A plan to turn a vacant CPS annex on the South Side into a tech incubator and a new satellite office on the northwest side for the city’s Department of Finance are up for consideration by the Housing Committee, as is the appointment of Anthony Simpkins to the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund Board. Simpkins is currently serving as the Managing Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development’s Housing Division. He’s already been before the committee several times in the past year, briefing aldermen on the department’s quarterly housing reports.

Correction: An earlier version of this story included a misspelling of the name of the Cook County Assessor's legal director. It is Khang Trinh, not Triph. We apologize for the error.

A $36 million software contract for the Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown’s office is up for consideration in committee today, but will likely face questions over reports the technology is “so awful it's getting people wrongly arrested”. Long-delayed changes to the county’s property tax incentive system are also up, despite lingering reservations from some commissioners, municipal leaders, and Assessor Joe Berrios’ office.

A hearing asking for the Chicago Police Department to mail notices to neighbors if gun or sex offenders are living within a block of them turned into an hour-long airing of grievances over the police department’s tracking of offenders, coordination with other city departments, the ease of using the registry website, and whether the 2,000 convicted and released gun offenders and 2,250 sex offenders living in the city is a vast underestimation. Three hours later, a virtually empty Council chamber heard testimony from the Department of Family and Support Services and the Chicago Police Department on improving community-police relations.

Using development data from the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, we created a map of major developments in Chicago over a 19-month period. There are a number of things that stand out:

A preview of our map of Chicago Development.

Spurred by our upcoming discussion with Department of Planning and Development Commissioner David Reifman and a desire to look at the big picture of Chicago development, we’ve created a 19-month overview of major developments across Chicago in an interactive map.

“Printing issues” have delayed the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 runoff elections an additional two weeks, FOP representatives said yesterday in a press release. “Completed ballots are due on April 11th and will be counted on April 12th. The date change is due to a printing issues that caused a delay in mailing out the ballots.”

Finance Committee Chairman Ed Burke (14) is running the show at today’s joint Finance/Public Safety committee meeting–two of his introductions are the only items on the agenda. The first is a resolution calling on representatives “to address the City's initiatives and the programs that will attempt to repair the disjointed relationship between the Chicago Police Department and the public.” The second mandates CPD and the state alert neighbors via mail when a gun or sex offender moves within a block of them.

Leadership of Chicago’s biggest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, is at stake this month in a runoff election for president between incumbent Dean Angelo and challenger Kevin Graham. A patrolman in the 19th District, Graham won 24% of the vote to Angelo’s 35% in the first round of voting completed last week. Runoff ballots were mailed to members Wednesday and will be tabulated on March 29.

Some 40 Jefferson Park residents outraged by a proposed 5-story self-storage facility that’ll eventually be paired with a 100-unit mixed affordable and public housing building packed the City Council Chambers for Thursday’s Plan Commission meeting to blast the project and scorn the local alderman.

It was the first marathon-long showing of public resentment for a zoning project before the mayor-appointed zoning board in months–the last being the JDL’s Cuneo Hospital luxury high-rise development in Uptown and the city’s massive revamp of the historic Lathrop Homes public housing complex.

City Clerk Anna Valencia’s husband, Reyahd Kazmi, became a registered city lobbyist, and was awarded the first of four potentially lucrative contracts to lobby aldermen, the mayor, and city agencies four months after Valencia became director of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Legislative Counsel and Government Affairs Office, according to Kazmi’s disclosures to the city’s Ethics Board. His contracts include powerful city hall players like former mayoral ally Becky Carroll and a fuel and chemical provider for the city, Black Dog Corporation.

Cook County Board lobbyists reported over $1.9 million in compensation in 2016, over half of which went to powerhouse firm All-Circo, which reported to the Cook County Clerk’s Office $736,000 in fees related to Cook County Board lobbying. The biggest issues lobbyists reported plying influence on were the County’s new Sweetened Beverage Tax and and a failed attempt to create a 50-cent rideshare tax last fall.

Aldermen have spent more than $325 million in menu funds over the past five years, with the bulk going towards traditional infrastructure: 77% on repairing roads, sidewalks, and alleys; and just over 17% to lighting. The other six percent of spending is devoted to parks, schools, trees, murals, installation of security cameras, and libraries.

Nine planned development applications are slated for review by the Chicago Plan Commission today, including a major expansion of the Lagunitas Brewery in Douglas Park, a controversial affordable housing development in Jefferson Park, and a 52-story office tower for downtown.

Two of the nine projects are likely to spark opposition: Praedium Development’s plan to build a 9-story, 197-unit residential build at the corner of Broadway and Wilson in Uptown, and Full Circle Communities’ 100-unit, mostly affordable, seven-story apartment building planned for Jefferson Park. A protest is scheduled at City Hall ahead of the meeting for the latter project.

Three property tax incentives to help the rehabilitation of dilapidated industrial properties in the 33rd, 37th and 9th Ward received unanimous approval by the Council’s Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development. Pending approval by the full City Council at the end of the month, the Class 6(b) tax incentives will reduce the amount of property taxes these companies would have to pay over the next 12 years.

Flanked by Police Board President Lori Lightfoot and members of a newly-formed Community Policing Advisory Panel, Police Supt. Eddie Johnson released what he described as a nineteen page “framework” that outlines the Chicago Police Department’s newest plans for accountability. Hours earlier, Cook County Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans signed an order aimed at increasing access to attorneys for arrestees in Chicago.