Fees paid by pharmaceutical sales representatives to be licensed to work in Chicago funded opioid addiction treatment and screenings for approximately 4,000 residents in 2017, mostly on the West Side, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced.

The assistant inspector general overseeing the New York Police Department was named Thursday to oversee investigations of police misconduct in Chicago.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said county officials had "plucked all the low hanging fruit,” leaving “difficult decisions” to be made to bridge the county’s budget shortfall.

A new debt structure backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and approved by the City Council in October saved city taxpayers $46.3 million in 2017 by allowing officials to pay off high-interest debt, according to the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.

Cook County’s pension fund again pleaded for a long-term solution to improve its fiscal future in its latest annual actuarial valuation report, which covered 2017.

A former aide to Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to report Wednesday that he raised more than $194,000 in the first 60 days of his campaign to unseat 43rd Ward Ald. Michele Smith.

Derek Lindblom, 36, who lives in Lincoln Park with his wife and 15-month-old son, said he is running to modernize the way aldermen represent their constituents by combining the political savvy he honed during the three years he worked for Emanuel and the business and technology expertise learned while working for a venture capital fund.

“We are really proud of the the breadth and depth of support for our campaign,” Lindblom said. “It is real proof that there is a desire for change, and we are in a position to win.”

Lindblom’s haul is more than second-place finisher Caroline Vickrey raised during the entire 2015 campaign, according to campaign finance records. Smith, first elected to the City Council in 2011, won a second term by just 79 votes.

Vowing to be a “new kind of alderman,” Lindblom said he would use technology to connect residents — even those who are not tech savvy. One example could be linking neighbors able to shovel snow with those who need help, perhaps through a smart phone app for 43rd Ward residents, Lindblom said.

“It is not just responding to service requests but also being proactive and getting people involved and connected,” said Lindblom, who also promised to hold more ward-wide events. “I will think of the office in a new way.”

Now on a leave of absence from health care venture capital firm 7wire ventures, Lindblom said he would not hold outside employment if elected alderman.

Aldermen are really mayors of small cities, which means they have a chance to “innovate and do great things, Lindblom said, adding that he has always been someone who has a “million ideas and examples.”

To get a chance to implement any of those ideas, Lindblom will have to defeat Smith and two other challengers, Jacob Ringer and Scott Goodrich.

Ringer left his job as a development manager at mHUB, a physical product startup incubator, in March to campaign full time, and said he has knocked on 1,500 doors since then.

Ringer gave his campaign $90,000 last week, according to reports filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections, to ensure that his campaign would have the “mark of viability,” Ringer said.

Scott Goodrich, a senior project manager in Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office, reported May 17 that he had not raised any money through June 30. Goodrich did not return a request for comment about the 43rd Ward race.

[Comprehensive TDL spreadsheet of aldermanic campaigns]

Sean Tenner, Smith’s campaign manager, said the alderman was taking all three challengers seriously.

“We know it is going to be a hard-fought race,” Tenner said. “We are definitely on an accelerated schedule. Every alderman should be prepared to organize at the grass-roots level.”

Smith has approximately $266,000 in cash in her campaign account, according to the Illinois Sunshine database.

Smith spent nearly $654,000 in the 2015 race to keep her seat on the City Council. In addition, Chicago Forward — a political action committee supported by Emanuel and designed to elect his allies to the City Council — spent more than $78,526 to bolster Smith.

Smith voted with the mayor 85 percent of the time between June 2015 and March 2017, according to former 44th Ward Ald. Dick Simpson, who tracks how often the City Council “rubber stamps” the mayor’s proposals as a political science professor for the University of Illinois Chicago.

Although she ultimately voted to create a Tax Increment Financing District along the CTA’s Red, Purple and Brown lines, Smith questioned the district boundaries and whether the Emanuel-backed effort would benefit the residents of the 43rd Ward.

While Smith has been a reliable vote for the mayor, she cast one of two votes a year ago against sweeping zoning changes backed by the mayor that set to stage for the one industrial North Branch Industrial Corridor to be transformed into a new neighborhood.

Smith said the plan approved by the council invited a "land rush" along the 760-acre, 3.7-mile stretch of land on the Chicago River between Fullerton and Kinzie avenues and did not include enough park space or do enough to address traffic congestion.

In recent weeks, Smith has been working with Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) — who cast the other no vote against the massive rezoning —  to create a 24-acre park along the river. It is not clear how the city would foot the plan’s $200 million bill.

Lindblom said he shares Smith’s goal of bringing more open space to the 43rd Ward, but said he would focus on increasing park space not only along the river but also elsewhere in the ward.

In addition, Lindblom said he would focus on addressing concerns about traffic congestion and increasing the number of transit options for 43rd Ward residents, particularly those traveling east and west to and from the Kennedy Expressway.

Any development along the North Branch must also plan for the impact new residents will have on the area’s schools, Lindblom said.

“I really want to focus on the entire [kindergarten through 12th grade] system,” Lindblom said, adding that he is committed to sending his son to Chicago Public Schools.

While declining to criticize Smith directly, Lindblom said he would work, if elected, to “integrate” the Lincoln Commons development now under construction on land that was once Children’s Hospital and help mitigate the impact of new residents and increased traffic on nearby businesses and residents.

In addition to deciding the fate of the land along the Chicago River, aldermen elected in 2019 will also have to pay a huge bill for the city’s employee pensions. City officials will have to figure out how to cover a $400 million increase due in 2020 under a state law that will bump up the city’s required contributions to its four pension funds.

Lindblom, a 2008 graduate of Harvard Law School, starting working for Emanuel in 2011 as part of his transition team and stayed on after the mayor took office and was responsible for crafting a plan to address the city’s massive pension shortfall.

That shortfall was bridged — at least for the short term — largely thanks to several massive tax increases, including a 2015 property tax increase worth $589 million. That tax hike, the largest in Chicago’s history, was followed by a 30 percent increase in the water and sewer tax in 2016.

“There are few issues that are tougher than pensions,” Lindblom said. “I learned a lot about how to run the city and how to get the city to work in the mayor’s office.”

Lindblom said he would work to bring people together to hammer out a solution, while ensuring that the City Council has a hand in crafting the ultimate agreement.

“I want the City Council to lead on issues like pensions,” Lindblom said. Leaving it to the mayor is like attacking the issues “with one hand tied behind our back,” he added.

Former Deputy Mayors Mark Angelson and Steve Koch have each given Lindblom $5,600 — the maximum allowed under state campaign law. Those caps would be lifted if Ringer gives his campaign another $10,000, under state law.

In addition, Lindblom is represented by political operative Tom Bowen, who served as Emanuel’s top political aide until he ventured out on his own in 2012. Other members of Lindblom's team are Larry Grisalano, who also does television for Emanuel, Terry Walsh, who is in charge of mail for Democratic nominee for governor J.B. Pritzker, as well as Brian Stryker, who also does polling for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton.

Emanuel’s campaign did not respond to a question about whether the mayor would support his former aide over his ally Smith in the 43rd Ward race.

Lindblom said focusing on the mayor’s role in the election would do a disservice to the real issues facing residents of Lincoln Park and Old Town.

“There is a desire in the media to make it all about the mayor,” Lindblom said. “We should focus on the 43rd Ward and electing a great City Council.”

Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle said Cook County isn’t the only agency struggling to close the wage gap between male and female employees after a report from The Daily Line spotlighted the issue. The city settled a lawsuit brought by a paramedic who claimed Fire Department officials did little to accommodate her return to work after having a baby and a new report took aim at aldermanic prerogative — and its role in segregating the city.

The average male Cook County government employee makes roughly $6,000 more than the average female employee, according to the Cook County Pension Fund’s latest annual actuarial report.



Wage equity advocates said Monday the data should be used to determine whether there is gender discrimination in county employment, but a spokesman for President Toni Preckwinkle said the data do not illustrate “important legacy issues which undoubtedly contribute to the disparity.”

“First, we are committed to a fair and equitable workplace, and that includes fairness and equity in salaries,” Preckwinkle spokesman Frank Shuftan said. “We do not set salaries based on gender; rather, salaries are informed by job type and collective bargaining agreements with our labor partners.”

“For example, the largest variances are in the ages (roughly) of 45-69. Many of these staff members in these age ranges and were undoubtedly hired decades ago, when women in most workplaces faced a glass ceiling, or were hired into lower-paid job classifications,” Shuftan added.

Regular cost of living adjustments and step increases would not erase the gap, he said.

Shuftan said the smaller gap for younger employees shows there has been improvement, and highlighted Preckwinkle’s hiring of women in management positions and on her leadership team.

“The president’s record on hiring and promoting women is second to none,” Shuftan said.

But Melissa Josephs, the director of equal opportunity policy at Women Employed, called the numbers troubling, even when considering union contracts and different jobs at the county – ranging from clerk, to attorney, to surgeon or trade laborer.

“It definitely looks like discrimination to me, it’s very blatant,” Josephs said.

The differential between genders — the lowest is $1,129 for employees between 25 and 29 and is as high as $24,640 for employees older than 70 — is the most troubling, Josephs said.

“If women are earning less than men, anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a year over 50 years – and there are a lot of people that work in Cook County government for a long time – they’re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Josephs said. “It’s a problem.”

Age	How much more men are making annually on average	Cents on the dollar women are making compared to men
20-24	$3,919	0.92
25-29	$1,129	0.98
30-34	$2,839	0.96
35-39	$3,792	0.95
40-44	$4,789	0.94
45-49	$5,663	0.93
50-54	$9,931	0.89
55-59	$8,873	0.90
60-64	$8,722	0.90
65-69	$16,832	0.81
70 and over	$24,640	0.72

Cook County Acting Human Rights and Ethics Commissioner Amy Crawford said no employee had made a complaint of wage discrimination on the basis of gender in her two years at the commission.

There are other venues for such complaints – including the state’s Human Rights Commission, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the city’s Commission on Human Relations.

“What I would say is that the county should be examining the data behind these statistics to do some analysis as to what the discrepancy is all about,” said Barbara Yong, a partner at the law firm Golan Christie Taglia and the founder of Equal Pay Day Chicago.

“Is it people who have, for example, more education or when they start, they have greater experience?” Yong said. “Or is it that after time they get promoted into more higher level management positions? More men than women get promoted. It’s good that they have this, but without doing a deeper dive and examining why the men are getting paid more, it’s difficult to draw conclusions.”

The annual Equal Pay Day event is held in Daley Plaza, smack in the middle of where many county employees work.

“In government, at least, there is typically either pay grades or various classifications. So when you enter the workforce you tend to get paid similarly, it’s not until after a while you see who gets promoted and who doesn’t,” Yong said.

Aside from the county taking a harder look at its own practices, women in county employment should take advantage of the fact that their colleagues’ salaries and available pay scales are public information, Yong said.

“Women need to investigate the positions that they’re applying for, what it pays, and negotiate for a fair salary and to go ahead and apply for those promotions and those positions that do pay more,” Yong said.

Beyond female employees advocating for themselves, Josephs said the county should be regularly auditing its hiring practices. Salesforce reviews its employee wages and bonuses annually, and has spent millions balancing unexplained pay differences for similar employees between gender and race.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is “making a conscientious effort,” Josephs said, “not trusting people below him to do the right thing. He’s doing the right thing, he’s a a high road employer… certainly Cook County government can do the same thing.”

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability opened an investigation after a video surfaced on social media of a confrontation between a white officer and a group of young African American men. Another aldermanic candidate made a big contribution to their campaign account, and proposals to build tiny homes to help shelter the city’s most vulnerable residents are due this week.

Cook County’s released its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, better known as the CAFR, last week. The audited report looks back at spending from the 2017 fiscal year. What the 200-plus page report lacks in glitz, it makes up for in easily comparable line items that are great for graphing. The graphs below are interactive if you view them on our website.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to unveil his campaign team Friday — and it will be led by Jay Rowell, officials said. City Clerk Anna Valencia, preparing for her first run for elected office, reported a massive haul of campaign cash. The National Police Association took aim at Emanuel for allowing Black Lives Matter and the ACLU help craft a consent decree set to reform the Chicago Police Department. In addition, the executive director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District announces a retroactive resignation.

Business owners or groups worried about crime — and a police force stretched thin — would be allowed to hire off-duty Chicago Police officers to patrol commercial districts under a plan resurrected by Ald. Brendan Reilly (42.)

The Daily Line 2018 aldermanic spreadsheet features four new candidates. 48th Ward challenger Morry Matson, a delegate for President Donald Trump, includes a letter he wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions about his efforts to bring a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk to the Edgewater lakefront on his old-school website. Our spreadsheet also includes the most recent statements of financial interest for incumbent aldermen. Mayor Rahm Emanuel challenged President Donald Trump once again in court, and the Cook County Republican Party named two new committeemen.

More than 12,400 Chicagoans worried that the water they drink and bathe in might be tainted with lead asked city officials to send them a free testing kit between April 1 and June 15. But only 33 percent of those requests have been fulfilled, and far fewer have received results, according to data provided to The Daily Line by the Department of Water Management.

Chicago Police brass will brief the news media Tuesday on their plans for the 4th of July holiday, which data shows is often the most violent of the summer. A nonpartisan watchdog group gives the City Colleges of Chicago the thumbs up on its budget, while the Ethics Board announces it will consider the case of a former city employee who took a banned gift in exchange for assistance.

• CPD steps up patrols for holiday: Police brass are set to announce Tuesday that more than additional 1,500 Chicago police officers will hit the streets to keep violence down over the 4th of July holiday. More than 100 people were shot — and 15 people killed — over the 4th of July holiday in 2017, when more than 1,300 additional officers were assigned to patrol. The holiday weekend is often one of the most — if not the most — violent weekends in Chicago, according to police data.
  

• Civic Fed backs City Colleges budget — The nonpartisan Civic Federation called the proposed $436.1 million budget for the City Colleges of Chicago “a prudent plan to continue to stabilize the district’s finances.” The proposal calls for a “modest” hike in the college district’s property tax levy, and will reinstitute a per-credit hour based tuition structure for part-time students while maintaining a flat-rate tuition structure for full-time students, according to the Civic Fed. Their fiscal year started on July 1.
  
  


• Inspector General refers case to Ethics Board — After an investigation by Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, the Chicago Board of Ethics will consider a case involving a former city employee. The inspector general’s investigation found the employee “received a gift worth in excess of $50 from a business owner with whom he dealt, and provided advice and assistance on matters concerning business in exchange for that gift.” City ordinance limits gifts to less than $50 per year from any single source. Danielle Perry, a spokeswoman for Ferguson, declined to answer questions about the case.