Cook County Health CEO Israel Rocha explains the rollout of open access vaccine clinics in Cook County.

Two Cook County mass vaccination sites will be open for walk-in appointments through Saturday, County officials announced Wednesday.

“Open access means open access — come on down,” Cook County Health CEO Israel Rocha said during a news conference.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle praised Jennifer “Sis” Killen’s appointment as the new superintendent of the Cook County Department of Transportation and Highway at the board’s Thursday meeting.

The county has only put about 2 percent of the federal money it has received related to the COVID-19 pandemic toward administrative costs, county Chief Financial Officer Ammar Rizki told commissioners during a Thursday board meeting.

Commissioners peppered county with questions regarding administrative costs that could soak up money from the March 2020 CARES Act before Rizki assured the board that only 2 percent of its CARES money had gone toward administrative line items, well under its 5 percent threshold for that kind of spending.

Sens. Michael Hastings (top) and Celina Villanueva (bottom) discuss SB 577.

Illinois charter school advocates and a Chicago Public Schools lobbyist told a largely skeptical Illinois Senate Education Committee on Tuesday that a pending bill supporting charter school employees’ ability to unionize would infringe on the First Amendment rights of charter school administrators and leadership.

Nonetheless, the bill advanced out of the committee in an 11-3 vote.

Sen. Robert Martwick and City Hall lobbyist Derek Blaida appear before the Senate Executive Committee to discuss SB2497.

Illinois legislators advanced a bill Wednesday that would create an elected school board for Chicago, approving the measure in an 11-5 vote.

Sen. Robert Martwick (D-Chicago) sponsored SB2497, which requires elections for a 21-member Chicago Board of Education, with 20 members representing education districts in Chicago plus one citywide president of the body. Currently, the Chicago Board of Education is composed of seven members appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

A rendering of the first building proposed as part of the planned Lincoln Yards megadevelopment, viewed from the west. [Chicago Department of Planning and Development]

City planning officials are scheduled on Thursday to review plans for the first phase of construction at the 55-acre Lincoln Yards site, two years after the City Council blessed the overall project amid a storm of controversy and criticism.

Representatives of developer Sterling Bay will make a “courtesy presentation" to the Chicago Plan Commission during a 10 p.m. meeting on their plan to build a 9-story office building on “Parcel G.1” of the campus, but the commission will not take a vote on the matter. Department of Planning and Development staffers will decide whether to approve the sub-site plan after taking “comments from plan commissioners and the public into consideration,” a department spokesperson wrote in an email on Tuesday.

CTA buses saw a 50 percent decline in trips between 2019 and 2020. [Lee Edwards/Block Club]

Mass transit became an immediate casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, as nationwide stay-at-home orders and crowding concerns drove Americans away from trains and buses.

The drop-off did not spare Chicago-area transit networks, which saw a freefall in ridership in April and May 2020, according to a March 25 report from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute. Even as the region began to partially reopen in June, CTA buses saw a 50 percent decline in trips compared to 2019, while CTA trains suffered a loss of 77 percent and Metra lost 89 percent of its riders.

Gov. JB Pritzker received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine Wednesday afternoon and warned about the dangers of easing protective practices as Illinois' virus caseload ticks upward.

Pritzker said he was eligible for a shot due to his status as a government worker. His family has not yet been vaccinated. He said he took the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because it only required one dose and did so at the Illinois State Fairgrounds because “I happen to be here.”

Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Allison Arwady is set to address aldermen during a committee subject matter hearing on Thursday.

Chicago Department of Public Health Comm. Alison Arwady is scheduled to appear before the City Council’s Committee on Health and Human Relations at 2 p.m. Thursday to discuss recent developments in Chicago’s COVID-19 pandemic.

Arwady last appeared before the committee on March 3, as Chicago’s United Center vaccine administration site prepared to open and bars and restaurants began operating at half capacity following a dip in Chicago’s caseload.

Aldermen on the City Council Committee on Finance approved $17.6 million in tax-increment financing payments (TIF) for Chicago parks on Monday, including $10 million for Riis Park at 6100 W. Fullerton Ave. in the 30th Ward.

Most of the Riis Park funding will go toward “major design and reconstruction” for the park’s fieldhouse (O2021-766), which will be adjacent to Chicago Public Schools’ new Belmont Cragin Elementary school. Construction is set to get underway on the school later this year in advance of opening in fall 2022.