The Fran Spielman Show

Zoning Committee Chairman Tom Tunney (44th) told the Sun-Times he plans to take some time off during the August recess before deciding whether to call it quits after five terms—and run the Ann Sather’s Restaurants he owns—or whether to run for mayor himself. “Property taxes. Less police. It’s not a healthy platform to run on…I am seriously considering running and I’m also seriously considering not...

One day after Mayor Lori Lightfoot unveiled her $2.2 billion plan to keep the Bears at a domed and renovated Soldier Field, former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn launched his campaign to deprive the mayor of the only funding source she has revealed so far to bankroll the ambitious project: selling corporate naming rights.

Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th), whose endorsement of Lori Lightfoot in the 2019 runoff election was pivotal to her landslide victory, said Thursday he will make no mayoral endorsement this time because he’d “have a civil war on my hands” if he backed Lightfoot again. “The senseless violence is so pervasive across the city. And for people to say things like, ‘Murders are down’ [is insulting]. We’re a worl...

There’s “not a lot of hope” that Chicago can keep the Bears—even at a domed Soldier Field—but a new “vision” to re-imagine the museum campus can still reclaim park land and make Northerly Island the nature preserve it was intended to be, a parks advocate said Tuesday. Friends of the Parks Executive Director Juanita Irizarry served on the 23-member working group that unveiled its ambitious, 50-page...

Lori Post, PhD, the Buehler Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medical Social Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine joins Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman to discuss the research done on mass shootings and what we can do to stop events like the Highland Park Fourth of July parade shooting.

Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by Sun-Times chief political reporter Tina Sfondeles and WBEZ state politics reporter Dave McKinney to discuss election results and the uphill climb Republican gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey has to win over Illinois voters.

The City Council needs to be “turned upside down” — with its own speaker, parliamentarian and attorney and committee chairs it chooses — to end Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s “dictatorship,” Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) said Thursday.

During Helene Gayle’s tenure, one of Chicago’s oldest and best-endowed philanthropies unveiled a ten-year strategy to grow household wealth, close the life expectancy gap between Black and White Chicagoans and catalyze development of South and West Side neighborhoods with a history of disinvestment. Now, Gayle is leaving Chicago to become the 11th president of Spelman College in Atlanta. But, she’...

Former Inspector General Joe Ferguson is launching a new venture aimed at transforming, what he calls Chicago’s “19th Century machine patronage culture” into a new structure of government capable of solving modern problems.  After a 12-year run as city watchdog, Ferguson resigned last fall to avoid being pushed out by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had frozen out the IG she inherited, openly criticized...

In a surprise move, Ald. Michael Scott Jr. (24th), Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s hand-picked Education Committee chairman, is resigning his City Council seat to join Cinespace Studios. The departure gives Mayor Lori Lightfoot the ability to appoint her second alderperson. The first was 11th Ward Ald. Nicole Lee, who replaced Patrick Daley Thompson.

Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman is joined by Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas to discuss whether Mayor Lightfoot’s curfew rollback will have an impact and what other challenges lie ahead for Chicago.

Last week we welcomed Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) and Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) to discuss their frustrations with the casino location process. This week we have the Sun-Times' very own casino and gambling reporter Mitch Armentrout and business reporter and columnist David Roeder to give their analysis on the upcoming Bally's project.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 11th-hour “switcheroo” to the landmark Medinah Temple as the site for Bally’s temporary casino will make an alarming spike in River North crime infinitely worse, the local alderperson said Friday. One day after Lightfoot chose Bally’s River West bid as the site for a permanent Chicago casino, Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) accused the mayor of dictating a disastrous choice as th...

Stacy Escamilla’s husband, Paul, was a Chicago Police officer who suffered in stoic silence before taking his own life. Julie Troglia is the widow of Jeff, who “de-briefed” his wife about the daily horrors he endured, only occasionally before descending into the hopelessness that culminated in suicide. On Friday, both women shared their emotional stories with the Chicago Sun-Times in hope that it...

Chicago’s new inspector general said Thursday she has no intention of “staying in her lane” and complained that the process that culminated in her appointment took way too long and needs to be accelerated. Now locked into a four-year term, Deborah Witzburg has the freedom to speak her mind—and she took it during a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Sun-Times on the day after the unanimous Cit...

Bill Conway, the billionaire’s son who finished second in the Democratic primary for state’s attorney, said Thursday he’s being urged to run for mayor by business and trade union leaders fed up with Lori Lightfoot and he just might take them up on it.

In Round One of the 2019 mayoral sweepstakes, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas finished with 5.43 percent of the vote behind. This time, Vallas believes the outcome will be dramatically different because Chicago is a city “in crisis” that is “looking for a mayor who knows what to do, how to do it and has the courage to do it.”

After decades of broken promises, newly-appointed Ald. Nicole Lee (11th) said Thursday her goal is to deliver the Near South Side high school desperately needed to keep middle-class families from fleeing to the suburbs. Lee cemented her place in Chicago political history in March as the City Council’s first-ever Chinese-American member after sailing through her confirmation hearing and being sworn...

Millionaire businessman Willie Wilson said Tuesday he will announce April 11 whether or not to reprise his 2019 mayoral campaign against Lori Lightfoot, but his $1.2 million gas giveaway was not a vote-buying prelude to it. Listen to the full conversation here on The Fran Spielman Show.

Sun-Times entertainment critic Richard Roeper joins City Hall reporter and film enthusiast Fran Spielman to discuss his picks for this year's Academy Awards.

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez is furious at Lightfoot for granting a tavern license to the Giant Penny Whistle, defying a moratorium along a three-block stretch of Blue Island Avenue. Sigcho-Lopez joined the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council in suing to nullify the license.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot “has a personality that a lot of folks don’t like” and it’s getting in the way of solving Chicago’s intransigent problems of violent crime and public education, the chairman of the Illinois Black Caucus told the Chicago Sun-Times. State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, said he will decide soon after the scheduled April 8 close of the spring legislative session whether to challenge...

A non-profit’s ambitious, $1 billion plan to send thousands of inner-city students and their parents to college or trade school is, ultimately about stopping the unrelenting gang violence plaguing Chicago, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson said Friday. After leaving her pressure-cooker job last year, Jackson signed on at CEO of Hope Chicago, the non-profit founded by Pete Kadens and...

Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine could raise gas prices by 50 cents a gallon, infuriating an already angry electorate and making a “hard hand” for Democrats even worse in this year’s elections. That’s the tough-love bottom line from former Obama presidential adviser-turned-CNN commentator David Axelrod, director and co-founder of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

Jurors Monday took about three-and-a-half hours to find Thompson guilty of two counts of lying to regulators and five counts of filing false federal income tax returns. State law requires Thompson to resign his seat on the City Council. Sun-Times investigative reporter Tim Novak, columnist Mark Brown, and federal courts reporter Jon Seidel discuss the conviction and what this means for the Daley f...