The Fran Spielman Show

Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by the chairman of the City Council's Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Andre Vasquez, to discuss Mayor Johnson's plan for asylum seekers.

Mayor Brandon Johnson did not rule out budget cuts, tax increases or both to pay for a burgeoning humanitarian crisis already costing Chicago upwards of $30 million a month. “Sacrifices” will be required of the city he now leads and said the cost of not making those sacrifices would be far greater.

Fed up with having Chicago Police officers “babysit” asylum seekers, Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara on Thursday proposed an alternative to district stations: allowing hundreds of migrants to sleep on open and hallway floors at City Hall. “I don’t think there’s one single one of `em living in City Hall—whether it’s on the county lobby floor or the City Hall floor. There’s certai...

Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday made no apologies for his go-slow approach and said he is “grateful to have a four-year term” because it’ll take time to “right this ship in its entirety.” Most of Johnson’s goal-oriented predecessors have come into office with a precise agenda for the first 100 days knowing they will be measured at that benchmark anniversary.

Mayor Brandon Johnson campaigned on a promise to make $1 billion in investments in people bankrolled by $800 million in increased taxes, fines and fees. But, Chief Operating Officer John Roberson said the mayor knows it’ll take years to deliver those investments and that the pace of progress will depend on the amount of new revenue he can get.

A rising star in Chicago’s progressive City Council, Fuentes shared her inspirational story on Thursday in hopes it will blaze a positive trail for young people making destructive choices. “I had pain and turned it into propane and just became an activist. I got lucky to have people who introduced me to a world of organizing and movement. It was a world that I had fallen in love with because that...

Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said Thursday she is investigating “a lot” of allegations of payroll protection fraud by city employees and has launched a companion probe into $163 million in city spending on the migrant crisis. Whenever there is a state of emergency and a haste to deliver financial aid, there is an inevitable shortage of oversight that invites abuse, Witzburg said.

The Northwestern University hazing scandal that cost head football coach Pat Fitzgerald his job will turn out to be the biggest in the history of college sports in terms of the sheer number of athletes involved, an attorney who filed the only two lawsuits in the case said Thursday. Attorneys Parker Stinar and Patrick Salvi said the Northwestern athletes they have heard from so far have described a...

Anthony Driver, president of Chicago’s Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, said he is only human and does have a favorite among the three finalists from which Mayor Brandon Johnson will choose over the next 30 days. But, Driver won’t say who it is.“

Under fire for giving away the store, Chicago Park District Superintendent Rosa Escareno is defending the terms of NASCAR’s agreement to rent Grant Park as “consistent with how Lollapalooza was treated when it started.”

Deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas on Thursday described the new mayor’s style when asked why 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave for teachers and other Chicago Public School employees is the only item on the progressive agenda that Johnson has delivered. Big-ticket items are still being negotiated behind-the-scenes. They include: raising the real estate transfer tax to create a dedicated...

Acting Civic Federation President Sarah Wetmore believes the election of Brandon Johnson, the most progressive mayor in Chicago history, along with a younger, more liberal City Council has created a host of reform opportunities that were once politically impossible.

After one month of the Brandon Johnson administration, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jack Lavin likes what he sees. But he’s still not yet willing to back any of the $800 million in business taxes Johnson needs to fund the social programs that are key to his anti-violence strategy.

One of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s closest City Council allies urged the new mayor on Thursday to fire the CEOs of the CTA and the Chicago Housing Authority. Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th), Johnson’s hand-picked Education Committee chair, argued that CHA CEO Tracey Scott deserves to be ousted because she presides over an agency that has failed to deliver on its fundamental mission.

Johnson’s reorganization plan anointed Ald. Walter Burnett as vice-mayor, with a $400,000 budget, allowing him to retain the staff he had as chair of the Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety.

After 50 years in political reporting, FOX 32's Mike Flannery is retiring. He joins Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman to discuss his storied career and what's next for the veteran journalist.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), Johnson’s City Council floor leader and handpicked Zoning Committee chair, said the first elected Chicago mayor in 40 years to be denied a second term had no business issuing any executive orders on her way out the door, let alone ten of them. Lightfoot’s decision to do just that underscored the fact that, what she described during Johnson’s inauguration ceremony a...

Rich Guidice spent nearly 20 years running the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, which oversees emergency dispatch from Chicago’s 911 emergency center. On Wednesday, Guidice acknowledged an internal investigation is underway to determine why CPD did not respond to the Avalon Park block where Officer Aréanah Preston was accosted by a group of robbers until more than 30 minutes afte...

The nationwide search the fledgling civilian oversight panel is conducting for David Brown’s permanent replacement is strictly on the up and up. The fix is not in, according to Anthony Driver, president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. “They have not tried to influence our process. They have not tried to submit names. In fact, the extent of the communication with i...

“We definitely don’t expect to make wholesale, universal changes within the city departments…You’re unlikely to see the kind of wholesale changes that…Daley brought in,” said Jason Lee, a senior adviser to Johnson’s mayoral campaign and transition team.

Finance Committee Chair Scott Waguespack (32nd) is among those who could be on the chopping block to make way for more City Council committee chairs loyal to Mayor -elect Brandon Johnson. But, Waguespack warned Johnson to “leave this alone” or risk starting off on the “wrong foot” with the Council—just as Mayor Lori Lightfoot did.

Campaign manager, Brian Towne, and veteran Democratic political strategist, Joe Trippi, discuss the Vallas campaign while senior advisor, Jason Lee, and Brandon Davis, senior media strategist, discuss the Johnson campaign with Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman.

Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), the powerful chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee and a key member of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s leadership team, is retiring from City Council but plans to remain in public service in this interview with Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman.

As an unpaid negotiator for the Fraternal Order of Police, Jim Franczek said Paul Vallas was singularly responsible for convincing the Fraternal Order of Police to accept a host of police accountability measures as part of the eight-year police contract that ended the longest labor stalemate in Chicago history.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates said Thursday she expects vanquished mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia to endorse Brandon Johnson in the April 4 mayoral runoff, bringing Chicago’s fractured family of progressives back together.