic.” The Chicago Fire Department responded to roughly 3,000 overdoses in 2015.

CDPH already sent a letter to 11,000 physicians in Chicago urging caution when prescribing opioids. 80% of new heroin users started with prescription opioids. In 2014, the department sued five opioid manufacturers for misrepresenting benefits and downplaying risks, but those moves only “scratch the surface of what we really need to do,” Morita said. In 2016, CDPH plans to invest $1.75 million in drug programming, will hire a medical director to focus on substance abuse, and spend $250,000 on naxolone, which reverses overdoses, in key locations like emergency rooms and treatment centers.

“We need good data… We’re losing about a person a day in Cook County, and I think we’d all agree that that’s unacceptable,” Dr. Steve Aks of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System told task force members. The state’s Heroin Crisis Act, which overwhelmingly passed the state legislature this past September, mandates data gathering on overdoses, among other things, which Morita says will go a long way.

The task force includes Ald. Ed Burke, Pat Dowell (3), Leslie Hairston (5), George Cardenas (12), Willie B. Cochran (20), Ariel Reboyras (30), Emma Mitts (37) and other officials from Chicago and Cook County health and law enforcement. Matt Fischler, Director of Policy and Planning in the Mayor’s office, says the next meeting will be in mid-February, and will include national experts to discuss best practices. Policy recommendations are expected in the coming months.

Illinois Democratic Legislators, joined by Chicago Aldermen and the Chicago Teachers Union yesterday morning announced plans to introduce legislation in Springfield that would compel Chicago to declare an annual TIF surplus to fund the financially beleaguered Chicago Public Schools, and direct the city to conduct more transparent accounting of how much money in each TIF has been committed to projects.

But whether or not there are funds available to actually be declared surplus is up for debate.

At yesterday's press conference, chief bill sponsor and Illinois House Democratic Leader Barbara Flynn Currie asserted that the city has anywhere between $150 and $350 million in uncommitted funds that could be declared surplus. She said in this emergency situation, instead of those funds being dispersed to local taxing bodies like Parks and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, all of those TIF funds would be given to CPS. “The potential impacts of inaction to address CPS’ financial needs are potentially far greater than the impact of less TIF surplus to the various non-home rule taxing districts,” a press release from sponsors says.

A briefing document to muster support for Currie provided to Aldertrack earlier this week had claimed an even bigger surplus: $445 million or as much as $700 million.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), who is leading a charge for TIF accounting on the City side, told Aldertrack after a sit-down with the Department of Planning and Development, he figured the TIF in his ward, Milwaukee/Kedzie, had about $24 million alone that “could be” surplus. “There are a lot of tricks,” he said, what’s marked as “earmarked” might not really be earmarked.

And there’s sometimes confusion among aldermen about how TIF money is spent. Last week, for example, some Finance Committee members pushed back on spending $4.6 million in TIF money to be used for an athletic field for Jones College Prep and National Teachers Academy in the 3rd Ward. Aldermen were surprised to find that the field had already been built, and they were just reimbursing CPS. Not only that, the money was being “ported” to the contiguous Michigan/Cermak TIF from the 24th/Michigan TIF. The TIF money hadn’t been doled out yet at the request of local Ald. Pat Dowell, who wanted an MOU in place between “CPS, the Board of Education, the community, and the two schools” for open use of the field. Confused yet?

Budget officials with the city estimate the real surplus is far below what Currie, Rosa, and their colleagues estimate. Chicago Budget Office spokesperson Molly Poppe told Aldertrack yesterday that while the city has $1.38 billion in TIF accounts, only $140 million is not already committed to projects. Of that, “$113 million was surplused in the 2016 budget,” she said. The rest, Poppe says, is already committed to bond payments or in accounts with less than a million dollars in their balance. This past summer, the Mayor announced the City would freeze seven downtown TIFs, and estimated the move would free up $250 million over the next five years, half would go towards CPS.

The source of the dispute is that Chicago is only required to report TIF account funds once a year, and even then, a whole six months after the fiscal year is complete–providing an out-of-date snapshot. In addition, allies of Flynn Currie on the bill allege the city can say funds are “committed” without actually providing a contract, essentially budgeting for incomplete deals and walling them off from being surplused.

Flynn Currie’s proposed legislation would create a new classification, “obligated” funds, according to CTU Legislative Director, Stacy Davis Gates.

“[The legislation] only allows for ‘obligation’, things that are already contracted out or payments made to debt service. What the city has been successful at doing is obscuring the number because they have the loophole of anticipated [spending],” said Davis Gates.

CTU is optimistic the bill will pass the legislature, especially since Flynn Currie ranks second in the House to only Speaker Mike Madigan.

“We anticipate it will pass. We have a good sponsor,” said Davis Gates.

Yesterday, Ald. Rosa announced he has 30 aldermen co-sponsoring a resolution calling for the city to declare a TIF surplus so funds could be directed to CPS.

“We need to open the books and figure out what projects have been voted on by the City Council. If they’re not going to break ground for two or three years, that’s money that’s on the table and should be declared surplus,” he told Aldertrack last night.

A Council source also told Aldertrack that the Mayor’s Office is considering either holding an aldermanic briefing or a Budget Committee hearing on available TIF funds next week.

Redevelopment plans for the old Malcolm X College campus on the city’s near West Side breezed through the Chicago Plan Commission yesterday, receiving unanimous support, while two proposed luxury-high rise developments faced significant pushback,  once again sparking a larger debate over the city’s affordable housing requirements.

“I just want to remind the Commission that one of our jobs as a commissioner is to vote the law. And the law right now is something different than what we might believe or morally want, and I think we have to remember that,” Comm. Linda Searle told her colleagues at the conclusion of yesterday’s meeting.

Her comments came after three members on the commission–Ald. Joe Moore (49),John Bryant and Juan Linares–announced they would be voting against a seven-story, 44-unit residential building planned for a busy intersection in Wicker Park because none of the units will be made affordable.

Vequity’s plans to build the seven-story residential building at a busy intersection on the corner of Milwaukee next to the Western Avenue Blue Line stop. According Kyle Glascott, one of the members on Vequity’s development team, most of the units will be 600-square-foot one-bedroom units. Their target audience is “young professionals” and they’re hoping to lease out the ground floor commercial space to a “transit oriented” retail operator, like a cafe or bike-repair shop, he explained.

It wasn’t until the team finished their presentation that the issue of affordable housing was brought up. When Commissioner Joe Moore asked Glascott why the team chose to to pay the in-lieu fee into the city’s affordable housing trust fund instead of providing affordable units on site, Glascott said it was an “equitable contribution.”

“So, no other reason than you didn’t want to do it?” Comm. Moore responded in an abrupt, sarcastic manner.

Comm. Walter Burnett (27) pressed on, asking if Glasscott would be more open to providing affordable housing off-site. It depends on the economics, Glasscott responded, adding that his team is working on another development in Lakeview that will have on-site affordable housing. That’s because it was something I insisted,Comm. Tom Tunney (44), who represents Lakeview, chimed in.

“This is a tragedy, this development,” Ald. Joe Moreno (1) later decried. Moreno isn’t a member on the commission but asked to speak on the project, because the street borders his ward, and, as he explained, “I am going to get blamed for this because everyone thinks this is my ward.”

“We need affordable units on the North Side desperately,” he started shouting, calling out local Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) for not doing his job and demanding the units. Waguespack was not in attendance.

Despite the concerns voiced, the project passed.

JDL Development’s plan to build a massive housing complex with more than 600 units at the site of the former Cuneo Hospital and Maryville Academy Shelter in the city’s Uptown neighborhood got a lot of pushback, too.

More than a dozen people signed up to testify against the redevelopment plan, many lamenting a TIF subsidy approved last week to help pay for the project.

New Commissioners' Discomfort

The Plan Commission doesn’t deal with TIFs, it only handles zoning issues, but that issue took center stage at yesterday’s meeting after one of the newer commissioners,Bishop John Bryant, took a moment to voice his disappointment with the city’s inequity, saying he was “misled” when he accepted a spot on the board and “disturbed and upset” with the affordable housing issue. (He thought TIF money is supposed to pay for affordable housing, but it isn’t).

“My life has been speaking for the poor, marginalized, and oppressed,” Bryant began, “The unemployment rate is alarming. I’ve sat on this commission trusting those who invited me to serve, and I have acted on this committee with a great deal of trust from those who invited me.”

Department of Planning and Development Commissioner David Reifman stepped in at that and several other occasions to remind his colleagues that while he agrees more should be done to promote affordable housing across the city, all of the development plans before them yesterday went through an extensive review process by the department and follow the legal affordable housing requirements.

Comm. Bryant and Linares voted against the proposal. Comm. Tunney abstained.

Blackhawks, Rush Hospital Proposals

The Blackhawks Hockey Club’s proposal to build a community ice rink and training facility for its players on a portion of the old Malcolm X College campus was the least controversial plan before the committee yesterday, and most of their presentation focused on the community benefits that will come once the 127,00 square foot project is finished.

“This vision really will help children in the area…children of all income levels will be able to participate in ice hockey and also obtain guidance through our staff through nutrition, physical fitness and tutoring,” explained Peter Hassen, director of marketing for the Blackhawks.

In fact, the only concern raised about the project had to do with the logistics of busing students to the hockey rink and whether it was odd having their facility next door to Rush University.

“There seems to be, on the face of it, two disparate uses here. We have hospital facilities on one side and a hockey rink on the other… how do you reconcile those challenges?” Comm. Linares asked Hassen, who responded that there’s “opportunity” for collaboration.

Rush University will take a majority of the 11 acre site to build a 1.4 million square foot  “academic village” that’ll include three academic buildings and one dormitory for 300 students.

University President Peter Butler says while student enrollment has doubled over recent years, current facilities haven’t kept up. He says some of the facility’s technology is nearly half a century old.

Construction will be done in phases, Mara Georges, an attorney with Daley and Georges Law Firm, told the commission. Under the agreement with the city, Rush University has a six-year window to start phase one. Once that’s complete, they’ll have an additional three-to-five years to begin working on each of the following three phases of the project.

That leaves about a 21-year timeline for completion, Comm. Linares tallied up when asking Georges to explain the lengthy timeline. Financing the $500 million project will take time and is just one of a number of projects the university is working on, she explained.

A few other commissioners were unsettled with a provision in the application that gives Rush University the ability to amend future phases of the project administratively with the Department of Planning and Development, without the public review process they went through yesterday.

The Chicago Plan Commission will take up two development proposals today for the old Malcolm X College campus on the Near West Side.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel first announced the nearly $500 million investment for the City College’s old campus over the summer, and now that the new Malcolm X campus is up and running–the ribbon cutting was earlier this month–redevelopment plans for the old campus are ready for official review.

The Chicago Blackhawks want to establish a planned development to build a two-story hockey facility on four acres of land at the southwest corner of West Jackson Boulevard and South Wood Street. According to the application the team filed with the City, two regulation-sized ice rinks would be built, one to be used by the team, the other for the public. Each rink will have adjacent locker rooms and space for 300 spectators. The Wirtz Corporation will help with the development, and the company will work with the team’s charity arm to provide free hockey and off-ice development programs for local youth, the application notes.

The other application, from Rush University Medical Center, seeks an institutional planned development to build an academic campus with five multi-story buildings. Each building would be about 350,000-square-feet and all but one of those buildings would be used for educational, office, and conference space. The remaining building would be reserved for student housing. According to the application the school filed with the city, the project is expected to be constructed in phases over six years.

The City Council has already approved the land transfer from City Colleges of Chicago to the City’s Department of Planning and Development, in addition to approving a multi-million dollar intergovernmental agreement with the city’s Public Building Commission to demolish the existing school building, but the City has yet to sell parcels to either Rush or the Blackhawks.

JDL Development’s "Maryville Project” is also up for review today. Their application, filed under Montrose Clarendon Partners, LLC, requests an amendment to an existing planned development (No. 138) to build two new high-rise luxury condo buildings and one single-story retail structure in the city’s Uptown neighborhood (46th Ward) on the site of the former Maryville Children’s Healthcare Center.

Earlier this month, the Community Development Commission approved the developer's request for TIF assistance for the $125 million project. If and when the application advances to and is approved by the Council, approximately $15.8 million from the Montrose/Clarendon TIF, about 13% of the total project cost, would be made available.

The project is adjacent to Clarendon Park and would replace two buildings that were once part of Cuneo Hospital. Both structures have been vacant since 2005 and are in a “substantially deteriorated condition,” according to the CDC report. One of the buildings to be located at the northwest corner of West Montrose and North Clarendon Avenues would consist of 381 residential units, 30,000sq ft of commercial space, and 278 parking spaces.

The other high-rise building to be located at the northwest corner of West Agatite and North Clarendon would have 250 residential units and 160 parking spaces. The single-story, 6,000-square-foot retail building would be located across the street from the first building at the northeast corner. Only 20 units, or 5% of the total planned units, will be made affordable. City code requires 20%.

Another application, from Clark 800, LLC, seeks to an amend an existing planned development to build a 230-unit residential building at a site directly north of Bush Temple, a Chicago Landmark.

The Plan Commission will also take up an application from King Sykes to construct a three-story medical office building and accessory parking lot on the 2500 Block of South Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in the 4th Ward.

When considering the proposal to push Chicago Public Schools into receivership put forth by Illinois GOP legislative leaders yesterday morning, only one thing matters: The Illinois Senate President and Illinois House Speaker, both Democrats, control whether or not the bill will get to a vote.

According to a tweet from Reuters’ Dave McKinney, Senate President John Cullerton said of the proposal, “Not going to happen. It’s mean spirited and evidence of their total lack of knowledge of," CPS' problems.

So the proposal, which would place CPS under control of a state oversight board, is dead on arrival. Meaning, a continuation of the status quo.

However, yesterday’s GOP legislative leaders’ proposal did make clear one thing: Chicago Public Schools’ financial crisis is no longer something state leadership is interested in solving any time soon. It is a political chit to be used in the larger battle: resolving the CPS financial crisis through Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda, which includes eliminating collective bargaining by government employees, including teachers.

When asked during yesterday’s press conference if the state oversight board proposal was linked to Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda, GOP Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno said, “Yes, it’s about helping the city and state, both.”

Considering that the CPS financial crisis impacts educating children in the City of Chicago, a basic government service, a statement by Radogno that the problem is somehow linked to state problems is perplexing. It can only be understood as a political statement.

The reasons for why CPS is funded partly by the state, and requires state funding to move forward every year, is complex and better explained at length elsewhere. But everyone of every political shade agrees: The system for funding schools in Chicago and Illinois is broken.

Yet, while CPS is experiencing a fiscal problem, Illinois is experiencing a political problem: No one group has enough political power to push through their solution for fixing CPS’ short-term and long-term funding solution. And so we are stuck with a status quo.

As Aldertrack’s Claudia Morell detailed Tuesday, next week’s CPS bond issue, while likely to be priced at usurious rates, will provide the school system with enough cash to get through to mid-February, when property tax revenue begins to be transferred from the Cook County Treasurer. After that, CPS will have enough cash on hand to muddle through to the end of the school year. Then, until classes begin in September, the school system’s cash needs are significantly lower.

Without state help, CPS has few options to solve its long-term financial problem. Its ability to raise property taxes is severely limited by a state cap.

One potential solution: CPS could get money from Chicago.

City Council members are pushing for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to declare a TIF surplus, an amount that is also under dispute. A Mayoral Budget Office spokesperson yesterday estimated this year’s surplus at around $90 million, while TIF surplus proponents are saying it’s closer to $400 million, maybe more than $700 million. A declared surplus would be divvied up by the same formula as property taxes in the city, so CPS would get $45 million 50% of that windfall. CPS needs close to $500 million to close their budget gap this year.

The City of Chicago could also directly transfer funds to CPS. While there are plenty of reasons this would be bad policy–the City of Chicago and CPS are two different entities, and therefore CPS should have to stand on its own–Chicago has home rule and the ability to raise as much taxes as it wants. Technically, Chicago could just raise property taxes and funnel the money to CPS, which is a suburban Republican’s dream: Make Chicago pay for everything on its own.

But last week Chicago CFO Carole Brown threw cold water on both of those possibilities when she told reporters, “The city has no plans to directly, financially assist CPS.”

So the problem is ultimately political, putting everything on the ballot booth for state legislators. The first test will be with the March 15 Democratic Primaries, when State Rep. Ken Dunkin will fight for his political life against challenger Juliana Stratton. Dunkin, you may recall, is a lynchpin vote for the Illinois House Democrats. With him, Democrats have a veto-proof majority (Senate Democrats also have one, but with less drama). Without Dunkin voting with Democrats, Gov. Rauner’s plans are potentially viable.

We’re told by sources that SEIU Illinois and the United Working Families labor umbrella group are going all out to defeat Dunkin this March. Meanwhile word on the street is that Dunkin’s original political sponsor, Secretary of State Jesse White, has abandoned him. Rauner and the pro-Rauner PAC Illinois GO could still jump in, but outside support doesn’t usually hit until the last three weeks before Election Day.

Then, in November we’ll likely see a battle royale for control of the Illinois legislature. Only about 30 House and Senate seats out of 158 will be seriously contested, but just two House seats and four Senate seats going Republican would break the Democratic veto-proof majority, giving Gov. Rauner and GOP leaders a fighting chance to pass at least some of their agenda.

So, November’s elections are what we’re really waiting for. That’s what Leader Christine Radogno was really saying in yesterday’s press conference.

Until then, Chicago Public Schools should expect to mire in a financial mess.