From housing and education to climate and violence prevention, the People’s Unity Platform called for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office to take action on a number of its suggestions in the proposal titled “First We Get The Money.” The group said Johnson should “reinstitute the big business head tax to make large corporations pay what they owe for benefiting from the city’s public infrastructure” and also raise the jet fuel tax to “force airlines to pay what they owe for using our public infrastructure and profiting from creating pollution in

Dorval Carter Jr., president of the Chicago Transit Authority, said ridership continues to grow. “Before the pandemic, in 2019, we were carrying about 1.5 million people a day. When the pandemic hit and we did the initial shutdown around the city, that number dropped to about 250,000. We’re now around 900,000.” But whether ridership will ever return to 2019 levels, “… depends on whether businesses eventually shift away from a hybrid model to ‘everyone comes to work.’”

Rents in Chicago increased 1.7% in April compared with a 0.5% increase nationwide, placing the city in fifth place for fastest month-over-month rent growth among the 100 largest cities in the country, according to data from Apartment List. The same data shows Chicago’s year-over-year rent growth is at 5.2%, a drop from the nearly 12% year-over-year increase at this time last year. This number is nearly 6% year-over-year for Illinois in April 2023.

During the subject matter hearing, state Rep. Kam Buckner told lead bill sponsor state Rep. Marty Moylan that he was concerned that the city still owes $640 million from the last Soldier Field renovation. “I was a high school kid working as an usher at Soldier Field when that renovation started and here we are 20 years later,” Buckner said. “And I’m still footing the bill.”

The “moral budget” by Saqib Bhatti and Gabriela Noa Betancourt of the Action Center on Race & the Economy, known as ACRE, urges Johnson and the City Council to take a new approach to “the underlying issues that lead to crime and violence” by “standing up to major corporations that don’t pay what they owe” and “saying no to entrenched interests.” Bhatti is a member of Johnson’s transition team, serving on the Economic Vitality & Equity Subcommittee.

A $3 per-ticket surcharge has been proposed to help retire debt incurred by renovations at Soldier Field, which is owned by the Chicago Park District. State Rep. Kam Buckner said that’s good, but, “I worked for a pro sports team and we wrote a big check every single year to the City of Chicago and the county for an amusement tax. I think it’s important to also talk about the loss of that tax revenue from the amusement sales tax, the 9% cap in that space as well.”

With the arrival of over 9,000 migrants in Chicago since August, the crisis has mainly fallen on non-profits, churches and individual neighborhoods. “There should be a city plan already in place. There is not one we know of with the current administration,” said immigration attorney Rocio Velazquez Kato.

When it came to light in January, Lori Lightfoot’s camp first defended but then quickly denounced the practice of sending emails to public workers soliciting campaign help. Now it’s emerged that her campaign had been warned by the city Board of Ethics in March 2022 to cease sending political communications to public employee emails.

“While I’m a public school teacher, I can see the benefit of offering choice and assistance to low-income families to help their kid’s education. Scholarships matter and there should be more access and more opportunities to all students based on a family’s economic situation and academic needs.”

The pending sale is part of a decades-long pattern of the housing agency failing to replace public housing developments as promised and selling the land for private projects, including the Chicago Fire soccer training center and a $150 million Near South Side high school.

Chicago Principals and Administrators Association President Troy LaRaviere said the new union would advocate for better pay and working conditions for CPS administrators, including improved job security. Principals at Chicago’s public schools already earned about 30% more on average than their counterparts in other parts of the state before Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 5107 in February, giving only CPS administrators the power to collectively bargain.

Chicago can’t afford the estimated $3.2 billion price tag of a proposed state pension funding mandate for firefighters hired after 2010 without jeopardizing the city’s ratings upswing and forcing a property tax hike or public safety cuts, Chicago’s chief financial officer warned state lawmakers in one of her last acts in office.

60% of tickets come from those driving 6-10 miles per hour over the limit, generating almost $121,700,000 for the city. Compare that to about $63,500,000 made from only 11% of speed camera tickets that come from drivers going 11 miles per hour, or more, over the speed limit. The remaining 29% of tickets are warnings with no cost to drivers.

“Among the tax proposals (increases, not cuts, in case you were wondering) being put forward by Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s new mayor, is one for a financial-transactions tax, at a rate of $1 or $2 for every ‘securities trading contract’…Such taxes are not a good idea at the best of times, but to propose them for the embattled city that still hosts the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, well…”

“We came up with a simple but temporary solution: pay more each year through an intergovernmental agreement with our pension fund. Now, it’s time to change the pension code to make our fix permanent.”

Authors of the proposal, which also includes a tax on vacant high-end rental apartments, say they’re not fronting for Johnson and suggest they rather are trying to hold his feet to the fire and push him to stand by his campaign promises in a way they believe former Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not.

Besides demanding 5,000 more surveillance cameras to stop violent crime, the leaders said they would oppose any new or increased taxes until the tax increment finance system is raided and reformed. “This is a massive, citywide, secretive slush fund,” said Roger Romanelli, of the Fulton Market Association.

“Which brings us to the job description for the Deputy Mayor of Labor Relations, as released Monday, inauguration day. Read it for yourself: The Deputy Mayor for Labor Relations is responsible for working with all City agencies and departments to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of Chicago; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights, including working