Chicago News

  • Cannabis cultivator Cresco Labs is scheduled to score zoning approval on Tuesday to move its Medmar Lakeview dispensary into the heart of Wrigleyville, clearing a regulatory hurdle that aldermen added to cannabis zoning rules in order to tighten their control over the approval process.

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  • Candidates will hope the odds are ever in their favor as a lottery set for 10 a.m. Monday will determine who is first — and last — on the March 17 primary ballot.

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  • Chicago Board of Ethics Chair William Conlon said objections lodged by some groups “raised some good questions” the board will attempt to resolve. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
    Chicago ethics officials said they are working to address the anxiety coursing through many of Chicago’s nonprofit organizations, who must register as lobbyists starting Jan. 1 as part of an ethics reform package pushed through by Mayor Lori Lightfoot takes effect.

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  • City Council committees would have to take a vote to determine whether a majority of aldermen are present before getting underway, according to a proposal authored by Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11) set to be considered by aldermen on Monday.

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  • Aldermen are set to consider a proposal from Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday to shutter four tax-increment financing districts early.

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  • Four cyclists have died in crashes on Chicago’s streets since Sept. 1 — after no one died while riding a bicycle in Chicago during the first eight months of 2019, according to data compiled by the Chicago Department of Transportation.

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  • Metropolitan Water Reclamation District candidates, from left: Frank Avila, Cam Davis, Kimberly Neely Du Buclet and Eira Corral Sepúlveda. [Submitted photos]
    A bonanza of local elected officials, second-time candidates and relative unknowns threw their names into a crowded race to fill three contested seats on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago — and that was all before former Cook County board President Todd Stroger turned in his signatures minutes before Monday’s filing deadline.

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  • Gov. JB Pritzker signs SB 1557, a trailer bill for Illinois’ cannabis legalization program, Wednesday at Cabrini Green Legal Aid’s downtown offices, surrounded by bill sponsors, advisers and stakeholders. [Hannah Meisel/The Daily Line]
    Gov. JB Pritzker and his cannabis czar Toi Hutchinson on Wednesday defended the slow, deliberate rollout of Illinois’ cannabis legalization law — including the fact that existing medical cannabis companies received the first recreational licenses.

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  • Chicago Board pf Ethics Executive Director Steve Berlin urged aldermen to approve the proposed ban. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
    Aldermen unanimously voted on Wednesday to advance a measure that would ban them from working as lobbyists to press other elected officials on city-related matters.

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  • Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday appointed four members to the Joint Commission on Ethics and Lobbying Reform — a body created during the legislature’s Fall Veto Session and charged with recommending changes to require more transparency and disclosure for both lawmakers and lobbyists in Springfield. 

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  • African American aldermen unleashed a stream of grievances Wednesday aimed at the plan state lawmakers crafted to allow the sale of recreational marijuana starting on Jan. 1.

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  • article-image
    Mayor Lori Lightfoot promised in her campaign to bring back a city environment department, but her main move so far has been to place environmental strategy in the hands of a yet-to-be hired policy adviser. (Madison Hopkins/BGA)


    Chicago mayor says budget constraints have cooled her ambitious plans. Her 2020 budget includes no new funding for additional pollution inspectors.

    At a town hall meeting in September on the Southeast Side to discuss the city’s budget, Mayor Lori Lightfoot promised residents in one of Chicago’s most environmentally burdened neighborhoods that she is taking steps to get tough on city polluters.

    The announcement seemed to show the new mayor fulfilling a campaign promise to reverse Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s dissolution of the city’s environment department in 2012. She vowed during the campaign to bring the department back and have it focus on protecting residents from polluting businesses, lead in water, brownfields and dirty air.


  • As investigations swirl around City Hall and the State Capitol, aldermen will consider on Wednesday a measure that would ban them as working as lobbyists hired to press other elected officials on Chicago matters.

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  • The races that will shape the leadership of the Cook County Democratic Party in March will serve to mark the ultimate end of the careers of several longtime Chicago politicians, while ushering in at least three members of the Chicago chapter of Democratic Socialists of America to the party leadership.

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  • Aldermen on Wednesday avoided another skirmish in the continuing fight over aldermanic prerogative as the members of City Council’s Committee on Economic Development advanced plans to spend tax dollars to boost the city’s shopping districts.

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