Comment: Some economist actually said this: “I don’t think people would feel poor because they bought a house in Chicago ten years ago, and not in San Francisco,” where prices all but doubled during the decade, Lazzara said. The Chicago homeowner should feel rich, “because they can get so much more home for the money.”

“Black Caucus Chairman Jason Ervin (28th) is furious African Americans have ‘zero representation’ among ownership of 11 dispensaries…. The 10 to 9 vote by the City Council’s Committee on Contract Oversight and Equity was a political embarrassment to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose administration tried desperately to appease the Black Caucus during negotiations that continued during the meeting.”

A federal grand jury subpoena obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times shows investigators are digging into former Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios and his political organization. The subpoena seeks documents related to Berrios’ 31st Ward Democratic Organization, his Friends of Berrios campaign fund and the Mexican American Political Action Committee.

The subpoena asks for information about contributions to Berrios’ retirement

The Chicago casino is still in the works, but it’s likely to end up raising far less money for the city than originally promised.

“We reported on Oct. 16 that shoplifting reports are up 20% over the past three years in Chicago. Suburban retailers have blamed the increase on a decision by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to take a softer approach to shoplifting cases. Foxx has instructed her attorneys to reject felony-level retail theft charges unless a person is accused of stealing more than $1,000 in merchandise at a single event.”

Not only was Brown the subject of several investigations into her fundraising and hiring practices, she also failed to modernize the office with basic technology despite pledging every campaign cycle to do so. A recent rollout of a computerized upgrade to the criminal court system flopped. Cleaning up that mess and installing a reliable electronic case-management system should be priority No. 1 for the next clerk.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday she is “very serious” about the city growing its own recreational marijuana to give minorities a chance to learn the business and share the wealth and said $15 million generated by tax-increment financing could be used as seed money.

Lightfoot said the concept of the city opening a “cooperative cultivation center” that minorities can “buy into” — either with a “modest cash investment” or with “sweat equity” — is aimed at overcoming the biggest impediment to minority ownership.

Chicago is still waiting for the federal approval Mayor Lori Lightfoot claimed was imminent for a $163 million increase in ambulance fees, but it will come, averting the need for a “midyear correction” in her $11.6 billion budget, top mayoral aides said Friday.

It argues that children living in Chicago’s most gun-ravaged neighborhoods suffer disabilities as a result of the violence and that Illinois is violating both the federal Americans With Disabilities Act and state civil rights laws by not tightening regulations on the flow of the illegal weapons that are contributing to the carnage.

Though officials now share the jury’s opinion that Kelly shot LaPorta with his service weapon, the city contends it is not liable for LaPorta’s injuries because Kelly was off duty when it happened. The appellate judges seemed to agree, suggesting it would be unfair to hold police departments responsible for anything and everything their employees do.

“Survey after survey of police officers of all stripes have felt like people are getting their jobs … because of who they know,” Lightfoot said. “And that’s a significant problem.”

Based on a random sample of properties subsidized in 2017, Inspector General Joe Ferguson concluded that 45.8% failed to meet “minimum housing quality standards” and 61.4% did not fully comply with the Chicago building code.

“We’re going to call them for some kind of hearing and make them answer some questions in the public about the broader framing of what they were doing, how they were using their shareholders’ dollars, and give us assurances that we can be comfortable doing business with them,” Lightfoot said, according to reports.

As a former federal prosecutor, Lightfoot must know that a public hearing, conducted in the midst of an ongoing federal investigation, may be the last thing U.S. Attorney John Lausch and his colleagues in the Dirksen Federal Building need right now.

“What we … just did in the hopes of saving money is told [law-abiding residents] that, when these neighborhood terrorists continue to terrorize their communities and are caught, and if anything happens, we’re willing to pay them hush money to go away. That is unacceptable. We have told these neighborhoods that, ‘You are on your own,’” Lopez said.

“It is disgusting to me as an alderman. It is disgusting to me as a member of the Brighton Park community — and more so as a [resident of] the city of Chicago that we would even consider paying a

The City Council’s Progressive Caucus has demanded any new franchise agreement with ComEd include both a progressive rate structure and an end to shut-offs — not just for those unable to pay, but also for those who refuse to pay.

Lightfoot has already ended water shut-offs, which has cost the city $20 million in water bill revenues. The mayor plans to ask ComEd to get on board.

“All the utilities — whether it’s ComEd, whether it’s Peoples Gas” should end shut-offs, she said. “People are suffering and they’re struggling. And we can tell from the data where

A longtime city official who currently works in the Department of Aviation has been hit with a felony theft charge for allegedly making purchases on credit and then claiming he didn’t receive the items he ordered, police said. George Coleman Jr., deputy commissioner for intergovernmental affairs at the Department of Aviation, has been charged with one count of continuing financial crimes enterprise.

Comment: A very troubling study because Chicago, while still ranked tenth, actually lost 12,600 jobs in innovation between 2005 and 2017. That sector had been high growth. The full study is linked here.

From a Chicago Tribune editorial.

In an outline of her 10-year strategy to remake the city’s economy and rebuild its population to 3 million, the mayor focuses on seven industry clusters. The full text of Lightfoot’s speech on this is linked here.

This time, the point of contention was the mayor’s plan to abolish four tax-increment-financing districts as part of declaring a record $300 million TIF surplus to help balance the city budget and bankroll the new teachers contract.

Three TIFs — Harlem Industrial, Pershing/King and South Works Industrial — were abolished without controversy by the City Council’s Finance Committee.

In the last school year Douglass High School was enrolled at only 5% of its capacity. Fenger, 15%. Hirsch, 10%. Manley, 6%. Austin and Tilden, 11%. Many Chicago elementary schools also are miserably underutilized — even as some CPS schools are overcrowded.

One of the more indefensible scams in Illinois politics is the legal right of dozens of officeholders to take money donated to their campaigns and blow it on pretty much whatever they want. Makes you wonder why a lobbyist can’t just give an elected official that BMW instead of campaign cash. It amounts to the same thing.

Chicago is in bad financial shape, with an unsustainable pension burden and a towering debt load. Yet the city will shortly issue bonds that are likely to be rated as supersafe, even though similar investments have lost money.

Two members of Preckwinkle’s security detail got pay raises last year that put them on par with what forest preserves police commanders are paid — about $110,000 annually — though they aren’t supervisors. The third

The new federal tax applies to any college or university that has at least 500 full-time, tuition-paying students—with more than half of them being in the U.S.—and that has assets, aside from those used for charity, of at least $500,000 per full-time student. U of C, Northwestern and Notre Dame look likely to fall into the taxed category, despite being on the cusp of eligibility, giving them a combined liability of about $30 million.

If you think the head tax—the per-employee levy repealed in 2014—is dead, think again. And while you’re at it, consider Denver, which progressives hold up as a model. There, people pay for the privilege of having a job.

And Chicago Teachers Union, which supports the tax, responded thusly when columnist Hinz asked for comment: “Greg, you’ve disparaged the CTU and our work for much of the last few months, pushing Chicago Public Schools talking points ad nauseam and going so far as to compare us to big business and Donald Trump. spokesman Ronnie Reese emailed back. So don’t be

In a statement, club Chairman Ed Mazur said he has accepted Jay Doherty’s resignation as president and member of the board.

One source close to the probe into ComEd, which has been subpoenaed for records related to its activities in Springfield, says Doherty had more than 100 people drawing funds that originated with ComEd on his payroll, some in positions that involved little actual work.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will be in Iowa tomorrow and is scheduled to take the stage with Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for a public question-and answer session. It’s part of an event that pairs city leaders who haven’t endorsed in the presidential race with a candidate

The commission yesterday approved a $17 million reduction in ComEd’s delivery rates as requested by the utility. In a release, ComEd delivered the good news, saying the average residential customer would see their monthly electric bill decline by 60 cents next year.

But the release didn’t tell the whole story. ComEd’s net rates actually will climb by $33 million next year thanks to a move late last month to boost ComEd’s customer charge by $50 million for the energy-efficiency programs it administers. That Nov. 26 ICC ruling wasn’t the subject of any ComEd press release.

Lightfoot agreed to pay striking teachers 16% over five years with staffing increases and other perks that pushed the overall price tag to $1.5 billion amid concern that would become the floor for police officers and firefighters.

Those fears turned out to be wrong.

Rank-and-file police officers won’t be content with simply matching the teachers. Their union is demanding an 18% pay raise over three years.

“We want people who have been left out and left behind to have a real opportunity to not only benefit from this new industry but to create new millionaires in the black community and the latino community all across the state,” Pritzker told reporters.

I’m telling them right now, don’t even talk to me unless you have African American partners,” said Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., 27th. “Don’t waste your time coming to see me. Because I don’t even want to talk to them. Because I think you’re just being racist in my face when you talk to me about this stuff and you don’t allow African Americans to be your partner. It’s ridiculous, man.”

A prediction for 100 metro areas puts Chicago in a group of 17 where both prices and sales will go down, but the dips here are so small as to be essentially flat. Local experts say not much will change until the city and state are on better financial footing.

“It is not too late for the city and Obama Foundation to do the right thing. They can still quite literally rethink the dubious OPC project from the ground up.”

Of all the Chicagoans who’ve suffered the Board of Trade bar’s hangovers, Eddie Johnson’s may be the most permanent.

Prices of office buildings, hotels, apartment properties, retail centers and other commercial real estate in Chicago fell by 4.1% over the past year, according to research firm Real Capital Analytics. That was the worst performance among major metropolitan areas analyzed by the company, behind even crisis-stricken Hong

The financing is available through Chicago PACE, or Property Assessed Clean Energy, a program the Illinois General Assembly authorized statewide in 2018. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration got it started in Chicago and his successor, Lori Lightfoot, has embraced it as an incentive for economic growth that’s energy efficient.

The tax was a flat fee of 72 cents per Uber or Lyft trip. Now, single rider trips citywide will have a $1.25 fee and those in the designated downtown zone will have a $3 fee.

“Taxation here is not as simple as paying for schools, ambulances and baseball fields. It’s a shakedown exercise: Pay more for decades of irresponsible spending, expect less and be quiet about it, won’t you?”

As a part of INVEST South/West, the city pledges to commit $220 million in tax-increment financing dollars, $30 million from the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund along with $500 million in planned infrastructure investments and partnerships with sister city agencies. The city needs to raise an additional $250 million from private companies. BMO bank has pledged $10 million.

Comment: It’s bad now, but it wasn’t that long ago that even murder trials were fixed.

“Take Chicago….”

Data show that most Illinoisians aren’t moving to Iowa. Instead, they’re bailing for different Midwestern states.

While Sandoval held significant power over transit agencies as the chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee, his daughter and daughter-in-law were hired by the CTA — after his son was hired by another transit agency, the Pace bus system.

Three months ago, new Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi sent a letter to more than 1,100 homeowners in New Trier Township all but promising them a surprise property tax break because they live on a floodplain.

It’s now clear they’re not going to get it.

The taxes stink. But it’s the real-world incentives of horribly designed public policy that is driving developers away. Given the environment, it’s not going to stop. In Illinois, property rights aren’t really respected in the classical capitalistic model. Coase works.

The so-called CTU 9 stood briefly Wednesday afternoon before a Cook County judge, who swiftly told them all charges of misdemeanor criminal trespass to property were dismissed, apparently because the complaining witness was not present for the court hearing.

And from our report earlier this year: Sub-par home appreciation has cost Illinoisans a mind-numbing $250 billion over ten years.

“It is time we lead our city past ceremony and apology and into the overdue commitment to a reparative policy.”

Walk down the streets in Brighton Park, you can see it for yourself – sliced wires hanging out at the bases of light poles. We found a few in such condition – pulled, broken, clipped.”

Why are they doing it?

“Obviously to be the dark to; do what they want to do – whether it’s driving through the neighborhood trying to shoot people, graffiti, or do other things of that nature,” Lopez said.

“As soon as we can fix it with CDOT, the lights are out the very next day,” he said.

CBS talked to people who live and work

Update: Police are now saying the whole story is unfounded and was made up.

“I cannot tell you how many places I go to where people say, ‘give me a loan, that’s the money lady, can you write me a check?’” Conyears-Ervin said. “People truly associate me with money … I’ve had people, when I walk in the room, they say, ‘Money, money, money — money.’”

“The bottom line is a budget Lightfoot claims is on solid ground and her critics say is a house of cards certain to come tumbling down”

Chicago water bill payments are down $20 million this year, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration said months after the mayor announced the city would stop shutting off households’ water because of unpaid bills.

Comment: This article is a great example of how our press bears some of the responsibility for our fiscal crisis. This author ignored the Rhode Island decision on cutting pensions, which is the only decision on the point about a pension amendment, which he got wrong. Then there’s Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, saying “it’s a rational thing to do” but only after exploring all other avenues. The author didn’t bother disclosing that CTBA is a union-funded propaganda machine, and quoted nobody else.

First, the Chicago Teachers Union demanded more makeup days for time spent on the picket line – and they got some of them, exactly as they wanted.

But now, CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov has learned that teachers won’t be at work anyway on many of those days – and the Chicago Public Schools system is scrambling to find substitutes.

The new contract continues a moratorium on school closings despite plummeting student enrollment.

Rising commercial property tax assessments spark fears of big property tax hikes.

Today, the Near Northwest Side is the heartland of the liberal Noth Side. The Chicago Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has its headquarters in Logan Square. In the 2016 Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders’s strongest wards were on the Northwest Side. Three of the City Council’s six democratic socialists represent Northwest Side wards: Daniel LaSpata of the 1st, Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez of the 33rd, and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa of the 35th.

Shannon has partly blamed the rise in uncompensated care on other hospitals that send their uninsured patients his way, especially those who need expensive treatments. In recent months, he’s been vocal about imploring other hospitals to treat more people who don’t have insurance..

Besides facing financial pressures, Shannon has been caught up in a months-long volley with Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard. In June, Blanchard released a damning report that accused Cook County Health’s Medicaid insurance business, called CountyCare, of sitting on nearly $700 million in unpaid bills owed to hospitals and doctors.

The data is from the Illinois Department of Employment Security. Unlike most jobs numbers, it is based not on surveys and estimates but on an actual hard count of private-sector jobs covered by unemployment insurance that is considered highly reliable.

According to the report, the total number of jobs in the six-county metro area in the year ended March 31 grew just 1,361, to 3,598,232. That’s not even a tenth of a percent, and far and away is the lowest annual rise since the city and state began recovering from the subprime mortgage recession a decade ago.

Comment: Keep in mind that full doesn’t really mean full. It just means paying what was set by the legislature, which is far short of what’s needed even for the pensions to tread water. Taxpayer pension contributions have to double by 2033 just to get to the point where the growth in unfunded liabilities stops.

United Working Families, which is marshaling opposition to her 2020 budget, is, she said, “closely aligned with” the Chicago Teachers Union.

Mayoral allies beat back efforts to kill a $40 million congestion fee and a first-ever trash-collection fee for non-profits; the Finance Committee also approved a $1.5 billion debt refinancing package.

Michael Ferro, the largest shareholder in Tribune Publishing Co., sold his 25% stake in the newspaper company for about $118 million to Alden Global Capital LLC, a hedge fund known for making deep cuts to newsrooms.

Foxx had others to blame: “Every day my office is under attack, from a president who uses our city as a punching bag. The NRA, hell bent on letting guns flood our streets. And the FOP, clinging to old ways. They’ll do anything to undercut progress, including attacking me personally over the Jussie Smollett case,” Foxx says.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot agreed Monday to raise the annual aldermanic expense — from $97,000 to $122,000 — to appease aldermen demanding more staff for their ward offices and build support for her 2020 budget.

Instead of budgeting $4.85 million for the annual aldermanic expense allowance, the city will spend $6.1 million — about a 26% increase. The additional $1.25 million will come from unspecified spending cuts and revenue increases, officials said, as the City Council’s Budget Committee approved the mayor’s $11.65 billion spending plan.

There’s no guarantee property taxes can be held down in the future, she said, especially if she can’t get state lawmakers next spring to make changes she wants to the proposed Chicago casino taxing structure.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to raise Chicago’s minimum wage to $15-an-hour by 2021, but maintain a “sub-minimum wage” for tipped workers, cleared a key legislative hurdle on Monday to cheers from restaurant owners.

That’s not good enough to satisfy Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35^th). He argued again Monday that eliminating the “sub-minimum wage” and phasing in a $15-an-hour wage for all workers was imperative to “reduce workplace sexual harassment” and eradicate a two-tiered system that “leaves black and Latino women in the service industry behind.”

The trust, launched with a flourish at the start of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration, has been criticized for accomplishing little at a snail’s pace and depending on public financing, even though it was created with a goal of freeing taxpayers from the cost and risk of funding big infrastructure projects.

The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago has sued City Hall to try to stop the city from enforcing its Fair Workweek Ordinance, which regulates employers’ scheduling processes, and asking the courts to strike the ordinance down as unconstitutional for targeting only specific kinds of employers.

Tenant rep brokers say that widening gap isn’t enough to reverse or stop a suburban-to-urban trend alone, as real estate expenses pale in comparison to labor costs. But with the suburban millennial population expected to grow during the next decade and the rise of telecommuting and co-working allowing more workplace flexibility, the calculus companies are using to decide where they want to call home is changing.

Comment: There’s a misspelling in here. It’s samich not sandwich.

Dozens of Chicago and Cook County agencies fall short on Open Meetings Act and other open government standards, according to a City Bureau analysis.

Tax retirement income and expand the sales tax.

Suburban businessmen linked to Ald. Carrie Austin and a federal investigation didn’t pay taxes on properties for years, then bought up $861,000 of their own tax debts — for $26,000.

Pritzker & Co. won a victory worth celebrating when they pushed through a deal to consolidate hundreds of police and fire retirement funds. But don’t think for a second the state’s problem is solved.

Discerning the difference between refreshing straight talk and intemperate broadsides should be on the mayor’s to-do list.

How the Nitchoffs avoided paying hundreds of thousands of dollars by paying a fraction of what they owed

Conducted by Ogden & Fry on behalf of the Illinois Opportunity Project, pollsters found 36 percent of respondents favor bankruptcy, compared to 21 percent of those in favor of raising taxes as a way of trying to tackle the deficit. Of the 534 respondents that were randomly selected from a pool of 2020 general election voters earlier this month, 42.7 percent were undecided on the issue.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday shot down an alternative congestion fee floated by Uber and accused the ride-hailing giant of offering black ministers $54 million to carry the ride-hailing giant’s water.

Lightfoot dropped the political bombshell at a City Hall news conference when asked about the tax plan that, Uber claims, would raise $21 million more than Lightfoot’s congestion fee in part because it would apply to taxis as well as ride-hailing.

“Is this the one where they’re paying off black ministers by $54 million? That one? Or is this a new one?” the mayor said.

Comment: National ridicule apparently wasn’t enough for them, so they are going for more.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has introduced her proposal to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 by 2021 and boost base wages for tipped workers—but not to the full $15 that some employee advocates were hoping for.

Her proposal would boost the city’s minimum wage for businesses with 21 or more employees to $14 per hour on July 1, 2020, and $15 one year later. Those wages also would apply to the city’s sister agencies like the park district and Chicago Transit Authority and would rise with inflation. For those with fewer than 21 employees, wages would climb more slowly, rising

The Greater Chicago Food Depository hopes to make up to 17,000 scratch meals a day for Cook County’s aging population, which is on course to significantly increase over the next decade.

“Lightfoot finally agreed to a labor contract that is very generous to the teachers union. Making it affordable, however, won’t be easy. Nor will giving a higher-quality education to students now trapped in dying schools. Closing these half-empty buildings is one way to show she’s serious about both goals.”

Irma Holloway, a 53-year-old real estate investor with a checkered financial past and a rap sheet that includes arrests for theft, forgery and bank fraud, resigned as economic development director for Hazel Crest Friday following inquiries from the Daily Southtown.

Comment: Lightfoot talks out of both sides of her mouth on this. Though she indicated here that she might support a constitutional amendment on pensions, Pritzker’s office says she told him she opposes it, as he does.

Bill Helm — a $125,000-a-year deputy aviation commissioner — also was a paid sales representative for SafeSpeed, LLC, while on the city payroll, the records show.

SafeSpeed paid Helm, who’d held the city aviation post since 2014, a commission on red-light tickets written in Matteson and also Glendale Heights, the records show.

SafeSpeed and Helm have been named in federal search warrants and subpoenas served on several southwest suburbs and on the offices of state Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago

Comment: Good explanation of how the union skirted the law.

The agency’s junk rating on Chicago Public Schools debt in unchanged, but it warns the $1.5 billion deal “will widen a structure gap” in school finances that already were weak.

A bungle like approving the Corliss Avenue deal can cause public support to flag. The deal never should have happened. Not only should the county probe what happened in that case, it should conduct a deeper dive into the agency to see if any other too-cozy deals have escaped scrutiny. And it should set in place reforms that ensure public trust in the land bank doesn’t get undermined again.

Greg Hinz: “I’m hearing Lightfoot’s plan still is in trouble, facing opposition both from Republicans and real estate groups that oppose tax hikes, and from downstate and suburban Democrats who see no reason to take a tough vote even if progressives may be climbing aboard.”

Chicago Public Schools says it’s confident it will be able to pay for the contract—but only with $100 million a year in new property taxes and aid from the state, aid that may be dependent on enacting a graduated income tax.

Lots of Chicago teachers call in sick when they are not sick. Just because they can. That sad fact lies behind a little noticed provision in the teachers’ new tentative contract. The teachers will be allowed to accumulate as many as 244 sick days, which they can put toward an earlier retirement with a full pension. Some teachers will be able to retire about a year and half early.

Comment: It says something when the socialists are happy that CTU took another step to “revive a tradition of militant trade unionism based on strikes, solidarity, and social justice.”

Chester Wilson’s delinquent property tax tab on a South Side building topped $200K. County land bank erased that — and gave the property to a Wilson business partner for $40,000.

Leaders of the Cook County Democratic Party on Monday voted unanimously to ask former state Rep. Luis Arroyo to step down from its ranks Monday — and will be sending a letter to indicted 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke requesting he do the same.

Democrats hadn’t previously asked Burke or Solis to hit the road, although the chair of the party, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, had asked Burke to step down from his party post in January when Burke was first hit with federal charges.

The tentative agreement reached Thursday between the city, Chicago Public Schools and the CTU allows union members to bank 244 sick days, up from 40.

That’s more than enough days to cover an entire school year — an increase that could allow a longtime employee to retire a year early and still receive their full pension.

“Ka-ching, k-not.”

Included in Lightfoot’s massive city budget expectation is $163 million federal dollars in ambulance service reimbursements based on the feds rewriting a section of the Medicaid formula. Political insiders are betting the ranch the Trump administration will nix the cash by turning a thumbs-down to approval of the formula rewrite by the U.S. Department of Human Services. Why? It’s pretty obvious this president, who is consistently bashing Chicago, doesn’t forget slights.

And Lightfoot’s decision not to greet Trump at the airport Monday, his first trip to Chicago since his 2016 election, probably stung. As a

That’s Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski.

“Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Teachers Union reached agreement on a deal sure to send Chicago over the cliff.”

Jesse Sharkey and Vice President Stacy Davis Gates sloughed off concerns about how a school system that has borrowed to the hilt can afford such a generous contract:

“So to hear this discussion arise about, ‘Oh, my God. It’s gonna cost too much money.’ No. quite frankly, it should be costing a lot more money.”

Pressed on where the money should come from, Davis Gates said, “Rich people. Reinstate the corporate head tax.

“[Lightfoot] has an opportunity to expand the tax base to include those who can pay more. She should do that,” Davis Gates said.

Chicago TV/movie studio mogul Alexander S. Pissios was on the hook for more than $1 million when he began cooperating in a corruption case that took down a Teamsters boss. Now, he no longer owes that money.

Is there a whiff of something out of whack here? Former Smollett press adviser Rosen co-hosting a dinner for Tchen, whose involvement in the Smollett case raised heavy eyebrows? Former White House insiders tell Sneed Tchen and Jarrett are not only this/close and chummy on the Tinseltown scene, but they got to know Foxx as a frequent visitor at Hollywood fundraising events.

Smollett’s Chicago case, which still sparks of outrage in Chicago, is now in the hands of special prosecutor/mega legal eagle Dan K. Webb.

Will Webb discover a few former White House spoons were used to

Paradoxically, the worse the policies that the unions foist on our cities, the more progressives need their muscle to get reelected.

Stacy Davis Gates said she was stopped at a City Hall elevator by the mayor’s security team.

Around the time he was trying to get the village of Alsip to hire his clout-heavy insurance company, Andrew Madigan invited the south suburb’s mayor to a campaign fundraiser for his father, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

That’s the five-year, high end estimate from the CPS budget office. “The union won the strike. They absolutely won,” says Paul Vallas, a former CPS CEO who was one of Lightfoot’s rivals in the February mayoral election. “It’s going to be impossible for them to come up with that much dough without major tax increases if (Gov. J.B.) Pritzker does not fully fund the state’s new school-aid formula.”

“The future of public education in Chicago is empty schools, $100K teacher salaries, and fake jobs.”

Estimated cost to follow, but you can bet it will be expensive. The agreement also includes new job protections for substitute teachers who going forward may only be removed after conferring with the union about “performance deficiencies.” Chicago Public Schools will become a “sanctuary district,” meaning school officials won’t be allowed to cooperate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a court order. Employees will also be allowed 10 unpaid days for personal immigration matters.

“Paradoxically, the worse the policies that the unions foist on our cities, the more progressives need their muscle to get reelected.”

Having boxed herself in with an education platform that reads like the CTU playbook, Lightfoot had no choice but to essentially give away the store to a teachers union that backed her opponent, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

In a desperate attempt to honor her “not-on-my-watch” promise to avoid a teachers strike, she quickly agreed to a 14% pay raise over five years, then upped the ante to 16%, matching the recommendation of an independent fact-finder.

The strategy violated Negotiations 101: When facing a difficult adversary, hold something back. Give yourself room to maneuver.

Comment: With the higher transfer taxes not even approved yet, progressives are already proposing expanding the scope of the tax increase to homes valued at just $500k. “The plan from Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, could spark a bit of a homeowners’ revolt on much of the North Side and other sections of the city where property values are relatively high. They could end up paying hundreds of dollars more in taxes on the sales of even rather ordinary houses and condominiums,” says Crain’s

Evanston/Skokie School District 65 said they’re striving for inclusivity, but in their quest to make everyone feel comfortable, some families said they just feel sad.

Joe Ferguson says Chicago is trimming fewer trees, more sporadically, and at a higher cost because city crews rely on 311 requests, instead of a grid system.

In August 2015, Chicago quietly shifted distracted driving tickets from administrative hearings to Traffic Court after being advised by its own attorneys that motorists caught talking on cellphones and texting behind the wheel were being denied due process.

Why, then, did City Hall continue to collect $3.2 million in fines from motorists whose tickets issued before then were “illegally” routed to administrative hearing officers and use those citations to suspend drivers licenses, deny permits and prohibit city employment for two more years?

The proposed FY2020 budget for the prosecutor’s office calls for adding 10 new positions to the unit that handles wrongful conviction claims, like the ones tied to Burge.

In total, the budget calls for about 22 new positions in the prosecutor’s office, including new positions to help with expungements based on the new Illinois law legalizing marijuana.

Comment: Yes, public unions, whatever you’d like.

Chicago Police Department detectives do not have direct phone lines or individual voicemail. Until recently, they weren’t provided with cell phones. They don’t have their own computers or even their own desks. Their offices are so far from assigned neighborhoods it might take more than an hour to reach a murder scene

Cook County isn’t far behind, though among Chicago’s metro-area counties it’s taking the smallest hit. That’s in large part because Cook County has the smallest proportion of homes whose property tax bills are over $10,000, the new limit for deducting state and local taxes on federal filings.

Of nearly 3,100 U.S. counties, Lake County ranks fifth for lost home value in the wake of the tax law changes, according to a list compiled by Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and published earlier this month by ProPublica. Cook County ranks

Comment: Now it’s worth $170 million of taxpayer money plus the free parkland, don’t you think?

Though the mayor says she’s not worried, a federal indictment may hinder her hopes to revive plans for a Chicago casino, and progressives vow to block her real estate transfer tax without more help for the homeless.

Comment: This hasn’t gotten the press coverage it deserves.

Comment: From the pro-union Sun-Times, no less: As we write this editorial, the stumbling blocks include two big demands by the Chicago Teachers Union: More prep time for teachers, and political support from Mayor Lori Lightfoot for a fully elected school board. Lightfoot and her negotiating team have said no to both, and we’re with them.

The Supreme Court ruled in the case of Janus v. AFSCME that unions could not extract what’s called an “agency fee” from non-members who happened to work in the same place a union had “exclusive representation” rights. But one group argues that in saying it was unconstitutional to force people to fund labor unions’ speech with their own money, the high court also indicated that the legitimacy of “exclusive representation” itself could be up for debate.

Aldermen from across the city demanded to know how a budget that makes a series of rosy assumptions will be balanced in the event that Lightfoot doesn’t get what she wants?

What if the Illinois General Assembly fails to authorize a graduated real estate transfer tax and a casino gambling fix during its abbreviated fall veto session?

What if the federal government refuses to sign off on the $163 million windfall that the mayor assumes she’ll get by increasing ambulance fees paid by private insurers and from reimbursements administered by the state for ambulance transports for low-income

A natioal republication of our Wirepoints article.

At a time when union leaders claim another $38 million could end the teachers strike, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2020 budget requires the Chicago Public Schools to reimburse the city for $60 million in pension contributions previously covered by City Hall. The historic about-face is buried in the mayor’s budget overview. It states, “In 2020, an additional $60 million is expected from Chicago Public Schools to cover a portion of its share of the city’s annual contribution to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund.”

Using fuzzy math, the CTU claimed on Monday that the negotiating gap on a new contract stands at $38 million. Using real-world math, that gap is about 2 ¹⁄₂ times bigger — $98 million. Chicago just doesn’t have that kind of money. Really and truly.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot needs to achieve her 2022 target of structurally balancing the city’s books to preserve the city’s BBB-plus rating, S&P Global Ratings said in a special report Friday.

Comment: This is the socialist’s perspective. For our own views on “bargaining for the common good,” see our own article from last week.

Alliant/Mesirow Insurance Services and company executive Andrew Madigan — neither of which has been accused of any crime — add an intriguing link to people federal authorities appear to be interested in.

Among them: Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski, who doubles as the mayor of McCook and whose office was raided Sept. 26. McCook village records show Tobolski invited Andrew Madigan in 2011 “to submit a proposal” to help secure liability coverage.