Chicago News
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OCT 08, 2021
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Department of Planning and Development Comm. Maurice Cox answers questions from aldermen during a budget hearing on Thursday.
The tone of Thursday’s budget hearing for the city’s Department of Planning and Development was much less critical of department leadership than last year’s hearing, when the City Council complained of a closed-off relationship with city planners. But aldermen are still unsatisfied with months-long backlogs in the sales of city-owned lots, they said.
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OCT 08, 2021
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Comm. Gia Biagi on Friday will answer aldermen’s question on CDOT’s proposed 2022 budget.
Leaders of the Chicago Public Library system, the Department of Law and the Department of Transportation (CDOT) will defend proposed increases in their budgets on Friday during the final day of departmental budget hearings.
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OCT 07, 2021
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Chicago Fire Department Comm. Annette Nance-Holt answered questions during a more than three-hour budget hearing on Wednesday.
Updated 4:24 p.m. Oct. 7 The Chicago Fire Department is dominated by white men — but the department’s first-ever Black woman leader vowed on Wednesday to change that, thanks in part to a long-awaited new opportunity to bring on fresh recruits.
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OCT 07, 2021
Cook County is budgeting 23,467 full-time positions for 2022, more than any other year since 2015.
Backed by $1 billion in federal support, Cook County is set to explode spending and hiring to new heights under the 2022 budget proposal unveiled on Thursday by county board President Toni Preckwinkle. The plan calls to add nearly 1,600 new employee positions, including an army of new public health workers, bringing the county’s headcount to its highest level since 2015.
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OCT 07, 2021
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Citywide public approval for the Chicago Park District fell by 13 percentage points between June and September, the latest Chicago Index survey found.
The Chicago Park District, typically one of the city’s most popular agencies, is losing favor with city residents as it becomes consumed with a widening sexual harassment scandal and faces the Chicago Bears’ departure from Soldier Field, a new Chicago Index poll suggests. The poll also shows flagging approval for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and stubbornly low marks for Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
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OCT 07, 2021
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The Chicago Human Relations Commission investigates claims of discrimination, including housing discrimination. [Facebook]
Chicago’s Commission on Human Relations is an immensely important and often undervalued resource that needs sustained funding — possibly more than is allocated under Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2022 spending plan — to continue its grassroots mediation and fight against ignorance and racism, aldermen told the commission’s chair during a budget hearing Wednesday.
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OCT 07, 2021
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The Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities has been working with the Chicago Department of Transportation to make the city's pending e-scooter system more accommodating to disabled Chicagoans, the head of the office told aldermen Wednesday. [Hannah Alani/Block Club Chicago]
The Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities should work tightly with other city agencies to ensure accessibility is baked into new infrastructure, housing and other processes across Chicago, aldermen told the head of the office during a budget hearing Wednesday.
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OCT 07, 2021
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Department of Planning Development Comm. Maurice Cox and Deputy Comm. Eleanor Gorski took flak from aldermen during their budget hearing last year.
In the penultimate day of departmental budget hearings, leaders of the city’s Department of Housing, Department of Planning and Development and Office of Inspector General are set to detail their 2022 budgets in what will likely be another marathon day of meetings.
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OCT 06, 2021
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Chicago Department of Buildings Comm. Matthew Beaudet answers questions during a budget hearing on Tuesday. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]
Chicago’s top building regulator mulled a series of strategies on Tuesday to crack down on dangerous “problem properties,” including by barraging by deadbeat landlords with fines and working with the city’s housing department on a new program to put buildings in more responsible hands.
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OCT 06, 2021
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Department of Streets and Sanitation acting Comm. Cole Stallard answered questions during a budget hearing on Tuesday.
It now takes city workers a full year to respond to requests for trees to be trimmed, but a near-doubling of crews the city sends out to do the work is expected to shrink that lag time, leaders of the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation told aldermen on Tuesday.
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OCT 06, 2021
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The Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection plans to dedicate $5 million from the American Rescue Plan to fund new “community farms” around the city. [Neighborspace]
The Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection will next year oversee spending of about $46 million of federally sourced money for a suite of programs aimed at improving neighborhoods’ food options, boosting first-time entrepreneurs, padding the budgets of local nonprofits and more, officials told aldermen Tuesday.
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OCT 06, 2021
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Chicago Fire Department Comm. Annette Nance-Holt is set to answer questions from aldermen during her first budget hearing at the helm of the department. [Mayor's Office/ Twitter]
Aldermen are scheduled on Wednesday to examine next year’s proposed budgets the Mayor’s Office of People with Disabilities, Chicago Fire Department, Commission on Human Relations and the Office of Public Safety Administration during the ninth day of departmental budget hearings.
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OCT 05, 2021
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Chicago Police Supt. David Brown responded to nearly nine hours of questions from aldermen during a Monday budget hearing.
The city’s controversial contract with gunshot detection technology company ShotSpotter came under heavy scrutiny during a Monday hearing on the Chicago Police Department’s budget, even as police leaders deflected responsibility for the partnership to a different department.
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OCT 05, 2021
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Leaders of the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation are primed to field a barrage of questions and complaints from members of the City Council on Tuesday. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]
Departmental budget hearings are set to push forward on Tuesday as aldermen interrogate leaders of the Chicago Department of Buildings, Departments of Streets and Sanitation and Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. The departments represent three of the most public-facing corners of city government and rely on tight relationships with ward offices, promising hours of rigorous questioning by the City Council.
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OCT 04, 2021
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The Chicago Department of Water Management has so far only replaced 10 of the city's approximately 400,000 lead service lines, Comm. Andrea Cheng said during a budget hearing on Friday. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]
The share of contracts the city’s water department awarded to African American-owned companies in the past year has not met multiple aldermen’s expectations, they said Friday.
