A dense, three page memo released Tuesday by the City Council Office on Financial Analysis suggests the assumed rate of return currently used by the Municipal Employees’ Annual and Benefit Fund (MEABF) should be lowered, thus significantly increasing the fund’s liabilities.

A City Hall press conference to wage allegations of "rampant wage theft" at O'Hare Airport will be held at 10:00am this morning featuring SEIU Local 1 President Tom Balanoff, O’Hare Airport workers, Black Caucus Chair Rod Sawyer (6), Latino Caucus Chair George Cárdenas (12), Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1), Ald. David Moore (17), Ald. Ricardo Muñoz (22), Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29), Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), and Ald. John Arena (45).

Just shy of an expected vote on the Mayor’s proposed water-sewer tax hike, City Council’s Progressive Caucus is demanding to see the numbers behind the proposal to shore up the Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund (MEABF). The Mayor's Office has said without the plan, the fund is headed for insolvency within a decade.

“As everyday Chicagoans have faced drastic property tax increases, we as elected representatives need to ensure that the proposed fee will in fact cover the payment schedule that has been laid out before we can even consider voting on this,” Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) said in a statement released yesterday. On August 11, the Caucus requested a breakdown of what rates of return were used to calculate the amount that will have to be paid into the pension funds from the City’s corporate fund. 

A long-stalled resolution from Ald. Derrick Curtis (18) will re-examine what company officials already consider a done deal–the layoff of 600 workers at the Mondelez plant at 73rd and Kedzie. The resolution urges Mondelez “consider instead how to grow its facilities and operations in Chicago in order to take advantage of the skilled workforce and advantages of a Chicago facility, and be part of the renaissance of manufacturing in the City.” The factory has produced Oreo and Chips Ahoy cookies and Ritz and Premium crackers for more than 50 years.

Curtis, whose ward includes the factory, has tended to focus on constituent services over legislating. This is the only non-routine item he has served as lead sponsor on since taking office. In March, he joined Cook County Comm. Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia and Ald. Ed Burke (14) in introducing items directed at the layoffs–Burke’s asked for an examination into how the city and county track redevelopment agreements and tax incentives, and Garcia’s asked the company “to engage in discussions to find ways to maintain its relationship” with the community and keep jobs within Cook County.

An update to the Chicago Building Code’s section on energy conservation is the only agenda item up in the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection today. The ordinance, introduced at the July 20 City Council meeting, amends section 18-13 of the city’s building code to reflect portions of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) of 2015. The IECC code has already been adopted by the state, and has been in effect in Chicago since January 1, 2016.

They say social media is ephemeral, but a tweet last weekend from Grammy and Oscar winning rapper and Chatham resident Che “Rhymefest” Smith was tangible enough to draw the attention of the Chicago Police Chief of Patrol. “You wonder [why] we don't report crimes? The police treated me disgustingly,” Rhymefest tweeted out with a video Saturday morning.

The two minute video is worth watching. Shot with Smith’s phone, it’s a group of Chicago police officers at the Grand Crossing station, impassively arguing with and walking away from Smith as he’s trying to register a complaint after being held up at gunpoint in his car earlier that morning. In the video, Smith is agitated, but not aggressive, as you might be if you had been recently held up. The police officers seemed to not have cared less.

To the police department’s credit, spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi tweeted back an apology just a few hours later. And later that night, CPD’s Chief of Patrol Fred Waller called Smith to apologize on behalf of the department.

The incident caught on video demonstrates a yawning chasm that divides Chicago’s police and minority communities. We’ve been hearing about that gap throughout the may hearings held across the city by City Council, the Police Accountability Task Force and the Department of Justice. “We don’t trust you,” has pretty much been the theme.

A group of police officers ignoring someone may not seem like a big deal, but in parts of Chicago, it’s just more fuel for the fire.

“The reason the police department has no legitimacy are these small indecencies,” says community organizer Anton Seals, Jr. “The only reason we hear about Rhymefest is because of who he is. I can name countless people that have gone through this. The police are completely disconnected.”

A South Shore resident, Seals has been working on the South and West Sides for decades to build stronger relationships between communities, institutions and the city. In Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, Seals observes, police officers are dealing with the realities of a broken society every day, and he doesn’t blame them for their reaction.

“The officers are inundated with so many things; the calamity of poverty, addiction, broken households. They think the worst of humanity, because they see the worst. You see it in that video. No sense of care. No sense of service, like, what’s wrong? They were antagonizing him,” said Seals “At that level, why would people come see you about a murder?”

Last Thursday, aldermen briefed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s staff on potentially sweeping police reform plans were told that the Mayor plans to put his reforms up for a vote by September 14, and he may or may not publically release a draft of his proposed ordinance this week–two weeks before a vote. Emanuel’s team was also not forthcoming about who they have been working with to draft the police reform ordinance. At the end of their briefing, Aldermen were even asked to hand back papers with the ordinance’s outline.

Aldermen at the briefing were not happy with Emanuel’s lack of interest in disclosing information about his process or a draft of the ordinance to the public. They’re going back for another meeting this morning at 10:00 a.m. I’m told that they’ll be calling for a public release for a second time.

At his best, Mayor Emanuel’s relentless drive to push through change serves the city well. The sheer amount of information available on the city’s data portal is a good example of transparency done right. But his demand for a quick policy fix–even a big one–can sometimes sweep aside important details, like extending Chicago Public Schools’ number of instruction days without getting just a little bit of teacher buy-in first.

Here again, the Emanuel policy freight train is gaining speed, and I’m concerned it will result in a Council rubber stamp without gaining public trust.

Police reform might actually be the biggest issue of Emanuel’s entire tenure. And unless Emanuel is able to enact meaningful reform, there is a real possibility the Department of Justice will take away mayoral control of the police, as they have in Newark and are threatening to do in Baltimore.

But reform requires more than policy, it requires trust.

Chief of Patrol Fred Waller’s apology call this weekend was a good step towards building trust. But that sort of thing needs to happen a thousand times over for Chicagoans that haven’t won Grammys or Oscars. If Mayor Emanuel can put some of his considerable energy into visiting Chicago’s communities to explain his proposed police reforms before a Council vote, he might begin to gain the trust he needs to make his policies work.

In a marathon closed door briefing for aldermen in a 5th floor City Hall conference room Thursday afternoon, mayoral staff provided a basic outline, but no ordinance language, for police reform, including a more powerful agency to investigate the police’s use of force that would replace the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) and an inspector general with the power to audit the police department and the IPRA-replacement agency. Not included in the briefing were plans for a civilian police oversight board, which mayoral staff said would be taken up later, after the annual budget process is completed in October.

A recent city Law Department opinion on how tie votes should be considered in City Council gives considerable new powers to the chair, effectively making it possible for recorded tie votes to be overturned in favor of whatever ruling the chair favors.

City Council’s final hearing for the Subcommittee on Police Accountability wrapped after more than four hours of testimony Wednesday afternoon, shedding light on some of the major issues confronting the mayor and aldermen who are wrestling over language for an ordinance for new oversight agencies. Namely, how heads of those agencies will be chosen, how those agencies will be funded, who can be precluded from becoming an investigator, and what role the community will play in oversight going forward.

The Mayor’s staff is holding a briefing for aldermen this afternoon to discuss the next steps on a comprehensive police reform ordinance to replace the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) and to establish a Public Safety Auditor, City Hall sources say. The heads of the City Council’s Black and Progressive Caucuses, Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6), and Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) will both attend, as will Police Accountability Subcommittee Chairs Ald. Rick Munoz (22), Ald. John Arena (45), Ald. Joe Moore (49), and Public Safety Chair Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30). Yesterday, Emanuel spokesperson Shannon Breymaier reaffirmed the Mayor’s intention to pass a comprehensive ordinance reforming police oversight bodies in September, but wouldn’t elaborate on the contents of the ordinance.  

 

The City Council’s Zoning Committee approved a zoning change to facilitate the construction of McDonald’s new Chicago corporate headquarters planned for Fulton Market, a new 196-room hotel for downtown Chicago, and nearly every other application detailed in yesterday’s preview.

Attendance: Chair Danny Solis (25), Vice Chair James Cappleman (46), Ald. Raymond Lopez (15)

Even with a recent laundry list of new taxes championed by the Emanuel Administration to fix the city’s long standing pension problems, there’s “no brewing tax revolt” among Chicagoans, according to a new poll conducted by the left-leaning polling firm Anzalone Liszt Grove.

First reported by Capitol Fax, the Washington D.C.-based polling firm released the results of a survey conducted of 600 Chicago voters on behalf of the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, pro-labor think tank. The survey sought to determine “whether the building media narrative about a Chicago tax revolt had a basis in public opinion.”

City Treasurer Kurt Summers held his quarterly earnings call yesterday afternoon, touting higher performance for city investments, and promising passage of his long-delayed plans to require regular reporting on local investment initiatives by banks that hold the city’s money, and a new loan program for local businesses. Summers expects the municipal depository ordinance and Fund 77 initiative to be heard at the September 9th Finance Committee meeting. But a policy change to allow the Treasurer to invest in sister agency debt, like that of the ailing Chicago Board of Education, won’t make it before Council, he said.

A new 196-room hotel for downtown Chicago, eight multi-million dollar single family homes for West Town, an expanded luxury high-rise development in the Gold Coast, and a 38-unit apartment building near the Blue Line Western Stop are some of more than a dozen applications up for review by the Council’s Zoning Committee today.

The Committee meets at 10:00 a.m. this morning to consider zoning applications previously deferred or recently approved by the Chicago Plan Commission. Some applications date back to March.  

Last Friday, aldermen received a draft copy of an ordinance for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed water tax to shore up revenue for the Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund (MEABF), the largest of the city’s four retirement funds. On Tuesday The Daily Line obtained a draft copy of that ordinance, dated Friday, August 19, 2016.