While City Council prepares to answer a suit charging it violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act, two weeks ago, the Chicago City Council’s Sergeant-at-Arms quietly issued a document to aldermen and city officials detailing a new seating policy for the Council Chambers. “The public is admitted to the Gallery’s non-reserved seats on a first-come, first-served basis. Fifteen seats on the second floor and fifteen seats on the third floor shall be set aside for general admission and may not be reserved. The Sergeant-at-Arms reserves the right to seat visitors in the second-floor or third-floor Gallery based on seat availability,” says the document.

A Republican candidate for State Senate in southwest suburban Plainfield, Illinois, Michelle Smith has begun running broadcast television ads in Chicago, riling up 43rd Ward residents, demanding to know why Ald. Michele Smith (43) (one “L”) is running for State Senate, according to Smith’s chief of staff, Adam Gypalo.

Obviously, Michelle and Michele are not the same person. Michelle Smith (two “L”) is in a tight race near Joliet against Democratic State Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant with a ton of spending on both sides. One-L Smith is a North Side Chicago Alderman. Let’s not confuse the two anymore, OK?

A relatively quick day of county budget hearings featured talk almost exclusively on development issues, with officials from Capital Planning, Economic Development, Asset Management, and the Land Bank Authority taking center stage. The only major lines of questioning focused on tax incentive enforcement and addressing rumors Cook County’s Land Bank Authority (CCBLA) was making a “land grab” of lots in the First District.

A protester interrupted Thursday morning’s budget hearing on the Department of Buildings, loudly chanting, “16 shots and a cover up!”, marking the two-year anniversary of Laquan McDonald’s death. The meeting was otherwise routine, mostly focusing on the city’s large stock of vacant buildings. The issue was best summed up by Ald. Mike Zalewski (23): “The very, very, very frustrating issue of a house that has been sitting and sitting, vacant and abandoned, and dilapidated, and rat infested, and squirrel infested.”

A more than three hour budget hearing for the Department of Transportation was a near replica of last year’s hearing: many requests to amend the aldermanic menu program, and many questions on a long-delayed, but much touted, citywide lighting project.

No questions were asked of the Board of Ethics Thursday, as the Council’s Budget Committee concluded the Board’s hearing in less than five minutes. It had to be a record.

An ordinance establishing minimum wage in Cook County is expected to face a committee hearing next week, sponsor Larry Suffredin (D-13) told The Daily Line. The ordinance, co-sponsored by Finance Chairman John Daley (D-11), already has eight of nine commissioner votes needed. It closely mirrors Chicago’s minimum wage ordinance and would bring minimum wages up to $13 per hour county-wide by July of 2019. It appears to be on the fast track: the item was introduced October 5.

The Chicago Board of Ethics approved a staff opinion Wednesday, which does not yet have binding effect, that would limit city elected officials from receiving sports tickets at any price, unless the elected official were invited to the game to perform some “ceremonial duty or action.” The opinion was debated behind closed doors in executive session by the Board of Ethics and will not be be voted on until next month’s Board meeting, according to newly-appointed Chair William Conlon. The opinion will not take effect until voted on.

Three high rise apartment and condo buildings will be under consideration at today’s Plan Commission meeting, as well as a major new manufacturing facility in Hegewisch to build new L cars.

 

The Cook County Board of Review, the body responsible for property tax appeals, saw its highest volume of appeals in the board’s history, Commissioner Michael Cabonargi (D) said at a roughly 30 minute budget hearing appearance Wednesday: 476,000 parcels during the Chicago triennial this past year, beating the 2009 peak of 439,000. The 2015 appeal spike increase is directly related to the property tax increase enacted in Chicago, fellow Commissioner Larry Rogers, Jr. (D) said, and has been expected by appeal-watchers. 50,178 individual taxpayers appealed, and 64.1% were successful in 2015, according to Board of Review data.

Commissioners pushed President Preckwinkle’s Chief of Staff Brian Hamer and Budget Director Tanya Anthony yesterday to explain certain staffing and raises in the President’s Office, bringing up cuts some commissioners’ had made, but others hadn’t. Comm. Robert Steele (D-2) singled out a press position within the President’s Office that appeared to have a $40,000 jump in salary, demanding an explanation. It’s the second salary conversation in as many days, with complaints that the budget books don’t tell the full story of how commissioners’ offices spend their money.  

Recorder of Deeds Karen Yarbrough, the subject of an upcoming binding ballot referendum that threatens the existence of her office, sat for a brief budget hearing Wednesday morning, as did Cook County Democratic Party Chairman and Assessor Joe Berrios.

Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago says a long-running discrimination lawsuit against the department’s hiring practices has “really put us behind the eight ball” in terms of keeping up with attrition rates. Santiago made the comments at an hour long hearing on his department’s proposed budget for 2017, which is seeing an $8.9 million increase over 2016.

Chicago’s plan to update its emergency radio system is expected to cost about $40 million over the next five years, and a current contract with Motorola is insufficient to cover the full implementation of the upgrade, Office of Emergency Management staff told aldermen Wednesday. The upgrade would encrypt all calls over the city’s emergency dispatch system, preventing people from listening in through a police scanner.

The disclosure was made during a nearly three-hour hearing with the new head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, Commissioner Alicia Tate-Nadeau, as she mainly fielded questions from aldermen about long response times for 911 calls, modernization plans for the city’s 311 system, as well as personal anecdotes from aldermen who are irritated with a plan from last year to move crossing guards from the police department to OEMC.

The Department of Human Resources has made minimal gains in minority hiring over the past year, several Black and Latino aldermen complained Wednesday. Both groups also raised skepticism that a new Chief Diversity Officer would improve those numbers. Efforts to broaden diversity among the Chicago Police Department’s new pool of recruits over the next two years were also called into question at a two hour hearing on DHR Commissioner Soo Choi’s proposed $7.2 million dollar budget.