“We’re not asking for an additional anything, just save our teachers” a Chicago Public Schools parent said Tuesday. “We’re not asking for more, we’re just asking for the status quo.”
Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez
During Thursday’s City Council meeting, alderpeople introduced a resolution calling for the Department of Streets and Sanitation to reinstate treatment of the city’s remaining parkway ash trees — numbering close to 50,000 — and also develop a systematic program for removing and replacing infested trees.
Longtime Chicago Park District Superintendent Michael Kelly’s resignation Saturday amid criticism he’s mishandled a wide-ranging sexual abuse scandal could portend future changes at the city’s sister agency.
Intense criticism has not prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot to rethink her plan to demand that the Chicago City Council give the city’s Law Department the authority to sue the leaders of Chicago’s gangs and “go after their blood money.”
Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th Ward) on Tuesday apologized on the floor of the Chicago City Council chambers for sending profane and misogynistic texts to a former aide about Ald. Tom Tunney (44th Ward) and two women who work at City Hall.
The two-year, $3.5 million pilot program represents the first time in Chicago’s history that the city’s emergency dispatch system will send someone other than a sworn and armed police officer to a call for help, officials said.
Located near the Kennedy Expressway and the Chicago River, Avondale has significant Polish, Latino, Eastern European and Asian populations. And like many parts of Chicago, residents and community leaders are concerned gentrification might displace longtime neighbors.
For the first time since a damning 2019 audit was released by the city’s watchdog, police officials defended their continuing use of records that list approximately 135,000 Chicagoans as members of gangs, citing their need for the data to prevent “retaliatory violence.”
Chicago has been grappling with issues surrounding policing long before the murder of George Floyd. But as it did across the country, Floyd’s killing led to outrage and calls for change, including campaigns to defund the police.
An effort to test whether the city’s affordable housing crisis can be eased by permitting basement, attic and coach house dwellings in five areas of the city will start Saturday, ending a 64-year ban on tiny homes in Chicago.
Four aldermen say the guilty verdicts will likely avert large protests and civil unrest in Chicago — while acknowledging they have much more work to do to reform the Chicago Police Department, particularly in the wake of the police shooting death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
Plans for a 50-unit affordable housing development are underway in Albany Park, a diverse community on Chicago’s Northwest Side that is not alone in facing gentrification. We discuss housing with Diane Limas of Communities United and Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez as part of our community reporting series.
Aldermen on Thursday said they would do more than just talk about whether the city should pay reparations to Chicagoans who are the descendants of enslaved African Americans, but acknowledged that it had taken too long to even begin the discussion.
Aldermen blocked a Wednesday vote on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to spend federal COVID-19 relief funds, prompting the mayor to utter an expletive caught on a hot mic during the meeting.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is urging aldermen to support the plan she crafted to close a $1.2 billion budget deficit in 2021. Four aldermen sound off the plan.
Chicago’s looking at a lot of red ink due to coronavirus-related shutdowns. What kinds of cuts might the city soon see to keep its financials afloat? We speak with four people who will likely have a say in those decisions.
