Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s determination that Gardiner violated the city’s Governmental Ethics Ordinance is the “first-ever finding of probable cause in an inspector general ethics investigation of a sitting member of City Council,” officials said.

Mayor Brandon Johnson previously asked the City Council to earmark less than the full projected cost to care for the migrants to acknowledge that the burden should not fall entirely on Chicago taxpayers. But Ald. Gilbert Villegas does not understand the mayor’s strategy. “Given the track record, we’re going to be left holding the bag again,” Villegas said, warning the mayor’s finance team that the last thing members of the City Council would want to do is come back in six months and vote to spend more money to care for the migrants.

Data shows 12,240 Kia/Hyundai thefts reported in Chicago over a 14-month period- from June 2022 to July 24, 2023. That’s a rate of 29 Kias and Hyundais stolen in the city per day. According to the city of Chicago, Kia and Hyundai thefts specifically account for more than half of all vehicles stolen in the city in 2023.

According to the real estate company Redfin, the median rental price in Chicago in September was $2,389 per month, down about 2% over the past year. Chicago rent is still higher than the national median, but much lower than New York and Los Angeles.

The report by Wirepoints shows that the schools are seeking $14.4 billion to address emergency building repairs and that $1 billion of the taxpayer funds is for the district’s 20 mostly empty schools. Ted Dabrowski of Wirepoints said CPS could find a better way to spend that money. “They want to spend billions more, and instead of taking whatever little money they have and properly spending it to improve outcomes, they are just wasting money on failing empty schools.”

The assessor’s office increased property valuations in the northern suburb of Evanston by 28 percent in 2022, which will be reflected in upcoming fall tax bills, Kaegi said in a letter.

“Let me be clear, there is no financial transactions tax on the table, period,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “There will not be support. I would veto it.” Mayor Brandon Johnson proposed a slew of taxes during his campaign, including a $1 or $2 levy

Instead of Johnson heading the group, Chicago deputy mayor of immigration Beatriz Ponce de León will lead a delegation to Texas cities of El Paso, San Antonio, McAllen and Brownsville, according to a statement from the mayor’s office. “The Mayor, along with senior aides and key operations personnel, will stay in Chicago to address the immediate urgency of adding shelter space to house thousands of new arrivals sleeping in police stations, airports or outside.”

Less than 9% of the trash produced every year by Chicago residents is kept out of landfills — a rate that has been essentially unchanged for five years. Johnson’s announcement comes just days before the leadership of the Department of Streets and Sanitation are expected to defend their efforts as part of annual hearings into the mayor’s spending plan proposal.

While moving retail out of more than half the 818,000-square-foot retail portion of Water Tower Place would be a tectonic shift at Chicago’s original high-rise mall, which opened in 1975, it’s certainly not a surprise. In the past three and half years, COVID shutdowns and organized retail theft by smash-and-grab teams have battered North Michigan Avenue and other shopping districts.

Most of the total five-year decrease was due to decreases in net pension labilities and long-term debt. This is a favorable trend.

Among them, a 72-year-old woman and a 32-year-oldman were wounded in a shooting Saturday during a funeral service in the Gage Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

Just over 3,700 are waiting for placement with just over 3,200 at Chicago Police Department Districts. Nearly 500 are at O’Hare and Midway airports.