Chicago News
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Cook County Commissioner Ed Moody (D-6) announced he wouldn’t seek election in 2018, while Comm. Jerry Butler (D-3), one of the board’s most senior members, said he’d keep his plans a surprise, even though President Toni Preckwinkle is already canvassing with 3rd District hopeful Bill Lowry.
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NOV 07, 2017
With the flood of sexual harassment complaints surfacing at the state capitol, Finance Chair Ed Burke (14) wants to ensure similar complaints at the city level are properly handled. The city’s current sexual harassment policy only covers employees, meaning all 53 elected officials of the city are exempt from the rules. -
Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey (D-12) is rolling out a new proposal to push the conversation on marijuana legalization, and the city released an audit examining Uber and Lyft driver safety versus cab drivers.
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City Council's Housing Committee meets to consider the land acquisition for the new police and fire academy. Credit: A.D. Quig
City Council’s Housing Committee unanimously approved its two agenda items, the purchase of a 30-acre plot in the city’s 37th Ward for construction of police and fire academy that is not fully funded and a new mayoral program to sell city-owned lots for $1 for developers to build affordable housing.
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Three county departments who fell short of their mandate to cut 10% from their offices replied to Chair John Daley Friday with their ideas to help fill the $200 million gap.
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Aldermen are back to their regular schedule after two weeks of budget hearings Monday. City Council’s Finance Committee meets at 10:00 a.m. to consider annual abatements, a series of consumer protection measures from Ald. Ed Burke (14), and appointments to the city’s Catalyst Fund.
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Ald. Brendan Reilly’s (42) financial transparency ordinance, O2017-7153, was re-referred from the Budget Committee to the Council Office of Financial Analysis Oversight Committee Friday morning. That committee hasn’t met since July of 2015.
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Randy Conner, the Commissioner of the Department of Water Management, received effusive praise from aldermen Friday for reforming culture at the department, but like past years, he and his staff took hits on the speed of project completions.
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When billionaire Joe Ricketts shut down DNAinfo Chicago and the Chicagoist Thursday, he didn’t just slash 116 jobs across a multistate network of journalists. He also hit the killswitch on 17 years of local coverage, which vanished from the network’s websites Thursday, leaving many unemployed reporters scrambling to salvage work. The shutdown came a week after newsroom agreed to join the Writers Guild of America East.
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NOV 03, 2017
Ald. Willie Cochran (20) was hospitalized after a collapse during a budget hearing Thursday, Cook County Democrats meet for slating potential attorney general candidates, and the budget committee is expected to discuss a new measure for fiscal transparency.
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Cook County owns 19 million square feet of real estate, administration officials said Thursday. Commissioners spent most of the day’s budget hearings discussing what they could do with it to help fill the $200 million gap, including leasing office space, selling naming rights to county buildings, and mothballing branch courts. The President’s Office chipped in a $20 million idea: delaying some capital expenditures.
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Cook County elected officials that came up short on recommended budget cuts face a noon deadline to fully comply today. Those who don’t risk having their budgets slashed directly by commissioners. A letter again requesting the 10% cut went to the Assessor, Board of Review, Chief Judge, Clerk of the Circuit Court, Public Defender, Sheriff, and State’s Attorney. Those departments fell short of the mark, suggested cuts outside of their departments, refused to cut at all, or miscalculated their savings.
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NOV 03, 2017
Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson faced a full day of laudatory remarks and softball questions from aldermen Thursday. The conversation barely scratched the surface of one of the biggest issues hanging over the department: ongoing contract negotiations with the union that represents all rank and file police officers, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7. It is the city’s largest collective bargaining unit.
A controversial Bill of Rights section that has been accused of fostering a “code of silence” and hampering misconduct investigations is a major part of that contract. The topic was also noticeably absent at Wednesday’s meeting with the the interim chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA).
Instead, aldermen kept the questions granular and focused on quality of life issues: people parking on vacant lots or on their front lawn, staffing issues at the local precinct, follow-ups on specific shooting incidents or crimes, and concerns about increased drug sales. This gave Johnson and bureau chiefs time to focus their message on new crime-fighting strategies and initiatives to rebuild trust between officers and the neighborhoods they patrol.
“CPD entered 2017 with a revitalized and reimagined crime strategy as well as a number of planned reforms in the areas of personnel, use of force, training, transparency and community policing,” Johnson testified at the opening as he read from his prepared remarks.
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Interim COPA Chief Administrator Judge Patricia Banks spoke with reporters
after her testimony before the City Council Budget Committee. Credit: Claudia Morell
The one-month old agency tasked with investigating cases of alleged misconduct by Chicago Police officers is more than a million dollars under budget, aldermen alleged Wednesday. A spokesperson for the city budget office counters that aldermen are “misreading” the budget. -
NOV 02, 2017
Aldermen peppered David Reifman, Commissioner for the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) with a questions about development in their neighborhoods, tempered with a few concerns about overall policy.
