August 8
City Council Committee on Health and Human Relations meeting
At its meeting the City Council Committee on Health and Human Relations learned that the city is using the “ring vaccination” approach to distribute 33,000 monkeypox vaccines received from the federal government. Another 20,000 are expected. Ring vaccination prioritizes and innoculates individuals at high risk for infection, initially those in direct contact with infected individuals. The second ring is made up of individuals in contact with the first group. Speed is critical. During a presentation by the city’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, the committee also learned that distribution by race is disproportionately low among Black (eleven percent) and Latinx Chicagoans (fourteen percent) relative to their monkeypox rates of fourteen and twenty-nine percent, respectively. Alderpersons raised concerns that some Chicago Department of Public Health informational posters contribute to stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community.
August 9
Chicago Community Development Commission meeting
Neighbors and community groups could participate earlier in conversations about local development under a rule change made at a Chicago Community Development Commission meeting. Applying the change in how city-owned land is sold will be at the discretion of the Department of Planning and Development (DPD). After extensive discussion, especially about federal funding and the value received from TIF contributions by individual wards, the commissioners authorized a feasibility study and accepted for review a redevelopment plan for a CTA-proposed, 5.6-mile Red Line extension from the 95th/Dan Ryan terminal to 130th Street. New stations would include 103rd Street, 111th Street, Michigan Avenue, and 130th Street. The commission also gave the green light for DPD to negotiate TIF-funded redevelopment of the former Overton School into a coworking/community innovation hub; Save-A-Lot grocery stores by Yellow Banana; the Gerber Building at the Wilson Red Line stop by Chicago Market, a grocery co-op; and sites in Roseland related to INVEST South/West and the Roseland Medical District.
August 10
Members of the Chicago Climate Reality Project urged the Chicago Transit Authority Board to buy only electric vehicles moving forward and to shelve a near-term, 500-diesel-bus purchase. The plea for an “all electric” fleet sooner than scheduled occurred at Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Board, Finance, and Audit and Budget Committee meetings. The CTA plans to have an all-electric fleet by 2040, and just received a $29 million federal grant to get closer to that goal. President Dorval Carter said that virtually no electric buses were available to purchase in the U.S. and that diesel buses would support sustainability more than current CTA vehicles. The CTA has a plan to tackle the service impacts of COVID-19, rider safety, and schedule delays, “Meeting the Moment: Transforming CTA’s Post-Pandemic Future Action Plan.”
August 11
In a fifty-minute meeting that a third of its nine members did not attend, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) Board of Commissioners discussed and approved two agenda items. One was a request to pay a $100,000 membership fee to a Chicago-based group, Current. The other was for $12.26 million in contracts with Independent Mechanical Industries, Inc. to repair and alter water reclamation facilities. Membership fees are a way to support organizations in lieu of grants, which the district is not allowed to provide. For example, the MWRD-Current collaboration monitors microbial pollutants and COVID-19 in wastewater. The organization’s website (currentwater.org) describes its mission as being “to grow the blue economy, accelerate innovation, and to solve pressing water challenges.” In the past, the board has questioned awarding large contracts to individual companies. Executive Director Brian Perkovich explained that the Mechanical Industries agreement comprised three separate contracts.
This information was collected and curated in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.