A routine ordinance requesting the city fix a subdivision error for a privately owned collection of parcels in the city’s Galewood neighborhood barely made it out of Transportation Committee Tuesday because of a series of confusing title transfers that involves the UNO Charter School Network.

The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police changed their top leadership Wednesday after members elected 19th District patrolman Kevin Graham from the Blue Voice slate as the union’s president for a three-year term. Graham, in a runoff election, defeated incumbent Dean Angelo 56.21% to 43.79%. This is the second time in a row the FOP elected their president in a close election. Angelo defeated his predecessor, Mike Shields, in a 2014 runoff election.

Three meetings have been cancelled today: Workforce, Housing and Community Development, Zoning and Building, and Roads and Bridges. The Workforce committee was scheduled to discuss the county’s annual tax sale and “the impact this change has on communities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, senior citizens and homeowners of Cook County.” Treasurer Maria Pappas and Clerk David Orr were scheduled to appear.

The meeting was canceled at the request of Chairman Bridget Gainer. A staffer in Gainer’s office said they are accommodating Treasurer Pappas, who is in Greece celebrating the Easter holiday. 

 

County Treasurer Maria Pappas attempted to set the record straight about who’s responsible for the “truncated time given to taxpayers to pay delinquencies” before their property taxes are sold. While away for the Easter holiday in Greece, she asked State Rep. Christian Mitchell to correct his recent newsletter saying she mischaracterized changes to the county’s tax sale. The treasurer sent a letter to commissioners ahead of yesterday’s Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations committee meeting, where Chairman Larry Suffredin (D-13) promised to try to clear up confusion over the annual sale.

The Council’s Zoning Committee has an extra short meeting planned Wednesday–there are no map amendments, just an appointment to the Public Building Commission, a clean-up ordinance from Ald. Brian Hopkins (2), and routine signboard applications and fee waivers.

The Council’s Education Committee was forced to recess its meeting Tuesday to dodge a quorum call by one member who expressed frustration with the committee’s lack of action in addressing Chicago Public Schools’ funding crisis.

Citing a last minute removal of a resolution from the agenda requesting CPS CEO Forrest Claypool and CPS budget officials testify before the committee on the state of its finances, Ald. Rick Muñoz (22) threatened a quorum call. Only 8 of the 20 members were present. He told reporters after the meeting that he wants Claypool to clear up inconsistencies with the district’s funding gap, “So that the City Council, if needed, can try and assess how to solve the problem.”

Cook County Commissioners will meet at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday to hear the month’s consent calendar items, followed by an afternoon of regular business. The $36 million contract to update the 40 year-old mainframe system at Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown’s office is up on the Finance Committee agenda (after a delay and committee reassignment last month). A legislative update from Springfield and several no cash bid sales are also on tap.

At her confirmation hearing Monday, Chicago’s soon-to-be Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety Dr. Laura Kunard told aldermen the city’s system for police oversight is “largely ineffective and confusing” and lacks “legitimacy” in the eyes of residents.

“I have deep respect for the profession of policing and its critical function and the role that it plays in our society. But I believe strongly that we must make change happen here in Chicago,” Kunard said in her opening remarks before a joint meeting of the Council’s Budget and Public Safety committees, which prompted a critical comment by one committee chair and skepticism from others that Kunard would be an impartial auditor of the city’s police department.

The Council’s Education Committee meets Tuesday morning to consider one new appointment and two reappointments to the Board of Trustees for the City Colleges. A resolution sponsored by Ald. Gregory Michell (7) that calls for a subject matter hearing on Chicago Public Schools’ student-based budgeting formula will be held.

A joint meeting of Budget and Public Safety Committees convenes Monday morning to consider the appointment of a new Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety. The position, created by Council last October, will perform regular audits of the Chicago Police Department and its oversight agencies. The $137,052-a-year position was created last fall as part of a larger police reform ordinance to replace the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) with a new Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA).

wHappy Saturday!

While we’ve allowed ourselves to be enchanted by warm spring weather and distracted by the Washington, D.C. soap opera, Chicago has done a few things worth noting this week.

1. Chicago’s Police Policy Reform Efforts Took One Step Forward, One Step Back

Police policy reform advanced this week when city Inspector General Joe Ferguson announced his nomination of Laura Kunard as the Deputy IG for Public Safety. Once Kunard, an accomplished criminology academic, is confirmed by City Council, she’ll be bestowed with a series of brand new powers for the IG’s office, including the authority to investigate the Chicago Police Department and IPRA/COPA. These new investigatory powers were granted as part of last October’s police reform ordinance. Reform advocates have a long list of things for her to investigate, including CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs and following up on recommendations made by last year’s Police Accountability Task Force.

Meanwhile news from Washington this week made it clear that a federal consent decree for police reform was dead, dead, dead. It was no surprise to many reform advocates, since then-Candidate Donald Trump telegraphed his displeasure with federal “interference” with local policing. “[The] DOJ consent decree was effectively dead in November,” one advocate told me earlier this week.

The loss of the consent decree removes political cover for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, says Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman in an excellent analysis of the political ramifications created by the consent decree’s death. In short: You can’t win election without the Black vote. Chicago’s black voters want police reform. But now Emanuel’s going to have to implement believable reform without the Feds playing the heavy.

Reform advocates have long anticipated and prepared for Trump and Sessions’ decision to kill federal assistance for police reform. One option, advocates say privately, is to pursue a civilian-run suit for a consent decree. In Oakland, California a group of citizens successfully sued the city in 2012, alleging years of police brutality and racial profiling. As a result, a federal judge appointed a full-time compliance director who had the power to fire the city’s police superintendent and make police policy changes without city approval.

Such a suit could be difficult and costly if the city of Chicago was not cooperative, say advocates, since it would require rounding up dozens or even hundreds of plaintiffs willing to testify they were targeted as part of long-running patterns and practices of the police department.

2. The Clock Continues To Tick For CPS

If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you know that Chicago Public Schools need a helping hand. With a $210 million deficit this year, unless CPS gets the money from somebody, they’re going to have to close 13 school days early. The school system can’t raise taxes, because of a state mandated property tax cap, and its credit is so bad, further borrowing isn’t realistic. Gov. Bruce Rauner has repeatedly said he won’t allow a Chicago schools bailout and sympathetic Democrats in the state legislature don’t have enough votes to override Rauner’s veto.

That leaves the City of Chicago and its taxpayers as the funder of last resort. Since The Chicago Board of Education (the official name for CPS) and the city are two separate government entities, the city could potentially buy debt from the Board, at whatever interest rate it chooses. The trouble is: Where would the city of Chicago get the money to pay for it?

As we get closer to the end of the school year, the likelihood of a Chicago-CPS bailout becomes increasingly likely, but Mayor Emanuel isn’t giving any public hint that he’s willing to consider one.

Politically, he can’t. It would be Gov. Rauner’s dream for Chicago to bailout CPS, since Rauner could then turn to the rest of the state and say, “See, I made Chicago pay its own bills!” and would set a precedent for Chicago to pick up a bigger slice of its education costs than it has in the past.

But it seems more and more likely that Chicago will have to pick up the check. While there’s still two more months of legislative session in Springfield, the town is gridlocked and the State Senate’s grand bargain on the state budget is barely limping along.

Allowing CPS schools to close three weeks early would create a cascading series of problems for Chicago. Suddenly you’d have 380,000 kids across Chicago with no day care or activities to occupy them. Unless summer jobs and day camps start early, the system would struggle to keep them engaged and out of trouble. High school juniors counting on end-of-year athletic contests that determine college scholarships would miss their shot. Not to mention three weeks of student instruction that would be cut.

And then there’s the political fallout Mayor Emanuel would have to endure. Even though Springfield won’t pick up the check, it’s the mayor who wears the jacket.

So, unless the state legislature passes a veto-proof bailout in the next six weeks or so, it seems almost a done deal that the Chicago City Council will have to take a vote to cough up the $210 million difference.

Some portion could probably come from a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) account sweep. How much, nobody outside the Mayor’s Office knows, since the state of TIF accounts are closely guarded. But then the rest, let’s say a remaining $100 million, would have to come from some sort of new tax. Creating yet another tax vote for aldermen already wondering how many more tax votes they’ll have to take between now and the 2019 elections.

3. An Important Education Advocate Steps Aside

If you’ve spent any time in the world of Chicago public education over the last few years, chance are you’ve crossed paths with advocate Wendy Katten. A North Center parent with a son in CPS, Katten founded and led the volunteer public school parent organization Raise Your Hand for seven years, acting as a moderating voice that often seemed to split a reasonable difference between the Chicago Teacher’s Union and CPS leadership.

But then this week, Katten announced that she was stepping down from Raise Your Hand leadership because her family was moving to Evanston so her son could begin high school at Evanston Township High School. It was a shocking decision for many observers, especially since Katten was so committed to Chicago public education.

When I caught up with her on Thursday afternoon, Katten expressed a combination of sorrow and relief that she’d made the decision. Her neighborhood didn’t suit her family any more and her husband was from Evanston, one important factor. But also, her son was heading into high school and the CPS high school decision process was “demoralizing” for her family.

“Part of this is really all about CPS not taking over my life. This is a good move for my family,” Katten told me.

“We have the privilege to [leave], and some people don’t. We can pick up and move. I’m aware of that,” Katten said. But she was relieved to move on because between having a kid in CPS and being a full-time advocate, CPS pervaded almost every aspect of her life.

She and her family struggled with finding a good CPS high school for her son.

“I found the school selection process demoralizing and developmentally inappropriate,” for a 13 year-old, she said. “It was a burdensome process.”

As she admitted though, Katten and her family have choices. Living in the decidedly middle-class part of North Center, but within the boundaries of a great CPS elementary school, Katten’s family will have no problem picking up and leaving the fiscal and organizational mess Chicago Public Schools have become. While many other families, have no choice but to lump it.

Taking over for Katten will be a pair of South Siders, Hyde Park resident Joy Clendenning, and Bridgeporter Jennie Biggs. Both are former teachers.

I called Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, for a simple quote on a story Thursday afternoon, but he was in a loquacious mood, and a five minute check-in turned into a half hour conversation. He’s in the middle of a tight run-off election. Mail-in ballots will be counted on Tuesday, April 12, and his union is flexing on police reform.

Inspector General Joe Ferguson announced his pick Thursday for a new public safety deputy, Laura Kunard, an academic who's done extensive research on policing issues and who once served as a court-appointed monitor for a federal consent decree in Albuquerque. The appointment comes after an exhaustive national search for the post.

The Council’s Housing Committee approved all items on their agenda Wednesday morning, including two lease agreements on behalf of the Chicago Police Department and land sales in the city’s Grand Boulevard, South Shore, and Woodlawn neighborhoods.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn’t the only elected official in Chicago to work around a rule in the city’s ethics ordinance that bars elected officials from soliciting more than $1,500 from people or entities that do business with the city. Ald. Sophia King’s (4) reported fundraising activity for February indicates at least five separate donations from LLCs tied to one Chicago development firm that obtained zoning approval from the city in the last year.

While the mayor might’ve benefitted the most from the workaround, The Daily Line’s regular review of monthly campaign contributions for city and county elected officials shows several similar cases of this practice: multiple attorneys from the same firm who do regular business before the city will donate to a campaign in a single month, developers with pending zoning projects will donate to the same alderman under different LLCs registered under the same address, or spouses will each donate the maximum amount allowed by an individual, doubling the candidate’s take.