A plan to provide $51 million in migrant care passed by a comfortable margin at this week’s Chicago City Council meeting. But the lead-up to that vote was met with upheaval and racist remarks from audience members.
Byron Sigcho-Lopez
More than 8,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since last summer when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott first started sending migrants to the city. However, citywide efforts are reaching a tipping point with limited resources and shelters at capacity.
Johnson, who will replace Lightfoot in less than two weeks, said he would consult with the South Shore community before making any final decisions on how to address a renewed surge of immigrants being sent to the city from Texas and other states along the southern border.
More than 8,100 people, most of them from Central and South America, have arrived in Chicago since Aug. 31. Mayor Lori Lightfoot sent to the City Council Friday, acknowledging that once again the city’s shelter system is bursting at the seams.
For the last two years, Discount Mall has been in the middle of a battle between its vendors and property owner Novak Development. Now, half of the mall’s vendors have until the end of this month to pack up and leave.
Improvements to the mall are planned, including new roofs and facades, parking lot resurfacing, new landscaping, new lighting and an underground storm water detention system.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) recently hosted a meeting Tuesday with vendors to reassure them he will be fighting to keep the retail hub open. Novak Construction, the mall’s owner, extended vendors’ leases until the end of March.
Vendors have rallied in front of the Chicago Police Department headquarters, asking for more police presence in the morning, when many vendors are out as early as 4 a.m.
Students and community members rallied Monday calling for solutions to the city’s gun violence, which has recently come to the doorstep of schools like Juarez. The shooting also sheds light on the debate over police officers in schools, who are known as school resource officers.
The city must match an expected federal grant of $2.16 billion before the first track can be laid — and the City Council is set to give the project signal clearance Wednesday.
The city must match an expected federal grant of $2.16 billion before the first track can be laid — but it is not clear whether the City Council will give the project signal clearance.
The mayor came under fire by some alderpeople for not living up to her campaign promise to re-establish a city Department of Environment.
For now, it’s business as usual inside the Discount Mall in Little Village as customers navigate through the aisles and vendors work to land a sale. But these merchants don’t know how long they have left to run their businesses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu said former Ald. Danny Solis is one of the most significant government informants and witnesses of the last several decades.
Former Ald. Danny Solis caused “generational” harm to Chicago and residents of the 25th Ward, his successor told the judge overseeing the criminal case facing the disgraced former alderperson.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) had urged the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn decisions by the Illinois State Board of Elections as well as lower courts that allowed politicians accused of political corruption to use funds contributed by supporters of their campaigns to defend themselves from accusations of wrongdoing while in office.
