A tight group of North Side Democratic Party leaders is set to choose Sunday among seven candidates who want to be Lakeview and Lincoln Park’s next representative in Springfield.

Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20) vowed Wednesday to block a proposal crafted by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to prevent longtime residents from being pushed out of gentrifying parts of Woodlawn near the planned Obama Presidential Center that she said was totally inadequate.

In a fiery news conference at City Hall, Taylor said the mayor’s proposal would not protect Woodlawn residents from being pushed out of the area around the Obama Presidential Center, set to be built in Jackson Park. In addition, the freshman alderman accused Lightfoot and housing officials of disrespecting the largely Black and low-income community by crafting their own proposal, rather than endorsing the plan backed by a coalition of community groups.

“I was never told they were going to write their own ordinance,” Taylor said. “We are very smart, competent folks. We can come up with our own plan for our own community.”

A measure introduced by the mayor but opposed by the alderman whose ward it affects would be unlikely to pass, as aldermen would follow the unwritten but deeply entrenched practice of aldermanic prerogative.

Don Terry, a spokesman for the Chicago Department of Housing, said the Lightfoot administration was committed to "an inclusive approach to creating well-rounded legislation that will preserve access to housing for low- and middle-income residents in the area and ensure equitable, inclusive growth."

The mayor’s proposal would apply only to census tracts within three-fifths of a mile of the Obama Presidential Center. The proposed community benefits agreement backed by Taylor and the Obama CBA Coalition, which comprises seven groups, wants protections to apply to all properties within a two-mile radius of the center. While Woodlawn would be included in the mayor’s plan, most of South Shore and Washington Park would not.

Related: City unveils scaled-back plan for preserving affordable housing near Obama Center; Coalition blasts scaled-back plan for preserving affordable housing near Obama Presidential Center

The coalition’s proposal is designed to ensure that housing built on land now owned by the city is affordable to families earning $40,000 a year or less.

In addition, any new housing developments should be required to set aside 30 percent of their units for low- and moderate-income residents, according to the coalition’s proposal.

The coalition also demanded that the current proposal be expanded to include not only Woodlawn but also South Shore, Grand Crossing, Hyde Park, Washington Park and Kenwood.

“This is not what the community asked for, and they’ve said it over and over and over and over and over again,” Taylor said. “This doesn’t protect anybody.”

A majority of aldermen have endorsed the coalition’s proposal for a community benefits agreement.

The Obama Foundation and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel rebuffed the coalition’s demand for a community benefits agreement, but Lightfoot promised during the 2019 mayoral campaign to back legal protections for residents near the Obama Center.

Taylor said city officials had failed to take the demands of Woodlawn residents seriously because they are Black and low-income.

“If this was anywhere else there would not be a conversation,” Taylor said.

Taylor called the Lightfoot’s administration’s draft report outlining guidelines for development in Woodlawn near the planned Obama Center released Jan. 30 at a community meeting “a sham.”

“I don’t feel like this process has been fair,” Taylor said. “I’ve been told one thing, and another has been happening.”

The city must act immediately to stop gentrification and displacement, Taylor said, adding that she would “meet in the middle” to reach an agreement with the mayor.

Taylor said Lightfoot had given commissioners too much power as she works to end aldermanic prerogative.

“She thinks she does not have to listen to me and she does not have to work with me,” Taylor said. “So I’m going to fight her and everybody else on making sure that this doesn’t pass. It is either get right, or get right out of office.”

A federal judge will aim to set a trial date for indicted Ald. Ed Burke (14) in spring or summer of 2021, accommodating defense attorneys who said they need more time to sift through a “voluminous” trove of evidence in the corruption case, the judge said on Tuesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot moved Wednesday to tighten the rules permitting funds from Chicago’s tax-increment financing districts to be used to subsidize private developments.

Former state Rep. Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago) pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to bribery charges, delaying by at least six weeks a potential plea deal with federal prosecutors in their widening corruption investigation.

A DuPage County lawmaker introduced a measure Tuesday designed to strip Chicago aldermen of decision-making power over ward-level issues, saying state lawmakers should limit city officials’ ability to block new developments as part of an anti-corruption push.

State Rep. Deanne Mazzochi (R-Westmont) told The Daily Line Tuesday the executive order issued by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to end aldermanic prerogative on her first day in office  is “a good start,” but that state oversight is needed.

“People should be able to come to Chicago and get a fair shake and not a shake down,” said Mazzochi, who is running for a second term representing the 47th District. “This is an opportunity for a fresh start.”

HB4484, which Mazzochi dubbed the End Aldermanic Privilege Law, would order city officials not to reject “any approvals under the Zoning Division … because of an aldermanic hold, objection, extra-judicial or extra-legal request.”

The proposed law would give the city a year to approve a development after first receiving the proposal.

If the measure passes, and an alderman blocks a proposal, the city could be forced to pay a “$5,000 civil penalty and other damages” as a result of a future lawsuit brought by the stymied development.

Mazzochi said she was moved to act by the 14-count indictment of Ald. Ed Burke (14), which alleges that Burke repeatedly — and brazenly — used his powerful position at City Hall to force those doing business with the city to hire his private law firm. Burke has pleaded not guilty.

The sort of “shady back room deals” Burke is accused of must be stopped, Mazzochi said.

“This is one very small step in protecting people’s property rights,” Mazzochi said.

While Mazzochi said she informed Lightfoot’s Springfield lobbyist that she planned to introduce the bill, she has not spoken with members of the Chicago delegation about the proposal.

A bill scaling back Chicago’s home-rule powers would be unlikely to pass without support from lawmakers representing the city.

Lightfoot’s efforts to root out aldermanic prerogative have advanced only in fits and starts during her first months in office, pushed to the back burner by a strike by a teachers strike, the search for a new Chicago Police superintendent and a massive budget deficit.

Lightfoot has said she remains committed to changing the city’s zoning code to strike at the heart of aldermen’s power.



The zoning code is the ultimate authority on what can be built on each street in Chicago. The code, which runs to hundreds of pages, is designed to set rules for developers and builders while allowing city officials to reject requests for changes that they decide are a bad fit for neighborhoods or could hurt property values.

Aldermen exercise their prerogative at every committee meeting and at every council meeting on items ranging from sign permits to liquor licenses. But most of aldermen’s historic clout comes from the fact that they alone have had the power to approve — or veto — proposals for new housing complexes or commercial developments.

Any proposal to change the zoning code would need the approval of the City Council.

Supporters of aldermanic prerogative tout it as the best way to ensure that Chicago residents live in neighborhoods governed by one of their own: someone who lives near them, understands their issues and is not only accessible — but also accountable to them on Election Day.

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas will create space in her first-floor office to help residents respond to the U.S. Census, using her office to help people without computers be counted by the federal government.

The Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse is set to witness a doubleheader of action in the sprawling corruption investigations that have roiled City Hall and the Capitol on Tuesday, with former State Rep. Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago) set to be arraigned hours after Ald. Ed Burke (14) could hear when he will face a trial.

Arroyo is set to appear before U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger at 1:30 p.m., when he could plead guilty to corruption charges. Arroyo was arrested and charged in October for allegedly offering to bribe to an unnamed state senator by paying him $2,500 per month for one year in exchange for the senator’s support on legislation that would benefit a client he was working for at the city level.

But that state senator was wearing a wire for the FBI.

Federal prosecutors filed a charging document on Jan. 17 known as an information, which typically indicates that a defendant plans to plead guilty.

According to the criminal complaint, Arroyo began paying bribes in August to a state senator who has been cooperating with the feds since 2016. That senator has been a cooperating witness for the FBI even before it was revealed he had filed false income tax returns. The unnamed senator’s cooperation began again afterward, but the complaint says he has not been promised anything in exchange for working with the feds.

State Sen. Terry Link (D-Vernon Hills), a 22-year veteran of the state Senate, has repeatedly denied being the FBI source.

However, there is no indication the case against Burke is anywhere near a final resolution.

U.S. District Judge Robert Dow could decide at a Tuesday morning hearing on whether to set a trial date in early 2021 for Burke, who is running for re-election in March as the 14th Ward Democratic committeeperson, and his two co-defendants, Peter J. Andrews and real estate developer Charles Cui.

Burke, Andrews and Cui are not expected to appear at the hearing. All three have pleaded not guilty.

The additional time before a trial would to allow both sides to sift through a massive trove of documents and recordings that could be used as evidence against Burke, Andrews and Cui.

The indictment released Thursday by the Department of Justice alleges that Burke repeatedly — and brazenly — used his powerful position at City Hall to force those doing business with the city to hire his private law firm.

Read the full timeline of allegations laid out by prosecutors.

Much of the timeline relies on wiretaps, direct quotes and recordings made by former colleague Ald. Danny Solis (25).

Burke pleaded not guilty, his attorneys said. Any allegations that Chicago’s longest-serving alderman “abused his position as a public official for personal gain is simply not true,” and the charges “are unfounded and not based on actual evidence,” according to his lawyers.

Three years after the city’s watchdog found that the Chicago Police Department wasted millions of dollars on overtime, fueling officer burnout, efforts to overhaul the system are a “work in progress,” a follow-up audit released Monday found.

Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s name isn’t on the ballot in March, but the changes he's made to how the county’s millions of properties are assessed is at the center of the race to win a position charged with checking Kaegi’s math.

Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin will hold four town hall meetings during the next several weeks as part of an effort to make the little-known office a resource for Chicagoans struggling to launch businesses or land investors.

Breaking from the behind-the-scenes path taken by her predecessors, Conyears-Ervin said she is determined to leverage her control of the city’s approximately $9 billion investment portfolio to help boost Chicago’s economically struggling communities by publicly holding the financial institutions the city does business with “accountable.”

Cook County leaders have a message for high schoolers across the region: We want your help designing a new flag to fly over our public buildings.

State Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado (D-Chicago) took her seat in the Illinois House of Representatives on Wednesday, hopeful that the storm of controversy that greeted her appointment has passed — even as Gov. JB Pritzker vowed to crack down on the kind of corruption that prompted her appointment.

Scooters will return to Chicago’s streets this summer — but only as part of a second pilot program after city officials concluded that the first test run of the two-wheelers ended with “mixed results.”

 Chicago aldermen put off considering a measure calling for the city to take the first step toward decriminalizing magic mushrooms and peyote.