Chicago News
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A small group of aldermen on the city’s Health and Environmental Protection Committee heard testimony Tuesday afternoon on the need for more trash resources and the migration of urban wildlife, but the meeting had low attendance. Chairman George Cardenas (12) said the whole City Council needed a chance to sound off on the issues.
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Aldermen on the city’s Budget Committee accepted private, state, and federal grant funds for several initiatives Tuesday morning–including $1 million from the Chicago Cubs for about 30 new cameras around Wrigley Field. Chairman Carrie Austin (34), reflecting on the Monday terrorist attack in Manchester and other bombings in high traffic areas, said she’s “glad to see it happen.” Aldermen also accepted $186,000 in federal funds for a transportation initiative to cut down on traffic injuries and fatalities.
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The slate of ordinances and measures awaiting a vote by the full City Council Wednesday is fairly bland–save for a zoning change for Jefferson Park that’s already been the subject of three meetings and two lawsuits.
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With the decline in state and federal aid for substance and mental health programs, especially for the current and formerly incarcerated, city and county officials are looking for ways to combine resources to address the revolving door of the criminal justice system.
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MAY 23, 2017
After three hours of both pro and con testimony from 104 people Monday afternoon, the City Council Zoning Committee passed by voice vote a zoning change from a B1-1 to a B3-5 and a planned development for a proposed storage facility at 5150 N. Northwest Hwy. in the Jefferson Park neighborhood. While the five-story project from LSC Development was nominally about a storage, the testimony, protests and a press conference held earlier that afternoon was much more about neighborhood resistance to increased density, accusations of racism and old battle lines redrawn for the 2019 45th Ward Aldermanic campaign. -
MAY 23, 2017
After sitting in Rules Committee for nearly a year, an ordinance reinstating the city’s head tax was sent to Finance on Monday morning. The ordinance’s sponsor, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), intended to bring the ordinance directly to the floor for a vote at Wednesday’s full City Council meeting. He filed the Rule 41 request with the City Clerk as is required under the Council’s Rules of Procedures.
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The Council’s Health Committee has two resolutions on its 11:00 a.m. Tuesday agenda: one calls on aldermen to re-enforce the city’s litter laws and combat “filthy neighborhoods”, the other requests members of the Urban Wildlife institute brief aldermen on the state of urban wildlife in Chicago.
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The Council’s Zoning Committee on Monday morning approved a new member for the Zoning Board of Appeals and a seven-story, 111-unit mixed-use development for Rogers Park that includes a new Target store and 65 units reserved for Chicago Housing Authority voucher holders.
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Amidst routine approval of spending Open Impact fees on local projects ($40,000 for planning a River Park near Pilsen and $1.7 million to turn a plaza into a turf field at Wells Community High School), Ald. Brian Hopkins (2) took the opportunity to question the Department of Planning and Development’s Meg Gustavsen on the appropriate use of developer fees. It was one way to tell the administration and fellow aldermen: hands off the fees from the North Branch PMD.
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The Chicago Board of Ethics met Monday, but didn’t dole out any penalties related to improper lobbying. “The Board voted to issue one letter of probable cause on a matter that had been deferred at the April [meeting], and dismissed one of the subjects in another matter in which it earlier found probable cause,” Executive Director Steve Berlin told The Daily Line.
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High recidivism rates in Chicago and Cook County will be the topic of discussion of today’s 11:00 a.m. Public Safety Committee hearing.
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The Council’s Budget Committee meets briefly this morning at 10:00 a.m. to approve a $186,000 federal grant for the Department of Transportation. The grant from the National Safety Council as part of its national Road to Zero initiative–a goal to eradicate traffic fatalities across the country.
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Chicago Department of Aviation officers pack the room for an Aviation Committee hearing, May 22, 2017.
Aviation Committee Chairman Michael Zalewski told reporters Monday, “The consensus is, there’s no consensus,” about the future of security officers at Chicago’s airports. Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans once again faced off with aldermen as more than two dozen Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) officers looked on, sometimes shaking their heads or correcting her under their breath. While the meeting’s purpose was to clarify when City of Chicago employees can remove someone from an airplane, Monday’s discussion waded into a labor battle over whether CDA officers should be designated as police officers or security officers. -
Comm. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-7) has proposed a small donor match system for countywide elections. The system, which wouldn’t launch until after the 2018 cycle, would cost roughly $4 million every three years, Garcia estimates. Holding up a copy of the Sun-Times with a story about billionaire Ken Griffin’s $20 million donation to Gov. Bruce Rauner, Garcia heralded the system as a way to "get big money out of politics" and restore confidence in government. The proposal was new to commissioners, and to County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s staff.
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Aviation Department officials are likely in for another verbal rebuke from aldermen today, as the Committee on Aviation considers an ordinance that would prohibit any City of Chicago employee “from assisting airline personnel in the removal of any passenger from a plane at O’Hare International and Chicago Midway airports.”
