The Chicago Teachers Union is calling for a vote of ‘no confidence’ against CPS CEO Forrest Claypool. The move, though symbolic, is a public demonstration of outrage against the head of the school district and the Emanuel Administration as they “fumble CPS finances and continue to change the number of dollars needed to keep the city’s public schools adequately staffed and resourced,” the release notes.

It was a Friday news dump for the ages, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office rolled out a series of resignations, re-appointments and promotions to major departments. The biggest change, perhaps, is the end of Alex Holt’s tenure as the city’s Budget Director. Holt has stuck by the mayor his entire time in office–through pension overhauls, massive structural deficits, and the gradual phase-out of scoop and toss borrowing.

Happy Saturday!

Earlier this week I drove to Springfield. What I did there was less important than what I experienced: Warm air, sunny skies and the unmistakable smell of late spring, early summer. Birds tweeted, and the scent of lilacs served to remind me that we’re heading into the time of year when living in the Midwest is pretty great.

So if you’re going to be in Chicago this weekend, make sure you take a walk, ride a bike, or maybe set up a radio outside and barbecue. Talk about baseball or nothing at all important so you can absorb the greatness of living in this place we call home. Because for the next five months, it is the best city in the world.

1. Mayor Shuffles His Leadership Team

Maybe Fridays are a good day for announcing personnel changes, since it gives everyone the weekend to settle down with the changes.. So, Mayor Rahm Emanuel teed up a few people for new offices.

• Randy Conner is the new Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Water Management, replacing Barrett Murphy, whom the Sun-Times reports was fired because he tolerated a culture of racism.


• Samantha Fields is the new Budget Director, replacing Alexandra Holt, a 20-year veteran of City Hall..


• Rosa Escareno is the new Commissioner of BACP, replacing Samantha Fields. Escareno was Deputy Chief Operating Officer, working for COO Joe Deal.

The mayor also announced four-year reappointments for Inspector General Joe Ferguson and Chief Procurement Officer Jamie L. Rhee.

It’s important to note that with all of the leadership changes among mayor staff over the last two years, it’s almost entirely internal promotions, with very few hires from outside–never mind recruits from outside Chicago. Yes, we can homegrow good people here, but now and then, shouldn’t we expect an inspired person that wants to work in city government for a change?

2. However Much CPS Owes, They Don’t Have It

No matter how you look at it, funding for Chicago Public Schools is a complete disaster. Yes, CPS has been running a structural deficit and cooking the books for years to cover it up (my favorite move, using 14 months of revenue to pay for 12 months of operations in 2014), but those problems have been magnified many times over by state government’s total gridlock.

As you’ve read here before, CPS was counting on a $215 million bailout package passed through the state legislature in October with a bi-partisan vote. But, surprising everyone, Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the spending. In response, CPS laid administrators off and made $104 million in mid-year cuts. It still wasn’t enough to fill the gap.

Aldermen, anticipating they’ll be asked to bailout CPS with city money (CPS and the City of Chicago are two separate units of government), started agitating for specific details on how much CPS owes and when.

In response, city CFO Carole Brown announced Wednesday afternoon that the state is late in making $467 million in grant payments.

Wait, what? How much?

We checked with the Illinois State Board of Education, and yes, it seems that the state is late on a pretty big bill.

Most of what CPS needs to come up with is for a $720 million pension payment due June 30. So how will it pay the difference?

Brown wasn’t saying on Wednesday and no other plans have been released since, but budget officials anticipate a resolution in the coming weeks.

One more thing: As soon as CPS figures out how to pay that big bill on June 30, they have a close to $1 billion structural deficit they’ll have to work out for the 2017-18 school year.

3. North Branch Developers Rev Their Engines

There isn’t a more anticipated development gold rush than the North Branch Industrial Corridor. Wedged between North Center, Lincoln Park, West Town and Wicker Park along the Chicago River’s North Branch, the area was designated one of Chicago’s first Planned Manufacturing Districts in the late 1980’s. As a PMD, the area could only be used for manufacturing purposes, keeping land values down. But, as the neighborhoods around it became tonier, the number of manufacturing jobs in North Branch fell.

This week, the Department of Planning and Development recognized those realities by releasing an ambitious draft framework that attempts to ensure the area will remain home to some jobs, while giving developers plenty of red meat.

[Listen to DPD Commissioner David Reifman talk about some of what’s to come at our March Event.]

The framework limits residential development to only 50% of the area, while planning for interesting ideas like a new riverwalk, a north-south transitway limited to bikes and public transit, extending the 606 walk across the river and adding new “smart” traffic signaling.

The changes announced are likely only the beginning of many changes for Chicago’s 26 industrial corridors. Last April Mayor Emanuel announced plans to reevaluate every industrial corridor and all 14 of the city’s PMDs.

The biggest winners in this PMD do-over by far are developers, especially Sterling Bay, which snapped up the old Finkl Steel site on Armitage, and Tribune Media, which owns the huge Freedom Center printing plant at Chicago Ave. and the river. Tribune Media has been seeking a developer partner. With the new proposed DS zoning, Tribune will be greenlighted to build a series of new residential towers.

Remember the old Illinois Central air rights area? That’s now called the New East Side, with over 15,000 new residents over the last 15 years and the 93-story Wanda Vista tower is under construction.

Expect North Branch to be as transformative as that.

This week, The Daily Line’s publisher, Mike Fourcher, sits down with Kevin Graham, newly elected president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, which represents all rank and file officers at the Chicago Police Department. Intense and highly politicized negotiations over the FOP’s contract are expected to begin soon. In one of his broadest interviews since taking office, Graham touched on a number of hot-button issues in policing: racism on the force, the Laquan McDonald investigation, trust in police, and some of his priorities going into negotiations.

For the second year in a row, Chicago Public Schools has found itself in the direst of financial positions. Having built a budget on expectations of state funding and then spending a year blaming Springfield, CPS is once again faced with with the challenge of finding enough cash to make its annual pension payment while keeping schools open. When the clock ran out last year and the pension bill came due on June 30th, CPS was forced to borrow $200 million from banks.

It took a minor delay, a recusal, hours of public testimony, and some added conditions for a planned composting facility in the 9th District to pass Board muster Wednesday. Commissioners moved quickly throughout the rest of the day’s business, including a $380,000 payout to a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted while detained at the Cook County Jail, and payments and new oversight for the Department of Homeland Security.

A report issued by the Chicago Inspector General Tuesday reprimanded the city Board of Ethics for lax efforts to identify and keep records of all active lobbyists, making it harder to levy fines for lack of disclosure. The report called for the BOE to issue higher fines to those who fail to properly disclose lobbying activity. The report comes as a follow-up to a scathing March 2016 report, charging that the BOE only relies on public complaints, rather than its own recordkeeping.

That sound you hear are the shouts of joy from thousands of developers, contractors and assorted land use professionals as every last square inch of the North Branch Corridor is prepared for alteration, following Monday night’s release of the Draft North Branch Industrial Corridor Plan. While the plan for the strip along the Chicago River North Branch includes the name “industrial”, the result will be a lotless industrial than it is today, as the 125 page framework calls for converting much of the current Planned Manufacturing District zoning to residential, commercial and open park space.

Wednesday’s Cook County Board meeting promises to be dominated by talk of a proposed compost facility in the 9th District, where the presiding commissioner, citing conflict, has recused himself from proceedings and quit his side law job over a proposed composting facility. About 40 people have signed up to testify on the item, which is on the agenda in the normally uneventful zoning committee.

Commissioners are also being asked to approve payments for the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. DHSEM, which is in the middle of an overhaul, misspent more than $1 million without getting prior approval, and has lost its executive director. A code change to put the department under oversight of the Bureau of Administration and give the board more oversight of memoranda of understanding is one of the new agenda items. President Preckwinkle has also introduced a new member for the board that oversees the county’s health and hospitals system: Bob Reiter, a public face of the Chicago Federation of Labor.

Chicago’s Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown told reporters that the city is working to close a $100 million budget gap for Chicago Public Schools and to devise a long-term solution to address the school’s structural operating deficit by June 30th, the end of the district's fiscal year. In addition, the city is still waiting on $596 million in delayed block grants from the state. But for now, it appears the city's only stated plan is to “hope” the state will come through with a funding bill before then.

Proponents of a controversial zoning change in Jefferson Park that’s stirred up an unprecedented amount of debate in the neighborhood used Tuesday's Zoning Committee meeting to stage a protest.

It was a double header for advocacy on Monday, as Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS) CEO Dr. Jay Shannon and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle used a morning press conference and an afternoon City Club speech to drive home the potential negative impact of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) on uncompensated care costs and the “shameless act of political cowardice” on the part of Congressmen–including Illinois Republicans–to vote for it last week. 

Commissioners have a straightforward agenda at the County Board today, with a morning of consent calendar items followed by two routine committee meetings. The Technology Committee will consider a $17 million contract extension, and the Litigation Subcommittee will meet in executive session for updates on several pending lawsuits against the county.

Proposals to build a 27-story, 250-unit residential building in Hyde Park and to replace a gas station at the corner of North and Ashland Avenues in Wicker Park with an eight story hotel are on tap for today’s Zoning Committee meeting.

One item that’d allow for an upzone of a warehouse building near the Jefferson Park Transit Station is noticeably missing from the agenda–it’s an application that’s been the subject of hours of testimony at two separate zoning meetings–one held by the Plan Commission in February, the other by the Zoning Committee in March.

Mid-afternoon Monday, calls and emails went out from the mayor’s office to aldermen: There will be no briefings this week on how the city plans to bail out Chicago Public Schools to prevent the district from ending the school year three weeks early on May 30.