The last full City Council meeting of the year was likely one of the most eventful ones of 2016: A federal indictment accusing Ald. Willie Cochran (20) of using a special ward fund to pay his daughter's college tuition and gambling habit was filed in federal court and made public less than an hour into the meeting as aldermen were in the midst of praising the Cubs. Mayor Rahm Emanuel officially announced the city’s new Clerk: Anna Valencia, his Director of Legislative Counsel and Government Affairs (LCGA). And aldermen spent hours discussing–and at times arguing over–two contentious ordinances that ultimately passed: a rollback of the city’s flavored tobacco rules and the formation of a $1.3 million legal defense fund aimed at protecting undocumented residents from the threat of deportation.