Out west, a shovel hits the ground. Downtown, the watchdogs hit a wall. Same city, same Wednesday. This is Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today — who's actually breaking ground on affordable housing, what CPS told voters about the elected board, and which of our three ethics bodies has any teeth at all. Brian, I know you've been waiting for this one. Three days I've been mapping the rot. Today I get to draw you the whole map. Garfield Park first, though. C.A.R.E. Manor — $32 million, 44 units, food pantry, GED support, family-sized apartments in West Garfield Park. This is what fixing a block actually looks like. Right. Bickerdike's the model everybody name-checks. This is a different nonprofit doing the same work, with a real dollar figure on it instead of just a pro forma. Last June I asked why this round breaks ground when 2013 didn't. Turns out the answer wears a clerical collar, not a TIF spreadsheet. Meanwhile, the approvals board fills up — Avondale, McKinley Park, Streeterville, and that lot across from Johnny's Icehouse. First deals through since the upzoning ordinance. So projects cleared aldermanic process and lived. That's the proof-of-concept I've been demanding — somebody survived the veto toll booth. And Avondale, McKinley Park — we're talking California Ave. New density's only car-free if the bus actually shows up. I want the scheduled frequency versus what gets delivered. Now, step back on ethics — here's the org chart in one place. OIG, the Board of Ethics, the Council ethics committee, and the loopholes named out loud. City Bureau gave the Council committee a D. Now we can ask whether any of those failures actually touch OIG jurisdiction — or just fall in the gap between the three. And the elected school board webinar ran tonight, six o'clock — the first time CPS had to explain the eleven-to-ten split to a public audience. There's a record now. Tone-deaf. You don't run a how-it-works webinar while the how-you-get-on-it part quietly hollows it out. Here's Quinn Myers at Block Club Chicago:
CITY HALL — Two large developments pitched for Avondale and McKinley Park that include both apartments and townhomes were advanced Tuesday by a key City Council panel. The council’s Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards also OK’d numerous other projects across the city, including a Streeterville hotel-to-residential conversion and an apartment building on the West Side.
Avondale, McKinley Park, Streeterville — projects actually cleared the zoning committee Tuesday. The California Ave site got downscaled after neighbors pushed back on density and parking, and it still moved. 105 units, 65 apartments, 40 townhomes. Backed by Stocking Urban with Macon Construction — local firm, not some out-of-town fund flying in. These are the first approvals on the board since the upzoning ordinance, so it's actual deal flow. Deal flow, sure. But what I keep coming back to on California — you're approving density on a corridor where the make-or-break is the bus. New residents only go car-free if the 52 actually shows up on schedule. What does delivered frequency look like there? Right — and these still need full Council Wednesday. Committee greenlight isn't the same as a ribbon. But if deals are surviving the aldermanic gauntlet, that's different from the 2013 pattern, where nothing moved at all. From Block Club Chicago:
WEST GARFIELD PARK — A housing project aiming to offer affordable apartments and wraparound social services to West Side families broke ground this week. C.A.R.E. Manor, a development by Garfield Park nonprofit United For Better Living, will be a 44-unit apartment complex at 4531 W. Washington Blvd. The $32 million development will include primarily family-sized units and offer social services to tenants ranging from food pantry access to adult learning and GED support.
C.A.R.E. Manor broke ground this week in West Garfield Park — $32 million, 44 units, by a Garfield Park nonprofit called United For Better Living. The developer here is a church-backed West Side group, not a market-rate shop in a transit corridor. And look at the unit mix — 43 of those 44 are two- and three-bedrooms. Family-sized. That's the thing the West Side never gets enough of, and somebody finally built it. Compared with Avondale and McKinley Park getting approvals — policy on paper — you've got a shovel in the ground at 4531 West Washington. Two units at 30 percent of median income, five at 50, thirty-seven at 60. Plus a food pantry and GED support on-site. You want to talk about wraparound — that's a building that actually catches people instead of pricing them out. Half a mile from the Cicero Green Line stop, too. So I'd put it this way — is 44 units the right size for what West Garfield Park needs, or is it a proof of concept somebody has to scale? Both. You start with one block. Bishop Whittley said he wants families to put down roots — at this income mix, they actually can. Chicago has a Board of Ethics, an inspector general, and a City Council ethics committee — so when an alderperson gets caught doing something sketchy, who actually has the teeth to go after them, and who's just there to look busy? So, honest answer: the system has real players, but they keep running into each other's walls. The Office of Inspector General — the OIG — can investigate alders for potential violations of the city's Governmental Ethics Ordinance, or the GEO. But the OIG itself put out an advisory last August saying there's a whole universe of aldermanic misconduct — stuff that isn't technically covered by the GEO or by criminal law — where no one has clear authority to act. The OIG recommended the City Council's own Committee on Committees and Rules step up and fill that gap. Then you've got the Board of Ethics, which handles formal charges and can levy fines — up to $20,000 in serious cases. But the Ald. Jim Gardiner situation shows how that can unravel: the OIG found he directed a city employee to issue what it called 'unfounded citations' against a political critic, the Board of Ethics moved to fine him, and a hearing officer cleared him anyway. Gardiner then turned around and sued the city, the Board of Ethics, and the former inspector general, calling the whole thing malicious. And separately, at the top, the city's own Department of Law — the mayor's lawyers — was found by Inspector General Deborah Witzburg to have withheld records about high-profile city hires in violation of city law and a federal court order. So even the watchdog gets stonewalled. If the mayor's own lawyers can just refuse to hand over records to the watchdog, what's actually being done to close that loophole? A reform measure that cleared the City Council's Ethics and Government Oversight Committee last July would amend the ethics ordinance to stop the corporation counsel — that's the city's top lawyer — from intervening in probes that could cause, quote, 'embarrassment or political consequences' for city leaders. It had support from both Inspector General Witzburg and the corporation counsel herself. Full Council still has to pass it. And after the felony convictions of former Ald. Ed Burke and former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, reformers say this is genuinely an inflection point. Now City Hall has to show whether it treats it that way, or just lets the moment pass. From Chicago Board of Education:
Starting January 15, 2025, the Chicago Board of Education, the “Board,” will consist of 21 Board Members. The City of Chicago has been divided into 10 districts (each of which is divided into 2 subdistricts).
So CPS runs a webinar tonight at 6 — June 17 — explaining what an elected board member even does. And there's a whole Q&A deck, in English and Spanish, telling you what the job's like before you ever file. It's the first time CPS has had to stand in front of a public audience and explain the transition. Eleven appointed, ten elected — and they had to walk people through who's actually in charge during the hybrid stretch. Here's the timing that gets me. The city's hosting a recruitment webinar for these elected seats at the exact moment the ballot-challenge process could knock candidates off until you've got one name left on the line. You're advertising a job you might quietly make uncontested. Right — the document exists now, and that matters. There's a public record of what they told voters about the 11-to-10 split. Whether that record matches how the power actually flows is the part nobody on a slide deck volunteers. If Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily helps you follow the city a little more clearly, consider subscribing and leaving a quick review wherever you're listening. It really helps other people find the show.
What we're watching next: the full City Council is scheduled to take up the approved zoning projects Wednesday.
You'll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes. So if one caught your ear, you can dig into the original reporting there. That's Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.