City briefings: Chicago schools cut 407 jobs, $32 million in costs

Chicago Public Schools laid off 227 staffers Friday and closed another 180 central and administrative positions, "painful" cuts school officials say will save $32 million this year.

The reductions will come from technical, special education, payroll, procurement and law positions.

Classroom teachers were spared.

"There's no doubt that these cuts were painful," CEO Forrest Claypool said in a statement. "However, with limited resources and a budget crisis not just this year but into the foreseeable future, we had no choice."

School officials say annual savings from all layoffs and reductions since August 1 will total $45.1 million starting next year but did not immediately provide a breakdown of that sum.

Adams Street bridge to close for year

One of the busiest West Loop bridges will be closed for reconstruction for more than a year starting Monday.

Starting after the evening rush on Monday, Jan. 25, the roadway on the Adams Street Bridge over the South Branch of the Chicago River will be closed for reconstruction for an estimated 13 months, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.

The structure is one of the city's bascule bridges, which raise and lower to allow for boat traffic. CDOT has "rebuilt or substantially repaired most of the other bascule bridges over the past ten years. This work allows for restoration of their function and extension of their usable life," a statement from the department said.

City launches new recycling initiative

A city that wasted more than a decade on a disastrous blue-bag recycling program is now trying to make another fundamental shift by persuading Chicagoans to stop putting bags into their blue carts in a campaign that, recycling experts hope, will be a prelude to penalties.

On Jan. 1, the Department of Streets and Sanitation implemented a new policy: Recyclables must be placed in blue recycling carts loose without a bag. Carts that contain bags will no longer be accepted.

Instead, recycling crews will place a sticker on those carts informing homeowners of the violation. Stickered carts will then be picked up by city crews collecting routine garbage.

"Smaller plastic bags contaminate the stream of otherwise good recyclable materials. Some people are using them as another trash can. Bags get shredded. Plastic bags at sorting centers can damage the equipment," said Streets and Sanitation spokeswoman Jennifer Martinez.

Wrigleyville leaders oppose security plan

Wrigleyville community leaders are urging Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to reject the Cubs' request to shut down Addison and Clark on game days at Wrigley Field - and widen adjacent sidewalks by up to 10 feet into both streets - in the name of ballpark security.

"The mayor is not in a position to force all of these changes down the throats of residents in the same way he was three years ago because of City Hall scandals and his handling of certain matters that have people calling for his resignation," said Jim Spencer, president of East Lake View Neighbors.

"At some point, and I think we're at that point, the city has to tell the Cubs, `Don't bother coming back with any more stuff because you've already gotten way more than you deserve. You're just not going to get any more because the neighborhood has no more to give. The well is dry.'"

Plan panel OKs Blackhawks project

The old Malcolm X College will be demolished to make way for a Blackhawks practice facility and a $500 million "academic village" for Rush University Medical Center that includes a dormitory for 300 students.

The Chicago Plan Commission made certain of it Thursday by approving both projects, which will share the 11-acre site at 1900 W. Van Buren. Four acres will go to the Blackhawks. Seven acres are set aside for Rush.

Together, the Blackhawks and Rush will pay $26.7 million for the land. That matches the value placed on the 486,526 square feet of land by the city's third-party appraiser.

Sheriff, city cops to work together

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said he recently met with interim Chicago Police Supt. John Escalante at a coffeehouse to talk shop.

What emerged from their discussion is a strengthened partnership in which city cops and county sheriff's officers will work together to target violent crime in the Harrison and Austin police districts on the West Side, Dart said.

Murders and shootings this month are about double what they were over the same period of last year. Murders and shootings were up in 2015, too, compared to the previous year.

"We have been doing operations, but not as coordinated as this," Dart said.

"This will be a more thoughtful approach," he said.

The sheriff's office and the police department will work together on drug and gun investigations, Escalante said.

Vacation rentals spur city council debate

Two aldermen are demanding Thursday that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel scrap his plan to regulate and tax the burgeoning home-sharing industry in favor of enforcing the stricter vacation rental ordinance they spent two years negotiating, only to have it largely ignored.

Six years after the ordinance took effect, City Hall has licensed only 200 vacation rental units. Airbnb, VRBO and other companies that facilitate home rentals are currently marketing more than 4,000 units.

"We have a perfectly good law on the books. The city should focus more effort and attention on enforcing that law before revising it to essentially unleash Airbnb to potentially wreak havoc on the quality of life in neighborhoods across Chicago," downtown Alderman Brendan Reilly said.

• This week's City Briefing was collected in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. For complete versions of the items, check chicago.suntimes.com.