The analysis concluded that the 882,207 properties in Chicago were worth a combined $42.08 billion, 31% more than in 2018, despite the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic catastrophe it triggered, according to the data released by the assessor’s office. The value of Chicago properties grew nearly twice as fast between 2018 and 2021 than it did between 2015 and 2018.

By forming a coalition of more than 41 aldermen behind one map, the City Council was able to avoid having the competing maps go to voters in a referendum in the June 28 primary election, which both sides have said would be a costly and politically-fraught battle over ward boundaries. “Getting 41 or more of us to agree to anything is an extremely difficult task,” said Ald. Maria Hadden.

During that conversation, Lightfoot defended her recent decision to impose a new curfew on minors at Millennium Park, addressed her coming reelection campaign, her recent Texas trip that prevented her from meeting with President Joe Biden, and the process of approving a casino license for Bally’s Corporation.

The Chicago Teachers Union also shared a statement, with a portion stating, “Why does a black mayor of a city with a large population of black residents insist on deepening black pain and trauma? Our youth have experienced three years of a pandemic, which followed a lifetime of neglect of their communities. The mayor needs to be doing more to address violence in schools, mental health needs and entrenched disinvestment, instead of knee jerk curfews and bans on the use of public spaces.”

“This restriction aims to build a culture of care in our public spaces instead of using police enforcement to criminalize our youth,” the mayor’s spokeswoman Kate LeFurg told the Wall Street Journal. If you want to understand Chicago’s public-order problem in a nutshell, there it is. Normal policing is considered criminalizing youth, as opposed to getting criminals off the streets. Instead the mayor won’t let unaccompanied teens visit a city park alone in the evenings on weekends.

“Once (Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission) was established, the panel was granted broad authority and allowed unelected bureaucrats to undermine the judicial process. Empowered to order judicial review, the panel has allowed convicted killers…to be freed from imprisonment and find their way to multi-million-dollar lawsuits funded by taxpayers.”

“These security officers will not be able to make arrests. They will drive around the neighborhoods in security vehicles, and although they will be armed, they are expected to use their phones to call 911 and take pictures of crime. It doesn’t sound like they will be much more than a juiced-up neighborhood watch. They won’t be able to do much other than call for help. Crime victims will still be waiting for an understaffed police force to respond.”

“In Texas, reading any damn book I choose,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote on Sunday. “No banning of books or thought. Ever.”

“So, who is the villain in the Cook County property tax meltdown? High government spending and high property tax levies. Their growth has far outpaced inflation over the last 20 years and made Cook County property taxes a permanent second mortgage that no one can avoid.”

“I want to be clear, it gives me no pleasure to impose these rules and restrictions, but having exhausted every other opportunity, every other tool on remedy, we’ve got to get to this next step to make sure that our jewel of Millennium Park is available and open to everyone,” Lightfoot said. “Young people are absolutely welcome downtown, but in the evening hours, they must be accompanied by a responsible adult…As a city, we must ensure that our young people have safe spaces to congregate and that in those spaces they are peaceful and actually safe.”

More than 90,000 Chicagoans applied to be part of the city’s study that will test whether a universal basic income could reduce poverty in the city in the first 24 hours after applications opened, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday.

Shootings in the 1st police district, which covers the Loop and Near South Side areas. are up 60% over last year through May 8, according to police statistics. All other categories of major crime – including murder, robbery, theft and battery – are also up in the downtown police district.

“Let’s say you wanted to make the boosterish case for the business climate. The construction zone known as Fulton Market gives you all the clues of urban vitality that you need with companies young and old, and frequently new to the Chicago area, flocking to it. Or if you came to bury Chicago’s economic outlook rather than praise it, you would cite the high office vacancy rates, 20% at least and at or near record highs depending on the real estate firm doing the measuring.”