Category: politics

CHICAGO URBAN DAILY

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— The fight for control of the Chicago Housing Authority is now the City Council’s favorite spectator sport — and Mayor Brandon Johnson keeps losing.

Aldermen this week rejected another pair of Johnson’s nominees to the CHA board, dealing the mayor a fresh blow in a power struggle that has now dragged on for more than a year. For months, the council has denied Johnson’s appointees almost unanimously, convinced he wants a board that will fire the agency’s current leader.

The current leader, Keith Pettigrew, owes his job to Matthew Brewer — the former interim CHA head who is now running for mayor against Johnson. When Johnson tried to install veteran Ald. Walter “Red” Burnett Sr. as the agency’s chief — moving his son Walter Jr. onto the council seat — the vote was delayed while the city waited on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to decide whether the elder Burnett needed a conflict-of-interest waiver. HUD said no. Brewer then appointed Pettigrew, and the war was on.

Johnson insists all he wants is to build housing, fast — especially more public housing. But his critics aren’t buying it. They say the mayor’s nominees are a Trojan horse for a board that would sweep Pettigrew out.

The stakes are enormous. The CHA is the second-largest public housing authority in America and the largest owner of rental housing in Chicago, with a roughly $1 billion operating budget serving more than 63,000 low-income families. Control of it is a prize Chicago mayors have traditionally held. Johnson may not get it back before the February election.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as the council keeps saying no.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.

CHICAGO URBAN DAILY

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— One vote. That’s all that stood between Mayor Brandon Johnson and a new check on his borrowing power.

The City Council voted 33-17 Wednesday to override Johnson’s veto of a measure requiring 30 aldermanic votes — three-fifths of the council — to approve new city debt. It needed 34. The veto stands, and the mayor’s borrowing authority stays exactly as it was.

The ordinance, led by Ald. Marty Quinn of the 13th Ward, would have raised the bar from the current simple majority of 26. Quinn argued it would make the council more independent and force a mayor to build broader support for borrowing. Ald. Matt O’Shea of the 19th Ward pointed to more than $30 billion in outstanding city debt as reason for stronger oversight.

Johnson made this fight personal before he even picked up the veto pen, calling the measure a “three-fifths compromise” — invoking the constitutional provision that counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person. The mayor and some allies said the proposal carried racial motives; Quinn defended it as a purely procedural change.

On the floor, Ald. Jason Ervin of the 28th Ward warned the measure shifted power from the mayor’s office, while Ald. David Moore of the 17th Ward said calls urging him to back the override amounted to a bid to keep control of city finances from the mayor.

This was Johnson’s fourth veto — issued over the weekend after the council first passed the measure 32-15. With the 2027 budget fight heating up and a mayoral election landing in February, City Hall’s power struggle is only getting louder.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as budget season unfolds.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.

NEWS FLASH

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Today, the City Council decides what 383 years of stolen life are worth.

Aldermen are expected to vote Wednesday on a $260.8 million settlement for 17 men whose murder convictions were thrown out in cases tied to former Chicago police detective Reynaldo Guevara. If it passes, it would rank among the largest wrongful-conviction payouts in American history — possibly the largest police misconduct payout ever.

The deal, announced October 1 by Mayor Brandon Johnson and Acting Corporation Counsel Renee Hatcher, resolves 16 lawsuits at once. The plaintiffs say they were framed for murders in the 1980s and 1990s on misconduct by Guevara and other officers. Every one of their convictions was vacated and the charges dismissed. The money would be paid out over two years, beginning in 2027.

The vote is not without friction. Ald. Raymond Lopez of the 15th Ward, joined by 12 colleagues, has pressed the city’s top attorney to rethink how these settlements get paid — pointing to Francisco Nanez, who collected an $8 million payout after his conviction was overturned in 2022 and later landed back in custody. The Law Department says this settlement will be distributed over two years rather than in a single check. Lopez called that “a step in the right direction.”

The alternative to settling is stark: city attorneys estimate fighting on could burn another $300 to $400 million in legal fees alone.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily for the vote and what comes next.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.

Every year, the National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality calls America to account. It is a day when families, organizers, and everyday people stand together and say what too many institutions still won’t: the violence must end.

In a new episode of the Amir Shakur Speaks Broadcast Channel, Amir breaks down why this day matters — not as a date on a calendar, but as a living demand. From the streets of Chicago to cities across the nation, the protest is a reminder that behind every statistic is a name, behind every name is a family, and behind every family is a community refusing to be silent.

The struggle against police brutality did not end with any single verdict or any single march. It continues in courtrooms, in city councils, in police departments, and in the hearts of mothers who should never have had to become activists. The National Day of Protest is where all of that resolve gathers in one place, at one time, with one voice.

This is bigger than one day. It is about a nation deciding, finally, that Black life is precious — not in speeches, but in policy, in practice, and in power.

Watch the full episode, share it, and show up. The families are still marching. The question is whether America marches with them.

https://www.youtube.com/live/OEFQwGnqRaw

Some conversations you don’t watch — you witness. In a powerful new episode of the Amir Shakur Speaks Broadcast Channel, the families of George Floyd and Tamir Rice sit down to confront the crisis of police brutality in urban America. Not as headlines. Not as hashtags. As mothers, fathers, and loved ones carrying a pain that never leaves the room.

George Floyd’s name shook the world in 2020. Tamir Rice was twelve years old — a child with a toy gun, gone in seconds in Cleveland. Years apart, cities apart, but the same wound: Black lives taken by the very people sworn to protect them, and families left to turn grief into a movement.

This is why the work matters. When the cameras leave and the protests fade, the families remain. They carry the memory, they push the policy, they refuse to let America forget. Their courage is the reason conversations like this one exist — and the reason they must continue.

Amir Shakur has long stood with these families, using his platform to amplify the voices the mainstream moves past. This episode is not entertainment. It is testimony.

Watch the full conversation now, share it with someone who needs to hear it, and stand with the families still fighting for justice.

https://www.youtube.com/live/V7sVr4YL-o0

CHICAGO URBAN DAILY

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Two weeks out from the most consequential budget address of his mayoralty, Brandon Johnson made his playbook plain: tax the rich.

The mayor says his 2027 budget will “level the playing field” against corporations pulling in record profits while working people “are standing in lines for food,” the Sun-Times reported. And he’s doubling down on the tech taxes that have outperformed expectations: the cloud tax on computing and software platforms, a higher tax on online sports betting, and a tax on social media companies still tied up in court, with its revenues held in escrow.

The context is brutal: a projected $882.4 million hole in the 2027 budget. And City Hall’s opposition has already drawn its own lines. The 29-member Budget Accountability Coalition told Johnson last month: no property tax increase, no head tax or tax on job growth, no counting on Springfield money that hasn’t been approved.

Johnson answered the coalition directly, accusing his council opponents of “coddling individuals that are already being protected by Donald Trump.” The mayor vowed his budget would take the side of working people — “That is it. That is all.”

Twenty-nine votes can pass a budget. It takes 34 to override a veto. And a mayoral election lands in February. This fight is the whole ballgame.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as budget season unfolds.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.

CHICAGO URBAN DAILY

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Smile for the camera, Chicago. Your bike lanes are getting watchful eyes — and this time the program is headed citywide and permanent.

On Friday, the City Council’s Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety passed Ald. Daniel La Spata’s ordinance to expand the Smart Streets Pilot, the automated camera enforcement program that tickets drivers blocking bike and bus lanes. The measure cleared committee unanimously and rolls out in three phases, eventually covering the whole city. It could get a final vote before the full Council as soon as Wednesday, October 14.

The numbers La Spata’s office cites are striking. The pilot program has issued more than 140,000 citations and brought in roughly $2 million in revenue. And the deterrent effect appears real: 82% of drivers who get a warning never get a ticket, and 64% of those who do get a first ticket never get a second.

“Too many friends have been seriously injured, and too many families have lost loved ones. We need to design streets for everyone — especially kids getting around in our neighborhoods,” La Spata wrote after the vote.

The committee meeting also delivered a win for the other side of the bike lane. The proposed Divvy/Lyft contract extension was deferred, stalling a deal critics say locks in bad terms for the city.

If the full Council signs off Wednesday, automated enforcement on bike and bus lanes stops being a pilot and starts being the law of the road, permanently — cameras watching every neighborhood, not just the downtown corridors where it started.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily for the vote.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.

CHICAGO URBAN DAILY

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Mayor Brandon Johnson pulled the veto pen out again Friday — for the fourth time — killing an ordinance that would have made it harder for the city to take on debt.

The measure, championed by retiring Ald. Marty Quinn (13th), would have raised the votes needed for City Council approval of city debt from 26 to 30. The Council passed it 32-15 on September 29. Now Johnson has vetoed it, setting up an override attempt that would need 34 votes.

“Neighborhoods with the greatest infrastructure needs should not face additional barriers to securing essential public investment,” Johnson wrote in his veto letter.

Quinn isn’t backing down. He says he’ll chase an override, targeting the three aldermen who ducked the September 29 roll call: Daniel La Spata (1st), Chris Taliaferro (29th) and Andre Vasquez (40th).

The veto fight lands as City Hall gears up for another bruising budget season — in an election year.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily for updates on this developing story.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.

CHICAGO URBAN DAILY

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Chicago police ran more than 23,000 searches of a private surveillance database this summer — and the City Council never voted on it.

That number comes from audit logs obtained by FOX32 Chicago, showing the Chicago Police Department queried Flock Safety’s camera database more than 23,000 times between May and July of this year. The city has been quietly paying a third-party company for access since 2024 — nearly $75,000 in taxpayer money — routed through what the city calls an “existing master services agreement” that bypassed the budget office and the City Council entirely. No public hearings. No votes.

The arrangement traces back to a memorandum of understanding with Flock Safety, signed in January 2023 after a process that began in 2021. Under the MOU, Chicago officers can log into Flock’s portal and pull from its entire national camera database.

A high-ranking source inside the department told FOX32 that only investigators and a designated tech team of civilians have access — but the department itself has not confirmed that.

Now the Mayor’s Office is weighing in. In a statement to FOX32, a spokesperson said the Office of Public Safety Administration “obtained access to the Flock database following the conclusion of a process which began in 2021” and “used their discretionary budget to pay for access, beginning in 2024,” adding that the spending “did not require or involve the approval of OBM or the Mayor’s Office.”

The statement continued: “The Mayor’s Office recognizes the serious concerns raised by this arrangement and is engaged in urgent discussions to identify and implement measures to mitigate any potential harm to Chicago residents and protect their privacy and safety.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson is expected to address the issue himself.

Twenty-three thousand searches. Seventy-five thousand taxpayer dollars. And the people footing the bill never got a say. Privacy advocates have been warning about exactly this — a city plugged into a surveillance machine with no public sign-off.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as this story develops.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.

CHICAGO URBAN DAILY

CHICAGO (CHICAGO URBAN DAILY)— Chicago’s first-ever elected school board president race just got a late-breaking twist — and Mayor Brandon Johnson isn’t flinching.

The CPS watchdog has reopened an inquiry into Hilario Dominguez, the Chicago Teachers Union-backed candidate for school board president, over decade-old allegations from a former student. The reopening lands despite an email from an OIG assistant inspector general telling Dominguez the office had issued a June 26 “Not Substantiated” report, finding insufficient evidence of sexual misconduct toward that student or any other student or minor.

Johnson, who campaigned alongside Dominguez on Saturday, stood by him anyway. The mayor said candidates should be held to a higher standard — and called on the watchdog to complete its review “with great urgency.”

The field narrowed last week when former board vice president Sendhil Revuluri dropped out on Sept. 30, saying the gusher of special-interest cash had crowded out regular Chicagoans. That leaves a three-way fight: Dominguez, current board member Jessica Biggs (backed by SEIU Local 73 and business leaders), and prominent defense attorney Victor Henderson.

This isn’t a ceremonial seat. Voters pick all 20 board members and the president citywide on Nov. 3 — the first time in city history — and the president decides what makes it onto the monthly meeting agenda.

Stay tuned to Chicago Urban Daily as this race unfolds.

Reported by Chicago Urban Daily News. Visit chicagourbandailynews.com for updates.