Editor’s Note

Welcome to Newswire — your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what action we can take to make our city great, featuring public meeting coverage by City Bureau’s Documenters.

Quote of the Week

“I tell my residents: if you have a garbage can with a hole or without a lid, you no longer have a garbage can. You now have a restaurant for rats.”

— Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd Ward) during a discussion of the city’s rodent population with the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation

[City Council Committee on the Budget and Government Operations, Nov. 20, 2024]

Budget season has started! And stopped … and started again! At Chicago Documenters, we’re doing our best to stay on top of the marathon hearings and multiple schedule changes (check out our handy cheat sheet here). We’ve included some highlights in this issue of Newswire, but you can find much, much more on our Twitter @CHIdocumenters and documenters.org.

Talking trash

City officials have eyed Chicago’s garbage collection fee for additional revenue, as it has remained at $9.50/month for single-unit buildings since 2016 and currently only covers 40% of related expenses. At a budget hearing for the Department of Streets and Sanitation, Commissioner Cole Stallard told alders that the monthly collection rates for the same size bin in Naperville and Evanston are  $14.85 and $25.07, respectively.

Since City Council voted down Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $300 million property tax hike in early November, budget officials are now hoping to get a $68 million property tax increase and to make up the difference with other smaller fees and taxes. Some alders are loath to burden seniors and low-income residents with any higher taxes, but a modest garbage collection fee increase has support from Far South Side Ald. Matt O'Shea. 

On the perennial topic of rats, several public commenters advocated for rodent contraception as more humane and effective than rat poison. Rat birth control has been piloted in New York City and other urban areas, but not all are sold on it; after a trial period in Boston concluded, officials said they were still evaluating whether it made a difference. When alders asked Stallard his opinion, he said he’s open to new ideas, but he put greater emphasis on other methods and preventative measures, such as  making sure trash receptacles are sealed and that people pick up after their dogs.

Stallard also defended the city’s oft-maligned recycling program, boasting that it has diverted nearly 1  million tons of refuse from landfills since the blue carts were rolled out in 2008. 

Over the past decade, the Department of Streets and Sanitation has consistently recycled less than 10% of municipal solid waste it collected, far below the national average of 32.1% of refuse recycled or composted in 2018, per the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

On a more promising note, the citywide food scrap drop-off pilot program has composted 246 tons of food scraps in its first year to date, and DSS plans to distribute an additional 40 food scrap collection bins to each ward, Stallard said.

More context: Check out this interactive guide to Chicago’s rules when it comes to recycling, composting and more, and a quick tour of trash collection over the years via WTTW.

  • City Council Committee on the Budget and Government Operations by Mare Ralph

Head in the clouds

The Department of Technology and Innovation’s efforts to restructure and modernize the city’s IT infrastructure will save up to $1.4 million per year moving forward, Chief Technology Officer Nick Lucius told City Council at a Nov. 21 budget hearing.

Lucius highlighted efforts to migrate functions from local servers to the cloud — which refers to internet-based storage and computing services from companies Salesforce and Microsoft — as it continues to gain traction in public and private sectors. 

Upping the current tax on cloud computing subscriptions has been floated as another revenue stream to chip away at the nearly $1 billion budget shortfall.

At City Bureau

Our biweekly look at what’s happening within our own programs, events and other work at City Bureau. This week, we're giving you a sneek peak at this year's budget bingo game.

As departmental budget hearings come to a close this week, it’s time to start gearing up for #ChiBudgetBingo, our way of bringing some levity, prizes, and competition to City Council’s final budget vote, currently slated for Friday, Dec. 13.

How it works: Follow along with us on Twitter @CHIdocumenters or Instagram @city_bureau. When the budget vote date arrives, we’ll share a link where you can generate your own bingo board and call out the bingo squares as we see them. (Don’t worry, we’ll also have a play-play of the meeting, as usual). The first two people to get bingo win.

This year, we’ve upped the ante with some neat pint glasses and Yeti insulated mugs, plus a special budget-themed clear bag, the ever-practical accessory for those attending meetings at City Hall.

A version of this story was first published in the December 4, 2024 issue of the Newswire, an email newsletter that is your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what we can do to make our city great. You can sign up for the weekly newsletter here.

Have thoughts on what you'd like to see in this feature? Email Editorial Director Ariel Cheung at ariel@citybureau.org.