2023 City Budget Hearings [ Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities; Public Safety Administration; Business Affairs and Consumer Protection] AFTERNOON

Chicago City Council

Health

Labor

Criminal Justice

Finance

Politics

Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022
1:00 p.m. — 5:00 p.m. CDT

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121 N LaSalle St Chicago, IL 60602 (Directions)

Most days of budget hearings are expected to run all day, with an hour-long lunch break somewhere in the middle.

We are splitting each day up into morning and afternoon assignments (9am-1pm and 1pm to end). If you are available for the whole day, feel free to apply to both morning and afternoon assignments.

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If you choose to document remotely, the meeting will be live-streamed at https://www.chicityclerk.com/.

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This is the ninth of 12 days of departmental budget hearings. It will feature overview presentations from the following city departments:

Check the source website for additional information

Reporting

Edited and summarized by the Chicago - IL Documenters Team

Live reporting by Isabelle Stroobandt

Izzy Stroobandt @izzystroobandt

We’ve reconvened and we’re back with Dept of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.

01:38 PM Oct 19, 2022 CDT

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Presenting is Ken Meyer, BACP commissioner.

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Ald Reboyras starts questioning

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Reboyras: Do you have bilingual personnel?

Meyer: 48% of my employees speak a second language, and that’s 14 different languages

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Dowell: What industries do you get the most calls from?

Andy Fox, Director of Office of Labor Standards: The fair work week cases involve more employees, we have some cases with 42 locations — for us, “food industry and manufacturing” represent the most labor and time spent

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Meyer: 88% of my vacancies have been filled and it’s my goal to fill them all by the end of the year

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Ald. Waguespack: I’m in favor of trying to expand the Expanded Outdoor Dining (EOD) — but I wonder if you could address the potential expansion and the issues around how it operates?

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Meyer: We’re looking at a permanent expansion, with permitting led by CDOT. “CDOT is better equipped” for approving permits with consideration of pedestrian use and street resurfacing.

“Some caveats are that it would be seasonal”

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Waguespack: Night and weekend enforcement teams for business compliance task force is expanding — what do you hope to get from that?

Bars that get out of control after midnight are a “time suck” for police and their office

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Meyer: There’s a team that goes from 10pm-2am. “It really saves on overtime” … “Still to this day, there’s a lot of business people who think ‘City Hall closes at 4pm, they won’t notice,’”

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Meyer: Late night, there are 127 businesses operating. (after 3am)

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Ald Tunney: How do you contact small businesses? Is it all email?

Meyer: No we still do mailings for sure, absolutely.

Tunney: So the consolidated billing part — often times businesses are inundated with information

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Meyer: I want to create a dashboard with all of that information next year, “a one place they can log into and see all of their accounts,” “If we can start that with BACP and eventually tie it into other departments” that’s a good start.

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Tunney: There are still small business grants coming out of the city?

Meyer: No, the grants were important for business survival during the pandemic but now “we’re looking at helping put in more permanent structures” …

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Meyer: Next year we’re looking to “put out a robust education program so all of the non profits across Chicago” have an understanding of how to apply for grants

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Tunney: Sidewalk cafes that have taken parking — do we know how to reconcile that?

Meyer: That’s part of the ordinance ahead of the Council right now — “I don’t know that I have an answer” for how the expansion will impact the parking meter deal.

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Ald. Reilly: Can you explain why your department is opposed to approving the ordinance related to ride share? (Would increase driver rights, limit surge pricing)

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Reilly: “This is a real issue and my concern is because the CTA system at night is not safe — that’s indisputable — the people who are most at risk and the heaviest users of this are people in the service industry,”

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Reilly: “Uber and Lyft have become essentially a safety net for people in these industries” … “Having to spend 4-5 hours worth of their paycheck to get home, I think is ridiculous,”

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Meyer: “There are a lot of modes for people to get around in Chicago” … they can also call a taxi cab … “a lot of it is just the supply and demand of the private sector”

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Reilly: I can understand how that works for vacation, airline or other pricing — but “those are options” — traveling home from work isn’t an option. My concern is there isn’t really a viable alternative and its this body’s fault

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Reilly: Pedi-cab licenses — how many do we have on record today?

Meyer: “It’s down but there’s more out there, that’s the problem”

Reilly: Can we audit these?

Meyer: “Right now they just ignore us … I want to get more teeth,”

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Meyer: We use Eventbrite and other online invite pages to find illegal events — we did that last Wednesday

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Ald. Lee: can you talk about the efforts on the departments part to ensure we have language accessibility?

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Meyer: We have a good bilingual staff, when it gets into technical stuff (attorneys, etc) we use the language line. We do a lot of webinars in multiple languages. This is a priority for us.

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Ald. Rodriguez: “The office of labor standards and the work there — my understanding if you’re going from 3 investigators to 5,” — I’m assuming the demand for work is increasing, most noticeably in monolingual Spanish speakers as it relates to el milagro, am I reading that right?

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Meyer: We will have 7 investigators and we will have an assistant commissioner, “that’s a good start”

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Meyer: We are currently posting and are looking for candidates, with a bilingual question in the interview process. “That’s a high, high priority”

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Rodriguez: “Do we have an assessment that got us to those additional positions? I’m just curious if that’s enough”

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Meyer: Until the vacancies are filled, it’s hard to know — “if we’re not doing the work in a timely fashion, is it because of the vacancies” or because we need more staff

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To be clear, this is Ald. Michael Rodriguez, 22nd ward.

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Ald. Cappleman: I would love to see more work to incentivize restaurants to reduce waste, and compost

Meyer: We can work with you on that, we should have a conversation

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Cappleman: Some cities issue restaurants a sticker for their window and many residents, including myself, would make it a priority to eat at those restaurants

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Ald. Villegas expresses support for what Rodriguez was saying about spanish speaking staff being important, office potentially needing more staff

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Ald. Mitchell: Illegal garages, I have 4. People operating mechanics out of their garage — we’ve never bad anything happen. “From our standpoint, we’ve seen cars lined up” … “we’re constantly getting complaints”

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Meyer: When you’re talking to someone, ask when it’s happening so we can make sure the team is more targeted. It’s more of a cat and mouse, sometimes we show up and it’s clean and they’re at the regular job.

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Mitchell: “You’re saying you need to catch them in the act? Cars on stilts …”

Meyer: Yes

BACP rep: It’s difficult because their residential, so we have to catch them in the act

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***cars on stilts isn’t enough? …

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Mitchell: “I absolutely appreciate the expansion of the nights and weekends,”

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Mitchell: “Activating comercial corridors” What does that mean?

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Meyer: If we have a vacant storefront, we have local artists come help out. Maybe holiday decorations.

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Mitchell: That would only happen with the properties we can find the owners of?

Meyer: We give the money to the local chambers but yes they would obviously have to work with the landlords

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Ald Vasquez: We’re behind in comparison to other cities in giving money to local chambers “that do such hard and difficult work,” — are there any plans to increase that?

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Meyer: We can look through the ARP funding to see what might be available

We partner with various non profits or delegate agencies who haven’t invoiced us yet, so the money might be available but it’s committed and we just need to get on top of billing

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Vasquez: In Andersonville, we have residents asking to close Catalpa — “like sidewalk sale style,” where you have restaurants and retail out on the street — “it worked really well in little trials”

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Meyer: We can talk about that

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Meyer: When we had expanded outdoor dining it wasn’t uncommon to have foot traffic sent into the street, this time, we’re saying “let’s keep the sidewalk free and clear for people” and move the cafe into the street

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Vasquez: You can add my name to the list of alders concerned about rideshare but we can talk about that later

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Ald. Sigcho-Lopez: “I’m concerned about the consolidation of big corporate grocery stores,” and ride-share and many other previously mentioned issues… “Do you think that you will have enough staff to address” “the many issues coming”?

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Meyer: Yes, we have enough additional positions being added, and “the texting may help too” when going into companies, and bilingual staff

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Sigcho-Lopez: “When it comes to public safety and review of licenses, we have to come with some sort of procedure,” … “There are certain areas of the city that are receiving more inspections or they’re happening more frequently,” … We need to consider equity

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Ald. Taylor: During the summertime, there are probably 20-30 little shops that pop up with without a peddlers license … how do we work with them to go through the process so they don’t get shut down?

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Meyer: What we like to do is have the investigators go onto the streeet and teach them how to get the license — this is part of the “active compliance” — “a soft, meet with them, a bilingual team obviously,”

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Taylor: I’d like to see you come to ward offices and hold these events

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Taylor: Are there any conversations about businesses who have problems in another ward and want to open a second location?

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BACP: Depends on where they are in the revocation process, notify me within that 35 day public comment period and we can identify if the complaint rises to the level of denial “depending on the severity of the offenses”

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Taylor: I don’t wanna be punitive for something that happened in another ward but I also don’t want to be a fool

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Dowell: “I have a business owner in my ward that is like buckwild”

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Ald. Coleman: What’s the plan for after hours at pop up venues? Is there a plan?

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Meyer: Are you talking about licensed venue or?

Coleman: No, empty storefronts that landlords rent out unlicensed to people for events after hours

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Meyer: If you, or your staff, learn of this — give us a call. Our enforcement team is also “keeping track on Eventbrite and other social media sites for illegal activity” or unlicensed locations. Nights and weekends task force works until 2am.

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Dowell: For AirBnb, I would ask that you prove up the “hardship case” a little more — ensure it’s really a hardship case and not somebody coming up with “hokey stories”

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With that, we wrap up BACP and have come to the end of the day.

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Budget hearings will resume tomorrow again at 9am.

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Todays hearing concludes officially at 4:03pm!

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Agency Information

Chicago City Council

chicityclerkelms.chicago.gov

(312) 744-3166

@ChiCouncil

See Documenters reporting

The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago and consists of the Mayor and Aldermen elected from each of the City’s fifty wards. Source

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