Little Village Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22nd) on Thursday applauded the extraordinary level of community cooperation that led police to the two people charged with the murder of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega.

“What you had was community members all around the area communicating with police. You had people calling 911. You had people turning over their video willfully. This was a crime that was solved because neighbors stepped up and worked with the police,” Rodriguez said.

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Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates wouldn’t say if she’ll challenge Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whom she has said is on a “kamikaze mission to destroy” Chicago Public Schools. But she offered a blistering critique of Lightfoot’s tenure.

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Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by former United States Secretary of Education and former CPS CEO Arne Duncan to discuss violence in Chicago.

Duncan, founder of Chicago CRED, which stands for “Creating Real Economic Destiny," brought on two local men to discuss their experience with violence. First is Billy Moore, who served 20 years in prison for fatally shooting Chicago preps basketball player Benji Wilson in 1984, and the second is Bilaal Evans Evans, who served 15 years for a crime he did not commit and most recently survived a shooting on Christmas 2021.

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Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by her colleagues Tim Novak and Mark Brown to discuss the biggest stories in 2021 from the fall of Mike Madigan to the ongoing violence throughout the city.

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“There’s a sense of no plan. That’s what’s most concerning to the business community,” Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jack Lavin told the Sun-Times. “Our businesses---and it’s not just retail as you hear on the Mag Mile. It’s restaurants, offices returning to work, banks. They want to know how are we gonna solve the violence and the public safety problem this week. This weekend. Tomorrow.”

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Twice in the last month—and as recently as this week— Mayor Lori Lightfoot urged Magnificent Mile merchants victimized repeatedly by smash-and-grab robberies to follow the lead of their counterparts in Milan, London, Paris, Rome and along Hollywood’s Rodeo Drive.

She specifically mentioned security guards at the door, entrance cameras, merchandise “either chained and roped or put behind glass” and customers being “buzzed into” stores. On Thursday, Il. Retail Merchants Association President Rob Karr flatly rejected all of the mayor’s ideas. He branded the suggestions “extraordinarily disheartening,” “misinformed” and “false”—yet another example of how Lightfoot “continues to point fingers and play the blame game.”

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Greg Harris reminisced about his career as the first openly gay member of the legislative leadership team and about how much it has been shaped by the fact that he is, as he put it, the lucky one. He’s managed to survive for decades, even after being diagnosed as HIV-positive. “I’m one of the few friends from that era that actually survived…A lot of the stuff I do today is to honor them and the things they would have done if they had been here,” Harris said.

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Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s City Council floor leader Ald. George Cardenas (12th) to discuss his plan to study the feasibility of the city to purchase the Chicago Bears as well as the current state of crime and whether or not to give CPD Supt. David Brown more time as top cop.

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Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by Victor Reyes and Burt Odelson to discuss the current state of Chicago's ward map and what changes are currently being negotiated.

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As the head of Chicago’s foremost taxpayer watchdog group, Laurence Msall might be expected to urge fiscal caution. But Msall said losing the Bears would be a blow the city should try hard to avoid.

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