got this from a friend? subscribe and cut out the middleman.
also: this fledgling newsletter is now on instagram.

the mayor would like the chicago housing authority to do what he says. the housing authority has a different idea. the CHA board voted in keith pettigrew as the new CEO. mayor johnson wanted his ally, former ald. walter burnett, in the role instead. when the board picked pettigrew anyway, johnson moved to oust board chair matthew brewer and replace him with commissioner jawanza malone. brewer says the mayor didn't follow proper procedure. the cook county clerk's office has no record of the new appointment paperwork. the CHA has been without a permanent leader for 18 months. johnson's office called brewer's decision "fully inconsistent with the housing authorities act." brewer called it a power grab. both are technically correct, which is the most chicago outcome possible.

jessica biggs wants to be president of the chicago school board. the elected member representing parts of downtown and the south side announced monday she's running for board president. biggs is a former CPS principal who won her district 6b seat in the november 2024 election. she'll face sendhil revuluri, a former board vice president who announced his candidacy earlier. the election is in november. the current board just finished hiring a permanent CPS CEO, voting 18-1 to give macquline king the job last week. now the question is who runs the board that runs the board. the campaign starts seven months early because that's how chicago politics works.

chicago's ADU ordinance is now permanent and covers way more of the city than the pilot did. as of april 1, the number of parcels eligible for accessory dwelling units jumped from about 116,000 to 320,000. that means roughly 60 percent of the city's residential and mixed-use areas can now legally add coach houses, basement apartments, or attic conversions. the pilot program that started in 2021 covered five small zones. the permanent ordinance passed city council 46-0 last september. if you own property in an RT or RM zoning district, you're eligible by right. single-family zones need aldermanic opt-in, and over two-thirds of wards have done so. check eligibility at chicago.gov/ADU.

oswego is turning an old junior high school into 161 apartments and townhomes. the village board approved ordinances to begin the sale and redevelopment of the former traughber junior high school site on washington street. the village board approved the framework to purchase the 12.3-acre property for $2.1 million from school district 308, which was spending over $250,000 a year just to maintain the empty building. the revised plan features 36 owner-occupied townhomes and 125 apartments across five three-story buildings — down from an original proposal of 239 units that the planning commission rejected for being too dense. the old school building gets razed. the new development sits within walking distance of downtown oswego.

a group of aurora elementary schoolers just won the presidential AI challenge for illinois. eva gupta, samarth sehgal, avik tiwari, and anya dua — students at brooks elementary school — were named illinois state winners for their project called "project GUIDE" and are advancing to the regional competition. separately, two sixth-graders from francis granger middle school in aurora, anaika sehgal and arshiya mansingh, also won the state title in their division. these are elementary and middle schoolers building AI projects that won a national competition at the state level. whatever you were doing in fourth grade was not this.

evanston's reparations committee voted to recommend taxing delta-8 to fund reparations payments. the committee voted 4-1 to send the proposal to city council. the idea is that a tax on delta-8 THC products — the cheaper, less-regulated cousin of legal cannabis — would generate revenue for the program. ald. krissie harris told the committee she'd rather ban delta-8 entirely, calling it "a hot mess." the committee also approved a $310,000 allocation from the sale of an abandoned building.

the tax deadline is april 15 and this year has new deductions you might not know about. if you earn overtime, some of that pay is now deductible. same for tips if you work in a tipping job. there's also a new vehicle interest deduction if you use a car for work. these were added by the tax bill signed last summer and a lot of people are filing without claiming them. if you normally take the standard deduction, it's worth checking whether itemizing saves you more this year — especially if you have medical expenses, state and local taxes, or charitable donations that add up. the IRS free file program is open through april 15 for people earning under $89,000. don't leave money on the table because you were too busy to spend 20 minutes on it.

eat: the alley cat at 2013 W. Division in west town. new neighborhood bar from the paulie gee's team — derrick tung, william ravert, and tony dezutter. draft cocktails, beer-and-shot combos, and potato wedges with chives. moody 1920s-1940s vibe with a repurposed chopin theatre chandelier. opening any day now.

do: garfield park conservatory's spring flower show, "showers of flowers." 80-plus hanging baskets of trailing vines, ferns, pansies, and petunias. free admission. open daily through may 10. it's warm inside, which matters when it's 41 degrees outside.

hey — if you’d like to put your business in front of the readers of this very email, reply with a little about what you do. small, weird, or local: we like all three.

green city market's outdoor season just started in lincoln park. the saturday market opened april 4 and runs 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. through november. local produce, meat, cheese, bread, and enough free samples to qualify as a small breakfast. your kids can pet the market dog, hold a carrot, and learn where food comes from that isn't a doordash bag. it's at the south end of lincoln park near the nature museum. free to walk around. bring a tote bag.

food & wine's april issue features what their taster called "the best matzo ball soup i've ever eaten." the issue leans into spring produce — green pea risotto, coconut cream pie, a gyudon rice bowl that takes 25 minutes — but the matzo ball soup is the one that made their senior portfolio manager stop and rethink their life. the recipe is on their site. make it this week while it still feels like soup weather.

the last ward's "the real reason brandon johnson fired his public safety leadership" is the best piece of chicago political reporting you'll read this month. austin berg names the employee at the center of the performance improvement plan dispute — alyx goodwin, a senior policy advisor in the office of community safety who previously helped lead the stop shotspotter campaign. the piece traces the firings to a public safety operation accountable to a political coalition rather than outcomes, and connects it to kennedy bartley, the mayor's chief external affairs officer, who previously ran united working families. "i came into this role expecting to find a dirty police department," says community commission president anthony driver. "what i found was a dirty city." it's free on substack and it's the kind of story that explains why chicago government works the way it does.

Be the smartest person in the room. 1440 navigates 100+ sources to deliver a comprehensive, unbiased news roundup — politics, business, culture, and more — in a quick, 5-minute read. Completely free, completely factual.

Sign up now!

sponsored

if you're going to build a basement apartment, now's the time to start measuring.
also: go see some flowers indoors and pretend it's may.

tips, corrections, your best matzo ball soup recipe?

reply with your neighborhood and one thing that made you pause, squint, or text someone “???”

talk thursday.

-sam