Three members of the Progressive Caucus voted against the Revenue Ordinance for the FY 2017 budget Monday, citing transparency concerns with the proposed Community Catalyst Fund. It was the day’s only roll call vote, and the item ultimately passed, 18-3. All other items, including the $1.35 billion property tax levy for FY2017, new parking meters and rates, and changes to the city’s plastic bag tax, also passed the committee. An expected direct introduction from Ald. Patrick D. Thompson (11) loosening restrictions on flavored tobacco sales near schools was held.

Representatives from the pharmaceutical industry told the City Council’s Budget Committee that a proposed license for drug salespeople included in the 2017 budget is “onerous” and would do little to curb the epidemic of opioid abuse within the city.

Ald. Pat Dowell (3), along with the other 17 members of the City Council’s Black Caucus, sent a letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel demanding that minority hiring be added to the list of criteria for an annual bonus Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans is entitled to every year.

Updated 6:34 a.m., November 8, 2016

Early vote turnout in both Chicago and suburban Cook County smashed previous records, with 683,426 early voted in both jurisdictions on Monday evening after many polling locations locations in Chicago stayed open long after 8:00 p.m. due to long lines. In 2008, 469,911 people voted by early vote.

Vote by mail numbers have also set post-war records, with over 105,000 applications requested in Chicago and 113,375 requested in suburban Cook County.  In Chicago over 62,000 vote by mail ballots have already been returned while in suburban Cook County over 69,000 have already been returned. The last time the numbers were higher were in 1944, according to Cook County Clerk David Orr.

While early voting continues through tomorrow, Chicago voters have already set an early vote total record and are on pace to surpass 2012’s 24% early vote share. So far, 284,506 people have voted in Chicago, while 315,875 have voted in suburban Cook County. The previous Chicago early vote total record was 260,378 for the November 2008 election.

The Committees on Budget and Finance meet today to consider a patchwork of ordinances concerning the 2017 budget, from the proposed seven-cent bag tax to the new commercial loading zone pilot program for the city’s Central Business District. As previously reported, there’s also a direct introduction up in Finance Committee from Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11) to amend the city’s ban on the sale of flavored cigarettes near schools.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in over a century. Cubs mania has taken over Chicago, with a record five million people showing up to the victory parade that wound through downtown on Friday. That excitement spilled over into City Council again. But this week, we wanted pivot to take a deeper dive into a more pressing issue facing the city right now: the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Chicago Police Department. It’s been nearly a year since DOJ opened its pattern or practice investigation into CPD, and with a new administration on the way in, we wanted to give you a more in-depth understanding of what that investigation entails and what we can expect in the next few months (and years) ahead.

This episode was spurred by testimony from Corporation Counsel Steve Patton during his budget hearing. The city’s Law Department spent much of 2016 complying with DOJ document requests, and Patton anticipates the investigation will wrap “within the next few months.” This episode includes an extended interview with a former Special Litigation Section Chief at the DOJ from 2010 to 2015, Jonathan Smith. He worked on nearly two dozen police investigations, including probes in Ferguson, Seattle, Albuquerque, and Portland. He says it’s likely the Obama administration is working as quick as it can to finish the investigation before the new administration begins–whoever it might be.

Chicago’s 2017 budget introduces over a dozen new and increased fees and taxes. To accomplish this, a revenue ordinance typically accompanies the budget appropriation. Here is an overview of the items in this year’s revenue ordinance.

The city’s proposed pharmaceutical licensing fee included in the 2017 budget appears to be focused more on tracking drug marketers than revenue. As detailed in the 2017 Management Ordinance introduced this week, the application process would require a significant amount of information aimed at tracking the doctors pharmaceutical reps are meeting with and what drugs they’re pushing.

“The devil is in the details,” they say, so for our second year The Daily Line has attempted to capture the devil in the Chicago and Cook County budget hearings. We attended (almost) every city and county budget hearing, gathered the handouts and boiled down each hearing to the most important discussions and issues. The result is 40 articles, the most comprehensive city and county budget coverage we’ve ever heard of. Click through each link for articles and handouts. If you're a subscriber and you'd like audio for any of the meetings, send us an email.

Aldermen echoed the concern and confusion some Cook County commissioners have raised about the nature and purview of the Chicago-Cook Workforce Partnership at a subject matter hearing Wednesday morning. The Partnership, established in 2012, is the designated recipient of federal workforce grants, and is one of the biggest workforce development entities in the country. Its total funding for 2016 is about $62 million, and it frequently works with city sister agencies to train and place people in in-demand jobs.

But aldermen expressed a disconnect. Ald. Susan Sadlowski-Garza (10) said she had never heard of, or from, the Partnership since taking office. Ald. Leslie Hairston (5) said the City Council had no role or oversight in the Partnership’s spending, and Workforce Chairman Pat O’Connor (40) suggested the city needed to “reassert” itself on some projects.  

Ald. Patrick D. Thompson (11) confirmed he’s interested in changing to the city’s tobacco ordinance, likely next week. The Daily Line obtained a draft ordinance and summary that would mandate significantly higher fines on retailers that aren’t complying with existing city regulations on tobacco. But the changes would also exclude menthol cigarettes from the list of tobacco products banned from being sold within 500 feet of schools, something retailers would welcome but public health advocates are already gearing up to oppose.

Kicking off a nearly three hour long public hearing on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s $8.33 billion 2017 budget ($9.81 billion counting grant funds), the Civic Federation’s Laurence Msall expressed concern over the city’s ambitious hiring plan for the police department, urged aldermen to oppose the statewide “lockbox” amendment, and suggested the city’s newly-imposed monthly garbage fee be increased annually.

The City Council approved a $2 million settlement with two police officers, Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria, who accused their superiors of retaliating against them for whistleblowing. It’s a case that Mayor Rahm Emanuel had been called to testify on, but was ultimately spared from when the city’s Law Department announced a settlement on the eve of the trial.

Opponents to the beverage tax stood and sat wearing blue shirts, holding signs that read, “Don’t Tax Our Groceries”, “Protect Our Jobs”, and “Stop Taxing Working Families”. They were mixed with tax supporters in red shirts with signs that read “Fight to Keep Our Communities Healthy”. Support and opposition went back and forth among the more than 150 people who signed up to testify at a downtown public hearing Monday morning. It lasted well beyond its scheduled 11:00 a.m. wrap time, extending almost four hours.