Eight months after the measure was approved, Streets and San has yet to write a single ticket, despite receiving reports about dozens of scofflaws from sleepless Chicagoans.
City Council
As the mayor ramps up work on his second budget proposal, a newly formed Chicago City Council subcommittee is set to meet at noon Wednesday to start examining the dozens of proposals to increase the amount of money officials have on hand to spend starting in 2025.
Every four years, residents of Chicago’s 50 wards pick their representative on the City Council. They are officially known as alderpeople. But what exactly do they do?
Former Ald. Ed Burke is sentenced to 2 years in prison and a $2M fine, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall rules.
Judge Kendall sided with prosecutors, who blasted the request for a postponement as a “last-ditch effort” by Burke to avoid being sentenced on Monday for racketeering, bribery and attempted extortion.
“The public, as well as the victims in this case, have a strong interest in finality and bringing the case to a close,” prosecutors wrote. “Unfounded, eleventh-hour requests for delay like this one contribute to a general sense that the wheels of justice turn too slowly.”
The renewed effort is finally getting off the ground more than six months after Johnson agreed to earmark $500,000 in the city’s 2024 budget for the task force, the first time city officials have promised to use taxpayer dollars to do more than just promise to talk about what Chicago owes its Black residents as a result of the legacy of slavery and segregation.
Ald. Matt Martin (47th Ward) said the plan, which is estimated to cost approximately $9.5 million per election, was designed to reduce the influence of “big special interest donors.”
The proposed settlement calls for taxpayers to pay $21 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $29 million.
Despite having a net worth of $30 million, now former Ald. Ed Burke was “steeped in corruption,” repeatedly choosing “spite and greed – not the public interest,” prosecutors told U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward) came up with the idea following a violent attack on May 31 when a group of teenagers allegedly assaulted a couple in the Streeterville neighborhood. The man was hit in the head several times, and the woman was kicked in the stomach, which she said caused her to suffer a miscarriage.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled there was enough evidence for a jury to conclude “that the city had a custom or policy of condoning racial harassment and discrimination at (the Water Department) as well as inaction in the face of a risk of potential constitutional violations.”
The proposal, based on a unanimous recommendation by the Chicago Board of Ethics, now heads to a final vote at the City Council meeting set for June 12.
Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson, 25, was shot and killed by Officer George Hernandez in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 2014, near 53rd Street and King Drive.
After the three-hour hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall declined to issue a ruling immediately, instead promising a written order “shortly.”
In all, Chicago spent $202 million on a host of programs including affordable housing, mental health, violence prevention, youth job programs and help for unhoused Chicagoans through March 31, records show.
