Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Edith Makra speak Tuesday during a virtual event on a regional climate action plan. 

National and local leaders including Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday agreed a regional approach is the best way to tackle the impact of the climate crisis that Chicago and its surrounding suburbs continue to see. 

More than 2,000 Cook County workers represented by SEIU Local 73 went back to work on Tuesday after an 18-day strike. [Facebook/SEIU Local 73]

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle lashed leaders of the SEIU Local 73 union on Tuesday as they returned to work after an 18-day strike, saying their work stoppage accomplished nothing but to hobble county operations and hurt county leaders’ relationship with one of their largest labor groups.

World Business Chicago CEO Michael Fassnacht speaking during a City Council committee meeting on Tuesday

2021 is shaping up to be the “best year ever” for Chicago’s growing technology sector, a top city marketing official declared on Tuesday during a wide-ranging presentation aimed at wooing out-of-town tech firms to set up shop in Chicago.

Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough (left) and Assessor Fritz Kaegi are locked in a public battle over property tax calculations.

Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s office must double-check all 144,000 property tax exemptions it has granted low- and middle-income seniors before county Clerk Karen Yarbrough and Treasurer Maria Pappas prepare to send out the next round of property taxes this summer, Yarbrough and Pappas wrote in a letter to Kaegi on Monday.

Aldermen are scheduled Tuesday to advance a pair of tax incentives and probe World Business Chicago leaders on how they’re marketing the city. Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced on Monday the recipients of Neighborhood Opportunity Fund grants. And the Chicago Board of Ethics issued a new round of advisory opinions.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot (left) and budget committee chair Ald. Pat Dowell (3)

A growing chorus of aldermen and organizers are pushing for the City Council and Mayor Lori Lightfoot to begin doling out the windfall of federal cash the city has received from the American Rescue Plan Act, saying the city needs all the help it can get to quell the surge of summer violence gripping the city. But Lightfoot and a powerful committee chair are urging patience, saying they need time to crowdsource the best use of the funds.

The Chicago Police Department could be undermining its over efforts to boost diversity in its ranks, according to a new report. [Jake Wittich/Block Club Chicago]

The Chicago Police Department is undermining its own efforts to diversify its ranks with an 18-month application process that disproportionately purges Black applicants, a city watchdog office wrote in a report published Thursday.

Cook County Board President announcing $1.5 million in new spending on anti-violence programs in North Lawndale on Thursday

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle seized on an event Thursday to turn the tables on the Chicago Police Department, deflecting Supt. David Brown’s criticism of the county court system and instead implicating low police arrest rates for Chicago’s stubbornly high crime rate.

Participants during a public meeting led by the Chicago Advisory Redistricting Commission last month outline what could be considered the Greater Chinatown community. 

As growth in Chicago’s Asian American population outpaces other demographics, the absence of an alderman of Asian descent in the City Council is more glaring than ever as aldermen prepare to draw new ward boundaries this year.

Chicago Ald. George Cardenas (12) formally rolled out his candidacy for Cook County Board of Review. Aldermen pressed city planning officials on potential tax incentives for a new 400-unit development in the Illinois Medical District. And a report suggests administrators of a Chicago affordable housing program are cleaning up operational problems.

A CTA train rushes above Wells Street near the 100 block of West Randolph Street in downtown Chicago on June 30, 2021. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Like many mothers in Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods, Tarmara Felton struggles against the influence of the “wrong people” in her children’s lives.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during a ribbon-cutting event for a new track and field facility in Gately Park on Tuesday

Mayor Lori Lightfoot spotlighted youth programming, called out the federal government and teased a forthcoming victim support program on Tuesday, pivoting away from blaming the Cook County court system during her first appearance after more than 100 people were shot in Chicago during the Fourth of July weekend. But Chicago Police Supt. David Brown held the line on his criticism of judges, and multiple aldermen sprung up with a range of their own ideas to stem the violence.

The first floor lobby in City Hall on Wednesday, February 19, 2020. [Colin Boyle/Block Club]

This article was first published in Block Club.

City Hall has reopened to the public after more than a year of being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ald. Daniel La Spata (1) (left) and Chicago Police Department Supt. David Brown during a special City Council meeting on Friday [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Chicago Police Department Supt. David Brown spent a free-wheeling six-hour special City Council hearing on Friday sticking by his assertion that lenient judges own at least part of the blame for the city’s stubbornly high rates of violent crime, even as multiple aldermen challenged the data underlying his claims.

Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson is set to step down in October, capping three four-year terms in office. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]

Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson will step down from his post this fall after 12 eventful years overseeing investigations of waste, fraud and abuse in city government, he informed Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a letter Thursday evening.