Ald. Tom Tunney (44) during Thursday’s meeting of the Committee on Special Events, Cultural Affairs and Recreation.

Chicago’s peak season for neighborhood block parties is fast approaching and aldermen are looking to city officials for guidance as demand for the neighborhood gatherings heats up.

Cook County States’ Attorney Kim Foxx speaks during a budget hearing in October 2019. [Alex Nitkin/The Daily Line]

County commissioners are set to tighten their authority over Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office while extending new scrutiny to attorneys hired by the office.

An ordinance (21-3130) introduced to the county’s Board of Commissioners on Thursday by Comm. Peter Silvestri (R-9) requires the state’s attorney’s office to score approval from the board’s Finance Subcommittee on Litigation before approving large settlements, pursuing some appeals or bringing matters to trial. Silvestri chairs the subcommittee.

A pending ordinance would compel the city to open a public database of closed police misconduct files going back to 1994. [Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago]

Updated Thursday 6:57 p.m. — A City Council budget referee backed up an Inspector General’s cost estimate for a police misconduct transparency ordinance, undercutting Mayor Lightfoot’s earlier opposition to the measure on the grounds that it would be too expensive.

The City Council Office of Financial Analysis circulated a report this week showing that the ordinance would cost less than $800,000 next year to implement, and costs would decline each subsequent year.

The McDonald’s Cycle Center in Millennium Park [McDonald’s Cycle Center]

The City Council Committee on Special Events, Cultural Affairs and Recreation will consider an agreement with Shift Transit to operate Millennium Park’s McDonald’s Cycle Center, which offers cyclists secure bike parking, repairs and locker rooms.

A pending ordinance would compel the city to open a public database of closed police misconduct files going back to 1994.

A version of Chicago’s new slate of labor protections for employees who seek out vaccines during work hours would be extended across Cook County under an ordinance set for introduction to the county’s Board of Commissioners on Thursday.

Michael Jacobson, Tanya Triche Dawood and Sam Toia address aldermen Tuesday.

Representatives of the hotel, restaurant and retail industry told aldermen on Tuesday businesses they represent are facing roadblocks to filling jobs as the city reopens. At the same time, a lack of childcare options is keeping some Chicagoans from returning to work, they said.

The City Council Committee on Workforce Development met Tuesday for a subject matter hearing on resources that are available to employers, workers and labor organizations as Chicago gradually lifts business restrictions. The hearing was spurred by a resolution (R2021-445) introduced by Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10), who chairs the workforce development committee, and Ald. Raymond Lopez (15).

A visualization of the existing street grid at the Reese site (left) and the city’s planned reconfiguration [Department of Planning and Development]

Developers and city planners will avoid dipping into millions in available tax-increment financing for a projected $60 million public infrastructure overhaul planned for the site of the “Bronzeville Lakefront” campus, city officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Leaders of the city’s Department of Planning and Development and the GRIT development team detailed their budding financial arrangement during a meeting of the Community Development Commission, which voted on Tuesday to allow the city to sell a 48-acre slice of the former Michael Reese Hospital site to GRIT.

Ethics officials have been fielding questions “for years” over whether aldermen can serve on nonprofit boards. The answer is complicated. [Colin Boyle/ Block Club Chicago]

Chicago ethics rules don’t preclude aldermen from serving as unpaid board members for organizations based in their own wards. But they would face such onerous restrictions in the role that the side-gig may not be worth it, a city ethics arbiter pronounced this week.

A rendering of the 48-acre parcel set for sale to a private development team for the $4 billion “Bronzeville Lakefront” project

The $4 billion “Bronzeville Lakefront” megadevelopment is set to clear a critical hurdle on Tuesday as a Chicago commission moves to sell a 48-acre swath of public land to a private development venture for $96.9 million.

The city’s Community Development Commission is set to virtually convene at 1 p.m. Tuesday to consider four sales of city-owned land, including the sale of part of the property on the city’s Near South lakefront that was occupied for decades by Michael Reese Hospital.

Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10) and Ald. Raymond Lopez (15) introduced a resolution calling for a hearing on resources for employers and workers.

Aldermen are set to hear from workforce and employment experts Tuesday about resources available to employers, workers and trade and labor organizations as Chicago continues reopening. 

The City Council Committee on Workforce Development is scheduled to convene at 10 a.m. for a subject matter hearing spurred by a resolution (R2021-445) introduced by Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10), who chairs the workforce development committee, and Ald. Raymond Lopez (15).

City attorneys have been charged with collecting an overdue ethics violation fine from Ald. Carrie Austin (34). State officials will set up vaccination clinics in downtown office buildings. Mayor Lori Lightfoot cut the ribbon on a long-awaited bike infrastructure project. And Lightfoot pinned federal regulators’ concerns over a Southeast Side metal shredding in part on the lax permitting practices of “the previous administration” in Washington.

A bust of Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable stands in Pioneer Court along Michigan Avenue, The DuSable Museum of African American History is located in Washington Park, Honorary Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable Way in Washington Park [Erin Hegarty]

A City Council committee unanimously endorsed a proposal to rename outer Lake Shore Drive after Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable in April, teeing up a vote on the council floor this month. But the 18-month push to get the ordinance out of committee is not the first effort in the past few decades to recognize the city’s founder.

County leaders are mostly backing a bill they say would make it easier for local governments to demolish or rehab abandoned buildings. [Eric Allix Rogers on Flickr]

Cook County leaders are championing a bill in Springfield they say will prevent delinquent properties from falling into a spiral of blight. But one county office says much more is needed to fix the government’s handling of abandoned buildings, arguing that “a BAND-AID won’t cure cancer.”

A bill to give voters a say in the governance of Chicago Public Schools will likely land on Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk by the end of the legislative session. But will the bill mandate a fully elected school board or a "hybrid" elected-appointed body to oversee the nation’s third-largest school district? The Daily Line reporter Caroline Kubzansky talked to State Sen. Robert Martwick (D-Chicago), who has been championing elected school board legislation since 2015, and Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood), who’s carrying Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hybrid proposal in the legislature.

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Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett in conversation Thursday

Mayor Lori Lightfoot laid out for city investors on Thursday how she tackled the $1.2 billion budget gap for 2021 and described her priorities for spending the $1.9 billion city officials anticipate Chicago will receive from the federal American Rescue Plan.

City leaders hosted the daylong Chicago Virtual Investors Conference Thursday via Zoom for more than 375 attendees, including real estate investors, according to an introduction from the city’s Chief Financial Officer Jennie Huang Bennett.