Chicago City Council — Week in Review: June 24–25, 2026
How this was made
Three Hearings, No Votes — But Plenty on the Record
The week of June 24 brought three committee hearings across two days. No votes were taken at any of them, but each produced substantive testimony and, in the Finance Committee, an unusually pointed exchange about what the mayor’s own administration was and was not telling the council.
Workforce Development: The VGT Debate Comes to a Head
The Committee on Workforce Development (14 of 15 members present, chaired by Alderman Rodriguez) held a subject-matter hearing on ordinance O2026-0026123. The ordinance would do two things: repeal the video gaming terminal (VGT) legalization passed in the FY2026 budget, and authorize the acting CFO to negotiate an amended Host Community Agreement with Bally’s Casino that adds new workforce training, city-colleges partnership, and barrier-employment commitments.
The room was full. Public comment ran 30 minutes and included voices on every side of a question that has divided the council and the business community for months: does allowing VGTs in Chicago bars and restaurants harm the city’s casino investment, or does it help neighborhood small businesses that have been losing ground to suburban competitors for years?
Acting CFO Steven Maher laid out the administration’s fiscal case: the city earns roughly four and a half times as much revenue per dollar spent on casino slot machines as it does on VGT terminals, and independent analysis found the expected net tax revenue from VGTs “negative, or only marginally positive in the near term” — negative every year through 2035 in the conservative scenario. He added that the $4 million annual impact fee Bally’s currently pays would stop if the Host Community Agreement were put at risk.
Karen Kent, president of UNITE HERE Local 1, testified on behalf of the 150 union members working at the temporary casino — 87 percent of them Chicago residents, representing 43 of 50 wards — and argued that VGTs would produce a “slow bleed” of union jobs at the permanent casino. Pat Dorr of the Hospitality Business Association of Chicago pushed back, arguing that every other Illinois casino except one operates near VGT terminals and that Rockford, surrounded by VGTs, outperforms Bally’s on a per-player basis. Denita Sanders of the North Lawndale Chamber said her community’s small businesses had yet to see Bally’s engage them directly, while VGT operators had shown up in person. Tiwon Sims connected the workforce debate to a teen incident on 119th Street the prior day, questioned the reality of the mayor’s 25,000 summer jobs pledge, and raised the unresolved situation of contractor Jerry Lewis — who had been working on the nearby 1901 Project before his death — asking what would happen to minority contractors’ share of that work. No vote was scheduled.
Subcommittee on Youth Employment: Teen Trends and the Investment Gap
Chaired by Alderperson Fuentes, the Subcommittee on Youth Employment held a subject-matter hearing the same morning on what the city calls “teen trends” — large, social-media-organized youth gatherings. City staff reported 78 such gatherings citywide the prior weekend, with 25 arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct. Deputy Mayor Emanuel Andre (Community Safety) described a twice-weekly interagency review process to anticipate and prepare for trends, and noted that law enforcement has authority to disperse gatherings before curfew when safety warrants it.
Deputy Mayor Kahari Humphreys (Education and Youth Services) presented data connecting employment to safety outcomes: the five community areas with the most summer youth hires in 2025 — Austin, Auburn Gresham, Roseland, South Shore, and North Lawndale — recorded double-digit percentage declines in youth shootings and homicides, including a 100 percent decrease in Roseland. The city’s My Chi My Future Safe Spaces initiative employed 296 young people who planned 135 events for over 14,000 attendees in 2025; a Navy Pier teen bash drawing more than 1,400 youth has had no reported incidents in four years of operation.
Jack Weis of the Alternative Schools Network, citing University of Chicago research showing a 42 percent drop in violent crime among youth who held a six-week job, called for $80 million in additional funding to add 20,000 positions. Community testimony ranged from calls to open publicly funded buildings as late-night safe spaces to a park district staffer describing expanded hours and a Summer Teen Tour. No action was taken.
Finance Committee: Parking Meters, a Missing Mayor, and Worker Treatment
The Committee on Finance held a subject-matter hearing on ordinance O2026-0025407, which would approve the transfer of the Chicago Metered Parking System concession from CPM LLC to Stone Peak Infrastructure Partners, a private equity infrastructure fund, with LAZ Parking continuing as operator. Under the original 2008 concession agreement, any change of control requires City Council approval.
The hearing surfaced two significant tensions. The first was institutional. Alderman Waguespack pressed the city’s Law Department on why Mayor Johnson had not publicly stated a position on an ordinance his own department drafted. Managing Deputy Corporation Counsel Jim McDonald declined to answer, saying that question belonged to the mayor’s office. When Waguespack noted that the administration had told council on May 18 it would not assist beyond providing the ordinance text and a summary memo, and that a confidentiality agreement had been restricting the Law Department from discussing the deal with council members, a second city official interjected that the confidentiality agreement had been waived on approximately June 12. McDonald acknowledged that ambiguity remained in CPM’s waiver language. The mayor’s actual position remained unresolved on the public record.
The second tension was about workers. Alderman Taylor pressed LAZ Parking’s representative directly on worker treatment, describing instances of enforcement officers being attacked on their routes and then sent back to the same routes within days, and of poor responsiveness from management. LAZ provided workforce statistics — 81 percent Chicago residents among its 110 workers, enforcement officers paid $2.50 to $3.50 above union rates since 2018, codified in the collective bargaining agreement in 2022 — and described a system of police reports, court follow-up, and monthly de-escalation training for every attack. Taylor was unmoved on the management question and demanded EEOC complaint data in writing; the chair directed LAZ to provide it. Stone Peak disclosed it plans to add $200 million in new debt at closing at a leverage ratio of 8.5 times, down from 10.7 times when the existing debt was placed in 2019. A Fitch ratings review sent to council members the night before affirmed no concerns with the transaction. No vote was taken.