The Ethics and Government Oversight Committee unanimously endorsed the reworked version of the proposal authored by Ald. Michele Smith (43rd Ward), the panel’s chair, and backed by the Chicago Board of Ethics. A final vote by the full City Council is set for Wednesday. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has tapped former alderperson Michael Scott Jr. as a new member of the Chicago Board of Education, barely a month after the former Committee on Education and Child Development chair stepped down from the City Council.

The Ethics and Government Oversight Committee is set to meet at 3 p.m. Friday to consider a reworked version of the proposal authored by Ald. Michele Smith, the panel’s chair, and backed by the Chicago Board of Ethics. With the committee’s endorsement, a final vote could come on Wednesday.

If Ald. Ed Burke decides to run for re-election in February 2023, he will do so before being brought to trial on charges he has faced for more than an entire term on the Chicago City Council.

The Ethics Committee plans to hold a hearing, and potentially a key vote, on Wednesday to consider a proposed overhaul of the city of Chicago’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance, without giving members of the public or the news media a chance to review its provisions.

The first payments began to flow nearly nine months after the Chicago City Council approved the program’s funding as part of its 2022 budget.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office will host three “budget engagement forums” on July 21, July 23 and July 30 to give Chicago residents a chance to “share their priorities regarding city services” and “have a dialogue” with the mayor, budget director and other city officials.

Daley Thompson, 53, was convicted on seven charges in February, forcing his removal from the Chicago City Council. U.S. District Court Judge Franklin Valderrama also imposed a 12-month term of supervised release.

The agency charged with the investigation recommended two Chicago Police officers should be fired and seven disciplined for their role in an incident that injured a woman’s eye after she was pulled from her car at the Brickyard Mall during the unrest that swept the city after the police murder of George Floyd.

An effort to overhaul Chicago’s ethics rules will remain stalled for at least another month, even as Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she has begun negotiating with Ald. Michele Smith, who introduced the measure in April. 

Authored by Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd Ward) and Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward), the measure would give employees of the Department of Finance — not just members of the Chicago Police Department — the authority to order the vehicle blocking the bicycle lane to be ticketed and towed.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s second appointment to the Chicago City Council advanced Monday on a unanimous vote of the City Council’s Rules Committee during a meeting that lasted less than five minutes.

The proposal was prompted by the deaths of three Rogers Park women, who died after temperatures in their apartments rose to dangerous levels during a mid-May heat wave. The revised measure, which is set for a final vote at the full City Council meeting scheduled for Wednesday. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s decision to bless the creation of another City Council familial dynasty comes as she is running for re-election.

As we commemorate Juneteenth, calls are growing louder for reparations, but here in Chicago, there’s been very little movement on the issue. A City Council subcommittee was created two years ago to examine how the city could pay reparations to descendants of enslaved African Americans. But since then, it’s met only twice.

Chicago Board of Ethics Chair William Conlon said the package of reforms — which has been stalled since April without Lightfoot’s backing — should be “swiftly” passed by the City Council and signed into law.