Aldermen during an April 2021 City Council meeting. [Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times/pool]

Leadership of two City Council committees is up in the air after two aldermen who each chaired one of the council’s 19 committees have resigned during the past three months and a new election cycle looms.

The Bella Noir Wellness Hub proposed for 601-621 E. 47th St. [Seek Design + Architecture]

Members of an advisory committee on design applauded two developments proposed along Chicago’s Invest South/West corridors for their “bold” designs that are also “sensitive” to the communities where they’re planned.

CTA President Dorval Carter speaks during a City Club event Thursday.

The CTA plans to update its schedules to more accurately reflect how frequently buses and training are running, agency President Dorval Carter said Thursday during an address to the City Club of Chicago.

U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.) says he is still considering a run for Chicago mayor. And a newly launched Cook County grant program funded with federal stimulus dollars aims to help suburban manufacturers.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot presents the 2023 budget forecast Wednesday [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Chicago is facing a projected $127.9 million budget gap for the 2023 fiscal year as the City Council heads into budget season, Mayor Lightfoot said on Wednesday.

Ald. Sophia King (4) announced on Wednesday that she plans to run for mayor in 2023 (Don Vincent/The Daily Line)

Ald. Sophia King (4) announced on Wednesday that she is running for mayor in 2023, becoming the third sitting alderman to announce a challenge against Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

A biker rides in the Milwaukee Avenue bike lane. [Hannah Alani/Block Club Chicago]

More than 18,000 people submitted applications for a free bike and safety equipment including helmets and locks from the city during an 18-day application window.

The Bella Noir Wellness Hub proposed for 601-621 E. 47th St. [Seek Design + Architecture]

The design of two developments proposed as part of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Invest South/West program that invests directly in South and West side neighborhoods will come under scrutiny from a planning department committee Wednesday.

Two maps from the Chicago Department of Public Health show areas with the most cases of monkeypox virus and where vaccines for the virus have been distributed.

Chicago public health officials have “ramped up” testing for the monkeypox virus as the number of confirmed cases in Chicago residents has grown to 556 as of Monday afternoon, the city’s top doctor told aldermen during a committee hearing.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx speaks at an April 2022 news conference. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx hasn’t properly set up her sprawling office to withstand the barrage of high-profile resignations that have left prosecutors reeling, a senior Cook County commissioner said Friday.

North-suburban Comm. Larry Suffredin (D-13), who ran unsuccessfully for State’s Attorney in 2008, called the mass exodus from Foxx’s office a symptom of the “great resignation” that has stretched payrolls thin across Cook County offices and in workplaces across the country.

Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady speaks at a news conference at City Hall on Thursday.

Demand for Monkeypox vaccinations and testing services still far outweigh supply as the Northalsted neighborhood prepares to host the Market Days festival this weekend — but more help is on the way, Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady said during a news conference on Thursday.

The City Council voted last month to grant a property tax incentive to an office building at 2017 N. Mendell St. over the objection of officials in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, who said the benefit was unnecessary. [Baker Development Corporation]

Chicago’s intricate web of tax incentives designed to spur private investment and development sapped more than $92 million in property tax revenues that would have otherwise flowed into the city’s coffers last year, an annual financial audit shows.

The figure is almost enough to eclipse the approximately $94 million hike in the city’s property tax levy that Mayor Lori Lightfoot squeezed through the City Council for the 2021 budget year.

The cost of the city’s tax breaks was one takeaway from the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the year 2021, which also showed the city beat its projections on both revenues and spending while making meager progress on shoring up its anemic pension funds.

Maps show the areas in dark-gray where property tax increment will be used to pay for the 5.6-mile Red Line Extension, shown on the dotted red line. [CTA/SB Friedman Advisors]

Chicago and CTA planning officials leapt forward last week in their long-promised mission to extend the city’s most used transit line by releasing a detailed funding plan that relies in part on culling future tax revenues from some downtown and Near South Side residents.

The controversial new financing mechanism promises to raise up to $950 million for the herculean rail project — not by hiking or imposing any new taxes, but by diverting natural property tax growth from chunks of the Loop, South Loop, Armour Square, Bridgeport, Chinatown and Douglas neighborhoods into a special construction fund for the next 35 years.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle (top right) speaks on a virtual panel on local American Rescue Plan Act spending hosted by government think tank Results for America.

As Chicago and Cook County leaders ramp up their reelection campaigns and prepare for fall budget hearings, they’re benefitting daily from a combined nearly $3 billion bonanza of federal money earmarked for a range of new programming from violence prevention and mental health to neighborhood development and cultural grants — most of which has either yet to be spent or has only just hit the streets.

But with a likely economic slowdown on the horizon, fiscal watchdogs are still waiting to hear how city and county officials plan to keep the bottom from falling out from hundreds of millions of dollars in new programming after the last dollar of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) is required to be spent in 2026.

City arts officials unveiled nearly 300 winners of cultural grants stemming from an expanded public arts funding program. And Cook County leaders touted a step forward in their push to bring landlords into compliance with new tenant protection rules.