City Council

Wednesday’s @ChiCouncil meeting was abruptly adjourned after Alds. Ed Burke and @RLopez15thWard delayed a vote on legislation concerning more emergency COVID relief funding. The new funding includes nearly $80 million in rental assistance.

The move delayed a vote until the next City Council meeting, which @chicagosmayor promptly scheduled for checks watch right now!

We’re getting started. You may follow along at this link:

https://livestream.com/accounts/28669066/events/8800236

Today’s agenda:

https://chicago.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=846241&GUID=535B157B-7F33-4354-B5BD-E3AA1BDEDDE8

Following roll call and the invocation, we’re getting started with public comment.

The first public speaker is asking City Council members to vote no on the Resolution recognizing India’s 74th anniversary of independence while calling for condemnation of violence against certain castes and religious groups.

https://chicago.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=8680127&GUID=DEF404B0-6050-4E2F-872B-B3B4E691A563

We’ve been hearing a lot about this resolution in public comment. Not surprisingly, the next speaker is commenting on the same resolution.

We’ve heard from several speakers who say India is begin unfairly singled out and asked when a resolution will be passed calling out injustices done by the Pakistani government.

We now have a speaker in favor of the resolution. He echoes a stance laid out in this resolution and says India’s Citizenship Amendment Act is discriminatory against Muslims.

Here’s a little more on that, from @hrw: https://t.co/bPEkXDxFtv

The full link for that excerpt, from 2019: https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/11/india-citizenship-bill-discriminates-against-muslims

So far every public speaker is commenting on this resolution, which will be voted on today.

Our current speaker calls nationalism a scourge on India and calls this resolution a way for alders to support the south Asian community that calls Chicago home.

The council concludes public comment, so we move onto communications from the City Clerk.

Following City Clerk Anna Valencia’s report, @AldPatDowell3rd opens up the floor for discussion over the $377 million COVID-19 relief plan. Alderman Ed Burke is speaking first.

Burke is rehashing questions that Budget Director Susie Park fielded questions from Alders last on February 19.

If you’d like to see what @CHIdocumenters reported from the day’s meeting, check out @RexA_Tai’s thread: https://twitter.com/RexA_Tai/status/1362866941040418817

Alders asked Park to detail how the city took approximately $281 million of COVID-19 funds and spent it on CPD personnel.

Park wasn’t able to answer all of the alders’ questions last Friday, so the city released a more in-depth breakdown on Tuesday.

So Alderman Burke has been running down much of the information included in that briefing.

Burke says that, instead of making it more clear how the city spent the $281 million, he was left with more questions.

He moved for the ordinance to be referred back to committee.

This was immediately blocked by @AldermanHarris. The Council will take a roll call vote on Burke’s request.

Burke’s request is defeated, which essentially approves the COVID relief package.

Final count on that was 31-16, by the way. This led to another roll call vote on the relief package, which passed 37-10

Following the vote @chicagosmayor called on @RLopez15thWard, who she noted had his hand up.

He says he had his hand up prior to the vote and was ignored. He also says that he is worried that the city may be audited by the federal government.

Ald. @ByronSigcho echoes Lopez’s sentiment and says transparency is needed with COVID-19 relief.

He brings up how people of color were disproportionately hit hard by COVID-19 and calls on the city to do more due diligence to make sure that money reaches vulnerable communities.

@AldPatDowell3rd follows and highlights the importance of passing this package.

It includes nearly $80 million in rental assistance as well as $261 million from the federal package approved in December.

Looks like Burke wanted to get another word in, but Lightfoot denied him. She said he was given more time prior to the vote than he should have been.

A fair amount of emotion spilled over into these back-and-forths, but the important takeaway is this CARES Act package was approved.

I also don’t think we’ve heard the last of alders asking for more transparency going forward.

We’re rolling through other ordinances now. This includes the approval of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Illinois Council of Police.

@BillGDocumenter has the rundown from that meeting, which too place on Feb. 10. https://twitter.com/billgdocumenter/status/1359519258586275848

@ChiCouncil approves the new CBA.

@ByronSigcho moves to suspend rules to consider denying the General Iron permit for 116th and Calumet River.

@aldcardenas says suspending the rules for this would be unfair to the public and violation of the Open Meetings Act. He says this should be discussed in committee.

There is a roll call vote to “lay it on the table,” approval of which would mean ignoring @ByronSigcho’s motion.

The ayes have it by a margin of 32-15, so we will not have a vote on the denial of the Reserve Management Groups permits.

The nays were:

La Spata
Sawyer
Beale
Burke
Lopez
Taylor
Rodriguez
Sigcho Lopez
Cardona
Rodriguez Sanchez
Ramirez-Rosa
Vasquez
Gardiner
Martin
Hadden

Following the vote, @Alderman_Beale says @ByronSigcho had every right to request a suspension of the rules. He responds to @aldcardenas’s claim and says, “We do this every day.”

If you’d like to see the resolution to which @ByronSigcho was referring: https://chicago.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9206801&GUID=6ED4B35B-6CB0-4AD0-A930-16781AD216FD

We moved onto Aldermanic Introductions. Notably, @RLopez15thWard had a proposal to hold hearings on the leadership of CPD Superintendent David Brown.

It was sent to rules.

👀 https://twitter.com/jus10chi/status/1365435872057974792

The final aldermanic introduction was the @ChiAlderwoman-backed Anjanette Young Ordinance
https://chicago.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9200518&GUID=FF8EE104-FE89-455B-9E2A-7A093B5B350E

Following that, there was no unfinished business from Wednesday’s meeting, and the @ChiCouncil was adjourned.

So, it’s a wrap for me, too! Hope you found this thread useful and, as always, thanks so much for following along on another @CHIdocumenters thread.

And now 😬 be safe, y’all! https://twitter.com/craigweekend/status/1362921659968024579