A group of Democratic Committeemen convene Thursday morning to hear pitches from hopefuls interested in becoming the next commissioner of Cook County’s 2nd District. Ald. Michael Scott (24), a mentee of the late Comm. Robert Steele (D-2) will chair the selection committee of 19 members, each with a weighted vote based on vote totals from Steele’s 2014 election. With a scant 15% of the weighted vote, the largest share of the bunch, Ald. Scott will have to cobble together a coalition of South and West Siders to agree on a candidate–some of whom are gunning for the job themselves or for family.

A routine Housing Committee meeting Wednesday evolved into a longer policy discussion on affordable housing in Chicago and whom should benefit–the very poor, or middle class families who are being priced out of Northwest Side neighborhoods in the midst of a luxury housing boom.  

Chicago police officers would serve as the the lead on all disturbance calls at city airports, including planes, to prevent another incident like the one on United flight 3411 in April, when O’Hare Aviation Security Officer dressed as a police officer dragged a passenger off the plane.

The policy change, which the city’s Department of Aviation will formally institute through a new directive, is one of several to come out of an external audit of the Aviation Department’s security division released Wednesday.

CDA Commissioner Ginger Evans commissioned the report in response to the public outrage of the forceful eviction of an airline passenger who refused to exit the plane in order to make room for United flight staff. Cell phone video footage of the encounter went viral, played on local and national television, as well as in the City Council Chambers during an Aviation Committee hearing held shortly after.

The 12-page report details planned upgrades to Aviation Department security procedures and which department has jurisdictional responsibility–an issue made particularly murky during that April 7th altercation when an Aviation security officer (ASO) was seen wearing a jacket with the word “Police”, even though ASOs are separate from the police department and are specifically barred from wearing jackets with Chicago Police Department markers.

Layoff notices to more than 1,100 county employees will begin rolling out next week, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told reporters at a media availability at Stroger Hospital on Tuesday morning. Those layoffs, plus non-personnel spending “holdbacks”, will make up for the $67 million the county is missing in anticipated sweetened beverage tax revenues in FY2017 and $200 million in FY2018. Making matters worse, the County has projected a $98 million budget shortfall for FY2018. President Preckwinkle said those layoffs are “inevitable” and will hit doctors, nurses, public defenders, and sheriff’s officers this fiscal quarter. “The crisis is real so the cuts must be real,” she said.

The City Council’s Housing Committee meets Wednesday morning to consider five land sales and one lease agreement that would allow for a new sculpture garden across the street from Guichard Gallery in Grand Boulevard.

 

Cook County closed out fiscal year 2016 with more than $2 billion in tax revenue, and over $5 billion in expenses, according to its most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).

Ald. Michael Scott (24) the chairman of the selection committee to fill the late Comm. Robert Steele’s (D-2) seat on the Cook County Board, said the committee will make its decision on Thursday, July 13. “I am looking forward to an open and fair process,” Ald. Scott said in a release sent Friday afternoon. “The committee will be respectful of Commissioner Steele’s legacy while charting a new direction for the 2nd District of Cook County.” The district covers portions of the West and South Sides of Chicago. Steele was a native of North Lawndale on the West Side, and those close to the committee proceedings predict a West Sider will ultimately be appointed.

Edwin Reyes, who served as 8th District Commissioner on the Cook County Board from 2010 to 2014, has returned to Cook County government, The Daily Line has learned. Reyes assumed his seat representing the city’s Northwest Side when Roberto Maldonado left to become 26th Ward Alderman, with the backing of then-33rd Ward Ald. Dick Mell and 31st Ward Democratic Committeeman Joe Berrios. Reyes is now a Planning and Preparedness Manager at the Cook County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM), administration spokesperson Frank Shuftan confirmed. He started on May 30.

While all eyes were focused on the state budget, Chicago politics continued to chug along, if largely unnoticed. Here are four things that happened that maybe you might want to think about.

1. CPS Makes Incomplete Pension Payment

Just before the Independence Day Weekend, Chicago Public Schools closed out their fiscal year by making an incomplete payment to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. Paying only $464 million of the $713 million due, it was a denouement with surprisingly little fanfare considering the hystrionics of previous months about how CPS wouldn’t have enough money to pay its bills.

The Pension Fund is allowing CPS to make installment payments over time. Meanwhile, the state owes the school system hundreds of millions of late payments, and the system owes over $8 billion in debt.

So, let’s be clear here: CPS ended up the fiscal year $249 million short, and the pension system is allowing it to make installment payments over time. This has never happened before, so effectively, CPS ended up the year bankrupt. But since everyone is looking the other way and pretending it’s no big deal, it isn’t.

2. School Funding Bill In Statehouse

While state legislators pay themselves on the back for passing a budget, looming in the background is an unsigned school funding bill, SB1. Passed by the House and Senate, the bill still needs to be transmitted to Governor Bruce Rauner by Senate President John Cullerton for his signature. Gov. Rauner has promised to veto the bill, essentially because it favors Chicago too much, sending CPS too much money. Without a school funding bill, schools across the state don’t get money, and many expect their first payments on August 1.

Exactly when Cullerton plans to send Rauner SB1 for signature is an open question. Does he wait until the last minute, hoping to threaten the governor with a school closure crisis? Or does he send it sooner, with the expectation that a new special session will have to be called to retool the bill? Subscribe to the Springfield Daily Line to find out!

3. Emanuel Announces New Police/Fire Training Academy

Of all the things found in the U.S. Department of Justice and Police Accountability Task Force reports that all police officers like, it’s the idea that Chicago needs an up-to-date police academy. And hey! The city is about to begin negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police for a new contract. So, this week Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a new $95 million police and fire academy in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood.

But, as the Chicago Tribune reports, “Asked how the city would pay for the project, city spokeswoman Julienn Kaviar said ‘the city will identify funding as the project progresses.’”

That means, they don’t know yet. And since construction isn’t expected to begin until 2018, the city has some time to figure it out.

4. Cook County Wants To Do Muni ID

For almost a year, the Chicago City Clerk has been working on launching an identification system that could be used for immigrants, homeless and others to allow them to access social and banking services. With plenty of momentum behind the plan, it seemed like a sure thing, until a pair of Cook County Commissioners and the County Clerk announced their own plan to create a County ID. They also noted that traditionally, the County Clerk (not the City Clerk) was the keeper of vital records (like birth, marriage and death records). So, the County should be the one running this program.

“This is not a competition,” County Commissioner John Fritchey said. “It’s about how we can do this best and how we can do this most efficiently.”

The same week Springfield gets a budget, we get a new Springfield Editor. This week on The Aldercast, you’ll meet Rae Hodge, the latest addition to The Daily Line’s team. She’s a Kentucky General Assembly veteran, Fulbright Scholar, and lover of data journalism and deep dives. She’ll be doing the same kind of detailed coverage of committees and agencies in the ILGA as we do here in Chicago and Cook County.

Want to get Rae’s reporting right in your inbox from Day 1? Head to thedailyline.net, click “Subscriptions” and use the promo code “LAUNCH” for 10 percent off your first year’s subscription. Check out Rae on Twitter @raehodge and our new bureau @thedailylineIL, and send her tips: [email protected]. As always, you can reach us with tips, comments, or corrections at [email protected].   

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle sent an urgent memo to county commissioners Thursday warning of a potential 10% spending freeze in light of a Circuit Court judge’s order to temporarily halt the county’s beverage tax. According to memos sent to several commissioners’ staff, those holdbacks will also impact commissioners’ FY2018 budgets by as much as $100,000–a quarter of many offices’ annual budgets.

Fifty-one small businesses located in struggling commercial corridors on the city’s South, Southwest, and West Sides received a combined $5 million in TIF-funded grants Thursday. The program, essentially a rebranding of the existing Small Business Improvement Fund, is specifically designed to leverage local tax increment financing dollars in stagnant neighborhood commercial corridors with the help of local non-profits and chambers of commerce. It’s the latest move by the Emanuel administration to boost small businesses in by making it easier for business owners to apply for financial incentives.

Cook County Commissioners Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-7) and John Fritchey (D-12) announced plans Wednesday to introduce an ordinance creating a countywide municipal identification program. They were backed by County Clerk David Orr, whose office would oversee the program. The group suggested the county should take the lead on the ID, which Chicago officials and stakeholders have been working on for more than two years.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced an ordinance at the last City Council meeting that would codify the deindustrialization of the North Branch Corridor, a 760-acre stretch on the city’s North Side, and the first planned manufacturing district to undergo a city-sponsored transition. The change follows more than a year of planning meetings with residents and recent approval of the site plans by the city’s Plan Commission in May.

This week, a group of better government groups, calling themselves The Coalition for Police Contracts Accountability held a press conference to put additional pressure on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to discard his still-to-be-revealed “agreement” with the Department of Justice on a police reform plan and instead pursue a court-enforced consent decree with a third party.

The legal differences between a consent decree and an agreement are complicated and at times contradictory, but what police reform groups are all demanding is some group that is not the Trump Administration’s DOJ to oversee and enforce a potentially decades-long reform plan for the Chicago police department. Using Los Angeles’ experience as a guide, such a consent decree could cost tens of millions of dollars per year for city taxpayers, but is the gold standard for making sure police culture improves and community members are convinced reform is underway.

At this point, dozens of long-standing, legitimate community organizations have come forward to demand a consent decree, as has the Illinois Attorney General, several aldermen and the mayor’s own Police Board President. Standing with the mayor to oppose a consent decree is the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the leader of rank and file at the ground level of reform efforts.

Ultimately, police reform and control of the Chicago police department is about mayoral power. When observing Emanuel’s resistance to even begin a public dialogue with police reform advocates, the issue starts to take on characteristics of Emanuel’s other big power boondoggle: control of Chicago Public Schools.

Emanuel is but a hair’s breadth away from losing control of CPS to an elected school board. The Illinois House has passed one version of an elected school board and earlier this month the Illinois Senate passed another. What’s left is for the House to reconsider the Senate version. If Gov. Bruce Rauner signs it, Chicago will have another elected body to worry about in 2023.

Emanuel has steadfastly opposed an elected school board, saying in press conferences such a body would be controlled by special interests like the teachers’ union, but he never expressed a willingness to openly debate or discuss the idea. He could have discussed it on “Chicago Tonight” with Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis. Or he could have toured the city, in open, widely-advertised forums, to discuss it.

Instead, Emanuel instructed his lieutenants, CPS CEO Forrest Claypool and CPS Chief Education Officer Janice Jackson, to speak on his behalf against the measure. When he addressed the issue, it was brief, using highly-constructed talking points–I’ve heard some of them at press conferences myself.

Now, as punishment for not engaging the public, the state legislature is about to take away from Emanuel one of the most important duties of any big city mayor: Educating children. Maybe Emanuel doesn’t care because it won’t happen until 2023, after the end of his prospective third term. But the result seems punitive, because our Mayor never made a real argument about something so important.

We’re getting the same treatment now on another hugely important mayoral duty: police reform. Except this time, instead of Claypool and Jackson, we’re delivered Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel. It’s tiring for those of us who want to understand the mayor’s thinking, because we can tell that we’re just getting warmed over talking points, not an actual discussion of the merits.

Maybe it’s not Emanuel’s intention, but his unwillingness to engage in a public manner, opening himself up to criticism on a matter so important, makes him seem arrogant. And like with the elected school board issue, there are other organizations that could potentially take away his control of the police department.

Already one group has filed suit to seek a consent decree. Two weeks ago, an even bigger fish, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (who has an office full of plenty-capable attorneys) reportedly threatened Emanuel with filing suit herself. And the new organization announced this week, The Coalition for Police Contracts Accountability, is backed by the ACLU, Better Government Association and Businesses for the Public Interest. All organizations with the resources to file and carry out a long court battle.

Just like with his control of the school board, the longer Emanuel resists engagement with the public, the more likely it seems that he’ll lose.