Chicago News

  • Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s bet that she could save the city at least $200 million in 2020 by refinancing $1.5 billion of the city’s debt paid off — and the deal will allow city officials to bank another $100 million to be used to fill the city’s projected budget gap in 2021, finance officials announced Friday.

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  • An employee of the Cook County Forest Preserves District should be punished for using his government job to sell two district vehicles to himself, a county watchdog wrote in a report issued Thursday.

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  • Aldermen who send out newsletters or have websites to communicate with constituents and city residents should not use them to promote their bids for re-election or raise money, according to a decision from the Chicago Board of Ethics.

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  • Recreational weed got even more expensive after the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved a measure on Thursday to impose its own tax on the drug, even as some commissioners raised questions about how the revenue would be spent.

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  • A rendering of the proposed Obama Presidential Center. [City of Chicago]
    Plans to build the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park will have an “adverse impact” on Jackson Park, the Midway Plaisance and the city’s Park Boulevard System, all of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, according to a finalized federal review released Thursday.

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    A draft proposal aimed at preventing displacement in Woodlawn announced by the city’s Housing Department Thursday would leave out key elements of a community benefits agreement ordinance already endorsed by 29 aldermen.

    The new proposal would apply only to census tracts within three-fifths of a mile of the Obama Presidential Center, as opposed to the proposed community benefits agreement which would apply to all properties within a two-mile radius of the center. While Woodlawn would be included in the plan, most of South Shore and Washington Park would not.

  • Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), left, and Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22), right, flank Mayor Lori Lightfoot as she touts expanded protections for immigrants. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
    Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned aldermen not to let a push to determine whether businesses that are owned by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Chicagoans face discrimination spiral into an debate that pitted gay Chicagoans against Black and Latino Chicagoans.

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  • Cook County Board of Commissioners and county board President Toni Preckwinkle would expand their power over the independent board that runs the county’s $2.9 billion Health and Hospital System under a measure set to be introduced on Thursday, as commissioners continue to demand answers over the health system’s shaky financial future.

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  • A proposed ordinance aimed at curbing gentrification along The 606's Bloomingdale Trail was reintroduced at City Council this week.
    [Alisa Hauser/DNAinfo Chicago]

    It’s official: Chicago is hitting the pause button on demolitions along The 606’s Bloomingdale Trail in just a couple of weeks.

  • More than 300 cities and 55 countries around the world have banned single-use plastics in an effort to reduce the millions of pounds of plastic trash clogging our lakes and oceans.

    Chicago could be next.

    On Wednesday, Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) and Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10) introduced an ordinance that looks to significantly cut down how many plastic forks, plates and spoons are doled out by restaurants and other businesses in the city.

  • Ald. Ed Burke (14) listens at the May 29 City Council meeting. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]
    The Chicago Board of Ethics hit indicted Ald. Edward Burke (14) with a $2,000 fine for urging a city official to back a property tax break sought by a client of his law firm.

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  • The four candidates for the Cook County Circuit Court clerk debate Tuesday. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]
    Four candidates vying to succeed Dorothy Brown as the next chief record-keeper of the county’s vast trove of court records pitched their plans on Tuesday to turn the page on an office mired in accusations of mismanagement and political hiring.

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  • Aldermen on Tuesday advanced a proposal to order a study of whether businesses that are owned by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Chicagoans face discrimination, which could lay the groundwork for requirements that city contracts be set aside for those firms.

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  • Any city resident could impose a three-month delay on the approval of any new cannabis dispensary in their own precinct simply by circulating a petition, according to new rules advanced by aldermen on Tuesday.

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  • State Rep. Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee) walks in the Harvard Milk Days parade on June 1, 2019. [Algonquin Township Republican Party Facebook page]
    A Republican vying to unseat State Rep. Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee) on Tuesday filed an ethics complaint with the state’s Legislative Inspector General, alleging Skillicorn falsely said he was present in the Capitol during the first half of the House’s last day in spring session in June even though he was walking in a parade in northern Illinois, and driving back down to Springfield.

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