Chicago’s Jackson Park [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Voters in three precincts in the city’s 5th Ward cast votes on Tuesday overwhelmingly in favor of preserving trees in Jackson Park and the South Shore Cultural Center Park instead of turning the land over to a controversial golf course expansion backed by Tiger Woods. The advisory question likely served as a bellwether on communities’ feelings about the golf project and other recent developments and proposals in the parks.

Real estate appraiser Samantha Steele, left, appears to have unseated Cook County Board of Review Comm. Michael Cabonargi in one of Tuesday’s biggest upsets.

Updated July 1, 9:45 a.m. For the first time in decades, voters have simultaneously ousted two sitting members of the Cook County Board of Review — an earth-shaking blow to the county’s tax assessment orthodoxy that could have far-reaching consequences for property owners from Barrington to Calumet City.

But one of the incoming commissioners has little time to celebrate as she works to fend off an explosive lawsuit from a fired campaign strategist that has already cast a cloud over her victory.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the process for choosing a new 12th Ward alderman once the current one leaves for a new elected position will mirror previous transitions. Community activists called on the mayor to name members of a new civilian oversight commission. And Lightfoot decried a new U.S. Supreme Court decision that limits the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to fight climate change.

Ald. George Cardenas (12) speaks during the Cook County Democratic Party slating event in December 2021.

More than a half-dozen Chicago elected officials asked voters last night for promotions that would have lifted them out of city government and given Mayor Lori Lightfoot the power to heavily reshape the composition of the City Council and its committees.

The candidates went one-for-seven. Few of the races were close.

Only 20 percent of registered voters in Chicago cast ballots in Tuesday’s primary election [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Despite the pristine weather offered by Illinois’ later-than-usual June Primary Election Day Tuesday, only 20.1 percent of registered voters had turned out and had their ballots counted by the time polls closed on Election Day.

A truck blocks a bike lane in Logan Square. (Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line]

The day after Chicago transportation officials announced a sweeping plan to add concrete barrier protections to all existing protected bike lanes by the end of 2023, the department is hosting the first meeting of a new forum meant to help collect public input on bike and pedestrian issues.

From left: Metropolitan Water Reclamation District candidate Patricia Theresa Flynn, judicial candidate Tom Nowinski, judicial candidate Diana Lopez, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi, judicial candidate Rena Van Tine, judicial candidate Tracie Porter and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle speak at a Cook County Democratic Party news conference and voting event in Kenwood on Tuesday. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Fritz Kaegi declared victory Tuesday night in his bid for a second term as Cook County Assessor, calling his modest but decisive win against challenger Kari Steele a sign that voters want him to stay on his mission to recalibrate the county’s property tax burden from homeowners onto downtown businesses.

Meanwhile, Cook County Board of Review Comm. Tammy Wendt (D-1) and Comm. Michael Cabonargi (D-2) both appeared on paths to defeat, heralding a shake-up on the appeals board charged with checking Kaegi’s math.

Anthony Quezada gives a victory speech at a watch party in Portage Park after winning a five-way race for Cook County Board of Commissioners 8th District. [Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line]

The Cook County Board of Commissioners’ left flank is set to be shored up next year as Anthony Quezada, a Northwest Side political organizer and longtime right hand to Chicago Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), jumped ahead of a crowded field to unseat two-term Comm. Luis Arroyo, Jr.

At the same time, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative took his place as the Republican Party’s nominee to succeed the retiring moderate Comm. Pete Silvestri (R-9), setting the stage for deeper polarization on the Democrat-dominated board responsible for setting the county’s $8 billion budget.

Clockwise from top-left: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and her challenger Richard Boykin; Assessor Fritz Kaegi and his challenger Kari Steele; Board of Review Comm. Tammy Wendt and her challenger Chicago Ald. George Cardenas (12) [Facebook]

Midterm elections can be low-profile affairs in Chicago, especially without a competitive gubernatorial primary at the top of Democratic ballots. But Tuesday’s election will mark a critical juncture for Cook County, offering a referendum on its controversial public safety strategy and its messy tax assessment regime.

Some powerful county executives, like county Clerk Karen Yarbrough, Treasurer Maria Pappas and Board of Review Comm. Larry Rogers (D-3), will face no competition in the polls this week. Neither will 10 of the 14 incumbent Cook County commissioners who are running for reelection.

Still, the range of competitive races could set the stage of a potential Republican resurgence on the Cook County Board of Commissioners. And the results will offer the latest indication of the Cook County Democratic Party’s power to swing races up and down the ballot.

Chicago Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady speaks during a committee meeting on Monday.

Chicago’s COVID-19 positivity rate is trending up, but the city’s top doctor told aldermen on Monday it wasn’t cause for alarm as fewer routine tests are being conducted or reported with schools out for the summer and many people administering their own rapid tests at home.

But Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady did begin to cite concern about what funding for her department and other public health departments across the country will look like once the well of federal COVID and American Rescue Plan dollars runs dry after 2024.

From left: Chicago Police Department Supt. David Brown, Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady and Ald. Jeanette Taylor speak during Friday’s committee hearing.

The leaders of Chicago’s police department, parks system and public school district have plenty of ideas in place to quell an expected wave of summer violence, and no shortage of funding to turn them into reality, they told aldermen Friday. But the City Council was skeptical on Friday that the institutions have the staffing power and the communication prowess to execute.

The council convened a joint hearing of its committees on public safety, education, health and special events to probe senior officials from the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Park District and Chicago Public Schools about their plans to keep young residents safe this summer. The special Friday afternoon meeting lasted more than three hours.

Chicago city leaders reacted on Friday to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. And the city’s top doctor on Monday is set to update aldermen on Chicago’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Clockwise from top-left: Luis Arroyo Jr., Anthony Quezada, Natalie Toro, Rory McHale and Edwin Reyes are vying to represent the 8th District on the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Cook County Board of Commissioners’ races often nab little public attention from voters. The 17 members on the county board don’t administer services or approve new real estate developments like aldermen do, and they don’t get to negotiate torrents of capital spending and navigate landmark legislation like state legislators.

But in an especially low-profile year, when just three Democrats and one Republican on the board are facing challengers from their own parties, Comm. Luis Arroyo, Jr. has attracted four primary challengers — more than all his colleagues combined. The challengers vary widely, but they agree Arroyo has failed in his role on the board responsible for setting the $8 billion budget that funds the county’s courts, jail, two public hospitals, tax collection offices and more.

Chicago Police Department Supt. David Brown speaks during a news conference in April 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

A four-way joint City Council committee hearing on Friday will give aldermen the opportunity to prod leaders of various city departments — including the Chicago Police Department and the Chicago Park District — on their plans to ensure community safety during the summer.

Ald. Anthony Beale (9) and Mayor Lori Lightfoot during Wednesday’s City Council meeting. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Backers of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2021 move to lower the threshold for speed camera tickets from 11 mph over the limit to 6 mph scuttled a scheduled Wednesday vote on a proposal to restore the threshold back to the higher limit.

Aldermen led by Ald. Jason Ervin (28) moved to defer and publish Ald. Anthony Beale’s (9) proposed speed camera ordinance during the Wednesday City Council meeting.