Last day of June, it's a hundred degrees, and half this rundown is stuff somebody promised to fix a year and a half ago. This is Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today — a West Pullman grocery finally gets a dollar figure, another school board committee still doesn't exist, and ComEd quietly changes how it charges some customers. We start on the school board. One tap on follow, and we'll be back in your ears before you know it. Here's Chalkbeat:
Chronic absenteeism rates have barely improved over the past year, signaling that school attendance problems that grew during the pandemic have remained a stubborn challenge, according to a new report. The analysis released Tuesday by the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute shows 22.6% of students in 44 states and the District of Columbia were chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year.
22.6 percent. Almost a quarter of kids in 44 states were chronically absent last year, and it barely moved — down not even a full point. And we're calling that progress now. And here's the gut-punch in the AEI numbers — a decade ago the feds called a much lower rate than this an emergency. Now 22.6 is just Tuesday. Look, you don't fix the kindergarten reading gap, you don't fix much of anything in a building, if the kid isn't in the building. This is the number sitting underneath all of it. The author frames it as a tax — same money in, less learning out. States are spending as much or more and getting kids who show up less. That's a productivity hit nobody's pricing. Chalkbeat's Reema Amin is tracking this. Reema Amin at Chalkbeat counts the days for us — eighteen months into the new school board, and the advisory panel for noncitizen families still doesn't exist. Still nothing to point to. And this is the second promised body that's a no-show. We just hit the absenteeism numbers — a quarter of kids missing too much school — and the board can't even seat the committees that are supposed to be watching this stuff. Two separate panels, one board, both unstaffed a year and a half in. Thursday it was the Black Student Achievement Committee. Now add this one. After a while, the empty chairs start looking like the policy. Eighteen months! You could've recruited, trained, and rotated out a whole panel of immigrant parents in that time. Instead families navigating CPS in a second language get a seat that exists on paper and nowhere else. And it's specifically the families with the least pull at the table. A noncitizen parent doesn't vote in board elections — this panel was the workaround. No panel, no voice. This one's from Block Club Chicago:
WEST PULLMAN — Aldi abruptly closed its West Pullman store in 2024, leaving some neighbors frustrated and without easy access to fresh produce and affordable food options. But on Wednesday, the city awarded a $150,000 community development grant to the Far South Community Development Corporation so it can begin work to bring a new grocery model to the former Aldi at 821 W. 115th St.
Finally — something on this rundown I can actually root for. West Pullman's been without a real grocery since Aldi bailed in November 2024, and now there's a hundred and fifty grand to bring food back to 115th. And it's Living Fresh Market doing it — Black-owned operator outta Forest Park. That's the right partner for that block. Let's be precise about the money, though. That hundred and fifty thousand is a predevelopment grant to Far South Community Development Corporation. It gets the project moving; it doesn't mean a ribbon-cutting is next. Ald. Mosley says the idea has moved into project status. Fine. Aldi has walked away from food deserts all over this city, so I'll believe the doors are open when somebody's buying milk at 821 West 115th. Right, and that's the number I want: how long? Because a food-desert block doesn't eat predevelopment paperwork. What do those families do for groceries in the eighteen months this takes? Eighteen months. Funny how that keeps being the unit of measure today. NBC Chicago writes:
If you’re having trouble paying your utility bills, help is available. If you’ve already fallen behind on payments, know that by law, utility companies may not disconnect service for nonpayment if temperatures are forecast at or above 90 degrees. According to the Illinois Commerce Commission, this year ComEd started offering sliding-scale discount rates for income-eligible customers. The monthly discount could fall anywhere between 5% and 80% of your utility bill.
Here's the line in the NBC 5 piece I keep coming back to: the Illinois Commerce Commission says ComEd started offering sliding-scale discount rates this year for income-eligible customers. Anywhere from 5% to 80% off your bill. That's a monopoly utility changing how it prices service because a state regulator ordered it. And not one alderman voted on it — the way a lot of what we pay gets decided outside City Hall. Eighty percent off for a family that qualifies — on a 95-degree day, that's the difference between running the AC and sitting in a hot apartment. And most people on the block have no idea it exists. There's also a protection worth saying out loud: under Illinois law, they can't shut you off for nonpayment when it's forecast to hit 90 or above. So if you've fallen behind right now, you're not getting disconnected this week. Right, but the pause doesn't erase the bill. The meter still runs, the balance still grows. The discount rate is the actual relief — get on it before the heat breaks and the protection goes away. Here's what CBS Chicago is reporting. South Shore's already got one of the highest eviction rates in the city, and now the coalition's saying the Presidential Center could speed that up. That's the part that gets me — the building's supposed to lift the block, not clear it out. And this is the annual summit, so they've been pushing this for years. A community benefits agreement only matters if there's a body with teeth to enforce it. Right — who actually holds anybody to it? You can sign the nicest agreement in the world, but if there's no enforcement arm, a South Shore renter's still packing boxes. There it is again — the org-chart problem of the week: a promise on paper, and nobody named to make it real. Got a tip, correction, or story idea about Chicago politics or the built environment? Send it our way at chicagodailyfix at lantern podcasts dot com. We read every note.
We'll keep watching the smaller-format grocery store planned for the former West Pullman Aldi site. Right now, it's projected to open in spring 2027.
You'll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, if you want to dig further into anything that caught your ear. That's Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.