After sitting in Rules Committee for nearly a year, an ordinance reinstating the city’s head tax was sent to Finance on Monday morning. The ordinance’s sponsor, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), intended to bring the ordinance directly to the floor for a vote at Wednesday’s full City Council meeting. He filed the Rule 41 request with the City Clerk as is required under the Council’s Rules of Procedures.

The Council’s Health Committee has two resolutions on its 11:00 a.m. Tuesday agenda: one calls on aldermen to re-enforce the city’s litter laws and combat “filthy neighborhoods”, the other requests members of the Urban Wildlife institute brief aldermen on the state of urban wildlife in Chicago.

The Council’s Zoning Committee on Monday morning approved a new member for the Zoning Board of Appeals and a seven-story, 111-unit mixed-use development for Rogers Park that includes a new Target store and 65 units reserved for Chicago Housing Authority voucher holders.

High recidivism rates in Chicago and Cook County will be the topic of discussion of today’s 11:00 a.m. Public Safety Committee hearing.

The Council’s Budget Committee meets briefly this morning at 10:00 a.m. to approve a $186,000 federal grant for the Department of Transportation. The grant from the National Safety Council as part of its national Road to Zero initiative–a goal to eradicate traffic fatalities across the country. 

The city’s year-long endeavor to overhaul the strict manufacturing boundaries of the North Branch Industrial Corridor faces its first legislative hurdle Thursday in a Plan Commission vote.

Plan Commissioners will also be greeted this morning by a neighborhood group in Jefferson Park that has been vocal in its opposition to an item not on today’s agenda.

At 10 am, members of Northwest Side Unite plan to hold a press conference where they plan to hand out copies of a petition that’s received more than 5,000 signatures against the rezone for 5150 N. Northwest Highway.

For the second year in a row, Chicago Public Schools has found itself in the direst of financial positions. Having built a budget on expectations of state funding and then spending a year blaming Springfield, CPS is once again faced with with the challenge of finding enough cash to make its annual pension payment while keeping schools open. When the clock ran out last year and the pension bill came due on June 30th, CPS was forced to borrow $200 million from banks.

Chicago’s Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown told reporters that the city is working to close a $100 million budget gap for Chicago Public Schools and to devise a long-term solution to address the school’s structural operating deficit by June 30th, the end of the district's fiscal year. In addition, the city is still waiting on $596 million in delayed block grants from the state. But for now, it appears the city's only stated plan is to “hope” the state will come through with a funding bill before then.

Proponents of a controversial zoning change in Jefferson Park that’s stirred up an unprecedented amount of debate in the neighborhood used Tuesday's Zoning Committee meeting to stage a protest.

Proposals to build a 27-story, 250-unit residential building in Hyde Park and to replace a gas station at the corner of North and Ashland Avenues in Wicker Park with an eight story hotel are on tap for today’s Zoning Committee meeting.

One item that’d allow for an upzone of a warehouse building near the Jefferson Park Transit Station is noticeably missing from the agenda–it’s an application that’s been the subject of hours of testimony at two separate zoning meetings–one held by the Plan Commission in February, the other by the Zoning Committee in March.

The collective bargaining agreement between the city and the union representing the rank and file officers of the Chicago Police Department is one of the most expensive and politically fraught contracts a mayor can encounter. Typically a three year agreement, the contract between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 (FOP), representing the rank and file officers of the Chicago Police Department, costs the city hundreds of millions of dollars a year in salaries to the city’s more than 11,000 police officers. And, since those officers are required to live in the city boundaries, they and their family members’ happiness with the contract has a direct impact on the mayoral election.