The thing about local control in Chicago — everyone defending it can never quite tell you who's in charge. This is Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today: a Springfield housing bill, a seven-year-old mayoral order gathering dust, and a Council committee that just flunked its open-government test — and they all circle the same question. The Chicago Report, with David Pulaski:
Illinois lawmakers and local officials are weighing the potential impact of the proposed BUILD Act. It's a wide-ranging housing and zoning bill that could reshape how development decisions are made across the state. Supporters say it would speed up housing construction, reduce permit delays, and help with making homes more affordable. But some suburban leaders are raising concerns about local control and how the changes would impact the character of established neighborhoods.
The BUILD Act would let the state speed up housing approvals and override some local zoning calls — and the loudest opposition is coming from the suburbs. The president of the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference, Roselle's David Pileski, is out front on it, per The Chicago Report. And listen to the pitch — they say they're defending 'local control' and the 'character of established neighborhoods.' Same veto we've been chasing all week at the ward level, just wearing a suburban blazer now. Right, and that's the tension. The same ward-level autonomy that greenlit Avondale and the West Loop is what BUILD would partly strip away. So the people guarding it are also guarding the lever that blocks housing. What's new today is where the fight is happening. We moved from one alderman in one ward to mayors organizing against a state bill. The toll collectors finally put their names on a letterhead. Lori Lightfoot, writing in City of Chicago:
On my first day as Mayor, I signed Executive Order No. 2019-2, which prohibited any City department from deferring to aldermanic prerogative. What this change means as a practical matter is that while Aldermen will continue to have a valuable voice in matters affecting their wards, they will no longer have an unchecked veto on any and everything that goes on in their wards.
Here's today's artifact: a sixty-day report on Executive Order 2019-2 — Lightfoot's first-day ban on city departments deferring to aldermanic prerogative. Filed in 2019. We're reading it in 2026. Sixty-day report. Seven years ago. And we just heard local mayors line up against the BUILD Act this morning to protect the exact same veto she said she killed. Read her own words back: aldermen keep a voice, but no more unchecked veto over everything in their wards. The order says departments were prohibited from deferring. Reality says the prerogative outlived the mayor who signed this. Put the promise next to the votes. The order says it's gone. The Avondale and West Loop votes this week say it's alive and well in every ward. A first-day executive order doesn't beat a Council that doesn't want to lose. And you can see the tell in the soft language — departments will still solicit and consider aldermanic input. That's the escape hatch. 'Consider' is how prerogative walks right back in the side door. Equity82 writes:
There is no third party data used in this report. The term reliability refers to the actual service delivered, measured by a variety of metrics listed in the Appendix. Using these metrics, the authors determined that just 9 percent of CTA bus routes are in compliance with agency reliability standards.
Okay, here it is. Route 82, the California corridor — the numbers are actually in the GTFS data now. So I'm done asking. Let's read it. And the headline number that frames all of it — nine percent. Just nine percent of CTA bus routes are in compliance with the agency's own reliability standards. Nine percent! That's the CTA grading itself and still flunking ninety-one out of a hundred. The schedule is the promise on paper — the reliability metric is what actually shows up on the block. And the report's careful about it — scheduled frequency versus delivered service, pulled straight from CTA schedules and GTFS. No third-party data. They're holding the agency to its own definitions in the Appendix. From City Bureau:
This agency passes7 of the 11 categories for a score of 64%. The Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight shall have jurisdiction over matters concerning the ethical operation of City government and responsibility for the enforcement of Chapter 2-156 of the Municipal Code of Chicago.
City Bureau's Open Gov Report Card gives the Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight a D — seven of eleven categories, sixty-four percent. And this is the committee whose whole job is policing whether City Hall behaves itself. Sixty-four percent. On the easy stuff — posting an agenda, posting a schedule. That's the watchdog flunking attendance. And here's why that matters: this is the body the Inspector General leans on to review his reports. The accountability backstop can't pass basic open-meetings tests. Put it next to that Lightfoot executive order we just walked through — the one that was supposed to end the prerogative game. Seven years of paper, and the ethics committee still scores a D. Line it up and it's grim. Got a tip, a story idea, or a correction for us? Send it to chicagodailyfix at lantern podcasts dot com. We read the inbox, and your notes help shape future episodes.
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That’s Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.