Members of the Illinois International Port District board unanimously voted down a proposal to negotiate a master lease with Savage Services, a transportation and logistics company based in Midvale, Utah. It amounted to an about-face for an agency that in March selected Savage as its preferred bidder for the job of revitalizing operations.

Board Chairman Michael Forde said the mayor’s office voiced its objection and members agreed as a courtesy. “The mayor’s office was of the opinion that this was not in the long-term interests of the port,” Forde said.

A construction company whose records have been subpoenaed as part of an investigation that also includes Ald. Carrie Austin and a Chicago building inspector has gotten no-bid increases worth $2 million on two city deals to put in noise insulation for homes near O’Hare Airport.

Oakk Construction Co. offered City Hall the lowest price to win two city contracts in 2012 to soundproof 350 homes, according to city records that show the deals were supposed to cost the city a total of about $3.8 million.

Oakk has made millions of dollars under a city program to repair

There’s some reason to believe Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi is reversing favoritism shown to well-lawyered business folks by predecessor Joe Berrios. Check out the handwritten evidence.

If a casino is to serve its function—namely, drawing lots of dollars out of the wallets of out-of-towners rather than locals—then it must be located in places where visitors want to be. That means picking a location close to downtown. By those lights, the best location of the lot now being studied by the Lightfoot administration is the Michael Reese site, within a dice toss of McCormick Place. There could be even better options closer in, but none of those possibilities seem to be on the table at the moment.

Facilities that serve low-income patients say they won’t survive under the proposed work-scheduling ordinance unless they get additional funding.

The man who runs a multi-billion dollar construction program for Peoples Gas said the work is desperately needed to reduce leaks and improve safety. He strongly disputed an estimate by the Illinois Attorney General’s office that massive projects will eventually raise consumers’ bills by $750 a year.