School Board Passes Amended Budget. Plus, Vote on Park Improvements

This goes out to all my crafters. Grab your crochet hooks and sketchbooks and meet me for Adults Night Out crafted at Lincoln Park Zoo. You can mingle with creative-minded kin and enjoy watercolor painting hosted by the paintbrush, a stitched circle and yarn swap hosted by knit one, and live acoustic music with plenty of space to enjoy the zoo after hours on August 21st. All experienced levels are welcome. You can find tickets and more information at LPSU.org. Bloomington, Indiana's always been a town of lifelong learners, lectures that run long, dinner table debates that run longer. We're always studying something. But this year, the syllabus changed. We learned about blitzes and blocks, pick sixes, and play action. And what the inside of that outside stadium looks like on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We may not always understand the whole thing, but man, if it isn't fun to learn. Visit Bloomington, learn something new. This is CityCast Chicago. I'm Jacoby Cochran, and here's what Chicago is talking about. We coming off a week where artists were in Chicago host the after shows around the city Pope. If you could see any artists in any Chicago venue, who would it be? Where would you be? I mean, my first impulse is to say Meg the stallion in the front row anywhere. It doesn't matter the venue. But, you know, I honestly, though, aside from that, I love Mesego. I love his artistry. And so I'd love to see Mesago at the Metro. But the key thing is, Metro's in Wrigleyville, by the way. Key thing is I need a seat. I can't be up here mixing mingling, bumping shoulders. I need to be able to sit down. I saw Mosego at soft shit. A couple years ago, I did not have a seat. I have seen some shows there with to see Georgia Smith. That was fantastic. You say Metro. I'd love to see Orion's son at Metro. Oh, yeah. That is Brandon Pope, contributor and freelance journalist in the building with us. Pope, always good to have you. Great to be here. Lee, over to you. Same question. Any artist, any music venue in Chicago. Where would you be? Who would you be watching? Well, speaking of Pope, I'm jealous that he got to see Waleigh at Salt Shed earlier this summer. I had no idea that Waleigh was going to be in town until I saw your IG Brandon. And, you know, I moved here from D.C. like six years ago now, which is crazy. So I love that Wale Incorporates. So much go-go in his music. Mix tape about nothing is one of my favorite albums. It's great. So, yeah, and I still haven't been to the Salt Ched. And I love a good outdoor venue. So that is on my list. And then really anything at Wrigley. Wrigley is a great concert venue on a nice summer night. Fantastic. Okay. That is contributor and freelance journalist Lee John Greco in the building with us. Lee is good to have you back. Hey, thanks for being here.

I know our colleague, Paris Schatz, pointed out that in order to get that $150 million to CPS, you would need three-fifths of the General Assembly who would either have to vote for a standalone CPS bill or vote for around $700 million in supplemental funding for all the school districts in Illinois, just kind of out of fairness. So. That doesn't seem super likely, but again, I guess like crazier things have happened, right? And again, we've seen recently CPS, CTO, the principals, junior, everyone come together to ask for more money for the state. But right now, the big concern that King points out is that. sort of hedging our ability to pay our bills and to meet payroll to secure short-term financing on more money from the TIF, more money from the state. Seems like it puts us in a precarious position, especially since they took the furlough days off the table, right? Again, nobody, it seems, wants to vote for. layoffs, hundreds of teachers and support staff, even if King points out 65 to 75% of those may have been hired back by the district. It seems that there wasn't a lot of appetite to pass a budget where the headline was hundreds of layoffs. You know, what's next here now that they've passed it? Is it sort of a wait and see game? Yeah, I mean, like you said, nobody wants these layoffs. They're obviously not great for... you know, just the morale of CPS teachers. I mean, I know some CPS teachers who have said, like, they're already looking at an exit strategy outside of CPS because they say the writing is on the wall. But then on the other hand, King mentioned that relying on this money that hasn't come through is not a good signal to the district's lenders, right? So in the same way that the city of Chicago has a credit score. CPS has a credit score as well. So if they rely on this budget amendment, it could leave the district vulnerable to mid-year cuts. And then those lenders aren't going to look favorably, the unconfirmed revenue. And then they could have a credit downgrade, which means higher borrowing costs for the district. Pope, we were covering this last week. We were under the impression by the time we stopped talking that they might go ahead and push this towards the August 29th deadline. Again, the concern there that would impact their ability to meet payroll. And so they went ahead and passed an amended version. Yeah, I'm a little surprised that this version got passed. It's not a balanced budget by definition. It's banking on money that's not there. It's play money at this point. It's imaginary. It's tough to, you know, project long term off of maybes and ifs. And I do think of the amount of money they're asking for when you talk to folks in Springfield.

It is a maybe-and-ist because you need more than just Chicago lawmakers to get this done. You need downstate people to get this done. And the appetite from downstate politicians is rarely ever, oh, yeah, let's just open up the wallet for Chicago. Let's do it again and again, right? Meanwhile, their districts also need education funding, right? Where is that money coming from? So I do think it's challenging. I think it's interesting to note here. that Stacey Davis Bill Gates, the CTO president, has come out and basically said, yeah, I don't blame Mackling King for this. I put all the onus on the state itself, the need for the, and she's said, like, the budget had to be what it was. She was kind of, her fan was forced, which is an interesting tone from the CTO president when usually it's a little bit more adversarial. It's not balanced. So it is kicking the can down the road. And so what, you know, those who are against us do argue that it's going to have some, could potentially have some devastating long-term effects if you're just going off of a maybe and basically signing checks and, and. you know, spending money that you don't even have in the bank yet. So it's going to be, it's going to be something to watch for sure. That three-fifths vote, we've got to see how they get there. But it is interesting, Welch coming out, flat out and saying, yeah, that's what we're focusing on. We're pushing for that. Superintendent King reminded folks that when she was a principal 10 years ago, a similar compromise that they would bank the budget on money that was not. there yet. And those shaky revenue projections ended up leading to cuts at King's school later in the school year in February. And so the concerns now are you get it past the day, but what does that look like at the top of September? What does that look like at the halfway mark if that special session in November doesn't reap the money you were hoping for? And so we'll definitely continue following this moving forward. But I also... I'm not shocked that folks who are up for election in a few months weren't going to vote for a budget that had those cuts, even if King says they were a shared sacrifice. And so I'll definitely continue to follow this. It's also worth noting that, you know, there are several board members who are backed by the Chicago Teachers Union. They hold the majority. And they introduce the amendment. So, you know, again. The Chicago Teachers Union, they are a huge political force in City Hall. They are obviously huge political force on the board. And like you said, Jacoby, I think this is another reason why everybody should be tapped into those upcoming elections.

The Chicago Air and Water Show remains the nation's largest free admission air and water exhibition. It's been going down since 1959 and it's right around the corner. Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events are excited to announce that it's coming back August 15th and the 16th along the lakefront from Fullerton Avenue to Oak Street from 10.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. Now remember, public parking is not available at North Avenue Beach and attendees are encouraged to go on and use public transportation. For more information, visit Chicago Air and Watershow.us. Join the conversation on Facebook at Chicago Air and Water Show or follow at Chicago D.Ks on Instagram.

From one sister agency to another, I want to talk a little bit about Chicago Park District budget. They have a process ongoing right now, where they want to hear from Chicagoans on how to spend some of that money. Absolutely, for the first time ever the Park District is doing this, letting residents have a say and how they utilize about half a million dollars here in potential park improvements into what they call a participatory budget program. So it works like this. Earlier in the year, they asked Chicago ones to submit, you know, ideas and gripes for park improvements, right? You know, air out your grievances in a sense. And, of course, Chicago ones love to do that. They got a lot. They got more than a thousand ideas. Staff reviewed those for cost, safety, feasibility, and then put them into four different categories. And so the categories are accessibility, public safety, and inclusion. So like think about ADA accessibility, playgrounds, ramps, lighting, security, other categories, recreation infrastructure like ball fields and field houses, sports, all this type of things. Third one is park amenities, so benches, picnic tables, bike racks, shelters, things like that. And the fourth one is nature and beautification. So, you know, more trees, more green space, more gardens, and natural play spaces. So the public now just to kind of rank which category should be the priority for this half a million dollars in park improvements, they submit a paper ballot. You can also fill out the online forum as well. Absolutely. You can do it online as well. The winning category will receive funding for at least nine projects spread across the city's north, central, and south regions. And the partnership says the selected products are going to be announced later this year with construction starting toward the end of the year late 2026 and going through 2027. And hey, the voting is open now. It goes all the way through the whole month of August, August 27th. Anyone who's 13 years or older has a chance to make their voice heard. So, you know, as we talk about budgets being kind of a document that talks about your priorities, this is Chicagoans' chance to say, hey. What are our own priorities when it comes to our green spaces? And we had a chance to have a say in what's prioritized here. I'm curious, you know, Jacoby, if you had a say, which of the four you think you'd be into? I feel like I'd be more into like the accessibility side with the lighting, security cameras, the playgrounds and ramps. But I'm curious what you think. My question is, where do park bathrooms fall in that? Park bathrooms fall, I would believe, into...

Uh, um, recreation infrastructure? I guess is that an amenity? Or accessibility or is it an amenity? See, that's the thing. Like an amenity feels like it's like a little like extra. Extra. But like they're not. And I feel like so many times they're like when you think about like the comfort stations from the 1900s, you're like, wow, what a beautiful building. And now like every park bathroom is like a concrete block with like a. toilet and like that on its on its face is bad but then they're also like they are open from nine to five between like Memorial Day and Labor Day, which is like, you know, sometimes there are like also nice days in Chicago past Labor Day. And it would be nice to like have a bathroom open, you know, like. Yeah, I think that probably falls under permanent fixtures and park amenities. And I'm leaning probably closer towards. permanent fixtures, park amenities, and nature and beautification. Because on the website, it also shows you how much it costs to do some of these things. So like a nature play space, so a new outdoor nature play area for children, costs on average about $50,000. Like to rehab a baseball or softball field, also $50,000. Feel house security cameras, $25,000 versus like drinking fountain, $10K. Venture picnic table, $10K. flower beds for some perennials you know a thousand dollars to five thousand dollars tree planting six to eight hundred dollars so it seems like you might be able to get more for the half a million dollar costing a new a d a accessible bench or picnic table on concrete pad About 10K. I think that's the leveling and the concrete and all of that. Is that one of those like benches made in France or something? What are we doing here? They say 25K for some for some new ADA accessible bleachers at the Sports Hill. So yeah, I think it seems like you can get a little bit more if you focus on. If I'm looking through this correctly on permanent fixtures and park amenities and maybe some nature and beautification versus recreation infrastructure.

and accessibility, public safety, and inclusion. I want to sniff out these contracts a little bit because I don't know why that needs to cost as much as it does. I'm about to start building benches for journalism. I'm going to become a carpenter. It costs $100,000 to rehab a basketball or a tennis court, apparently. And so these monies get up there. Spray feature, $350,000. Playground resurfacing. A quarter million dollars. New outdoor sports lighting, 200K. These are some examples of major projects that they're not using the budget process for. But some of those other things like the park benches, you know, making the baseball or softball field a little nicer, some more ramps. Those are all available for people to vote on now until August 27th, as you post. As you point out, post. So we are going to drop a link in our show notes. Mark your calendar, Chicago, to celebrate the Public Library Foundation's 40th anniversary, they're hosting their first ever summer soiree. It's going down August 26th at the McDonald's headquarters rooftop in West Loop. There's going to be free food and open bar and personalized forms. Plus, they promise other surprises in store. And maybe, just maybe, your favorite host will be in the building. The theme is 40 and bolder to celebrate the foundation's four decades of impact, building up Chicago's life. libraries into one of the city's most amazing resources. And your $100 soire ticket goes towards funding lifelong learning programs like free homework, help, teen internships, and digital skill classes for adults. The event is 21 and over, so don't miss the opportunity to connect with fellow library lovers over a themed cocktail. Buy your tickets at bit.ly slash CPLF summer soiree. We've also got the link in the show notes.

I spent a lot of time at the parks this summer, most of it over at Mozart Park playing softball. But I will say the first half of the summer, we've already had, I think, three rainout games and then a wildfire smoke game that we couldn't play. We've had to alter our schedule. We're going to be playing well into September now. And so if I had to rank, you know, the first half of summer, which, you know, we're about at the halfway mark this week on a scale to 1 to 10. I don't know. I'm pushing towards more like a six or, yeah, maybe like a sixer right now, six point seven or something. I want to hear from y'all, Lee, how are you feeling about summer so far? And do you have something you are looking forward to in August on this back half? Jacoby, when you, when you propose this question, I was also like, I'm feeling like it's a five. This summer for me personally has not been great. And also just like, yeah, like you mentioned, the weather and everything. I've had to reschedule my birthday. I was going to see your birthday got choked out. I am, oh, I like, this summer has felt. especially July has felt like the Odyssey. And I don't mean like, oh, it was a Chris Nolan blockbuster. I mean like every week has dealt me some fresh hell. It's like, oh, you thought you were going to have a birthday party? No, we're going to strap you to a mast and torture you. So yeah, that's how I feel. about this summer so far. And if it doesn't get better in August, I'm going to go full, like, third act of the Odyssey. Go full gorilla mode. Brendan's like, that doesn't work out for anybody. Sorry, spoiler. If you haven't read the thousands-year-old poem. Oh, my God. Anything you're looking forward to, some outdoor movies or concerts, something this month? Yeah, like I'm just like trying to be optimistic that like it's going to get better. Like that's where I'm at. Like I'm just like I can't like let's just let's just like hope for like good energy. There is a there is a John Hughes triple feature coming up at one of the. drive-ins nearby so hopefully I can make it to that if it doesn't like rain or storm or apocalyptic like smoke or whatever I don't know let us put you on the bench yeah that okay knock on wood I've avoided that but I feel like that's the next shoot a drop like I just I don't know I haven't had I bought kale for the first time in like five weeks and I'm like fingers crossed it's from a farmer's market okay Let's just, here we go. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, Jacoby. I know I need to come on here and be like, I'm looking forward to the hot dog festival. I just don't have that. If somebody has some stuff on their calendar that they want to be like, Lee, you should look forward to this. Then like, fine. Great.

I'll do that. But right now, I'm just like, it just. I'm just trying to get through it. I'm just trying to get through it. Pope, help us out. Anything in August you looking forward to? Man, I mean, y'all were right about it. It's been kind of a me summer. Yeah. I thought it was just me. I mean, I'd probably give it a six out of ten, maybe six and a half. Just I feel like I've been out of the loop on stuff. Things are happening and I just kind of like, it just pops up. There was not a lot of. notification and it was like, oh, I guess I missed that. I was like, oh, apparently Kalani at Northerly Island on Sunday. I just found that out. Okay, cool. Yeah. A lot of things just be popping up. I mean, look, I think August I've had boats get canceled. You know. Didn't you miss a boat? Didn't you watch a boat leave without you? That did happen. That was more user error and traffic. I felt that in my soul. I was like, no, you saw it leave. Look, the thing I'm looking forward to most for August, I guess for me would be the Excel Film Festival. Okay. It's becoming one of the best film festivals in the Midwest and one of the best in the country. And this year, one of the venues for it is the Obama Presidential Center, which will be pretty cool. Oh, nice. So I always look forward to like, you know, full transparency. I'm one of the... I've been being, I've been one of the judges for some of the films, selecting who gets on for a number of years now. And I always look forward to just seeing that, that space of people that are young and rising and just kind of supporting each other in the film space. Chicago is like the Hollywood of the Midwest now. And so it's a good chance to kind of like reconnect around that. So that's, that's probably what I'm looking forward to most for August, 20th through 23rd. Okay. Of August. And yeah, it should be a great time. People all around the country. Lawrence Tate, Lawrence Tate will be there and a few other special guests that will be announced here in the coming days. Well, it's some great events happening this week. I mean, you got the Bud Billican Parade. We talked about market days is coming up. Ravens would feel good fest. And that's just on Saturday. And so a lot to look forward to in August, but I will say if it is another smoky, rainy, stormy kind of month. That's going to be the story of the 2026 summer. And so I'm hoping on this back half it can, it can. kind of pick up a little bit. I would really appreciate that. I would really, really appreciate that. I keep thinking of that Simpsons meme where he's like, he's like, oh, this is the worst year like I've ever had. And it's like the worst year so far. It's like I keep thinking like, this is the smokiest birthday like I've had. And it's like the smokiest birthday yet. Mm-hmm. Like it's. Yeah, no. Tap into our events calendar, y'all, at Chicago-Citycast.fm. We're going to do our best to keep you in a glass, half-full kind of mentality throughout this month. I want to give a huge thank you to our guest today. We can't do it without y'all. Shout out to Brandon Pope. We appreciate you being in the building with us.

Hey, appreciate you all. Lee John Greco, thank you for making time. Hey, thanks for having me and Jacoby. Up next, we got a sponsor interview where executive producer, Simone Alisaia, sits down with D-Case, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events to talk about everything they have to offer in the second half of summertime shy. Hey, it's executive producer, Simone Alisea, and I'm here with Kenya Friedrich Merz, Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, aka D-Case. Kenya, welcome to City Cash Chicago. Thank you so much for having me, Simone. I'm so excited to be here to talk about some of the work that's happening at T-Ks. Yeah, I mean, summertime shy is big news around here at CityCast. We are always talking about what's going on. It's certainly well underway now. But for people who maybe, I don't know, it's been a, they've been sleeping on Chicago summer, what does D-Ks have going on kind of in the second half here as we get into August and September? So we'll kick off August with our Air and Water Show that will be along the lakefront. So you can really pretty much watch it anywhere along the lake. And so we encourage people to bring their families out and to enjoy it. It is August 15th and 16th. We also have our house music festival. And so we're excited that over the weekend in August, we'll kick off with the house music conference here in the Cultural Center, followed by a festival in Millennium Park on Friday as well as Saturday. And then we also have jazz festival that will round out the month of August headed into September over Labor Day weekend. We have Robert Glasper. that we'll be performing along with a host of other global artists. And then that's not it. We also think about just like our music globally, and so we'll be celebrating World Music Festival in September. So we still have a lot of great things planned for the second half of the summer. And we also have a Millennium Park music series that continues through August as well. So we encourage people to check out our events this fall, starting with Erin Watershow, August 15th and 16th, Chicago House Music Festival and Conference at the Cultural Center as well as Millennium Park from August 27th through the 30th. And rounding out and starting in September, we had Jazz Festival from September 3rd through the 6th at Millennium Park and World Music Festival from September 25th through October 4th. I'm going to get to some more stuff going on in Millennium Park. And I do think a lot of people know about like these really big events, Air and Water Show, what's going on at Grant Park, what's at Millennium. But D-Kase is also doing a lot of stuff in the neighborhoods. What's going on there? We support a lot of neighborhood programming through grants to individual artists, as well as to cultural organizations throughout the city. But some of the ways that we show up is in our farmers markets, and we always have a little bit of a cultural twist on our markets, and we have those markets in several neighborhoods throughout the city. So whether you live in Bronzeville, there is a market on 47th Street or in Austin where...

I'm from. Our market is at Austin Town Hall or in River North or even Pullman. And then for those that are like born and raised in Chicago, like we remember Maxwell Street. Well, we're back to the original location at Maxwell Street Market. And that happens once a month. And we encourage people to come down. And again, it's not your traditional market. And so we encourage people to come out, get great food, shop. and just be amongst community. So we've got lots of music happening. Great, you know, we've got Aaron Water Show. We've got markets in the neighborhoods. Going back to some of the stuff that's happening downtown, we've also got film and workout series going on in August and September as well. Yeah. Yeah. And so, Simone, you know, I am guilty. I need to get out on Saturday and work out. Like for all of those folks that are couch potatoes that watch workouts and have aspirations of getting in shape, we encourage you to come out on Saturday. I know I'm supposed to get in shape, but why like the big group outdoor workout at Millennium? Like, why should I make the trip to do that particular thing? Here's the thing. We have great music and you'll be amongst community and you may meet a new friend. So bring someone with you or come along and maybe meet someone and you're doing it in the backdrop of Millennium Park. So we have a range of workout. So like if you're not too much into cardio, you don't have to do the cardio kickboxing. You can do yoga. So we have a lot of different options for people to explore with our workout series. on Saturday mornings. I encourage people to come out and participate. You know, there's a lot going on. Tough to keep track for folks who want to, you know, start making their plans, get stuff on their calendar. Where should they go for this information? So we encourage people to look us up on our social media platforms. And please like and follow. We're at Chicago DCs on Instagram and Facebook. But for those that want to find a little bit more detailed information, you can also find us online at Chicago.gov for slash DCs. All right. That's great. Kenya, thank you so much again for taking the time and for being here. Thank you for having me. This was a blast. And just to double tap on where you can find out more info about all the summertime shy activities, you can head to chicago.gov slash decase or follow them on Instagram at Chicago DCase.

And you know I can't leave you without some good news this Thursday. You can get outside and see the the summer music series at Dusabu. The summer music series at Harper Court, Argyle Night Market is going down off Argyll and Sheridan up in Uptown. Plenty of amazing events happening around the city this week. The best place for you to pay attention to check them out, Chicago.Citycast.fm. scroll over to our events calendar. In the meantime, in between time, put us on with your friends and family. We're going to be back bright and early tomorrow. We'll talk to you then. Peace.