Fran Spielman Show
Veteran City Hall reporter Fran Spielman’s interviews with Chicago’s movers and shakers.
John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he’s fed up with having Chicago police officers “babysit” migrants at district stations.
In wide-ranging interview, mayor reveals he’s more concerned about building consensus than he is about checking boxes on his list of campaign promises.
The pace of progress will depend on the amount of new revenue Mayor Brandon Johnson can get and when he can get it, Chicago’s COO John Roberson said.
A rising star in a more progressive Chicago City Council, Fuentes shared her inspirational story hoping it will blaze a positive trail for young people making destructive choices. “I got lucky to have people who introduced me to a world of organizing and movement,” Fuentes told the Sun-Times.
Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said Thursday that whenever there is a state of emergency and a haste to deliver financial aid, there is an inevitable shortage of oversight that invites abuse.
Attorneys Parker Stinar and Patrick Salvi Jr. said they have heard from Northwestern athletes who describe abuse that is far worse in women’s sports than in the football program formerly run by fired head coach Pat Fitzgerald.
All three top cop finalists capable of being ‘generational leader’ Chicago needs, search leader says
Anthony Driver Jr., president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, has a favorite among the three finalists sent to Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has 30 days to decide. But Driver won’t say who it is.
The three-year agreement, with a two-year renewal option, calls for the Park District to receive a $500,000 permit fee. That pales by comparison to the $8 million to $9 million Lollapalooza pays every year to rent Grant Park.
The mayor risks disappointing progressive voters who put him in office, but deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas isn’t concerned. In fact, the former state senator expects her fellow progressives to keep the heat on.
Over the years, the Civic Federation has repeatedly advocated for cutting the 50-member City Council in half, only to have alderpersons protect their fiefdoms.
Jack Lavin, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce president, still isn’t willing, however, to back $800 million in business taxes Mayor Brandon Johnson wants for social programs that are key to his anti-violence strategy.
Ald. Jeanette Taylor argued that CHA CEO Tracey Scott deserves to be ousted because the agency has failed to deliver on its fundamental mission — and the same goes for CTA President Dorval Carter Jr.
“My accountant and my lawyers are working on that. It’s fine. It hasn’t gone anywhere. We’ve just got to reconcile it. And it will be reconciled,” Burnett said Thursday.
Ald. Walter Burnett expected to be stuck in the political wilderness. Instead, he became vice-mayor, with a $400,000 budget, keeping the staff he had as chairman of the Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety.
On June 30, Mike Flannery, political editor of Fox 32-Chicago, will retire after 50 years on the beat. He sat down with the Sun-Times, where he got his start, to reminisce about his storied career and the “blind spots” of the Chicago mayors he has covered.
“Mayor Lightfoot, in her final days, really worked to harm this incoming administration. It’s sad. It’s unfortunate. But we now have to come together as a city and clean up the mess that she left us,” Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, the mayor’s City Council floor leader, told the Sun-Times.
Rich Guidice, who spent nearly 20 years running the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said he has never seen an emergency quite like the thousands of asylum-seekers who have poured into Chicago since September, with scores more on the way.
Rich Guidice, who for 20 years ran the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said “Chicago Police did the best they could to get to the scene of the incident as quickly as they did.”
Back-channel search for Chicago’s top cop? Not this time, says president of civilian oversight panel
Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson’s transition team members “have not tried to influence our process. They have not tried to submit names,” said Anthony Driver, president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, which is conducting the search.
Don’t expect “wholesale, universal changes” in city departments, said Jason Lee, a senior adviser to Johnson’s mayoral campaign and transition team, citing a need for “at least some initial continuity so that we can make sure that government maintains its core functions.”
Finance Committee Chair Scott Waguespack is among the committee chairs who could be pushed out in favor of more chairs loyal to Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson.
Veteran Democratic political strategist Joe Trippi, advising the Paul Vallas campaign, said the number of mail-in ballots is almost certain to be bigger than the margin separating Vallas and Brandon Johnson Tuesday.
Tunney, chairman of the Council’s Zoning Committee, came close to joining the race after his longtime friend and political ally, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., took a pass.
Neither the city’s longtime negotiator, Jim Franczek, nor Mayor Lori Lightfoot commented on the situation.
Jim Franczek described Vallas as a “pretty independent guy” while he’s wary of Johnson’s ties to the Chicago Teachers Union.
Johnson’s campaign manager said Johnson and Garcia have had “several good conversations.” More meetings with a “broader group” of Garcia supporters are scheduled for next week, in hoipes of securing Garcia’s endorsement.
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