Catching a breather during a two hour stretch of speeches honoring various city employees at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6), Chair of the Council Black Caucus, talked about his group’s ability to influence the vote on the Fraternal Order of Police’s renewed contract.

“I’m not sure we’ve got 26 votes on this at the outset, but we’re a lot closer to it than not,” he said. “You take the 18 members of my caucus, then six progressives, and [Ameya] Pawar said he’s with us, and probably a few other Latinos, then you’ve got a majority.”