Emanuel unveiled plans to end or move away from four risky financial practices that his predecessor and political mentor, former Mayor Richard M. Daley, used to “mask” the true cost of city government.

A compact between the eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces seems solid enough to protect the water from diversion for years or decades to come. In other words, all that water — 21 percent of the world’s freshwater resources — is ours to use. If others want to use it, they’ll have to set up shop here.

Comment: Acting CTU head Jesse Sharkey said something sensible for once: “If the district has no money to put a counselor in a school where a half-dozen kids get shot, or not enough money to have the counselor who’s there actually counsel, then they don’t have the money for a 3 percent raise, do they?”

But Alderman Burke, master of the property tax law practice shake-down, still has $10.4 million in the three campaign committees he controls.

Vallas said CPS needs some adult supervision from an outside financial watchdog and he urged creation of a unit to manage CPS debt, leaving the Chicago district to focus on education.

Among the to-do items: ending so-called “scoop and toss” bond financing; exchanging $900 million in variable-rate paper for fixed-rate securities; and, closing out the city’s position on sales tax and general-obligation swaps contracts within two weeks.