From left: Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Department of Housing Comm. Marisa Novara and Bickerdike Development CEO Joy Aruguete speak at the grand opening of the Lucy Gonzalez Parsons apartments in Logan Square in May. [Twitter/Chicago Department of Housing]

An ordinance representing the culmination of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s legislative efforts to disrupt Chicago’s racial segregation and blunt aldermen’s powers to block affordable proposals in their own wards is finally set for a vote on Tuesday. But negotiations between the mayor’s administration and powerful aldermen have defanged the plan of some of its sharpest provisions.

The tent city at Belmont Avenue and the Kennedy Expressway in November 2019. [Mina Bloom/Block Club Chicago]

Chicago leaders are seizing on tens of millions of dollars in federal cash to expand the city’s homeless shelter network, but they acknowledged the endeavor will still only reach a fraction of Chicago’s population experiencing homelessness.

The city’s Department of Family and Support Services Comm. Brandie Knazze detailed the expansion of the city’s shelter system through the conversion of hotels and motels during Monday’s meeting of the City Council’s Subcommittee on the Chicago Recovery Plan. The meeting was the fourth of six meetings being held by aldermen to check in on the city’s spending of Chicago’s federal stimulus dollars as a part of the Chicago Recovery Plan.

Chicago Park District leaders also used the meeting to describe how they are using federal funds to expand the system’s infrastructure, and cycling advocates seized on the meeting to demand safer streets.

A City Council committee on Monday approved a proposal that would crack down on people who are caught drag racing and drifting in the city. The rules committee is set to meet Tuesday to consider a portion of a proposed ethics code overhaul.

Chicago Board of Ethics executive director Steve Berlin gives a presentation on the ethics ordinance that passed committee on Friday.

An effort to crack down on nepotism, widen conflict-of-interest restrictions and hike fines for ethics violations by city officials glided through a unanimous committee vote late Friday, bringing the proposal to the verge of implementation after months of debate and confusion.

Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29) speaks during a committee meeting Friday.

Aldermen on Friday shifted a general conversation about police oversight to focus on how the city is responding to officers’ mental health needs, giving a glimpse into possible hot-button issues in the upcoming budget season.

Creola Hampton, president and founder of the Black Leadership Advocacy Coalition for Healthcare Equity, left, and Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady speak during a committee meeting on Friday.

A group of Black nonprofit health group leaders and some aldermen put Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady on the defensive on Friday over what they called a trickle of money flowing to Black-led community groups, a condition they blamed for widening racial disparities in diagnoses of HIV and other health crises.

The accusations flew during a more than two-hour meeting of the City Council Committee on Health and Human Relations on Friday, when committee chair Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) called a subject matter hearing to discuss the city’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Black community. The committee on Friday also passed resolutions urging city leaders to release more information surrounding a botched 2020 demolition and to support international efforts at nuclear disarmament.

[Pexels]

Portions a proposal by Mayor Lori Lightfoot that would water shutoffs will get a second chance on Monday after a vote on the proposal was delayed earlier this year.

The “Evergreen Imagine” affordable housing complex in Auburn Gresham is in line for a city-backed loan. [Department of Planning and Development]

The City Council Committee on Finance is scheduled during its 10 a.m. meeting on Monday to pave the way for $82 million in new bonding authority for a handful of affordable housing developments around the city, including new apartment complexes in Invest South/West corridors in Englewood and Austin.

Also lined up for approval will be nearly $130 million in tax-increment financing disbursements, including $2 million for the renovation of the Ramova Theater in Bridgeport, $37.5 million for a gym annex at Dett Elementary School on the Near West Side and $12.4 million for a roof replacement at Whitney Young Magnet High School.

Finally, the committee is set to green-light more than $12 million in legal settlements, including a $6.75 million payout for a man who served 15 years in prison based on evidence he alleges was forged by Chicago police officers.

Ald. Harry Osterman (48) during an April City Council meeting. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line] 

Ald. Harry Osterman (48) will not seek a fourth term as alderman of the North Side ward that includes Edgewater, Andersonville and parts of Uptown, he announced in an email to constituents on Friday. 

“As someone who deeply loves this community this was not an easy decision. However, I feel that the time is right to make this transition,” wrote in his letter announcing his retirement. “I will continue to serve and work on behalf of our community as Alderman for the remainder of my term, which will end next May.” 

A compromise ethics proposal primed for a vote on Friday would ban former aldermen from walking the City Council floor during meetings but would stop short of forcing aldermen out of the room when they recuse themselves from votes. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

A beleaguered legislative push to tighten ethics and lobbying restrictions on city employees is finally primed for a vote on Friday after months of negotiations that softened some of the proposal’s edges but left most of its core provisions intact.

The ordinance authored by City Council Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight chair Ald. Michele Smith (43) and backed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot is set for direct introduction and a vote in the ethics committee when it reconvenes at 3 p.m. on Friday. The compromise measure had been primed for a vote on Wednesday, but Smith recessed the meeting to give her staff and the mayor’s administration an extra 48 hours to come to terms on language.

The public safety committee is set to hear reports from the Office of Inspector General, helmed by Deborah Witzburg, left, and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, helmed by Andrea Kersten.

Aldermen in the City Council’s public safety committee are scheduled to hear a slew of presentations Friday ranging from a 2021 public safety recap from the Inspector General to the fifth Independent Monitoring Report on the federal consent decree the police department has been under since 2019.

A drone video captured footage of the dust debris from a smokestack implosion that blanketed nearby Little Village homes in dust. [Alejandro Reyes/YouTube]

A City Council committee is poised to send a shot across the bow to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration on Friday by formally calling for the release of a city watchdog’s full report on the lead-up and aftermath of a botched April 2020 demolition that blanketed a nearby neighborhood in dust.

The City Council Committee on Health and Human Relations is scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. Friday to take up four non-binding resolutions proposed by various aldermen. They include a resolution (R2022-73) proposed in January by Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22) calling on the city’s law department to “immediately release” a full disciplinary investigation undertaken by then-Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s office on the city’s handling of the April 11, 2020 incident.

A vote on a proposed drag racing crackdown stalled in committee on Thursday. And the city released a draft of a citywide plan.

From left: former Chicago alderman Bob Fioretti, former Cook County commissioner Tony Peraica and fired former Cook County Board of Review staffer Todd Thielmann are looking to run as Republicans for top countywide posts.

Attorney and former Chicago alderman Bob Fioretti is turning to Cook County Republicans to stamp his ticket for his sixth political campaign in seven years as he tops a full slate of familiar faces hoping to work their way back into elected office.

An increasingly thin presence in solidly Democratic Cook County, Republicans are regrouping and hoping to seize on a favorable political environment this year to win back some of the territory they’ve lost over the decades. The effort includes fielding a full roster of candidates running in citywide and district-level positions across the county.

A vote on a proposal to overhaul the city’s ethics code was delayed until Friday. And a City Council committee is set to consider a plan to expand the city’s ability to impound cars involved in drag racing.