The City Council Committee on Finance approved nearly $3 million in police-related settlements on Monday, including a $2 million payout related to a woman killed in a high-speed chase in 2018. [UnSplash/Scott Rodgerson]

A City Council committee advanced a $2 million payout on Monday to settle a lawsuit tied to a 2018 high-speed police chase that ended in a woman’s death. But multiple aldermen resisted the deal in the latest sign of the City Council’s growing restlessness with city attorneys over misconduct lawsuits.

A proposed ordinance will allow bar owners to invite pets inside their businesses — but only if they do not serve food. [Lo Rez Brewing/Archie's Rockwell Tavern]

City rules will allow dog owners to bring their companions into some Chicago bars under an ordinance that advanced out of a City Council committee on Monday.

A rendering of the LeClaire Courts redevelopment plan proposed by the Chicago Housing Authority and two private development firms [Department of Planning and Development]

A years-in-the-making plan to build 725 new homes and a network of businesses on the former Southwest Side site of the LeClaire Courts public housing complex is set to take one step closer to reality on Tuesday.

The Chicago skyline part of the North Side seen at sunrise over Welles Park on Oct. 23, 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club]

This article was originally published by Block Club Chicago.

Facing criticism over a lack of transparency, a City Council committee will hold at least one more public hearing for residents to give input on a new ward map that will shape the city’s politics for the next decade.

From left: Chicago Police Department Deputy Chief Larry Snelling, ShotSpotter CEO Ralph Clark and Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) during a City Council committee hearing on Friday.

The ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology has “exceeded” the requirements laid out in a multi-year contract with Chicago, city officials said Friday. But without a process to vet how often the technology is leading police astray, multiple aldermen said the city needs to raise its standard for the service costing taxpayers $9 million per year.

Greystone homes in North Lawndale. City leaders are proposing to put millions of public dollars behind a campaign to sell and redevelop hundreds of city-owned vacant lots in the neighborhood. [Pascal Sabino/Block Club]

Chicago will dedicate up to $5.3 million in tax-increment financing to help clean up a network of 100 North Lawndale vacant lots so they can be redeveloped into single-family homes and sold at reduced rates under a measure set to be advanced by aldermen on Monday.

Ald. James Gardiner (45) has a date with the Chicago Board of Ethics on Monday to determine whether he incurred enough violations of the city’s ethics code to rack up $7,000 in fines. The City Council’s license committee will take up a host of measures to tighten regulations on various businesses. And aldermen will meet for the last of three public hearings scheduled to discuss the city’s ongoing remap process.

A graphic showing how ShotSpotter's technology works. Representatives of the technology firm ShotSpotter are slated to testify in a meeting of the City Council Committee on Public Safety on Friday. [ShotSpotter]

Aldermen are gearing up for a long-promised hearing on Friday that will give them a chance to grill police leaders and other city officials over their use of a widely criticized gunshot detection technology. Representatives of the tech firm will also be on hand to defend their product. 

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) announced on Wednesday plans to run for Congress in Illinois’ new 3rd District. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) on Wednesday became the first candidate to officially throw his hat in the ring to run to represent Illinois’ newly drawn 3rd Congressional District.  

The $4 billion Bronzeville Lakefront mega-proposal took another step toward reality with a streetscape revamp ordinance. Speakers called for Chicago’s next ward map to boost Asian American representation. And aldermen on the budget committee approved more than $90 million in new grant funding, including $50 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Ald. Michelle Harris (8) speaks during Tuesday’s public hearing on ward remapping.

With three weeks left until the City Council's deadline to vote on a new ward map, city officials this week rolled out a tool that lets residents draw their own ward maps and submit them to the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules.  

Ald. Jason Ervin (28) on Tuesday defended a proposal to create a new Special Service Area in West Garfield Park.

A West Side business group is crying foul over what it calls political favoritism in a city-backed plan to create a new special taxing district in West Garfield Park, saying the city’s planning department and the local alderman unfairly tanked the group’s bid to manage the district themselves. But city planners and Ald. Jason Ervin (28) hold that the right group won out.

The City Council housing committee approved an extension of an agreement for the city to use 175 rooms in Hotel Julian for congregate living. 

A key City Council committee on Tuesday unanimously approved extending a $540,000-per-month agreement for the city to use rooms in the downtown Hotel Julian to shelter homeless residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Chicago Department of Planning and Development officials showed a map of the planned future street configuration on the Bronzeville Lakefront site during a July City Council committee meeting.

A development coalition's nearly $4 billion proposed “Bronzeville Lakefront” mega-development is set to clear yet another regulatory hurdle on Wednesday — this time to lay the groundwork for tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades.

From left: Ald. Anthony Beale (9), Ald. Walter Burnett (27) and Rush Street Gaming owner Neil Bluhm speak during a City Council committee hearing on Monday.

A shadow war over the future of Chicago’s gambling revenues broke into the open on Monday, as proxies of the city’s pro sports teams tried to assuage city leaders’ fears that allowing sportsbooks at their ballparks and arenas could threaten earnings from a future Chicago casino.