A City Council committee took the first step Thursday toward approving legislation that outlines how the Obama Foundation can use Jackson Park and the Obama Presidential Center once it is built.

And for the first time, the committee revealed language in the legislation that seeks to protect current homeowners and residents who live closest to the selected site. As part of their agreement, which the panel approved unanimously, the city will monitor property values and other indicators of demographic changes near the center site. If there are dramatic changes, the city will implement measures to keep residents in their homes, City Planning Commissioner David Reifman told the gathering.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s final budget will not include a controversial $10 billion pension borrowing, but that doesn’t mean he has shelved the massive borrowing tailor-made to minimize the need for another punishing round of post-election tax increases.

Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown said it was never the mayor’s intention to tie the pension borrowing and the budget together.

The Elmhurst Unit District 205 school board and its teachers union have approved a three-year contract that provides pay raises of more than 4 percent each year of the pact.

The deal ends about seven months of formal negotiations between the board and the Elmhurst Teachers’ Council Local 571 of the American Federation of Teachers, the union representing more than 700 educators and other members in the district’s 13 schools.

The union that represents teachers in the Champaign school district has voted to authorize a strike.

Michelle Anderson, second vice president of the Champaign Federation of Teachers, said members held a vote Thursday afternoon after a lack of a breakthrough with district administrators.