Two Chicago aldermen are pressing members of the Chicago Board of Education to support their plan to use surplus tax increment financing (TIF) revenue to plug CPS’ budget hole for the upcoming 2017 school year.

At yesterday’s monthly meeting of the full Board, Ald. George Cardenas (12), of Brighton Park, and Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) of Wicker Park and West Town, urged BOE members to support an ordinance they introduced in City Council last week that would create a mechanism for the city to annually assess the district’s financial needs and use surplus TIF money to help fill the hole.

More than 1,600 individual donations were made to Chicago’s elected city officials and Ward Organizations in the month of June, making it one of the biggest fundraising months since the 2015 election.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel alone brought in approximately $525,700 in individual donations. A significant number of those donations, about 15, came from lawyers with Kirkland & Ellis.

[Full Spreadsheet]

A big chunk of that money, about $161,700, came in the form of three checks of $53,900, the maximum allowable amount a political action committee can give to a candidate in one election cycle. Those donors are all trade labor unions: the Chicagoland Operators Joint Labor-Management PAC, Engineers Political Education Committee, and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 399.

Two plans to raise additional revenue for Chicago Public Schools, a roadmap for the creation of a civilian oversight board of the Chicago Police Department, and restrictions on party buses were all introduced by aldermen at the July monthly City Council meeting. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has also made a slew of appointments, including a new Commissioner for the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and two ordinances related to existing bond offerings for O’Hare Airport: (Ordinance #1/Ordinance #2)

One day after nearly 300 people attended a public hearing on police accountability hosted by the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Office announced its timeline for reforms, including when the City Council is expected to vote to replace Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) with a “civilian investigative agency,” create a Public Safety Auditor, and a new element: the creation of a Community Oversight Board.

The announcement, which landed late Friday afternoon, included a schedule of five public hearings throughout August for aldermen to gather input from residents. A vote on IPRA's replacement and the new Public Safety Auditor position are expected as early as September. 

Nearly a year after approving a historic property tax hike to shore up revenue for the city’s Police and Fire pension funds, the City Council approves a modest rebate plan for homeowners who make $75k and less. We finally learn what happens when there’s a tie in committee. And demands for a civilian oversight board for the police department builds.

After a nearly seven month investigation, attorney Dan Webb has issued his report reviewing the city’s Law Department. Webb, with the firm Winston & Strawn, “did not find evidence establishing a culture, practice, or approach in the Division of intentionally concealing evidence or engaging in intentional misconduct relating to discovery practices or other obligations,” but did turn up several areas of improvement, and provided more insight on how the city’s Federal Civil Rights Litigation Division (FCRL) operates.

Webb’s report says the division is overburdened, understaffed, and makes discovery errors because of miscommunication “with CPD/OEMC; not having full knowledge of or training in certain CPD systems or documents at issue in the case; apparently not performing sufficiently diligent analysis regarding document production, such as by cross-referencing certain materials; or not following up on outstanding discovery requests completely or timely.”

The FCRL is the division within the City’s Department of Law (DOL) that defends the city and the Chicago Police Department in civil suits brought over allegations of CPD misconduct or civil rights violations. Webb was called in after Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared the Law Department should not be part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the CPD. The Mayor reversed course after a judge accused a city attorney of hiding evidence in a fatal police shooting case, and that attorney resigned.

More than 300 people packed a conference room at Malcolm X College last night to listen and testify at the first of a handful of police accountability town hall meetings hosted by City Council's Progressive Caucus. The turnout was much larger than expected–enough that Malcolm X officials had to disassemble a wall in the conference room to double the size of the meeting space.

  The Chicago Plan Commission approved a zoning change to facilitate the construction of McDonald’s new headquarters in the Fulton Market District, land-use plans for a second TIF district dedicated to the massive Lathrop Homes development, a plan to turn the historic Old Main Building on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus into apartments, and a new residential housing complex for Wicker Park, along with several other large-scale residential developments and one hotel at its monthly meeting yesterday.

McDonald’s Headquarters for Fulton Market District (27th Ward)

Sterling Bay, the developer behind McDonald’s new downtown office, plans to build a nine-story office building with ground floor retail at the Harpo Studios site, the former home of the Oprah Winfrey Show. The site at 110 N. Carpenter contains a surface parking lot and the adjacent, vacant production studio building.

McDonald’s anticipates that a significant number of the 2,000 employees who currently work out of the Oak Brook office will be transferred to the new Chicago location. A minimum of 300 parking spaces will be provided, along with shuttle buses that will drive to downtown METRA stations.

Six months after an attempt by freshman Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) failed in dramatic fashion in the Budget Committee, aldermen are trying again to help CPS plug its deficit by using TIF revenue.

In February, despite objections over procedure from Ald. Rick Munoz (22), Budget Chair Carrie Austin re-referred a resolution from Rosa calling for “immediate TIF surplus action to offset drastic cuts at our Chicago Public Schools,” to the Finance Committee, where it hasn’t been heard from since.

The City Council’s Law Department is expected to draft a memorandum to aldermen detailing how council committees should proceed when a vote on a matter ends in a tie.

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32) made the request to Jeff Levine, a lead attorney with the city’s Law Department, at yesterday’s early morning Rules Committee meeting after the two butted heads over their own interpretations of the council’s Rules of Procedure.

A proposal to create a Civilian Police Accountability Council to oversee investigations into police misconduct will be introduced by Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35) today.

Copy of the Draft Ordinance

The “CPAC” ordinance, as it has been commonly referred to by supporters, would create a board of 22 members elected from each police district across the city. Members would serve four-year terms, with elections held at the same time as those for Chicago Public School’s Local School Councils, which have had low participation rates.

In the long slog ahead of budget season, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle invited the public to sound off on her fiscal year 2017 budget projections, and advocate for programs and funding to be spared from expected cuts. President Preckwinkle, who has warned of tough choices ahead, presided over the evening, joined by Finance Chair John Daley, Comm. Richard Boykin, Comm. Robert Steele, and Budget Director Tanya Anthony.

The meeting lasted just over an hour, and compared to some recent pre-board meeting testimony, was extremely tame. Testimony stayed well within the night’s three minute limit, with many coming to voice strong support for the county’s new transportation plan (reps from Globetrotters Engineering, Milhouse Engineering & Construction, Inc., and Knight E/A), continued funding for anti-violence initiatives and Cook County Health and Hospitals System programs (like Jorge Prieto’s dental clinic); or to simply thank President Preckwinkle for funding certain initiatives (like Community Development Block Grants for Loyola University or grant funding for Build Inc. projects).

An otherwise uneventful Housing and Real Estate Committee was marked with a short note of levity from Housing Chair Joe Moore (49), who jokingly volunteered to relinquish his gavel to make a motion to lease the former Legislative Inspector General Faisal Khan’s office to the Chicago Park District for $1. Khan’s unpopular stint as LIG ended in November of 2015, but he’s since started work at Project Six, a “government accountability task force” that has reported ties to the Illinois Policy Institute.

Chicago will collect $461 million in Tax Increment Financing revenue in the 2015 tax year, an increase of nearly $89 million over last year, an examination from Cook County Clerk David Orr found. But Orr, in a familiar refrain, noted transparency is still lacking on how revenues from the city’s 146 TIF districts are spent.

“At what point can a taxpayer easily get to the specifics of how certain projects are chosen?” Orr asked in a statement, calling for “a real debate during the budget approval process” over how funds are allocated. He attributes the bounce in TIF revenue to the city’s property tax hikes and increased assessments.

After some last minute negotiations, the Finance Committee approved a re-work of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed property tax rebate program, including a special “hardship clause” for homeowners with an annual gross income of $50,000 or less.

Attendance: Chairman Ed Burke (14), Joe Moreno (1), Pat Dowell (3), Sophia King (6), Rod Sawyer (6), Gregory Mitchell (7), Michelle Harris (8), Anthony Beale (9), Patrick Daley Thompson (11), George Cardenas (12), Marty Quinn (13), Raymond Lopez (15), David Moore (17), Derrick Curtis (18), Matt O’Shea (19), Willie Cochran (20), Rick Munoz (22), Mike Zalewski (23), Michael Scott, Jr. (24), Danny Solis (25), Walter Burnett (27), Jason Ervin (28), Ariel Reboyras (30), Scott Waguespack (32), Carlos Ramirez Rosa (35), Emma Mitts (37), Nick Sposato (38), Brendan Reilly (42), Michele Smith (43), Tom Tunney (44), John Arena (45), Harry Osterman (48), Deb Silverstein (50)

No official rules or details as to how the city plans to help homeowners in that income bracket were included in the latest version the committee approved. Instead, at the request of Ald. John Arena (45), a clause was added to the ordinance giving Budget Director Alex Holt the authority to add extra protections for those homeowners. Budget spokesperson Molly Poppe said hardship would be decided case by case, and those who qualify might be eligible to recoup the full amount of their property tax hike.