The City Council’s Zoning Committee met for more than four hours Tuesday, approving nearly 50 zoning applications, five landmark designations, and one city-wide ordinance regarding corporate building signs on high-rise buildings.

An independent analysis of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed 2017 budget from the Council Office of Financial Management (COFA) is generally supportive of the mayor’s proposals, with only a few minor critiques, according to a draft obtained by The Daily Line. The COFA report has been held, awaiting Budget Chair Carrie Austin (34)’s approval. Because Austin has not reviewed the report, it was held for a Wednesday early morning release, the day of the budget vote, leading some aldermen to question the value of the report at all.

UPDATE: Only a few minutes after The Daily Line spoke with COFA Director Ben Winick, he emailed the report to Council members.

Cook County Commissioners will meet for brief committee hearings before launching into its amendment debate and approval of Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s $4.4 billion FY2017 budget. That budget includes a beverage tax approved on the slimmest of margins last week, a pledge to freeze taxes until FY2019, and a boost in county transportation dollars (including a menu-like program to allocate $500,000 per commissioner for district projects).

In each of the past three years, Ald. Marty Quinn (13) has introduced an ordinance to bar registered sex offenders from the city’s libraries. Today, his most recent ordinance, introduced in September, has finally made it on the Public Safety Committee agenda, along with two appointments to the Emergency Telephone System Board

The Council’s Finance Committee held a proposed ordinance on Monday to authorize a Class L Real Estate Incentive for Tucker Development, which would help offset some of the $21 million in expected rehabilitation costs. The proposed commercial retail development is in the historic Fulton-Randolph area.

The Council’s Zoning Committee is scheduled to consider designating three shuttered Chicago Public School buildings as official city landmarks as developers seek to transition the historic buildings into residential uses. Two other former CPS schools, also shuttered in 2013, are the subject of zoning applications to facilitate new uses: one would become a meeting hall for a local union, the other would become a Chicago Housing Authority-owned mixed office and residential building.

A renewed collective bargaining agreement for the city’s non-emergency public safety personnel is on the agenda for the Council’s Committee on Workforce Development and Audit.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel got thirty minutes of airtime to answer a series of softball questions on  dozens of Chicago radio stations last night. The first ever “radio roadblock” hosted by former news anchor Bill Kurtis was simulcast across 47 radio stations commercial-free during the 6:00 p.m. drive-time half hour. Kurtis, who has recently become better known for light documentaries on the A&E cable channel than his 1970’s hard-hitting newsman days, posed seven easy questions from Chicago-area residents, and sometimes lent a sympathetic ear to the Mayor during the interview.

One of City Council’s most influential aldermanic staffers is also working as a lobbyist for two of Chicago’s largest property holders, The Daily Line has learned. Madeline Hill, who acts as chief of staff for Ald. Brendan Reilly (42), is actually paid as a contractor for Citizens for Alderman Reilly and not a city employee. Hill’s consulting group, VX Consulting, is also a registered lobbyist for Wirtz Realty and M. Fishman & Company, two of Chicago’s larger residential landlords and developers.

“It’s unique, but not wrong,” Hill told The Daily Line Monday. “It’s not written, but obviously I keep a very far distance between the 42nd Ward, even the old 42nd Ward [boundaries], and other wards. That stuff I don’t do. Nothing in downtown Chicago. That’s a no brainer.”

According to city ordinances, Hill’s split relationship between being a senior staffer for Ald. Reilly, who has more development in his ward than any other alderman, as well as a consultant for two large real estate companies, is not illegal, nor is it officially unethical, according to advisory opinions posted by the Chicago Board of Ethics. However, Hill’s situation is unique among lobbyists and aldermanic staff, where she could attend to high-stakes policy for an alderman and a private developer in the same day, all while receiving payment from both groups.

Hill says that when she talks to city planning staff she keeps a clear line between when she is working on a 42nd Ward matter or a client. “What I always do, whenever I talk to them is make clear what I’m talking to them about. If it’s for an outside client, I’ll say it’s for a non-42nd Ward matter, I’ll say this is for X client. I’m always clear about what matter I’m on...I don’t mix conversation and I make sure keep things tidy.”

Since 2009, Hill or her consulting group has received $247,000 in payments from Citizens for Alderman Reilly, including $95,450 during 2016.

Contacted by The Daily Line, developer Marc Fishman was asked if he knew about Hill’s work for both Reilly and his company. He demurred, “I’m sorry, I’m at a construction site. I didn’t recognize the number,” and then quickly hung up.

The Daily Line also contacted Wirtz Realty for comment, but did not receive a response by publication.

Hill has received official city communications referring to both of her roles as aldermanic staff and lobbyist. For one development in July 2015, Hill acted as a representative for Wirtz Realty on a project in the 44th Ward, where she received a carbon copy from Zoning Administrator Patty Scudiero on her decision to provide zoning relief. On another occasion in March 2016, Hill was carbon copied as the 42nd Ward lead staffer on a request to Planning Commissioner David Reifman for a request to use a pocket park for private use.

The city ethics ordinance specifically bars employees (which includes aldermanic staff) from influencing decisions from which they have “derived any income or compensation” in the past 12 months, or the upcoming 12 months. However, the ordinance does not apply to contractors, providing Hill a loophole so she may work for both Alderman Reilly and outside clients simultaneously.

An analysis by The Daily Line found that while nine other aldermanic chiefs of staff did receive outside campaign payments by their bosses, they retained city employee status. Campaign payments for other aldermanic staffers were significantly less than Hill’s and was for campaign work done while not working on city time, conduct explicitly permitted by the Board of Ethics.

“It’s a lot of perceived power. I have a lot less power and influence that people think,” said Hill.

A tax break for a private developer building a commercial retail complex in the historic Fulton-Randolph area is on tap for Finance Committee today, and is one of a few non-routine items listed on the agenda.

Donald Trump’s presidential win has confounded elected officials in Chicago and Cook County, and raised serious questions about potential local impacts to County medical care and the federal probe into the Chicago Police Department. Tuesday’s election had other big impacts, including the elimination of a county office and new control of hundreds of millions in transportation dollars.

We’ve included an extended interview with Cook County Recorder of Deeds Karen Yarbrough, whose office will fold its duties under the jurisdiction of the County Clerk. The County has until 2020 to figure out how to merge the two offices, and Yarbrough, who opposed the binding referendum, says no one has reached out to her to talk about it.

And roughly 78% of Illinois voters advanced an amendment to the state constitution, dubbed the “Lockbox Amendment.” It would force the state and local municipalities to direct transportation-related tax dollars to roads, highways, bridges and other transportation infrastructure. In theory, it’s a laudatory goal, in practice, there are serious consequences. The Civic Federation’s Laurence Msall explains why.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle also cast the deciding vote on a controversial plan to slap a penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages, making Cook largest county in America to impose such a tax. Democratic commissioners who voted no invoked the wrath of Trump voters who might strike back when the board’s up for election in 2018.

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Voters last Tuesday overwhelmingly approved, 63-37%, a binding referendum that merges the Cook County Recorder of Deeds office into the County Clerk and eliminates the Recorder position by 2020. While the initiative was framed as a cost saving measure to combine two offices that do similar work, Cook County officials tell The Daily Line there’s no clear road map for how the merger should be carried out.

A vote already expected to advance on a razor thin margin was complicated at the Cook County board Thursday when it became apparent Comm. Robert Steele (D-2) was not in the building. Comm. Steele, who is recovering at home from a hospital stay earlier this week, threw an expected 9-8 committee passage of the President’s sweetened beverage tax out of whack, and ended up forcing President Toni Preckwinkle to play tie breaker. Cook County is now the largest county in the nation to pass a sweetened beverage tax.

The Cook County Committee on Finance meets today to consider President Toni Preckwinkle’s proposed penny per ounce tax on sweetened beverages, as well as her proposal to halt tax hikes for the next three fiscal years. A similar tax freeze proposal from Comm. John Fritchey that was deferred at the request of his colleagues is also on the agenda.

Only one alderman, Scott Waguespack (32), introduced formal amendments to the annual revenue and management ordinances for the 2017 budget at Wednesday’s full City Council meeting.