Stories by Heather Cherone

Applications are now open to serve four-year terms on the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, which is designed to give Chicagoans real control of the police department as part of an effort to build trust in officers and police brass and put an end to repeated allegations of misconduct. 

“I’d like to think it will serve as a deterrent,” Elmhurst University professor Constance Mixon said. “But none of the other 37 convictions served as a deterrent. It ought to make people think twice. But I don’t know. I’d like to be optimistic.”

The tally, which includes all invoices paid through Dec. 15, defies predictions released by city officials in mid-October that the cost of the migrant crisis to taxpayers would top $361 million by the end of 2023.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first budget, which took effect Monday, includes no new taxes, fees or service cuts. Johnson now must make good on his promise to use the city’s $16.7 billion spending plan as a down payment on investments in working-class Chicagoans.

Mayor Brandon Johnson praised former Water Commissioner Randy Conner as a “proven leader and someone who knows the ins and outs of infrastructure and water management,” in a statement.

Former Ald. Ed Burke (14th Ward) was convicted Thursday of 13 of 14 counts of racketeering, bribery and extortion, bringing his landmark corruption trial to an end with a verdict that delivered a searing indictment of Chicago’s political system, which Burke used to amass power for half a century.

Two people, identified as “handlers” in the police log, fled the private plane transporting migrants Tuesday evening and “jumped into an Uber” before they could be questioned by officers, according to police.

The jury asked two questions on Tuesday and none on Wednesday. In all, they have deliberated for approximately 18 hours across three days and are set to resume Thursday morning.

The first communication from the jury came approximately an hour into deliberations on Tuesday and focused on one of the charges facing one of Ed Burke’s codefendants, businessman Charles Cui.

The report from Lisle-based A3E Consulting recommends “additional investigation” of the 6.5 acres of land surrounding a vacant Jewel-Osco grocery store on the border between Morgan Park and West Roseland.

Deliberations began Monday afternoon after U.S. District Court Judge Virgina Kendall spent more than three hours reading more than 300 pages of jury instructions.

The final migrants to be moved into one of 27 city-run shelters was a group of approximately 100 people who had been living at the 12th District Police Station in Pilsen, city officials said.

By contrast, Burke’s attorney portrayed the former alderperson as a “good man” and a dedicated public servant who relished his ability to move the city’s bureaucracy and “thrived on connecting the right people.”

The special meeting of the Chicago City Council was a last-ditch effort to put the non-binding question to voters on the March 19 ballot. 

New rules requiring nonprofit organizations to register as lobbyists are set to take effect July 1 after a delay of nearly four years.

The settlement is the largest police misconduct settlement approved by the City Council in 2023.

The Chicago City Council voted 31-18 to resolve the lawsuit filed by the family of Darius Cole-Garrit, which claimed the officers who shot the 21-year-old threatened him hours before they nearly ran him over and then shot him in the back as he fled.

The Chicago City Council voted to reject an effort to upend the system used to punish officers for 60 years, triggering what is likely to be a fierce legal fight that will determine whether, and how, city officials can hold officers accountable for serious misconduct.

The six-month delay means that workers in Illinois outside Chicago will have more flexibility to take paid time off than those in the city until July 1.

As disgraced former Ald. Danny Solis (25th Ward) took the stand Tuesday afternoon in the landmark corruption trial of his former friend and colleague, who ruled City Hall with an iron fist for decades, Burke’s squad of attorneys will now get their chance to make their case that he is not a criminal, but an “old school, hardworking public servant.” 

Mayor Brandon Johnson reversed course Tuesday, averting a showdown at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

Prosecutors are expected to rest their case-in-chief on Tuesday, setting the stage for disgraced former Ald. Danny Solis (25th Ward) to be called to the stand to testify in the landmark corruption trial of his former friend and colleague.

If approved, the settlement would be the largest police misconduct settlement approved by the City Council in 2023, and the largest since May 2022, records show.

The vote on Monday by the City Council’s Finance Committee, which came over the objections of at least seven alderpeople, means the full City Council will once again consider resolving the lawsuit filed by Darius Cole-Garrit’s family.

Authored by Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th Ward), the measure expands the city’s hate crime ordinance, which was last updated more than 30 years ago.

The new rules, issued Thursday, came several days after the president of the Better Government Association warned Mayor Brandon Johnson that the administration’s efforts to restrict access to meetings of the City Council were “inequitable and likely illegal.”