>> Good evening and thanks for joining us on the week in review.

I'm Nick Lumber.

Wildfire.

Smoke blankets the Chicago area.

>> It says about as bad as it gets their various scales as you go through equality.

Let's this is blowing through the highest level which is hazardous.

>> Dangerously poor air quality sparks warnings to stay inside if possible.

And avoid strenuous outdoor activity.

>> It's a microscopic and it thrives in warm, wet weather.

Hundreds of cases of the severe stomach infection.

Cyclist Darius is reported in Illinois with the number expected to rise.

>> Who has the soul and the larger responsibility to fund our schools.

>> You know, that is right.

It's the state of Illinois.

>> CBS announces furlough days, a spending freeze and more as it tries to close a massive budget gap.

But Mayor Brandon Johnson of the Chicago Teachers Union give the district's proposed spending plan a failing grade.

Meantime, a plan to sell Chicago's parking meters hits a speed bump as to efforts to sell debt owed to the city in an effort to generate much-needed revenue.

The mayor's plan to hold federal immigration agents to account faces council scrutiny and Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling leaves his post.

And now to our week in review panel.

Joining us are Geoff Buckholts of WBBM Newsradio.

>> Truth saying a Bloomberg news Rima mean of Chalk Beach, Chicago and Quinn Myers of Block Club.

Chicago.

Good to see you all.

Thank you for being So lots to get to this week, Jeff.

The smoke is trying to kill us way right.

It's ridiculous we just moved to an apartment in the South Loop.

And I'm thinking, oh, this is great.

We get to refit views of the city.

Couldn't see a here.

kylen completely gone.

I feel like this is something that is happening increasingly in the summers.

Now this is what like the 3rd summer in a row.

I think we've had wildfire smoke from Canada and some from Minnesota as You feel awful for the people who are actually a ground 0.

And I know that to the east, even worse than it has been year.

Like just you feel like you want to cut a hole in the air just to be able to walk outside you either.

They got some masks from my old coats and roars from the pandemic.

walking around this morning was awful.

And you see people who are masked up and in people who seemingly are on bothered and smoking cigarettes and like, what are you guys doing?

you know what's happening right now?

I saw people job joggers are you doing?

I mean, people talking cigarettes were basically doing the equivalent to Yeah, I mean, but it's, you know, the air quality here that the alert was supposed to run out tonight.

It was extended through tomorrow night.

You know, the thing that I think about is that I think the kids on summer break a mean kid.

The beaches are closed.

The Park camps went inside.

I mean, just the new norm now for summer break.

Yeah, I mean, I was just telling my boss yesterday is that like I don't remember this ever being an issue when I was a kid or even in the last few years.

>> I was going to Millennium Park concert last night and that was canceled side.

I think probably Sox to be can and trying to hang out and said you just can't.

Yeah, it It's not ideal conditions and speaking of other things that are trying to kill us, let us what, what what what are we doing Yeah.

I mean, I think Taylor Farms is now saying about the recall.

I mean, there has it's been linked to some Taco bells and across the Midwest.

But it seems that there are also other sources of >> this parasite.

Basically that is causing a I don't know if I can say where I say psoriasis.

There you it is not good.

It does seem treatable, of course, by that's not something you want it.

So yeah, we're getting attacked at all angles.

And Taylor Farms remember is the company, the supplier of the onions, the cause of the big McDonald's health-care in a couple years ago in pretty great yeah, within the last few.

So I mean, there's a lot of questions about.

>> health procedures and making how that stuff is good is cleaned and washed before it is sent to people which is it's kind of hard to get our hands around because the government ended mandatory reporting of a lot of these sort of outbreaks last year.

Yeah, well, and it's you know, it's tough to just because based on the sort of like industrial agriculture business, the way things are.

>> We don't necessarily know where all these, you know, things are going kind of go all over the place.

All right.

Well, we will keep our eye on this, but we can move away from the plague portion of Sure iffy.

The parking meter saga continues into another week.

Powerful alderman is calling for a bite back.

The deadline is on the move.

Phyllis in on the latest.

There's a lot to get Yeah, for sure.

This is something that dates back to 2008 then Mayor Daley had actually decided to lease.

>> 36,000 parking meters around the city for 75 years to an investment group.

Now fast forward more than almost, you know, 2 decades.

And now that particular asset is set to change hands from Morgan Stanley lead investment group to another firm.

City Council doesn't necessarily have a role to play in the negotiations of to private entities deciding to buy and sell an asset.

But they want to have a say.

And so there are some aldermen that are saying, you know, by the whole thing, another one is saying take a stake in And Mayor Johnson's administration had previously put forth a bit and then pulled it back.

So right now we're trying to see, you know what the negotiations are going to be.

There was a vote that was delayed in Finance Committee on Monday.

I have not seen yet.

What date that delay is going to be until, but there's a lot of questions about if and what say alderman will have in this particular transfer because really they're voting on an ordinance that's been put in front of them to vote on the transfer the asset, not the actual contract.

Details.

Every different camp has their own issue with some over into the financial issues, some over ICE flights Stone Peak.

>> They own a company that manages deportation flights and that has become a huge issue for some of the more progressive City council members and a lot of activists who calling on >> city Council to reject the deal.

And that lends to so its hard for me to imagine a path forward immediately with pass a city council.

So one of the things is that, as you mentioned, there's multiple factors that people have in their mind in terms of how they're going to vote or not.

Vote on this.

>> But what it really, you know, one is that they can vote on something about like the tax liability for the city or they can vote reputation.

So some of them are latching on to some of those.

But at the core of it, it sort of comes back to this issue of this like long simmering, you know, difficulty that Chicagoans have with this deal that goes back to the, you know, the financial crisis in given where city's finances are currently this tug for revenue is constantly there in the back of everyone's mind But clearly the social other issues that are at play are, you know, certainly many of the alderman asked about those questions during the subject matter hearing when you have to imagine as well that, you know, even if this is just sort of a procedural thing that older people are signing off on, we've got the municipal election coming up in February and they don't want their opponents tagging them with saying you approve this parking meter takes actually.

And part of the complication here is that alders have been asking.

>> The mayor specifically if he believes they should approve the deal, they're looking for political cover and the mayor so far has stayed away from that completely.

And we have asked repeatedly about this and he has consistently said that is City Council's job under.

>> The terms of the deal, that is their responsibility to vote.

Our job is to give them as much information as possible.

So he is not helping them out he has and use that logic for other pieces of legislative interest.

Yeah.

apply these things where they work for times well intentioned.

You know, we heard Alderman Jason Ervin, who's head of the very important budget committee come out and say, you know, I think we should make a bid for these what we've been hearing.

You know, what have you been hearing from the rest of the council?

So I think a lot of it is wrapped up whether or not the council intends to move forward with a yes vote on the sale.

I do think there's some willingness to do that.

But obviously you have the city got some.

>> Pretty sobering budget news this week, which will I'm sure talk about in a So I think that that kind of weighs in the balance there as well.

And I think a lot of alderman, particularly some of the Budget Accountability Coalition, you're more moderate alderman are still feeling a little bit burned by what they consider to be a lack of transparency by the Johnson administration about its own attempt to buy back the meters kind of at the end of last year beginning of this year.

But the fact >> that one of the mayor's strongest allies and city Council in Alderman Irvine is saying, hey, maybe we ought to take another swing at this may get some people kick the tires on it.

you know, one of the things that I heard from a lot of alderman was the question of transparency, you know, along with the questions the assets that Stone Peak owns.

>> There was a lot of questions about, you know, why weren't we told about these that, you know, things early on when the bid was going on?

And so one of the reasons that some council members had said they weren't going to support.

This was that transparency issue.

And then in the end, you know, before the vote, there was a lot of people saying, like, I don't even know if there's a like 10 votes, you know none.

So got delayed because it was unclear what the path forward was.

mayor.

You don't run an ordinance if you don't have votes, riots.

>> All right.

Another big budget story this week.

Remus Chicago public schools out with its proposed spending plan.

They have a huge deficit that they need to account for.

But the measure is that they're putting forward to try and deal with that.

The mayor and the CTU say not so fast.

What are they concerned about?

>> Yes, so this budget is actually more severe than the saint.

that's the term I would use than last year, which was that was a big fight between the mayor's office and CPS.

And this year in order to close its budget, the district is proposing 5 furlough days for all district staff and you hear the word for low, especially if you represent a union that is going to directly affect your workers and it is it is not something you want to hear the other saying that, you know, major cut here as part of this budget is to cut off spending after January, which is referred to as maybe or cuts.

And so the said, hey, you know, if we do get more money from the state or TIF dollars surplus dollars from the city, we could possibly avoid these things and so it's really we're going to have to wait and see how it plays out.

But I do think unlike last year where the district was in some ways able to shield actual classrooms and schools from major cuts.

I it does feel like this upcoming school year.

Schools are certainly going to start feeling the pressure of this budget more.

Yeah, I mean that, you the teachers union has been calling for additional funding from Springfield for quite some time.

Didn't go anywhere in this last legislative session that because they said we you know, we understand we have this evidence based formula, but there are other districts with other needs.

>> Does it really seem like there's any movement on that necessarily?

I mean, during session, I feel like the closest they got was this millionaire's tax proposal to put a constitutional amendment on the upcoming ballot in the fall.

That, of course, didn't didn't go through.

And so it's hard to imagine at this point that state lawmakers will actually vote to send more money.

And if they do with that money actually get to CPS's coffers in time for it to do something about this upcoming school year seems unlikely.

So I do think all eyes are going to be looking at The city yet again and the city's budget director and I on told aldermen on Thursday.

>> That the city is not going to have the record to surplus that it had last year.

So the amount of money available.

>> For Chicago, public schools is going to be lower.

And in this budget, CPS is expecting 200 million dollars of TIF surplus money.

So that may also be a really optimistic projection.

Yet the pinch is is definitely being felt even before this budget proposal came out.

The district laid off more than 160 people who was affected by that.

Yes.

So the district laid off 162 central office and citywide employees.

These are people who obviously work at the district's central office, but also.

>> Citywide employees are deployed individual schools.

You know, they're sort of considered a type of support staff.

So 162 of those folks were laid off.

And then additionally on the school level, there were another round around this year.

Cps always does layoffs of teachers and support staff.

Many of those folks are going to be rehired into vacant positions.

The district says.

But overall, the district is cutting are proposing cutting another 160 school-based employees tough year for the right, looking at the city budget.

Sure if either is key component of the most recent spending plan that was in defiance of the mayor that involve selling overdue debt to the city.

But that effort has hit a snag.

What's happening there.

So on during the budget process late last year, that the city Council actually crafted an alternate budget that was passed.

But the mayor didn't actually end up signing it because he had issues with certain parts of it.

One of the pieces that he really had issue with was the selling debt that's owed to the city fines, fees, tickets, things like One of the pieces that the alderman had pulled out from the billions that are owed to the city was vehicular fines and and that things like parking tickets and things like that.

So what they wanted to do.

>> And it's in the budget ordinance.

And so the mayor has had to, you know, even though he's opposed the administration has had to move forward.

But that is that they want to sell a billion dollars worth of debt.

And that means that there is a certain amount like that of debt that they sell to investor.

And that investor group or whoever that collectors is going to go out pulling that money from whoever owes it to the city from that the city would get maybe 89 million or so for this There was a what they call a request for proposals that was put forth so that they could bring in some from who was going to manage process.

They had selected Bank of America and then just more recently, Bank of America and the city decided they were not going to move forward with bank of America's role is what they call a placement agent.

So Bank of America was not going to go out into the collections.

They were going to be placement agent to find somebody to maybe take on this debt.

That relationship has ended.

And now the city is looking for alternate solutions.

We don't know what those are yet.

And, Jeff, you know, we're hearing from the mayor's team that layoffs could be on the table because of a budget shortfall.

>> Real possibility, political gamesmanship, a bit of both a little bit actually, Nick, the then that information that number came out of Thursday's marathon hearing of the council's budget and Government Operations Committee.

>> During which Kuzma on the budget director and others, including Michael Belsky, the Comptroller and Stephen Morrow, the acting chief financial officer laid out sort a series of graphics explaining well, some of our revenue initiatives are over performing and a number of them have generated $0 and wouldn't you know, they all had one thing in common.

They were all the ones proposed by alderman instead of the corporate head So and that includes the selling of parking ticket.

That includes augmented reality advertising.

It includes selling ads on bridge towers in vehicles and that sort of thing.

The alderman who are part of the budget Accountability Coalition have loudly accused the mayor's team and did again on Thursday of slow walking their proposals because the mayor didn't like them.

Guzman forcefully pushed back on that and said were also frustrated because is she said we tried to warn City Council that this these were unproven revenue.

It is.

and we're doing our best but then all of a sudden we find out that the city is, in fact, facing a 90 million dollar shortfall.

If things continue and if something isn't done by the end of next month, the city could face as many as 2000 layoffs, including 1000 at the police Department in there's no more sacred cow in the budget than the Chicago Police Department, whether they'll actually get to that many.

It's hard to say.

There are alternatives that they can use.

They can appropriate money out of a surplus fund which is available radically.

They can make some other changes.

They can hope that other stuff comes in over projection, which couple things are like the sports gambling taxes actually doing pretty well.

But it clearly heading into election cycle.

This is facing some real serious debate held yesterday.

One the talking about next year's budget, right?

Right.

Actually were still arguing over.

This is now we're more than a year and arguing about the We're halfway through already.

>> So as 1.2 billion dollar deficit that they had to close for this year.

And it was a very difficult time, I think last year.

And was difficult the year before But, you know, they were trying to collectively make some really tough decisions at the end of last year.

So they figured out some ways to close that 1.2 billion dollar deficit.

But even after those measures were taken, were still now hearing at the midpoint of the the year that by the end of the year, there's still going to be this gap love.

And of course, we're heading soon into the budget season for next will be a watching this all happened.

You know, multiple fights happening, layered on top of one another well and end indeed on with another overlay of a complete lack of trust at this point between factions of city council and the mayor's office and different factions of city Council not trusting each other.

Yeah.

So it's.

>> You know, it's gonna be entertaining for We'll see how they actually get anything done.

Some more city Council action Quinn.

There's a committee looking at the mayor's a somewhat controversial order aimed at curbing immigration agents in the city.

>> The city is also asking for anyone who thinks they were victimized by agents during Midway blitz to step forward.

They are now a lot yeah.

So it feels The mayor executive order.

Basically ordering the police department to investigate complaints against immigration enforcement officers like ICE and Border Patrol.

Obviously we've seen a lot of high profile incidents.

Everything from people being tackled to the ground to being killed by ICE agents.

Right.

And so this was a measure to try to hold them perhaps legally accountable in Chicago in Cook County.

Nothing really happens for 5 months.

I think it's fair to say until all the men and basket said I'm gonna go after you guys in this hearing Immigration Committee hearing and see what the heck is going on.

Cbd.

Finally today said we've established a reporting system to kind of look at that is now live today after this public pressure.

The mayor's office.

Also today, the press release and said, hey, >> please report incidents.

If you have been accosted by ICE agents and you need to if you think there might be a criminal complaints here, please bring it forward.

It's really unclear why this took so long if it was just political posturing, if there is push back its EV, I'm sure there wasn't some form.

But finally, something is happening.

Although maybe maybe not.

We'll see actually what does happen from here on out.

Yeah, I mean, the question, of course, is, is there any prosecution after, you know it, right?

And then you have go through CBD and they have to recommend charges to the state attorney who states attorney Eileen O Berk has pushed parts of this order already.

It's been a pretty high-profile fight there, but with her and the mayor.

>> So it's kind adults to say least.

Yeah.

Things seem to be a little bit models lately that said that the running All Well, speaking Chicago Police news, Larry Snelling now the city's former superintendent effective as of Wednesday.

>> You know, there's been some debate kind of as he's leaving about the consent decree aimed at reforming the department.

Did you know went from 6% to 25% full compliance during his tenure.

It people say is more than anyone else did, but also still pretty slow, right?

I think a lot of activists wanted to see more action in terms of police reform under Larry Snelling.

We did see more than his predecessors.

I think Larry Snelling is leading his tenure as a very popular individual kind of across all the aisles homicides.

We saw a record low 2025.

0st past 60 years.

>> But there's still a lot to be You know, going back to this 20 seventeen's.

you know.

I consent agree.

So basically think people want wanting more of him now.

They are looking to see are we going to get more from the next police chief that Brandon Johnson mostly going to pick in the next few months.

I will say yeah, and I don't know if you thought this was unusual Quinn during this week's city Council meeting on Wednesday, there was virtually no mention of Larry Snelling was his last day on the job.

>> And the only mention at all of superintendents Snelling Rizz retiring was near the end of the meeting when Chris Taliaferro who's the head of the police and fire committee got up and said Mr.

President, I want acknowledge the departure of Larry Snelling and then that was it.

The superintendent was not in the House for a victory lap.

It was I thought super low key.

He's a pretty low key guy.

Yeah.

And I think the mayor said something about, you know, we may invite him back if he is amenable to something like that.

But it was it was like it was as if he was kind of tiptoeing out the door, especially for a city council that does love its ceremonial and Senate resolutions like to right universally liked him, as you pointed very good relationship with Elders.

>> Alright, some some more council action push back against the mayor.

His effort to get some leverage over the board.

His nominations were blocked, you know, remove the mayor's been he was vocally opposed to the hiring of degree C H a CEO.

But interesting that, you know, his contract, he can only be removed for cause.

Do you think this is maybe a a sister agency learning a lesson from the firing of former CPS CEO Peter Martinez.

Here.

>> Yeah, I Pedro Martinez's contract famously maybe only famously to me or also had a clause that said he can only be fired for cause and if he is fired without cause, he gets to he can still be fired.

But he has just gets the state's 6 months on the job, which for Martinez was at a pretty critical time for CPS when the mayor's office wanted to wield a little bit more power.

Think so.

you know, I think maybe that's a lessons learned you know, kind of looking at what's happened in the past.

Certainly.

>> City Council heavy week.

Lots going should be the alders approved more than 400 million dollars into funding for some upgrades tied to the new Chicago Fire Stadium.

You know, course, people see a big chunk of public money, you know, getting approved here.

But this is kind of what TIF districts are supposed to be for any way.

>> Yeah, there's so much debate in Chicago about tips right at me like I Every other city knows what what tips are.

But we certainly to hear So I mean, tax increment financing there's ton of money in that.

And there's debate about what taxpayer money should be used being a famous other stadium that's under debate right now.

There's lots you there's lots of questions about, you know, what taxpayer money should be used for for that stadium on.

And Governor Pritzker has, you famously said that we will in your investing public infrastructure, this particular fundings seems to be for that purpose.

And there's also a lot of questions about tip, as you mentioned, for the school district.

and what kind of surplus is the mayor going to declare last year during the budget process?

There was certainly council members who said, you know, if you declare a record surplus it from the tips that means those dollars are not going to go into the wards and into the developments that are supposed to spur economic development.

So this may be type of development.

And of course, this is, you know, developing a completely barren area that the city dearly wants to see something on that site.

>> Well, no development needed with the 4 of you.

You're great.

Just as you are.

But we are out of time.

So our thanks to Geoff Buckholts tricky saying mean and Quinn Myers.

And we're back to wrap things up right after this.

>> Tonight's presentation of Week in review is made possible in part by an and rich com BNSF railway.

And Francine and Doctor Anthony Brown.

Chicago tonight is made possible in part by the Alexander and John Nichols family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation, additional support is provided by.

>> And that's our show for this Friday night.

Stay connected with our reporters and what they're working on by following us on Instagram at W T Tw Chicago.

Now for all of us here at the week in review, I'm Nick Blumberg.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy, stay safe and stay informed.

Have a great weekend.

>> All right.

7 months out from the mayoral election, but a new poll found fairly low support Johnson making another bid which he still hasn't announced.

How big of a grain of salt and you all hold It's somewhat legitimate.

I I think it captures public opinion pretty well from the anecdotes that we've been all been hearing.

>> again, there's still so much to be determined that election is not set in any right?

Exactly.

And the mayor.

>> While the mayor indeed has not said whether or not he intends to seek re-election officially, he's made a lot of noises.

They make it clear.

That's where his at this point.

I also think it's fair to I think any incumbent is probably, you know, they've been in office.

They've been doing something different than probably everyone on that list.

And so it's not it would lose their he's made possible.

>> By Robert, a cliff and Clifford law a Chicago personal injury and wrongful