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Chicago Tribune: At Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s second town hall, residents speak on teachers contract, affordable housing and looming tax hikes
Protesters briefly interrupted Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s second budget town hall, demanding Chicago spend more on city schools instead of giving tax subsidies to developers like the $1.3 billion awarded under the previous administration for the Lincoln Yards project.
Aside from the protest, Lightfoot’s second community forum otherwise closely mirrored the one she held earlier this month on the Northwest Side. A parade of citizens approached the microphone Saturday morning at Roberto Clemente High School to give the mayor their ideas on how to close the city’s $838 million budget shortfall.
Chicago Sun-Times: A database of FBI files on people with Chicago and Illinois ties
do the feds know?
Plenty — especially about Chicago-area political figures, reputed mobsters, union leaders, government officials and others among the famous and the infamous.
Crain's Chicago Business: A warning sign City Hall should heed
The indicator is not the number of jobs or the vacancy rate, both of which continue to be solid by most counts. Rather, the weakness is in capital flows, the amount of money spent to buy or sometimes build new structures. Consider it a sort of leading indicator as to whether investors consider a given area worth the risk of plunking down their money in exchange for returns that can be many years away.
Northwest Herald: McHenry County reviewing marijuana tax; Franks opposes setting tax at cap
Decatur Herald & Review: Decatur city leaders may move forward with land bank, demolitions
City leaders on Monday could take several major steps toward neighborhood revitalization goals, including demolition of seven abandoned structures and the potential to join a regional land bank that would help manage vacant and dilapidated properties.
The Decatur City Council is set to vote on a measure that would have it join the Vermilion County Land Bank, recently renamed to Central Illinois Land Bank. City leaders have discussed for several years the idea of a land bank as a potential avenue to help improve Decatur’s core neighborhoods, and it was included earlier this year on a list of 36 strategies that could be applied to the goal.