Mayor Rahm Emmanuel – North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council

Mayor Rahm Emanuel presents his 2017 budget to the Chicago City Council Tuesday Oct. 11, 2016 at City Hall.(Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

The following article appeared in the Chicago Tribune on October 14, 2016. While it focuses on the City Council Budget hearings, there is mention of a proposal to create a neighborhood investment fund with an advisory council consisting of 2 aldermen and 3 community members. We encourage our members to contact Alderman Scott, Treasurer Summers and Mayor Emmanuel, urging them to include the North Lawndale community as one of the targeted communities, with representation from North Lawndale on the advisory council. That would mean either having Alderman Scott serve as one of the Aldermen, or a local North Lawndale resident or stakeholder serving as one of the committee representatives. Contact information is as follows:

Alderman Michael Scott, Jr. 773-533-2400

Treasurer Kurt Summers 312.744.3356

Mayor Rahm Emanuel 312-744-3300

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Photo of Mayor Rahm Emanuel from Chicago Tribune files.

John Byrne Contact Reporter Chicago Tribune

When aldermen gather at City Hall next week to begin the ritual flogging of MayorRahm Emanuel‘s department heads known as the annual City Council budget hearings, they’ll be in better spirits than in recent years. Unlike last fall, there’s no record property tax hike in this budget plan. They aren’t being asked to vote for a new across-the-board garbage fee or telephone tax this time either.

The mayor’s nibbling at various targeted fee increases, sure. There’s a rejiggering of the amusement tax to get more money out of people buying sports and concert tickets on the secondary market, and a couple of street parking increases that will hit drivers in loading zones in a few wards and at meters around Wrigley Field during Cubs games and other events there. Plus, he’s pitching a 7-cent tax on plastic bags provided to shoppers by stores.

He’s also proposing a thus-far-nebulous neighborhood investment program aimed at helping him shed his reputation for focusing spending on downtown rather than struggling working-class areas of Chicago. Aldermen, who fight and claw for such discretionary money to find its way into their wards, are going to try to make sure during the hearings that they have as much say as possible about how the $100 million in the Community Catalyst Fund trickles out from Emanuel’s office. More