Must-read @skpineda.bsky.social on how a U-turn in federal housing policy is about to make it much harder for Chicago and other cities to fight homelessness:

Homeowners in poor neighborhoods face steep property tax hikes while downtown office building owners pay less. From @adquig.bsky.social and @alexnitkin.bsky.social

Dec. 2. Come by to learn more about our work, and how you can support it! illinoisanswers.org/event/how-jo...

Important story from @meredithnewman.bsky.social on a symptom of the state's eroding public health infrastructure: mentally ill defendants spiraling in jail for months while they wait for psychiatric beds — sometimes with fatal consequences illinoisanswers.org/2025/11/11/t...

So not only does the massive transit package passed last night fill the funding gap, it *boosts* ops funding by roughly the size of the gap, eliminates parking minimums within a half mile of rail stations, and gives the new regional transit board sweeping powers to do public development

Tune into @wbez.org at 9 a.m. to hear me do my best to recap the whirlwind veto session that landed a $1.5 billion transit package on the governor's desk: www.wbez.org I'm not in Springfield, but I did get a full night of sleep last night!

Watch the live House committee debate, with Rep. Delgado answering questions about the bill: ilga.gov/House/AudioV... Read our story on the history and limitations of the RTA sales tax, which is being proposed for an increase: illinoisanswers.org/2025/10/28/l...

A loophole lets counties spend millions in transit taxes not on transit...but on jails & courts Now, to save Chicago transit from cuts, lawmakers want to use those funds. The idea met a fierce backlash. 📝 @gracehauck.bsky.social & @alexnitkin.bsky.social illinoisanswers.org/2025/10/28/l...

As transit funding hangs in the balance in veto session this week, @gracehauck.bsky.social and I have a pair of stories looking at the stakes for a part of the state that's gotten relatively little attention: the collar counties. t.co/oswatwJcdQ

IL State Rep. Hoan Huynh says CBP agents surrounded his car and drew a gun on him on the Northwest Side of Chicago this morning

Johnson's budget address touts the city's effort to seize and resell properties from derelict landlord Suzie B. Wilson. ICYMI, @ctoner and @mina_bloom_ found the city has fallen far behind its goals here: illinoisanswers.org/2025/10/15/h...

Johnson Admin is proposing an unprecedented $1B surplus from TIF districts. About 52% of that will go to CPS and 24% will go to the City, per property tax allocations. City TIFs generated $1.36B in 2023.

[email protected] is proposing to use the revived business head tax (coined the Community Safety Surcharge) to bankroll a new Community Safety Fund. Lot of these programs were started, expanded and/or sustained through ARPA— looks like this is how the admin is looking to keep them going

New from me: Chicago's budget has approximately doubled in the past decade. So why can't the city just cut runaway spending instead of raising taxes? Turns out, lots of reasons: t.co/BS4bP7FzIG

105/N. Feds rammed a car that crashed into another, then a foot chase. #chicago

The Johnson Administration had fought off ward-based restrictions on ADUs because of a 2023 federal ruling that aldermanic prerogative leads to segregation. Trump’s HUD freed the mayor to wheel & deal with alders. @danielkayhertz.bsky.social on this: illinoisanswers.org/2025/09/25/c...

Compromise ADU ordinance PASSES City Council in a 46-0 vote, ending a 7-year legislative battle over a modest affordable housing tool already common elsewhere in the country. Story TK

Inbox: City Council's most vocal supporter and most vocal critic of citywide legalization of ADUs ("granny flats") announce they've reached a compromise. Still waiting on a copy of the new ordinance language to understand what the "limitations and local review" are. cc @stevevance.net

New: for the first time in memory, the City Council is going to hold an entire round of PRELIMINARY public budget hearings in September, before the mayor releases a proposal. Check the schedule:

The newly beefed-up City Council Office of Financial Analysis quietly dropped its mid-year budget report last week, including a 1st-ever report on city employee vacancies by department. chicago.gov/content/dam/... Should be of interest to anyone advocating cuts over new taxes!

The infamous Evanston Brothel Law! dailynorthwestern.com/2021/10/18/c...

In 2016, as Chicago mayor, Emanuel banned city employees from making most trips at the city’s expense to North Carolina, which banned trans people from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender. He also backed an ordinance blocking any Chicago business from imposing similar bans.

I’ll be talking about the ordinance to allow citywide construction of ADUs, which just advanced out of the City Council Zoning Committee in a 13-7 vote

Mayor to force a vote next week on legalizing ADUs citywide, Fran Spielman reports. chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/20... Letting people build backyard coach houses would represent an "attack by the mayor’s office on the bungalow belt," says Ald. Marty Quinn (13th).

Thanks @wbez.org for having me on Reset yesterday to talk ADUs! Take a listen: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

🧵(1/4) I remember walking into the City Hall press room at age 26 on my first day on the beat and being floored by the sheer force of Craig's kindness and sincerity. Like...veteran journalists are not supposed to act like this! Who did this guy think he was??

WBEZ Reset host right now: *WHY does there need to be a community meeting for a homeowner to add a unit??* (they are talking about ADUs, and referred to this statement in @alexnitkin.bsky.social's recent article)

Here's my story, on an affordable housing tool nearly everyone seems to agree is a good idea, but that the Chicago City Council and (so far) state legislators can't manage to push forward: t.co/YDh0XBRHiP (1/6)

In awe of this important, ambitious project — a collab between @illinoisanswers.bsky.social and @southsideweekly.bsky.social — and proud of the small part I got to play in it: makingitinchicago.illinoisanswers.org Please check it out today.

This article about ADUs in Chicago by @alexnitkin.bsky.social does the best at tying together all of the “blockers” to citywide expansion. illinoisanswers.org/2025/05/27/g...

New from me: An obscure, perennially resource-starved oversight office is set to take center stage in the Chicago City Council's effort to wrest more control over the city budget-making process. They face a mighty task. (1/5)

Folks neck deep in Chicago politics Twitter might remember screenshots of the city's salary database a few months ago seemed to show a bunch of aldermanic staffers earning more than the mayor. @alexnitkin.bsky.social dug in and found an opaque bonus system: illinoisanswers.org/2025/04/14/c...

NEW from @alexnitkin.bsky.social: Quiet Use of Bonuses for City Council Aides on the Rise illinoisanswers.org/2025/04/14/c...

Letter from Mayor Brandon Johnson this morning outlines a "series of engagements" with City Council to get ahead of an expected $1.12 billion projected budget gap for FY2026. Unclear how many of these "engagements" will be public meetings vs private briefings.

"Illinois is one of only six states that does not provide ready access to archival videos of floor proceedings, according to a 2022 analysis from the National Conference of State Legislatures." - Bryan Zarou of @bettergov.bsky.social www.bettergov.org/2025/03/24/b...

A state agency has repeatedly failed its legal charge to track and report child abuse cases, per my colleague, the indomitable public records gremlin Peter Nickeas: illinoisanswers.org/2025/03/18/a...

Quick🧵updating a story we did last year: Nearly $500M in taxable real estate value was added to Cook County rolls after an investigation by @illinoisanswers.bsky.social & @chicagotribune.com uncovered hundreds of mistakes in property assessments. The corrections come from an audit. 1/5

Clarification here: Chicago CFO Jill Jaworski said today this only pertains to money for the aldermanic Menu program, which is already at the discretion of individual alders. (This explains the $75M cap — $1.5M for each ward) The rest will go toward the City's overall Capital Improvement Plan.

Great dive into the city’s ARPA-funded antiviolence efforts, and where it all stands now:

NEW: ⁦‪Chicago Dept of Law‬⁩ has been stretching its authority to impede ⁦‪Inspector General investigations, including by selectively jamming up probes close to the mayor, watchdog says in memo calling on City Council to tighten rules via ordinance www.bettergov.org/2025/02/13/a...

Periodic reminder that Chicago is one of the only major cities in the country that doesn’t pass an annual capital budget, making it much harder to track spending on city-backed construction & streetscape projects

BREAKING: The City Council will NOT vote today on whether to lower the city's default speed limit to 25 MPH to 30 MPH. Instead, the City Council will weigh whether to create a working group to examine the issue, Ald. Daniel La Spata announces. @wttw.bsky.social

This building was last inspected in 2009, when the owner was slapped with 10 violations related to unsafe conditions, per city records. Chicago officials continue to insist emulating other cities with regular, proactive inspection regimes would be impossible. illinoisanswers.org/2023/03/10/c...

The City Council is set to vote today to lower the speed limit on city streets to 25 mph, effective 1/1/2026. The latest version of the ordinance is a touch more flexible than the original, allowing some variation in special cases.

Morty says Happy New Year everyone

In some communities, a false narrative is spreading: New immigrants, who are mostly from Venezuela, are getting government support and assistance while American-born folks are not. But as @blockclubchi.bsky.social reports, there is no aid for many of them. blockclubchicago.org/2024/12/19/t...

Periodic reminder that every one of these is more regressive than the property tax, which is effectively a tax on wealth

Members of the IL congressional delegation repping Chicagoland announce nearly $2B in critically important funding for the CTA’s Red Line Extension is coming through, money officials had been racing to secure before a second Trump admin @wttw.bsky.social

In light of the $500K slipped into the city budget for a plow-the-sidewalks pilot, re-upping this from my colleague @ctoner.bsky.social: illinoisanswers.org/2024/03/26/3... Toronto spends $27M to plow its sidewalks annually — that’s ~11% of what Chicago spent on police overtime in 2023.