Stories by Heather Cherone

Housing Commissioner Marisa Novara said the initial imposition of the fee in April 2021 had helped slow gentrification-fueled displacement happening along the popular biking and jogging trail and in Pilsen, one of the city’s most in-demand real estate markets.

The Chicago City Council is set to pay $450,000 to the family of a man who was struck and killed by a car driven by a Chicago Police officer.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have both pushed back against policies adopted in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 that were designed to address inequities in the criminal justice system fueled by systematic racism. 

“I don’t agree with the argument that because public corruption is ongoing and persistent, apparently that I should just throw up my hands and not sentence you to a term of imprisonment because it won’t do any good,” Judge John F. Kness said.

Wednesday’s meeting will be the second time in six months that alderpeople have called an emergency meeting of the City Council to publicly push back against Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot — and the three-person committee advising her — will have to work fast to narrow down the applicant pool and nominate a replacement for the disgraced grandson and nephew of Chicago Mayors Richard J. Daley and Richard M. Daley who was convicted Feb. 14 on seven counts of lying to federal bank regulators and filing false tax returns.

Thirty-three alderpeople currently support the ward map backed by the Black Caucus — eight short of the votes needed to avert a referendum in June. 

It is the second time in six months that alderpeople have called an emergency meeting of the City Council to publicly push back against Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The alderpeople demanded the session one day after the deadline for Chicago Police Department members to get at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Designed to ease congestion on the Kennedy Expressway around O’Hare Airport, the new tollway will connect Interstate 90 and Interstate 294.

A final vote on the measure, which advanced unanimously Monday, is set for March 23.

Employees who are not vaccinated will not be paid and may face additional “disciplinary action, up to and including termination,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said in a statement Friday evening. 

The new policy will allow the Chicago Police Department to “expand its pool of candidates” and attract more “diverse” officers, Superintendent David Brown said.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 22 counts alleging that he orchestrated a criminal enterprise for a decade while serving as Illinois’ most powerful politician.

A previous effort to renovate the Congress Theater sputtered out in 2020, even after the City Council agreed to give the project a $9.7 million subsidy.

In her first public remarks on the search for a replacement for former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, Lightfoot said the five-member search committee charged with reviewing applications from those who want to investigate allegations of wrongdoing and malfeasance by city employees, contractors and vendors was working diligently to recommend finalists.

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Tuesday that he would not run for mayor of Chicago in 2023, removing Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s most prominent potential challenger from the growing field of prospective candidates.

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, Illinois’ top doctor and the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, will step down on March 14, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Tuesday.

Black Chicagoans were “overwhelmingly disproportionately” stopped by Chicago Police officers across the city, including in parts of the city that Chicago Police consider to be “high crime” areas, according to the report issued by interim Inspector General William Marbeck.

The City Council’s Subcommittee on Reparations has met only once since it was formed in June 2020, and Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th Ward), the chair of the subcommittee, told WTTW News that her efforts to schedule additional meetings have been unsuccessful.

After 182 days, Gov. J.B. Pritzker lifted the statewide mandate on Monday as confirmed cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations continued to drop precipitously after the surge driven by the omicron variant. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced late Friday students and staff will no longer be required to wear masks in Illinois schools as of Monday, after the Illinois Supreme Court declined to take up his request to overturn an appellate court decision that prompted school districts across Illinois to drop their requirement that students and teachers wear face coverings to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The Chicago City Council voted 31-14 to confirm Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s pick to lead the agency charged with probing misconduct by members of the Chicago Police Department after months of controversy.

Whoever Lightfoot picks and is confirmed by the Chicago City Council will potentially get a leg up if they choose to run for a full term in February 2023 to represent what is likely to be a very different 11th Ward.

Chicago would permanently ban investments in oil and gas companies under a measure introduced Wednesday by Treasurer Melissa Conyears Ervin and backed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

A lottery will determine which Chicagoans suffering from the economic catastrophe unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic will get $500 per month for a year as part of an effort to study whether a universal basic income could reduce poverty in the city.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to fight crime by going after the profits earned by Chicago’s gangs failed to pass the Chicago City Council on Wednesday amid a deluge of criticism.