Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during an event in Bronzeville Monday to announce the 26 finalists to receive $33.5 million in combined Community Development Grants. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

More than two-dozen small businesses around the city will get a piece of a $33.5 million chunk of new public money devoted to capital projects, city leaders announced on Monday. The first round of finalists in the city’s “Community Development Grants” program represents an expansion of the city’s business grant programming enabled by $660 million in capital bonds the city issued last year to supplement the $1.9 billion the city received from the American Rescue Plan Act.

A rendering of the Englewood Square development at the intersection of 63rd and Halsted streets. [City of Chicago]

A proposal to build a new apartment complex "live-work" spaces in the heart of Englewood was among a handful of applications for major new South Side developments submitted to the City Council last week. If approved, the development would represent a much-needed victory for the emerging “Englewood Square” district after Friday’s announcement from Whole Foods that it would gut the district by closing its store at the site.

Lightfoot announces details of cash assistance programs during a February news conference.

It took just a week for more than 100,000 people to apply for one of the 5,000 spots in Chicago’s $31.5 million guaranteed basic income pilot program, city officials said on Friday.

Members of the ECPS Coalition speak during a news conference on Wednesday [Erin Hegarty/The Daily Line]

What do community advocates, pastors, a former alderman and a state representative’s chief of staff all have in common? They are all part of a group of 14 finalists to be on the city’s first-of-its-kind citywide civilian committee tasked with overseeing the Chicago Police Department.

An effort to expand the rights of private booting companies to operate freely in all 50 wards was shot down at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30) introduced an ordinance Wednesday that would have granted towing companies permission to expand their private booting practice to lots across the city. Currently the practice is only allowed in 34 wards. It was co-sponsored by Ald. Raymond Lopez (15). 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot defends her gas and transit card giveaway plan at the Wednesday City Council meeting. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to spend $12.5 million on prepaid gas and transit cards as relief for Chicago residents facing high gas prices gained just enough support during Wednesday’s City Council meeting to squeak by and be approved.

Ald. Michele Smith (43) and Ald. Daniel La Spata (1) during Wednesday’s City Council meeting. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

An alderwoman sidetracked a new proposal by Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday to crack down on water shutoffs, saying the mayor has ignored a better proposal that has been holed up in committee. It was one of multiple pieces of new legislation banished to the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules during the council’s monthly meeting on Wednesday, including proposals to tighten city ethics restrictions and to legalize car booting across the city.

Ald. Nicole Lee (11) speaks during a news conference on Tuesday. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]

The City Council coalition supporting a new ward map proposed by the council’s Committee on Committees and Rules beefed up its ranks on Wednesday when the council’s newest member, Ald. Nicole Lee (11), became the 34th aldermen to lend their support for the map.

Aldermen are set on Wednesday to vote on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to give away $12.5 million in gas and transit cards. [Mack Liederman/Block Club Chicago]

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to give away $12.5 million in prepaid gas cards and transit cards is set to face a City Council vote on Wednesday, nearly one month after the mayor announced her so-called transportation relief plan. Lightfoot’s proposal has undergone a barrage of changes in an attempt to ease aldermen’s qualms about equity and spending taxpayer money on gas.

But it’s unclear whether the tweaks will be enough for Lightfoot’s proposal to gain the required 26 votes the ordinance needs to pass following a tight committee vote last week.

Left: An example of a “stick-built” and modular home built as part of the Reclaiming Chicago Communities initiative in North Lawndale. Right: Ald. Michael Scott (24) speaks during a meeting of the City Council Zoning Committee on Tuesday. [Department of Planning and Development / City Clerk’s Office]

A City Council committee took a step toward implementing an ongoing city program to build 100 affordable new single-family homes on vacant lots in North Lawndale. But that’s just the beginning, said Ald. Michael Scott (24), who set a moonshot goal of “hopefully” seizing on grant funds and partnering with nonprofit builders to put up 1,000 new houses in the hollowed-out neighborhood.

The Cook County Board of Ethics re-upped a finding of a violation against a Board of Review commissioner. A city watchdog office found the Chicago Fire Department has made some progress toward snuffing out sexual harassment and discrimination, but more work remains. Cook County court officials say eviction orders are lower than they were before the pandemic, a sign they see as a result of government interventions. And a working group of aldermen on Tuesday released the names of 14 finalists for the interim civilian commission tasked with oversight of the Chicago Police Department.

From left: Ald. Tom Tunney (44), CFO Jennie Huang Bennett and Deputy Mayor Samir Mayekar speak during a committee hearing on Monday.

Aldermen did not hold back in pelting city officials with their questions and concerns on all three of the potential locations and proposals for a potential Chicago casino, and all agreed that future casino employees need to be allowed to unionize.

Ald. Raymond Lopez (15), right, and Chicago Department of Water Management Deputy Comm. Joel Vieyra during a City Council finance committee meeting on Monday

Aldermen seized on a technical change meant to save money on water infrastructure projects to lash officials on Monday over what they called an unacceptable slowdown in water department projects. The department is slated to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on pipe replacements this year — but they’re already tempering expectations among procurement hurdles and regulatory red tape.

Ald. Michele Smith (43), left, and Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) speak during a press conference on Monday.

Two days ahead of the last regular City Council meeting before the final deadline to reach an agreement on a new ward map, supporters of the map drawn under the Rules Committee leadership took a new approach calling the opposing map a “protection plan for Alderman Ed Burke.”

It was the latest push by the rules committee group to prevent an effort by the City Council Latino Caucus to force a vote that would allow its updated “People’s Coalition Map” onto the June 28 ballot.

Clockwise from top-left: Cook County Board of Review Comm. Larry Rogers (D-3), Comm. Frank Aguilar (D-16), Comm. Kevin Morrison (D-15), county Bureau of Technology chief Tom Lynch and Assessor’s Office chief of staff Sarah Garza Resnick speak during a committee meeting on Monday.

The Cook County Board of Review will try to temporarily claw back some retired staffers to try and catch up from a months-long delay in property tax assessments, officials said Monday. But there’s no telling whether that will be enough to get bills pushed out by December, which is seen as a critical deadline to avoid a financial headache for thousands of taxing bodies and millions of property owners.