Chicago Department of Assets, Information and Services Comm. David Reynolds speaks at the kickoff of the city’s “Chicago Works” capital plan in April 2021 [City of Chicago] 

Chicago Department of Assets, Information and Services Comm. David Reynolds will step down on Monday after nearly 11 years overseeing Chicago’s hundreds of buildings and thousands of vehicles, he announced on The Daily Line’s CloutCast podcast. He will move to the Obama Foundation, where he will oversee management of the Obama Presidential Center now under construction in Jackson Park.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot touts her record of anti-poverty programs during an event on Thursday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot released new details Thursday on the city’s hotly anticipated guaranteed income pilot program, pitching it as part of a multi-pronged anti-poverty campaign that will also include relief for domestic workers, undocumented residents and people who have accumulated car ticket debt.

Former 11th Ward Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson resigned last week. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line] 

Just over a week ago, Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11) submitted his official letter of resignation from City Council as he was required to do after a federal jury found him guilty of lying to federal banking officials and filing false income tax returns. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a plan on Wednesday to fill Thompson’s 11th Ward seat, a process over which she has final say. But in the interim, the 11th Ward is without an aldermen, and some of Thompson’s previously introduced legislation hangs in limbo without an aldermanic sponsor.  

Related: With Daley Thompson ‘guilty’ verdict, clock begins ticking to appoint new 11th Ward alderman 

Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Iris Martinez speaking to reporters after giving her “State of the Clerk’s Office” address on Dec. 1, 2021, the anniversary of her swearing-in. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line] 

Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Iris Martinez has made real progress on critical ethics and hiring reforms during her first year in office — but not enough to live up to her campaign promises or the hopes of good government advocates, according to a new report released by a trio of watchdog groups.  

Martinez’s office called the report misleading, saying her administration is doing its best to dig the office out from the dysfunction left by her predecessor. 

Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29) (left) moved to defer and publish Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s gang asset forfeiture proposal during Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to sue gang leaders and seize their assets hit a snag on Wednesday when two supporters of the proposed ordinance moved to temporarily delay a vote on the matter, a move widely interpreted as a sign that it lacked enough support to pass. 

A group of aldermen are proposing an ordinance that would prohibit the city from investing most of its assets from fossil fuel companies. [Maxim Tolchinskiy on Unsplash]

Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin is joining a handful of aldermen to introduce a City Council ordinance on Wednesday designed to forbid the city from investing approximately $6.7 billion in assets with a list of major fossil fuel companies.  

The measure was among dozens of new ordinances and resolutions introduced to the council this week, including a new plan to give the City Council independent legal representation, a call for the city to consider loosening COVID-19 rules for people who have already been infected and an agreement advancing a plan to open west access to O’Hare Airport. 

A September 2021 City Council meeting [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago] 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s controversial plan to let city attorneys sue gang leaders for their assets is in line for a final vote by the City Council during its meeting on Wednesday, setting the stage for a final public debate over whether the ordinance will help the city wrangle crime or only make matters worse.  

The council is also set to approve about $4.4 million in police misconduct settlements, finalize a long-delayed appointment to head a key police investigatory office and move to tighten aldermen’s control over special event permits in their own wards. 

Ald. Sophia King (4) and the Department of Law’s Mark Siegel speak during a committee meeting on Tuesday.

After terse discussions pitting legal concerns against aldermanic involvement in the special events permitting process, aldermen on Tuesday gave initial OK to a proposal that would lengthen the advance notification period required for special events and require city officials to make an extra effort to notify aldermen of upcoming fairs or festivals planned in their own wards. 

Chicago leaders confirmed the city will loosen its COVID-19 mask and vaccination requirements on Monday. A 42-unit apartment proposal in West Lakeview was the largest development proposal to earn approval from an uncharacteristically light zoning committee meeting on Tuesday. And the City Council is set to vote on a measure approved by a key committee on Tuesday that would allow electronic voting during council meetings.

A rendering of the five-story, 42-unit apartment building planned at 3443 N. Ashland Ave. [44th Ward]

A proposal for a new 42-unit apartment building in West Lakeview is the largest development item up for approval during a relatively low-key meeting of the City Council Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards at 10 a.m. Tuesday. 

Aldermen are set on Tuesday to lay the groundwork for electronic voting during City Council meetings. And another council committee is scheduled to consider an ordinance that would give aldermen more notice for special events in their wards. 

A slide from a presentation by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events shows renovation plans for the restaurant in Millennium Park.

After a delayed vote earlier this month, a key City Council committee on Friday sent a proposal to award two new liquor licenses in Millennium Park to the full council for approval this week. 

Community members, leaders and activists lay in the street in Logan Square to call on Mayor Lightfoot to deny the permit to move General Iron to the Southeast Side on the 30th day of the hunger strike on March 4, 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago] 

This article first published in Block Club Chicago.  

The city’s health department Friday rejected the final permit needed for a controversial metal scrapper to open on the Southeast Side, a victory for local activists who spent years organizing to block the industrial facility’s move from the North Side. 

Ald. Matt Martin (47) and Chicago Police Department Deputy Chief Ernest Cato speak during a committee meeting Thursday. 

A controversial proposal by Mayor Lori Lightfoot that would empower city attorneys to sue gang leaders for their assets cleared a key committee hurdle on Thursday, lining it up for final approval for the City Council next week. The measure advanced despite a crush of challenges from aldermen who said expanding asset forfeitures could be costly at best and harmful at worst with scant hard evidence that the policy could make a dent in crime. 

From left: Ald. Leslie Hairston (5), Ald. Jason Ervin (28) and Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38) speaking during a committee meeting on Thursday. 

In a split vote, aldermen gave initial approval to a more than $1.6 million payment to settle a lawsuit brought by a woman who alleged that her constitutional rights were violated when police officers pulled her by her hair from a car and placed a knee on her neck at the Brickyard Mall in May 2020.