When asked if neighboring communities should be offering to help house Chicago-bound migrants, Rep. Lauren Underwood chose her words carefully and said hopefully local leaders view this situation with care and compassion.

The new funding package laid out in the draft report includes increased state funding, a $10 per car hike in the vehicle registration fee, an expanded sales tax base and cost savings and fare increases from the transit system, among other proposals.

Neither police officials nor the city’s watchdog can measure “the efficiency or equity of 911 police responses because of inadequate data — despite a CPD policy which requires members to capture the relevant data,” according to the audit.

“The sluggish pace of retail redemption has been broad: The retail vacancy rate in the Loop alone hovered around 28 percent as of February 2023, which rose from 27.4 percent at the end of 2021. A high from 2004 when the vacancy rate reached 18.2 percent, the retail vacancy rate has doubled since 2019. Combine the acute menace of retail theft with the repercussions of COVID and the Cloud Tax and the damage wreaked on retail businesses increases manifold.”

Migrants living in the 12th District station – an estimated 200 people – do not get along with a group of migrants who set up camp in a nearby lot. Last week one of the lobby residents was threatened with a knife, beaten, and knocked unconscious by migrants who live in the camp.

“The most troubling part is that we have one of the few mayors in the country that is developing a plan that treats people with respect and dignity, but yet we haven’t seen the urgency from federal authorities and state authorities,” Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez said. “I would like to see Gov. Pritzker, Sen. Durbin, President Biden to take this issue as seriously as we are taking it here in Chicago. We do have a plan, yet we cannot fund it. Where are our elected officials on both parties?”

CPS is operating on larger and larger budgets each year, despite schooling fewer and fewer students and manifesting worsening proficiency.

“The one short-term hope for Chicago may be, of all people, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, who has presidential hopes for 2028 and must know that they would be dashed if Chicago were to fall into chaos and insolvency. Pritzker has already blocked Johnson’s idea of a transaction tax on finance—one of Chicago’s most mobile industries. Look for the governor to try to rein in Johnson where he can while pretending to support him.”

“Is she really equating parents seeking an education for their kids outside of traditional district schools with dictators seeking autocratic control? That’s rich. Even more offensive, she professed that there are people who might run for the school board who ‘never intended for Black people to be educated.’ Do these racists include the charter school advocates who are seeking to expand public educational choices for children in poverty? We can only

From Chicago residents being unable to easily use city websites on smartphones to a confusing system that makes it difficult for home and business owners to challenge high water bills, an outside consultant said the city’s menu of websites are not serving Chicagoans well. A multiyear push to overhaul the city’s IT infrastructure that stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic could see new life, as about $350 million for such upgrades remains untapped from a previous capital bonds.

Crystal Cooper, who as head of school operations reported directly to CEO Pedro Martinez, was the highest-ranking of 14 CPS staffers to leave their jobs as a result of Inspector General Will Fletcher’s investigation. In Fletcher’s 11-page report, 780 CPS employees were confirmed to have received PPP loans. All but one made an annual CPS salary of at least $100,000.

Some migrants staying at the 12th District station say some officers are rude to them, and since Monday, those staying at the station have been forced to wake up at 5 a.m. to move all of their personal belongings outside. They say officers have told them it is so the lobby can be cleaned.