Chicago News
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As another Springfield state legislative session closes with the real possibility that Chicago Public Schools may not receive the funding it budgeted for, CEO Forrest Claypool used a sold out City Club luncheon speech Tuesday to double down on his claim that the state is purposefully discriminating against the school district.
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MAY 27, 2017
UNLOCKEDFor the second year in a row, Chicago Public Schools has found itself in the direst of financial positions. Having built a budget on expectations of state funding and then spending a year blaming Springfield, CPS is once again faced with with the challenge of finding enough cash to make its annual pension payment and while keeping schools open. When the clock ran out last year and the pension bill came due on June 30th, CPS was forced to borrow $200 million from banks. Last Friday, they announced plans to do it again.
While it’s troubling that the school district is repeating the same budgetary mistakes of last year, the district’s finances suffer from an almost total lack of transparency, as you’ll hear from several aldermen throughout the episode. It opens with an exchange between Ald. Leslie Hairston (5) and Budget Director Alex Holt from October 2015. -
A new city agency in charge of investigating Chicago police officers launches September 15, giving the new oversight office just over 100 days to finish filling 25% of its roughly 140 budgeted staff positions. Codified by an ordinance approved last fall, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) will replace the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA).
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A months-long plot to force a vote on an ordinance that would increase oversight of the Chicago Housing Authority and set specific, annual benchmarks for required public housing units and vouchers fizzled ahead of Wednesday’s full City Council meeting. While the details of why it waned are murky–did the sponsors fumble on purpose or was it poor planning–the timing is not in doubt.
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Addressing a federal appeals decision made in January that found the city’s zoning requirements on shooting ranges unconstitutional, the City Council unanimously approved new rules that expand the list of allowed zoning classifications, while keeping a robust community review process in place. Though the item created a stir at last month’s Council meeting, no opposition was presented Wednesday. The same could be said of every other item before the Council.
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A small group of aldermen on the city’s Health and Environmental Protection Committee heard testimony Tuesday afternoon on the need for more trash resources and the migration of urban wildlife, but the meeting had low attendance. Chairman George Cardenas (12) said the whole City Council needed a chance to sound off on the issues.
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Aldermen on the city’s Budget Committee accepted private, state, and federal grant funds for several initiatives Tuesday morning–including $1 million from the Chicago Cubs for about 30 new cameras around Wrigley Field. Chairman Carrie Austin (34), reflecting on the Monday terrorist attack in Manchester and other bombings in high traffic areas, said she’s “glad to see it happen.” Aldermen also accepted $186,000 in federal funds for a transportation initiative to cut down on traffic injuries and fatalities.
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With the decline in state and federal aid for substance and mental health programs, especially for the current and formerly incarcerated, city and county officials are looking for ways to combine resources to address the revolving door of the criminal justice system.
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MAY 23, 2017
After three hours of both pro and con testimony from 104 people Monday afternoon, the City Council Zoning Committee passed by voice vote a zoning change from a B1-1 to a B3-5 and a planned development for a proposed storage facility at 5150 N. Northwest Hwy. in the Jefferson Park neighborhood. While the five-story project from LSC Development was nominally about a storage, the testimony, protests and a press conference held earlier that afternoon was much more about neighborhood resistance to increased density, accusations of racism and old battle lines redrawn for the 2019 45th Ward Aldermanic campaign. -
MAY 23, 2017
After sitting in Rules Committee for nearly a year, an ordinance reinstating the city’s head tax was sent to Finance on Monday morning. The ordinance’s sponsor, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), intended to bring the ordinance directly to the floor for a vote at Wednesday’s full City Council meeting. He filed the Rule 41 request with the City Clerk as is required under the Council’s Rules of Procedures.
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The Council’s Health Committee has two resolutions on its 11:00 a.m. Tuesday agenda: one calls on aldermen to re-enforce the city’s litter laws and combat “filthy neighborhoods”, the other requests members of the Urban Wildlife institute brief aldermen on the state of urban wildlife in Chicago.
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The Council’s Zoning Committee on Monday morning approved a new member for the Zoning Board of Appeals and a seven-story, 111-unit mixed-use development for Rogers Park that includes a new Target store and 65 units reserved for Chicago Housing Authority voucher holders.
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Amidst routine approval of spending Open Impact fees on local projects ($40,000 for planning a River Park near Pilsen and $1.7 million to turn a plaza into a turf field at Wells Community High School), Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) took the opportunity to question the Department of Planning and Development’s Meg Gustavsen on the appropriate use of developer fees. It was one way to tell the administration and fellow aldermen: hands off the fees from the North Branch PMD.
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The Chicago Board of Ethics met Monday, but didn’t dole out any penalties related to improper lobbying. “The Board voted to issue one letter of probable cause on a matter that had been deferred at the April [meeting], and dismissed one of the subjects in another matter in which it earlier found probable cause,” Executive Director Steve Berlin told The Daily Line.
