Numerous Chicago Public Schools funding future questions were answered in a few short hours Friday afternoon, as a Circuit Judge denied a CPS demand to fund the school system and Mayor Rahm Emanuel ended speculation that schools would close early by promising that the city would step in to close the funding gap.

The Daily Line has learned of several exits and entrances at the County Building this season.

Cook County officials logged about $800k in total receipts for the first quarter of 2017, $500k of that from individual contributions. While County Democratic Party Chair Joe Berrios (as usual) brought in the biggest haul, and President Toni Preckwinkle made some key  Comm. Bridget Gainer’s committee funds are nothing to scoff at.

For the first three months of 2017, aldermen received nearly $1 million dollars in contributions according to the first quarter reports for 2017 filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections. However, after counting donations made to Democratic ward organizations or independent expenditure accounts controlled by aldermen, the number jumps to about $2 million. Most of funds were collected by a select few aldermen–the average quarterly take was $32k, the maximum, $380k.

The Council’s Committee on Human Relations held a subject matter hearing Wednesday to enquire about the recent spike in hate crimes in Chicago and to learn how the Chicago Police Department tracks reported incidents.

]Since the start of 2017, there have been five more reported hate crimes year to date compared to 2016–bringing the total to 30 reported incidents, according to Sergeant Lori Cooper of the Chicago Police Department’s Civil Rights Unit.

The Chicago Police Department and members of the Community Policing Advisory Panel (CPAP) held their second of three town halls on community policing Tuesday night at Sullivan High School in Rogers Park. About 100 people turned out to the event, which was formatted little like past town hall meetings related to CPD reform, where officials and panelists sat at the front of the room listening to community members at a distance.

The Council’s Human Relations Committee is holding a subject matter hearing Wednesday morning to discuss recent data finding hate crimes in Chicago rose 20 percent in 2016–the highest in five years.

In an email, Human Relations Chair Pat Dowell (3) confirmed that there’s no corresponding resolution for the hearing–rather, the hearing is based on an article published in the Daily Southtown last month. It detailed a spike in the number of incidents categorized as hate crimes and noted Chicago’s uptick reflects national trends.



Neither the Chicago Police Department’s website nor the city’s data portal provide current statistics on hate crimes. But DNAinfo recently created a map of alleged hate crimes based on information gained through the Freedom of Information Act.

DNAinfo and the Daily Southtown note that historically a majority of the hate crimes committed in Chicago are against gay or black individuals. That trend has been reversed since 2016 with a majority of the victims identifying as Jewish or Muslim.



Aldermen on the committee are expected to hear testimony from representatives with:

Commission on Human Relations

Chicago Police Department

Illinois State Police

Anti-Defamation League

Cook County Sheriff Dart’s Office

Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office

Office of New Americans

Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights

Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago

Several airport-related items were introduced at the April City Council meeting, two in response to the incident at O’Hare airport this month, and one backed by SEIU as part of their ongoing efforts to boost wages and benefits for airport contract workers. It’s similar to one introduced in January. A revamped version of the head tax was also introduced by Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), even though his original ordinance introduced in July has yet to make it out of Rules Committee. Both ordinances would dedicate generated revenue–estimated at about $100 million a year–to Chicago Public Schools.

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Plan Commission and Affordable Housing

Last week our Claudia Morell reported that a relatively uncontroversial Hyde Park condo development received opposition from Plan Commission members who wanted the project to have more minority sub-contractors and affordable housing units. From her story:

These criticisms are often voiced at the commission’s monthly meetings by a few dedicated members of the public. Oftentimes, their complaints go unaddressed.

But that wasn’t the case Thursday, when some of the more senior members of the mayor-appointed land use body openly discussed their own frustrations with developers they accuse of doing the bare minimum when it comes to minority participation and affordable housing. Even Chairman Martin Cabrera expressed annoyance. “You know, it has gotten to that point where we’re not going to just allow some of these developers to come and continue to develop, but not look at what’s taking place in our city.”

The developer, MAC Properties, underwent a series of blistering questions from frustrated Commission members.

One of the land use board’s newest commissioners, Lucino Sotelo, suggested planned development applications include more detail on hiring and affordable housing plans. “That is what I want to see in all future requests: what are you doing on your own coming in on affordable housing and hiring practices, regulated and unregulated. Because we shouldn’t have to have a conversation about what’s regulated if the right thing is getting done from the onset.”

Typically Plan Commission meetings are highly managed affairs. Often with tens of millions of dollars at stake, developers retain highly specialized land-use attorneys to prepare for and oversee testimony at hearings. As a result, Commissioners’ questions are usually addressed before the hearings begin. It’s rare for them to to seriously object to a project, let alone stop one cold.

Since the Plan Commission approves all planned developments, which essentially covers every major construction project in Chicago, one might think it’s an excellent place for an advocate for affordable housing and minority contracting to effect change. That might be what Sotelo, a marketing executive for Grainger, might have been thinking. But how the Commission is set up makes the reality very different.

A 22-member board, with 10 members appointed by the mayor and 12 others serving ex officio (and most of those are mayoral appointees to other positions, like CTA Board Chair Terry Peterson), the Plan Commission is not designed to be an independent body. Most of the time, only ten or so members come to meetings, with the ex officio members showing up only occasionally.

In the end, the commission approved MAC Properties’ zoning application, with a “reluctant” yes from Searle, and two no votes: Rev. Albert D. Tyson III and Peterson. It was the first time in nearly a year that a zoning application ended on a divided vote.

While a few Commissioners might oppose a project or two, the reality is that there’s little danger of any projects not passing plan commission, so long as they follow the city’s development guidelines and have passed the muster of the Department of Planning staff.

 

Kevin Graham Is Potentially The Most Powerful Person In Chicago

Since his election to lead the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, here and there, we’ve been learning about Kevin Graham and the team he’s bringing into office with him. His number one job–and maybe the only job that matters for the next year or so–will be to negotiate the FOP’s new contract. The current one expires at the end of June. Graham, who is a soft-spoken Northwestern University graduate with 30-plus years on the beat, describes himself as a “hardliner” who wants to defend the rights of police officers.

As I wrote last week, the police contract is at the center of a rift between Chicago’s black community and Chicago police, as well as those who support the police. City Council’s Black Caucus has detailed 14 points they want changed in the contract, which Graham has pledged to defend. As a result, Mayor Rahm Emanuel ends up in a jam, since black voters expect major change and FOP plans to do everything it can to maintain “protections” for cops.

But anything can happen at the negotiating table, and Graham is the biggest wild card in the game. While he clearly wants to support police interests, exactly how does he think is the best way to do that? Is there some kind of side deal Emanuel could cut with Graham and the FOP?

Almost everything about the police contract could be viewed through a political lens. Past contracts have taken more than a year to negotiate. What would happen if the FOP contract was still unresolved during the 2019 mayoral election? If things are dragging along and Graham and the FOP don’t feel like they’re getting a good deal with Emanuel, could they drag it out even further if they think it would help get a more sympathetic candidate elected? And what might it end up costing the city?

While Graham has been keeping a low profile since winning his new job, his actions over the next year will be heard loud and clear across Chicago.

The city’s 20-year tradition of allocating each ward about $1 million in “menu” money to spend on roads, sidewalks, and lighting “bears no relationship to the actual infrastructure needs of each ward,” resulting “in significant ward-to-ward funding disparities,” the Chicago Office of Inspector General Joe Ferguson concluded in a new audit.

Members of the Chicago Plan Commission are attempting to address deep-seated criticisms about large-scale development projects in Chicago: low rates of minority participation on lucrative construction projects and a disinterest from developers to go beyond mandatory affordable housing requirements.  

These criticisms are often voiced at the commission’s monthly meetings by a few dedicated members of the public. Oftentimes, their complaints go unaddressed.

But that wasn’t the case Thursday, when some of the more senior members of the mayor-appointed land use body openly discussed their own frustrations with developers they accuse of doing the bare minimum when it comes to minority participation and affordable housing. Even Chairman Martin Cabrera expressed annoyance. “You know, it has gotten to that point where we’re not going to just allow some of these developers to come and continue to develop, but not look at what’s taking place in our city.”

Catching a breather during a two hour stretch of speeches honoring various city employees at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6), Chair of the Council Black Caucus, talked about his group’s ability to influence the vote on the Fraternal Order of Police’s renewed contract.

“I’m not sure we’ve got 26 votes on this at the outset, but we’re a lot closer to it than not,” he said. “You take the 18 members of my caucus, then six progressives, and [Ameya] Pawar said he’s with us, and probably a few other Latinos, then you’ve got a majority.”

The City’s Ethics Board found probable cause in 13 of the 24 lobbying violation cases considered Wednesday, all of which were spawned by news reports of improper lobbying found in the FOIA dump of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s personal emails. The Better Government Association and Chicago Tribune both went to court for those emails to be released, and a recent Tribune analysis found 26 possible lobbying violations within the thousands of pages of emails.

As expected, Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) was “unanimously” selected to lead City Council’s 11-member Latino Caucus Wednesday, replacing Ald. George Cardenas (12) at the conclusion of his two-year term.

April has been a fairly uneventful month for zoning applications–no map amendments made it on the last two agendas for the Council’s Zoning Committee. Today’s Plan Commission agenda lists only two planned developments: one amended TIF plan and routine land sales and transfers.

Bronzeville TIF

A resolution recommending an amendment to the Bronzeville Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Project Area is slated for review. The TIF spans across the 3rd and 4th Wards and includes one crucial piece of city-owned land: The Michael Reese Hospital Site.