Michael Tadin Jr. and his family were announced last month as the high bidder, offering $6.5 million for the property near 29th Street and Damen Avenue along the Chicago River. Tadin is a city contractor and co-owner of MAT Asphalt in McKinley Park, an operation that has drawn hundreds of complaints from residents.

North Side landlords – especially commercial property owners – are especially nervous because the first installment of the 2022 real estate tax bill is due on March 1, 2023, only two months after the second installment of the 2021 bill must be paid. And rental apartment management is a business designed to make a profit. So, if real estate taxes rise, apartment owners eventually will increase rents. If utility bills and maintenance costs rise, rents eventually will move higher.

Young men in Chicago’s most violent ZIP code were more than three times as likely to experience gun-related death compared to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, the researchers found, while those in Philadelphia’s most violent area were nearly twice as likely to be shot to death.

Chicago saw its homicides drop modestly this year to 661 after logging 776 homicides last year. But other kinds of crimes proliferated at alarming rates. Car thefts, for example, increased 99% this year compared to the same point last year; Chicago saw 9,933 motor vehicle thefts at this point in 2021 and 19,784 motor vehicle thefts so far in 2022.

Jack Lavin, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce: ” Illinois’ 1.2 million small businesses employ approximately 44.8% of our workforce, according to the Small Business Administration, meaning these policies will threaten to cut our economic backbone off at the knees.”

Among other things, the panel rejected the argument “prejudice might occur in some hypothetical scenarios.”

A delay in property tax receipts left the system without enough money to pay the city’s retirees. Pension managers contended with the difficult decision of whether to sell off pension assets to raise cash quickly. In the end, Chicago funneled in at least $512 million that was earmarked for payments later in the year and early 2023. The payout was the largest advance ever in one year in Chicago, a sign of just how fragile the pension system

“If the Byrne Interchange project is any indication, adapting our highways and byways to today’s traffic could get very expensive.”

That means Chicago will likely end 2023 with between 4,000 and 5,000 fewer lead service lines – expected to cost between $15,000 to $26,000 per line – in service, a massive increase from the sluggish pace of removals in Chicago since Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared in September 2020 that it was “way past time” to ensure that Chicagoans have clean water in their homes.

There were eight City Council staffers who made more than their bosses, the aldermen.

The region’s public transit system is beset by assorted problems these days, including crime, dependability issues and a general lack of cleanliness. Now, add one more thing to that list: a staggering $730 million-a-year budget gap that could start hitting the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace beginning in 2026, according to the Regional Transportation Authority.

Election day brought a win for union backers, when voters supported the so-called Workers’ Rights Amendment broadening rights in the Illinois constitution for collective bargaining. And organizers and their supporters are also hopeful the National Labor Relations Board is about to get a financial boost in a new federal spending plan.

At the same time, the arrest rate for violent crimes on the “L” fell to its lowest level in at least a decade. “Someone can do this on the trains, and even with the security guards and cameras and a decent police response time, there are no arrests made,” one crime victim said. “It just surprises me. And it doesn’t seem like there’s anything to deter this kind of crime on the trains if there aren’t arrests when it happens.”

Last weekend, there were 13 people wounded, including two teenagers, in weekend shootings across Chicago.