Stories by Heather Cherone

If confirmed by the Chicago City Council, Andrea Telli would be the first person to join the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners after a scandal ousted the district’s top leadership.

The session failed to resolve the central issue at the heart of the debate that will determine the balance of political power between Black, Latino and Asian Chicagoans. 

Sending former state Rep. Luis Arroyo pleaded guilty to one charge of wire fraud in November, and is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 18. Arroyo has acknowledged that he offered a member of the Illinois Senate monthly payments of $2,500 to support a bill supported by a sweepstakes firm that hired Arroyo as a lobbyist. 

Applicants will be selected by the Chicago City Council based on their records of community involvement, leadership skills and whether they have a reputation of integrity, officials said.

In a statement released by her office to WTTW News on Friday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a collaboration would not be possible until Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans acknowledges the courts “part in making Chicago neighborhoods less safe.”

The meeting will include three members of the City Council’s Black Caucus, three members of the Latino Caucus and three other members of the City Council. Harris, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s floor leader, is a member of the Black Caucus.

During a speech to the Union League Club of Chicago, Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans said he would assign five additional judges to the criminal division of the Cook County Court in an effort to ensure that cases progress from charges to resolution faster. 

The Chicago Fire soccer team unveiled plans Thursday to transform 30 acres of vacant land on the city’s Near West Side into a training facility.

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan blasted Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s public safety strategy as a complete failure on Wednesday during a speech to the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, the clearest sign yet that he may be gearing up to run for mayor of Chicago in 2023.

“We have paid as a city, as taxpayers, an unbelievable heavy toll for [Burge’s] crimes,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.

The first campaign salvo by Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin erroneously claims he deserves credit for “calling out” the Illinois National Guard once protests turned violent on June 1 and falsely claims that Chicago officials “did nothing to stop looting.”

City Council members have yet to redraw the city's ward maps. They’re contending with a controversial ordinance to go after street gangs’ profits. And, the city’s watchdog released two reports on a botched smokestack demolition and a wrongful police raid, while the city's without a permanent inspector general.

The Little Village arch is the first structure designed by a Mexican American architect to get landmark status in Chicago, officials said. 

The City Council’s Finance Committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend the settlement, which is set for a final vote by the full City Council on Wednesday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not respond to a question from WTTW News about whether she thought it was appropriate for her appointees to reject the inspector general’s recommendation to fire an employee of the Chicago Department of Public Health and punish two other employees of the Department of Buildings responsible for approving and overseeing the implosion of the smokestack.

Deputy Mayor John O’Malley told members of the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee that Lightfoot’s plan had been narrowed in response to criticism from members of the Chicago City Council, civil rights groups and police reform advocates. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s pick to lead the agency charged with probing misconduct by members of the Chicago Police Department failed to advance Friday, even as she apologized again for releasing a report that recommended that Officer Ella French, slain in August, be disciplined for conduct during the botched raid of Anjanette Young’s home in February 2019.

Attorneys from the attorney general’s consumer fraud division are probing allegations that those who sought a COVID-19 test at pop-up sites run by the Center for Covid Control did not get their results as promised.

The state law, which applies in Chicago as well as the rest of the state, took effect Jan. 1. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday that she has fully recovered from her bout with COVID-19, and said it felt like “a bad cold.”

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) looked on as his attorney Adolfo Mondragon urged the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn decisions by the Illinois State Board of Elections as well as lower courts to toss out his complaint against his predecessor, disgraced former Ald. Danny Solis.

Chicago's COVID-19 test positivity peaked at 19.6% on Jan. 1, Arwady said, and hit 12.6% on Tuesday, the lowest rate since Dec. 28, according to city data. 

Each business was issued two citations, which will trigger a hearing before fines ranging between $100 and $10,000 can be imposed.

The unreleased report attempts to tell the “full story — thoroughly documented and sourced — of how the city’s government worked to prevent a victim of what was plainly either official misconduct or error from obtaining video proof of the raid on her home, thereby frustrating her efforts to secure redress for the injuries inflicted on her, however unintentionally, by government actors.”

The first report from interim Inspector General William Marback disclosed that Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration declined to fire an employee of the Chicago Department of Public Health or punish two other employees of the Department of Buildings responsible for approving and overseeing the implosion of the smokestack.

Surging COVID-19 cases fueled by the omicron variant will not delay the trial of Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th Ward) on seven charges that he lied to federal bank regulators and filed false tax returns, a judge ruled Friday.