The Committee on Health and Environmental Protection was called to order 20 minutes late, only to be recessed roughly six minutes later, after no one was on hand to answer questions about the only agenda item: changes to the city’s Commission Animal Care and Control. Only Chris Norberg from the city’s Law Department came to testify, but couldn’t “speak to what the substance” of the ordinance was, or why increasing the membership of the committee from nine to eleven, requiring city residency for appointees, and a mandating member of the business community serve on the commission were necessary.

Attendance: Chairman George Cardenas (12), Proco Joe Moreno (1), Brian Hopkins (2), Toni Foulkes (16), Michael Zalewski (23), Walter Burnett Jr. (27), Ariel Reboyras (30), Deb Mell (33), Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), Gilbert Villegas (36), Harry Osterman (48)

“We’re increasing the membership but we don’t know who that is, we don’t know what that will mean, or what that will do, but let’s vote on it. That’s a hell of a committee meeting,” Chairman George Cardenas (12) said sarcastically, calling for a recess until the Department of Public Health could elaborate.

More than a dozen other items have been introduced, but not heard by the Health committee, including Ald. Jason Ervin’s (28) mental health clinics ordinance, hearings on “state-sponsored euthanasia” at Animal Care and Control from Ald. Raymond Lopez (15), and a pet waste removal ordinance from Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35).

The Council’s Finance Committee will consider paying out $6.45 million to two families of men who allegedly died at the hands of Chicago Police.

This morning, the Law Department will ask aldermen to approve settling two police misconduct cases. One of those lawsuits, filed by the family of Philip Coleman, will cost the city $4.9 million. The lawsuit stems from a 2012 incident when six Chicago police officers were caught on video using a Taser on, and dragging Coleman out of his cell. Coleman suffered severe trauma and was admitted to Roseland Community Hospital where he was later pronounced dead after a bad reaction to an antipsychotic drug.

The City released the video in December of 2015, around the time protesters took over city streets to voice their outrage of the mishandling of the the Laquan McDonald shooting. IPRA Chief Administrator Sharon Fairley re-opened the agency’s investigation into Coleman’s death, “to determine if the officers' actions are within department guidelines and, if so, whether policy changes are needed to avoid another incident like this in the future."

Aldermen will be asked to settle another police-related case, this one involving Justin Cook, who also died in police custody after an asthma attack. The city plans to pay the Cook family $1.5 million to keep the case out of court.

Other Items on the Finance Agenda

Financial Oversight - Ald. John Arena (45), a member of the council’s Progressive Caucus, wants the City Council to devise an ordinance that would create new review standards for the city’s major financial transactions. Ald. Arena, on behalf of the Caucus, introduced a resolution calling on his colleagues to do just that: “undertake to collaborate on creating a Financial Transparency and Accountability Ordinance that imposes rigorous review standards for extraordinary financial transactions.” It’s unclear if those details will be discussed in committee.

TIF $ For Schools - Two public elementary schools will receive a total of $1.04 million in tax increment financing dollars under an ordinance from the Department of Planning and Development. Hope College Preparatory in the city’s Englewood neighborhood (5515 S. Lowe St.) would receive $287,000 in TIF funds for the planning, design and construction of a new playground. And Roald Amundsen High School in the city’s Lincoln Square neighborhood would receive $760,000 in TIF funds for the construction of new game programing and web design labs. That will pay for only part of the project, the Board of Education will pick up the rest of the tab, paying $796,000.  According to a press release from the mayor’s office, this is the latest of several TIF investments that have been made at the Lincoln Square high school. The school previously received a total of $3.1 million in TIF funding, including $2.6 million for a new gym.

Today’s 27-item-long Housing Committee agenda includes about $75,000 in city-owned land sales, seven Board of Education property acceptances, and a $1 lease to Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS) for a community triage center in the city’s Roseland community.

The Cook County Board approved the $1 lease agreement with CCHHS at the end of last month. CCHHS would use a roughly 10,000 square foot space at the Chicago Department of Public Health’s Roseland Clinic (200 E. 115th Street) for a community triage center, where police can drop off arrestees they believe are suffering from mental health issues for treatment rather than taking them to jail.

Dr. Jay Shannon, CEO of CCHHS, testified the triage centers are intended to “reduce costs in correctional health and reduce the human misery index,” for arrestees who might otherwise be sent to emergency rooms or the Cook County Jail. If this pilot program is successful, CCHHS plans to open as many as five additional centers. Another lease agreement allowing the Cook County Department of Corrections  use of the West Town Neighborhood Health Center “for the provision of mental health services to ex-offenders” is also up for committee consideration. The 10-year, $1 lease is for about 750 square feet of clinical office space.

The committee will also vote on a handful of property moves from the Board of Education:

• O2016-2526 - the conveyance of 7.34 acres of green open space to the Chicago Park District.
• O2016-2507 - the site of Crispus Attucks Elementary School in Bronzeville, which closed in 2008. 
• O2016-2505 -  used in connection with the Yale School Elementary, which closed in 2013.
• O2016-2504 - a bundling of sites once utilized by Metcalfe and McCosh schools that the Board of Ed no longer needs.
• O2016-2483 - the site of Von Humboldt Elementary, which closed in 2013. It was one of four shuttered Humboldt Park Chicago Public Schools.
• O2016-2472 - the former site of Powell School, which relocated to a new school building nearby. The site is currently occupied by Excel Academy of South Shore.
• O2016-2461 - the former site of Davis Developmental School, which relocated to a new building.

The city commission in charge of animal control would be expanded to 11 seats under an ordinance before the Council’s Health and Environmental Protection Committee today.

The ordinance, sponsored by Mayor Emanuel on behalf of the Executive Director of Animal Care and Control, would increase membership on the mayor-appointed commission from nine to eleven members–although three of those seats are set aside for representatives of the Police, Health, and Sanitation Departments–in addition to requiring that all members be Chicago residents.

While the City Council must approve the expansion of the board, their approval is not required for appointments to the board made by the mayor.

Tomorrow, aldermen on the Council’s Public Safety Committee will be asked to change a city law mandating how the city picks its police superintendents and appoint interim Supt. Eddie Johnson as the next permanent top cop.

According to Stephen Spector, a spokesman for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the measure before the Council would be a one-time fix. “This measure, which would create a one-time exemption to allow City Council to confirm Eddie Johnson as superintendent, will bring much-needed resolution and allow the Chicago Police Department to focus on the significant challenges and reforms that lie ahead,” Spector said in an emailed statement Friday.

When asked for a copy of resolution on Friday, Spector said it was still being drafted in consultation with aldermen.

The Public Safety agenda, published last Friday morning, lists two items: an ordinance that would amend the chapter of the municipal code regarding the appointment of the city’s top cop, and a communication appointing Eddie T. Johnson as Superintendent of Police. As the code is currently written (2-84-030), that job is left to the Police Board: “When a vacancy occurs in the position of superintendent of police, to nominate three candidates to fill the position and to submit those nominations to the mayor.” The Superintendent “shall be appointed by the mayor upon recommendation of the police board and with the advice and consent of the city council and shall serve at the pleasure of the mayor.”

The Police Board did just that already, spending about $500,000 on the search, according to the Chicago Sun Times. But the mayor threw out those recommendations, which he’s reminded reporters has been done before. In 2007, Mayor Richard M. Daley threw out the Police Board’s recommendations, but he didn’t change the law – the board conducted another search and submitted three new names. Eight months later, Daley appointed Jody Weis to take over. The Police Board issued a release April 1 saying it would "see how these developments play out before taking any formal action," to start a new search.

Mayor Emanuel is shaking up the city-run board in charge of approving tax increment financing (TIF) for development projects and Redevelopment Area designations, appointing three new members, all of whom come from private industry.

The Council’s Committee on Economic and Capital Development is scheduled to consider three appointments and reappointments to the the Community Development Commission, an 11-member, mayor-appointed board that meets once a month in the City Council Chambers to recommend the creation of TIF districts or use of TIF funds for development plans.

The board is also in charge of approving the sale of surplus, city-owned land for neighborhood redevelopment activities or use eminent domain for land acquisition, as was the case of the Old Chicago Main Post Office seizure the board approved earlier this year.

The new appointments include:

• Nicholas J. Delgado to replace Omar Duque. Duque resigned from the board before his term expired. A former employee of Merrill Lynch, Delgado left the investment firm in 2009, shortly after the financial crisis, and founded Digitas, an investment bank and family office for “founder and family run enterprises,” according to its website. Investment News named Delgado in its list of 40 under 40, and according to the Chicago Reader, Delgado was instrumental in getting a reluctant City Council to approve WalMart’s move to Chicago. The board member who Delgado will replace, Duque, is the President and CEO of the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

• Dwight Curtis to replace Board Chair Marina Carrot, who is leaving her post this summer. Curtis, the Vice Chairman of label-making company Labelmaster, will finish out Carrot’s term. Carrot is an independent consultant, a member of the city’s Library Board, and was a one-time Commissioner of the city’s Department of Housing.

• Mae C. Whiteside to succeed Lynda A. Olander, an executive with Precision Plating Company. The resolution appointing Whiteside gives no mention to the reason why Olander is stepping down from her post. Whiteside is a principal at CKL Engineers.

Jorge Perez, the Executive Director of the Hispanic American Construction Industry Association and the board’s current Vice Chair, will be re-appointed alongside Roxanne Ward, Chief of Staff for the Women's Business Development Center. Perez will take over Carrot’s position as Chair.

A South Side alderman announces a plan to to abolish the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA). Aldermen relax a parking ban on pickup trucks, while loosening liquor regulations at nude strip clubs. And we detail paid sick leave recommendations from a mayoral task force, an industrial zoning plan, and some big items slated for next week: millions is police settlements, a new 4th Ward alderman, and a plan to amend city law and appoint Eddie Johnson as the next Police Superintendent.

Joseph Rinella, an employee with the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation Bureau of Forestry, filed a lawsuit against his supervisor, Charles Wagner, alleging that he has suffered “severe emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, in addition to loss of wages and other compensation.”

In the federal lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Illinois, Rinella alleges that Wagner unfairly targeted him, denied him a promotion and used his political clout to make work life unbearable. Rinella alleges Wagner called him a “rat,” purposefully sent him to trim trees in locations “far away” from his home, and one time said, “It’s 6:03, you’re on my f*** time. Let’s go, get to work.”

Rinella alleges his supervisor violated the city’s Shakman Decree, among other damages, because he “gave the forestry supervisor positions at issue to friends over more qualified employees and/or more senior employees.”

Working Families Task Force co-chair Anne Ladky is shaking off an 11-page minority report from two of the city’s biggest business groups ahead of a revamped paid sick leave ordinance expected to be introduced at next week’s full City Council meeting. Ladky, the executive director of Women Employed, says now that the task force recommendations are public, she can take off her co-chair hat and “vigorously advocate” for the ordinance’s passage.

Ladkey said she wasn’t surprised about the blowback from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association (IRMA) and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, which drafted the memo denouncing the task force recommendations. But Ladky claims the media narrative that has emerged–business owners versus advocates–is misplaced. “I think it would be a mistake to conflate that official view of those organizations with the views of all their members. What we learned in the task force is there a wide range of views among employers. They’re not universally opposed.”

Ald. Ameya Pawar (47), co-chair of the task force, points to the Illinois Restaurant Association’s (IRA) neutral position on the recommendations as proof. IRA President Sam Toia sat on the task force, and the food service industry is the biggest private sector employer in the state.

IRMA and the Chamber, both task force participants, argue that coupled with Chicago’s $13 minimum wage, plastic bag ban, upcoming $588 million property tax levy (that is likely to be raised again), Cook County’s nationwide high sales tax, Affordable Care Act requirements, and recent tobacco tax hikes, paid sick leave mandates would be unduly burdensome on local businesses. The groups say labor policy shouldn’t be considered within a vacuum. Rather than reduce turnover and save on healthcare costs, paid sick leave will increase prices, decrease benefits, reduce employee hours, limit expansion, and lead to positions being cut, the business groups argue.

Pawar dismisses IRMA and Chamber claims, and says the implementation cost (which the task force estimates is a 0.7%-1.5% increase in labor costs) is minimal. “Quite frankly, I don’t understand what the disdain for working people is… at the end of the day it’s good for business because it’s good for people,” he told Aldertrack.

Ladky was well aware of both groups’ concerns, and said the report took pains to lay them out, but echoed Pawar. “It’s not a cost anywhere even remotely like the minimum wage.” Many employers the task force spoke to were concerned with making their business fairer for workers and attractive to new hires. “It’s not as if no employers want to do it, or advocates are always going to be fighting for the maximum. I think what our process showed is lots of employers want to do right by their employees.”  

The recommendations are more conservative than the ordinance first pitched in 2014, and are the result of a business and labor consensus, Ladky says.

Employees will have to work 40 hours to accrue one hour of sick leave (up from 30 in the original paid sick leave ordinance), new hires will have to wait 120 to 180 days to utilize a paid sick day (up from 90 days), and the total number of sick days available would be capped at five, down from nine.

But some in labor, like UFCW Local 881’s political director Zach Koutsky, are happy to see a bigger paid sick leave umbrella that includes all private sector workers. He says ultimately, this version is more amenable to passage than the 2014 ordinance, and he doesn’t want to wait another year for this chance to come around again.

Members of the Earned Sick Time Chicago coalition, which includes AFSCME Council 31, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, UNITE HERE Local 1, UFCW Local 881, and Ladky’s organization, Women Employed, are in talks with each other, aldermen, and the Emanuel administration. Pawar said he expects Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who convened the task force, to be “very involved” with passage.

“This has gotten [our coalition] farther and with more buy-in than the 2014 bill ever had. It spurred a re-engagement at the state and county level,” Koutsky told Aldertrack.

Ald. Pawar said the proposals are more conservative than even he would have liked, but his job was to reach consensus. “I think we came up with a very balanced, and a more pro-business proposal [than the first ordinance]. My own personal politics would lean further to the left on this.”

He says Chicago’s approach, in some ways, is innovative, compared to recent advances in sick leave in New York and San Francisco. Starting on the expected effective date of the ordinance, July 1st, existing employees will have access to paid sick days immediately. Other cities have a four to six month waiting period. “We also have an FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) portion,” where employees can roll over a certain amount of accrued paid sick time to be used to take care of a newborn or sick parent.

“Why should working people have to win the good boss lotto to have basic protections?” Ladky told Aldertrack, saying paid sick leave should be a standard like public safety and child labor laws. If it can’t be done on the federal or state level, it should start in Chicago. “Union membership has declined… and with so much of our workforce being hourly, times have changed. Our employment standards have to change with the times.”

The across-the-board standards the task force recommended might also make enforcement easier. Pawar says the enforcement portion of the ordinance is being drafted.

Leaders from the Chicagoland Chamber and IRMA were both in Springfield and did not respond to inquiries by publication.

Karen Lewis will keep her job as President of the Chicago Teachers Union for another three-year term. The Chicago Teachers’ Union announced yesterday that its House of Delegates voted “overwhelmingly” Wednesday night to cancel this year’s CTU elections, because there was no opposition for the union’s slate of candidates for officer and executive board positions.

By choosing not to hold the elections, which costs the union about $200,000-$300,000 in printing and courier costs, the delegates instead accepted the list of eligible candidates, including Lewis, to be seated for the new term.  

That means starting July 1, 2016, Lewis will start her third term as president of the CTU, a position she was first elected to in 2010 in an aggressive run-off election fueled by the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), an organization within CTU that Lewis co-founded.

A significant portion of the union’s rank and file are now members or supporters of CORE, which represents teachers, retirees, paraprofessionals, parents, community members, and other public education stakeholders. CORE members make up a large portion of public school employees; and a notable number of the CTU’s House of Delegates (the group that recently rejected a tentative contract with the Board of Education and voted to authorize a strike on April 1st) are CORE members or supporters, according to the group’s Co-Chair, Sarah Chambers.

“No one else ran because our members are happy with [CORE’s] leadership,” Chambers wrote to Aldertrack. “[CORE] and CTU have created a movement in this city with a broad coalition of community organization. Because of our power, we have completely dethroned Rahm Emanuel who is now down to an 18% approval rating. He has no control over the city anymore. We are powerful in Springfield too, we won 8 out of 9 endorsed candidates in the last primary election.”

In February, when the House of Delegates voted against the tentative contract with Chicago Public Schools, Lewis expressed her surprise that the group rejected the deal, saying, “There were a lot of things [in the contract] that were great.”

Chambers said that a substitute teacher, Pat Breckinridge, made an attempt for Lewis’ seat, but “she received very few signatures.”

That contested 2010 election that placed Lewis at the helm of the teachers’ union also led to the decline of another sub-group within the union: the United Progressive Caucus. Lewis’ predecessor, Marilyn Stewart, was a member. Chambers said that group received a “minimal” percentage of the vote and, to her knowledge, they don’t flyer or run candidates for election anymore.

In fact, the number of active caucuses within CTU has declined since Lewis took over. In 2010, five caucuses each ran a candidate for the executive board, in the subsequent 2013 election, two caucuses, including CORE, combined to offer a slate, and this year, CORE was the only caucus with a slate of candidates. Kristine Mayle, who as Financial Secretary for CTU organizes the CTU elections, said CORE is really the only active caucus right now.

The other three officers that will join Lewis on the executive board include Jesse Sharkey, who will keep his job at Vice President, Michael Brunson as recording secretary, and Maria Moreno as financial secretary.

The Council’s Aviation Committee approved a ground lease agreement for American Airlines in what was described as one of the final opportunities for gate expansion at O’Hare Airport.

Present: Chairman Mike Zalewski (23), Pat Dowell (3), Marty Quinn (13), Raymond Lopez (15), Derrick Curtis (18), Willie Cochran (20), Danny Solis (25), Walter Burnett (27),  Ariel Reboyras (30), Gilbert Villegas (36),  Emma Mitts (37), Anthony Napolitano (41), Ameya Pawar (47)

According to Jessica Sampson, General Counsel for the Department of Aviation, the ordinance aldermen approved authorizes a lease agreement with American, which will allow the airline to begin construction on five new gates at the end of Terminal 3. The gates are known as the L Stringer Gates, with a total space of about 165,000 feet, comprised of new waiting areas and concession stands, among other amenities. The gates are scheduled to open in 2018, with the open bid for concessionaires scheduled for next year.

As is common when discussing city contracts in Council committees, most of the conversation revolved around minority hiring, with several aldermen asking for stats on internal minority hiring and goals for American Airlines, and at O’Hare. (The “through the chair requests,” are all due to aldermen before next Wednesday’s monthly City Council meeting, when they will have to vote on the agreement as a full body. Some of those requests got so in the weeds that one alderman even asked for the number of employees that were turned down because they failed the federal background check that is required for all potential airport hires.)

But there was some dialogue concerning the airliner's new crop of planes and how that could help mitigate the issue of jet noise that took up an entire Aviation Committee meeting last month when freshman alderman Anthony Napolitano (41) proposed a plan to put the city council in charge of runway construction. Billy Glunz, a Regional Director of Governmental Affairs for American Airlines, testified that they currently have the youngest fleet in the industry, putting out a new plane every four-and-a-half days. Glunz said that they expect most of the fleet to be replaced by this summer.

Two City Clerk-backed parking ordinances moved through the Council’s Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee with relative ease, only one alderman vocally expressed his concern that lifting the city’s little-known ban on pickup trucks parking on residential streets would lead to an influx of suburban trucks parked in his ward.

Present: Chairman Walter Burnett (27), Brian Hopkins (2), Marty Quinn (13), Raymond Lopez (15), Derrick Curtis (18), Willie Cochran (20), Jason Ervin (28), Chris Taliaferro (29), Deb Mell (33), Gilbert Villegas (36), Emma Mitts (37), Anthony Napolitano (41), James Cappleman (46)

City Clerk Susana Mendoza’s ordinance would end the “dog and pony show,” as Ald. Emma Mitts (37) dubbed it, of requiring pickup trucks owners apply for a special city-issued sticker from their local alderman to legally park their car in front of their house or anywhere else in the city.

While free, that sticker must be renewed every year, on top of the optional zone and mandatory city sticker that all Chicago car owners must purchase. It was a way for aldermen to determine what residents were using those pickup trucks for and to make sure junk trucks stayed out of sight.

This ordinance would eliminate that cumbersome burden, Clerk Mendoza testified, by letting personal pickup trucks park on all residential and business streets in the city as long as they have a city sticker. Commercial trucks and junk trucks–as in pickup trucks specially outfitted to hold scrap metal or other treasures found in city alleys–would still be prohibited from parking along city streets.

But Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29) who represents the city’s Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s westernmost border, took issue with Clerk Mendoza’s plan and asked her to amend it during the meeting. “How does this play out in my ward?” Ald. Taliaferro asked, noting that he is near three suburbs: Elmwood Park, Oak Park, and Cicero.

Taliaferro said that oftentimes he sees people from Elmwood Park, which has stricter street parking rules, park their cars in his ward, pull a bike out, and bike the rest of the way home. “I’m probably going to get a lot more trucks in my ward as a result of this ordinance,” Taliaferro explained. He asked Mendoza if she would consider adding a ban on overnight parking for pickup trucks not registered with the city.

“Let’s see how this plays out. I have a feeling that it won’t be as impactful as you think it might be, but let’s see,” Mendoza said the first time he asked. The second time, Committee Chair Walter Burnett, Jr. (27) poked holes in his plan, asking Taliaferro how he would institute a ban. What about the people who go out for dinner or to bars, Burnett asked somewhat rhetorically.

The committee eventually approved the ordinance, without dissent, and another ordinance from Mendoza that made minor language changes and “technical corrections” to an ordinance the council already passed establishing a pilot program that provides universal parking passes to Chicago realtors.

At a City Hall press conference Tuesday, Ald. Leslie Hairston (5) pitched not only the abolition of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) but the creation of a new Independent Citizen Police Monitor with a new Chief Administrator at the helm.

Hairston’s ordinance, created in consultation with University of Chicago Law School’s Craig Futterman and research from the school’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Clinic, would create a new regulatory body to review cases of alleged police misconduct. That new organization would have have a significant amount of power compared to IPRA. Specifically, it would amend how IPRA conducts its investigations by opening up police and misconduct data to the public, widening the scope of the Chief Administrator’s powers, and speeding up the release of information and the conclusion of investigations.

But Hairston was the only alderman at the podium Tuesday. “I have not talked to my other colleagues yet, but in the next coming weeks I will be doing so,” Hairston told reporters. She said she plans to speak to “all four caucuses."

The proposed ordinance borrows from cities that have undergone recent police reforms, such as New Orleans, Newark, Seattle, Cleveland, and Albuquerque. Hairston said she has been working with Futterman and Sheila Bedi, a Northwestern University law professor, for the past few months to craft the ordinance.

“By the time we hold our next City Council meeting, it’ll make one meeting from when the Corporation Counsel reached another $5 million settlement with the family of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald,” Hairston said Tuesday morning. “This ordinance is... a direct response to years of biased investigations, lack of transparency and accountability, and failure to address patterns and practices of abuse.”

While current IPRA Chief Administrator Sharon Fairley has done a “great job,” the name of IPRA has “been tainted just like [CPD’s Office of Professional Standards] was tainted several years ago,” Hairston said.

Fairley’s been in the post for just over 100 days, and recently announced an external audit of at least 20 of IPRA’s closed police-involved misconduct investigations.

“She’s smart. She wants to do the right thing, but she’s being placed in an impossible situation,” Futterman said of Fairley. “She inherits the exact same staff, a staff that’s been proven to be biased, resulting in whitewashed investigations that has just simply created the veneer of accountability… instead IPRA has been a critical part of the code of silence that’s protected police officers from abuse.”

The ordinance makes several definition changes to the section of the municipal code governing IPRA. It amends the word “coercion” to include all implied threats, not just violent ones. It adds disability and mental illness to the definition of “targets of verbal abuse,” in addition to changing the definition of “excessive force”, includes definitions of sexual misconduct and domestic violence, biased police practices, and suspicious injury.

If the ordinance were enacted, Fairley would serve as interim until a permanent monitor is selected, and 90 days from passage, IPRA would be dissolved.

The new chief administrator would be picked by a selection committee. Inspector General Joe Ferguson would appoint selection committee members, drawn from civil rights, immigrants’ rights, and LGBTQ rights communities, one person from the faith based community, and one representing the Chicago Plaintiffs’ Civil Rights Police Misconduct Bar. Mayor Emanuel (or his designee), Interim Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson (and his designee), and Ald. Ariel Reboyras, Public Safety Committee chair, would also serve on the selection committee. The group would pick three Chief Administrator finalists, who would all have to be vetted by at least two public hearings.

Within two weeks of those public hearings wrapping up, the selection committee would vote on a candidate, whose nomination would then sent straight to the full City Council for a vote, bypassing committee.

The Chief Administrator would also be granted subpoena powers, as well as the power to investigate rape, sexual assault, and sexual misconduct charges against officers; First Amendment violations; denial of access to an attorney and all deaths or suspicious injuries in police custody. Civilian plaintiffs in litigation against cops wouldn’t have to submit a sworn complaint before an investigation is launched. The Administrator can also “compel prompt statements from members of the Department and re-interview Department members,” and to “immediately submit to tests for substances, physical evidence, and DNA.”

The ordinance bans CPD and other city agencies like the Office of Emergency Management Communications (OEMC, which maintains the city’s 9-1-1 system) from destroying evidence that might be used in an investigation.

The new body would be paid for using 1.5% of the Chicago Police Department’s annual appropriation. CPD’s proposed appropriation for 2016 was $1.45 billion, while IPRA’s was $8.4 million. Under the ordinance, the new Monitor’s budget would more than double, totaling around $21.7 million.

The Monitor’s office would maintain at least one full-time investigator for every 100 sworn officers in the department. CPD has more than 12,000 sworn members, as of its 2010 annual report, but allocated for about 13,800 full time employees in its 2016 budget proposal.

Neither investigators nor the Chief Administrator could be former employees of CPD or the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.

Within 10 days of receiving the complaint, the Monitor would be required to publish information that triggered the investigation, CPD’s response to the complaint, and the public investigation history to “a live timestamped data feed… that conforms to open data standards.” CPD would also have to maintain a database with the complete complaint and disciplinary history for each officer, plus available video and 9-1-1 audio of the incident under investigation.

Her proposal comes just before Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked Task Force on Police Accountability is expected to release their recommendations on reform. The six member task force includes Police Board president Lori Lightfoot, who led the national search for the Chicago Police Department’s new superintendent. The list was recently tossed out by the Mayor.

The ban on serving alcoholic drinks at nude strip clubs in Chicago would soon be done away with under an ordinance the Council’s Zoning Committee approved yesterday. The ordinance was technically introduced by Ald. Emma Mitts (37). Ald. Ed Burke (14), recently tried and failed to get a similar ordinance through the previous council.

Present: Chairman Danny Solis (25), Vice Chair James Cappleman (46), Joe Moreno (1), Michelle Harris (8), Ed Burke (14), David Moore (17), Walter Burnett (27), Deb Mell (33), Carrie Austin (34), Emma Mitts (37), Marge Laurino (39), Brendan Reilly (42), Tom Tunney (44), Ameya Pawar (47).

Ald. Burke, who rarely attends zoning meetings unless there is a matter affecting his ward or an item he drafted up for consideration, showed up in the middle of yesterday’s meeting with his entourage of staffers by his side. Shortly after he entered the chambers, Ald. Mitts, who had arrived just minutes prior to Burke, was called to testify on behalf of the ordinance loosening restrictions on adult entertainment venues.

“I am asking the City Council to look in favor of supporting this ordinance so that we can level the playing field and create a few more dollars, and make it safer for these adult entertainments in the city of Chicago,” Ald. Mitts testified. There was no debate and the item passed almost immediately. At the time of the vote, another Council heavyweight, Ald. Carrie Austin (34), noted that she had “extreme reservations on part of it,” but still joined in with Ald. Burke on the motion to call for a vote. Three aldermen present–Deb Mell (33), Brendan Reilly (42), and James Cappleman(46)–asked to be recorded as voting no.

The ordinance, which was replaced with a substitute in committee, distinguishes between live and non-live adult entertainment, allowing venues with live shows, like strip clubs and cabarets, to serve alcohol and allow partially nude dancers. (The ordinance goes into explicit detail as to which body parts can be shown.)

Owners of non-live adult establishments, like bookstores and adult theaters, would be barred from changing their zoning designation to a live-use without first obtaining a special use permit. That change evidently closes a “loophole” in the municipal code, according to Ald. Mitts. She also testified the ordinance, “clarifies ambiguous language that resulted in two decades of litigation and it cost the city millions of dollars.”

Ald. Mitts noted that “out of the four licensed adult entertainments in the city, one has many issues with crime.” That establishment, said Mitts, is located in Ald. Anthony Beale’s 9th Ward on the city’s far South Side, and most of the crime occurred because of the owner’s BYOB policy, which she said made it hard to control patrons’ level of drinking.

According to the Chicago Tribune, almost a year to this day, Ald. Burke told reportershe didn’t bring up a similar ordinance he drafted last year because he didn’t think he had the votes. That meeting in question would have been the last time Burke could have brought up the item for a vote, because it was the last monthly meeting before the new council was sworn in, clearing all pending legislative items from the docket.

Burke maintained distance from this ordinance, verifying with Chairman Solis only that the city’s Law Department and Zoning Administrator looked over the language of the ordinance and were in agreement.

Highlights 

• Some aldermen pushed back on a series of applications Ald. Matt O’Shea(19) introduced to downzone commercial strips in his ward to the lowest density allowable: B1-1 (Neighborhood Shopping District). An aide for Ald. O’Shea testified that the aldermen filed the applications to “keep consistent our business district,” and that most of the ward’s commercial streets already conform to that zoning designation. Ald. Reilly asked if there was a development plan for the area coming down the pipeline, to which Ald. O’Shea’s aide said no. Ald. Tom Tunney (44), who said that while he understood this was a “planning tool” aldermen use, agreed to support the zoning change, after he was assured the local chamber of commerce approved of it. As a business owner, Tunney said he knew the issues that businesses have to deal with when their zoning is changed and their establishment is subsequently found nonconforming. Ald. Austin (34) voted no.

• At the very beginning of the meeting, when the committee was approving billboard signs, Ald. Tunney suggested that Chairman Solis do something to address illuminated billboards, because “the [zoning] code really doesn’t address this issue” and it is a “quality of life” issue for most residents. Tunney expressed worry that the city was opening itself up to a lawsuit because it was approving these type of signs so close to residential buildings. Chairman Solis suggested they create a sub-committee to look at it. Zoning Administrator Patti Scudiero said there is already a sub-committee on signs, but it’s possible that sub-committee, could be broken down to another sub-committee focused just on illuminated signs.

The mayor’s appointment of Andrea Yao to the Board of Local Improvements is the only non-routine item on the agenda for today’s Transportation Committee meeting. Yao, lead counsel to Feeding America, a national charity the operates food banks across the country, is the mayor’s fourth appointment to the board this year.

The five-member Board of Local Improvements oversees street infrastructure improvements necessitated by private development. Before a private developer can build anything along the public way, the board must approve the plans and financing. The appointment is directed to the Transportation Committee because the board serves under the capacity of the Department of Transportation.

Three other appointments to the Board were Christopher M. Michalek, Edward T. McKinnie, Sr., and Paul Connolly. Michalek is a partner at consulting firm McGuire Woods, LLP, McKinnie, Sr. is the President of the Board of Directors for Black Contractors United, and Connolly is the recording secretary for Laborers Local Number 4.

Pedestrian and Traffic Safety

City Clerk Susana Mendoza is making good on a promise she made to aldermen during the budget hearings by letting pickup trucks park on residential streets. The Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety will meet at noon to consider an ordinance that would make it official. But so-called “junk vehicles”- any car with an unenclosed cargo bed that has been modified to increase the car’s capacity to transport of carry items - are still barred from city-streets. If the ordinance passes in committee and later by the full City Council, trucks with a curb weight of less than 8,000 pounds and not considered a commercial vehicle will be offered a spot on the curb should the owner pay for a city sticker. Ald. Brian Hopkins (2), Raymond Lopez (15), and Deb Mell (33) are listed as co-sponsors.

The other parking-related matter, also sponsored by Clerk Mendoza, would amend a recently-approved pilot program in the City Clerk’s Office that lets Realtors apply for a universal parking pass to park their cars in residentially-zoned streets. The change has to do with the transfer of the universal pass. The owner still needs to fill out an application with the City Clerk, but the ordinance removes the details of what is needed in that application.

Aviation

A month after the Council’s Aviation Committee overwhelmingly voted against a plan to halt construction at O’Hare Airport, its members will meet again this afternoon to consider a ground lease agreement with American Airlines. The airliner is interested in leasing parts of the airport for the purposes of “developing, constructing, and operating five airline gates.” Those gates are referred to as the L Stringer Gates. American will pay a base rent of $369,000 a year, or $30,750 a month