The Illinois Supreme Court Thursday ruled that misconduct records related to Chicago police officers that are more than five years old must be preserved.

The state’s highest court found that the need to preserve public records outweighed a section of the collective bargaining agreement between the city and Fraternal Order of Police that mandated the destruction of police misconduct files after five years.

In a review of new residential construction starts in the past year, Illinois had the fourth-worst decline, but while some areas posted significant declines, others reported major gains.

ConsutrctionCoverage.com reviewed data from across the country and found that since April 2019, Illinois has had a nearly 60 percent decline in new construction, or a total loss of nearly $248 million change in value.

Chicago’s made some progress, but still has a long way to go to meet needed reforms for its police department and oversight agencies.

That’s the broad bottom line of the latest report issued by Maggie Hickey, the independent monitor charged with overseeing the Chicago Police Department’s compliance with a federal order to overhaul its operations.

Illinois’ first legal sportsbook is open again — from afar, at least.

Nearly a year after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the law that introduced the legal sports betting industry to the state as part of a massive gambling expansion — and three months after the state’s first-ever wager was placed at a suburban betting window — Illinois gamblers can now place bets from their cellphones following the Thursday morning launch of the state’s first online sportsbook.

It looks like Mayor Lori Lightfoot is blinking on holding unannounced, strictly private meetings among her and the City Council—an action that prompted a major civic group to sue her.

In an exchange of emails passed on to Crain’s, the city Corporation Counsel’s office told an attorney for the Better Government Association that such sessions now “are discontinued.”

When Thomas Trice teaches courses at the Southwestern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission, or SILEC, he asks law enforcement officers to watch viral videos of police brutality, then he gauges their reactions.

“For many, the instinct is to get very defensive with these topics, to try and say the action was justifiable,” he said. “I let them speak their minds, and then we walk through it.”

Chicago Public Schools will lay off more than 700 staffers, but the district says it plans to fill nearly 2,000 open positions ahead of next school year.

On Thursday, the final day of the 2019-20 school year, CPS announced it will lay off 703 employees, including 286 teachers, as part of its annual staffing adjustments, which the district said are caused by declining enrollment, changing student demographics and programmatic changes.

Downtown commercial property owners won’t feel the tax impact of Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s new valuation system for a couple more years. But they still have some pricey tax bills after almost a decade of soaring property values in the central area of the city.

Taxes rose this year for all 10 of the commercial properties in the city of Chicago with the highest bills, according to Cook County Treasurer records.

Madison County taxpayers will vote on lowering the county’s maximum tax rate on the November ballot, but as it stands, it’s unlikely much will change for taxpayers come tax time if the referendum passes.

The county board voted nearly unanimously Wednesday night to approve placing a referendum on the Nov. 3 ballot that, if passed, would lower the county’s maximum property tax rate from .20% to .18%.

Chicago Fire Department investigators determined that an employee did not move aggressively with his car toward a crowd of protesters in Little Village earlier this month.

The department investigated a complaint that stemmed from a protest on South Pulaski Road at West 36th Street in front of the old Crawford power plant. Activists, protesting the demolition of the plant, complained that the driver, who appeared to be a fire department emergency medical technician, drove toward them as they blocked both directions of South Pulaski Road the morning of June 5.

City Council has officially approved the sale of cocktails to go and the expansion of outdoor patio space at bars and restaurants in time for taverns and bars to welcome patrons back today.

A city release described the changes as a lifeline for businesses shuttered for several weeks under stay-at-home orders. At least 400 sidewalk cafe permits have already been issued in 2020, and 670 more are “in the final stages of issuance.”

Because of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the McHenry County Assessor’s Office will not require application renewals from residents who currently are receiving the senior citizen property assessment freeze, the Homestead Exemption for Persons with Disabilities or the Standard Homestead Exemption for Veterans with Disabilities.

Instead, the applications of homeowners currently enrolled in these tax exemption programs will be automatically approved and renewed for the 2020 tax year, according to a news release from County Board Chairman Jack Franks.