Mayor Lori Lightfoot held an event on Thursday to celebrate Chicago’s minimum wage hitting $15 per hour.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot took advantage of Chicago’s scheduled bump to a $15 per hour minimum wage on Thursday to brandish the raft of pro-labor legislation passed on her watch, including ordinances designed to regulate workers’ schedules and crack down on wage theft. But labor groups have pushed the city to go even further, in part by hiking lower minimum wages allowed for tipped and disabled workers.

Ald. Carrie Austin (34) appearing alongside Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a 2019 event

Ald. Carrie Austin (34) and her chief of staff accepted home appliances and renovations as bribes in return for plying a developer’s project with city funding, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment handed down on Thursday.

Chicago Police Supt. David Brown speaks during a news conference on Thursday. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line] 

The City Council is set to meet Friday for the third time in 10 days for a special meeting aldermen forced to hear the Chicago Police Department’s plans to handle potential summer violence — but Mayor Lori Lightfoot is calling the purpose of the meeting into question.  

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Corporation Counsel Celia Meza and Assistant Corporation Counsel Jeff Levine talk during the June 23 City Council meeting. 

Following multiple City Council meetings during which aldermen called into question Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s enforcement of rules and procedures, more than 25 aldermen added their names to an order introduced last Friday asking the city’s corporation counsel for details on the City Council’s authority to retain its own parliamentarian. 

The tax “equalizer” is a key input that helps determine how Cook County officials calculate property taxes.

A new set of Cook County property data released by a state agency this week suggests the county assessor’s office and Board of Review collectively gave excessive breaks to a range of properties across the county, raising a fresh round of finger-pointing over fairness as officials prepare to calculate this fall’s round of tax bills.

Aldermen will gather virtually for a special City Council meeting Friday to probe Chicago Police Department leaders on their summer anti-violence strategy. Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle made a rare joint appearance to unveil a new monument to journalist Ida B. Wells. And a trio of freshman alderman emphasized their support for efforts to create a citywide network of bike lanes. 

DuSable Park sits just east of the Navy Pier Flyover. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

This article was originally published in Block Club Chicago.

CHICAGO — Community groups who have fought for decades for the completion of DuSable Park say they want their voices heard as Mayor Lori Lightfoot moves forward with her $40 million plan to honor Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.

Chicago Police Department Supt. David Brown during an August 2020 news conference [Chicago Police Department] 

Updated Wednesday 12:54 p.m.: Nearly half the City Council used a legal maneuver on Wednesday to trigger a special meeting designed to probe Chicago Police Department leaders about their plans to head off summer violence ahead of the July 4 weekend.

The virtual council meeting, now scheduled for 11 a.m. on Friday, follows through on a letter signed on Tuesday by 25 aldermen threatening to convene the special meeting if a powerful committee chair did not act this week to schedule a wide-ranging meeting to review police policies.

Pot entrepreneurs with social equity licenses would be able to open downtown under a proposal from Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36). [budding via Unsplash]

Cannabis dispensaries with “social equity” licenses would be allowed to bypass many of the city’s built-in zoning restrictions under a new ordinance introduced by Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) last week designed to help minority-owned firms break into the city’s fledgling legal weed industry.

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Chicago’s Grant Park

A broadly backed push to rename Cook County’s official Columbus Day holiday to Indigenous Peoples Day remains stuck in neutral as supporters struggle to whip up support from a majority of the 17-member Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot during a news conference on Monday.

Surrounded by other city and community leaders, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a program on Monday to bring 250 new affordable homes to North Lawndale as part of wider INVEST South/West initiative. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks in a news conference on Friday, after aldermen delayed a vote on a portion of her business recovery package involving sign permitting. [Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line]

Despite unanimously approving most of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s sweeping business recovery package, aldermen delayed a vote on a siphoned-off section of the ordinance in order to retain their power over permitting storefront signs — for now. 

A rendering of the proposed school renovation and senior living tower at the intersection of Marine Drive and Irving Park Road [KGiles/46th Ward] 

A new 22-story Uptown senior housing facility, a 150-unit apartment complex near McCormick Place and a 357-unit apartment and townhome development in Irving Park represent some of the highest-profile proposals among nearly a dozen planned development applications submitted to the City Council this month. 

Linda Tortolero (left) and Stephanie Love-Patterson speaking during a subject matter hearing on domestic and gender-related violence. 

Leaders of organizations that serve survivors of domestic and gender-based violence are asking the city to set aside $50 million in its 2022 budget to help meet demand in staffing and resources needed to help Chicagoans suffering abuse. 

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle during the Board of Commissioners’ first semi-in-person meeting in 15 months on Thursday

Cook County leaders plan to use their $1 billion in new funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to boost the county’s existing safety net programs, expand worker benefits and help the county’s 100-plus municipal governments use the new resources to the fullest, officials said Thursday.