Check out our updates below for what happened in City Council this month! Thanks to our summer intern Ian McCready for helping put this edition of the round up together!
Legislation Passed
Snap Curfew
The Snap Curfew Ordinance, SO2025-0016732, passed City Council. This ordinance allows the Chicago Police Department broad discretion to impose “snap” curfews for gatherings of 20 or more youth. While well-intended, there are several pieces of the ordinance that gave Ald. Vasquez pause including the potential indefinite custody of a violator of the ordinance which seems to be a clear violation of due process that could result in expensive lawsuits for Chicago taxpayers, the lack of clarity around how CPD won’t utilize this ordinance to enforce people exercising their right to peacefully protest, as well as the likelihood that this will disproportionally criminalize youth that are already in a lower economic bracket and are unable to access programming and third-spaces. Ald. Vasquez voted no on the ordinance, and remains open to working with colleagues on other ways of removing guns from streets and providing youth alternate spaces to congregate and be kids. The Mayor has signaled his intent to veto the ordinance.
Settlements
Settlement for William Carter v. Ronald Watts, et al. (Or2025-0017895): Seeking a settlement in a case where the plaintiff claims to have been arrested with false evidence due to the actions of the convicted police officer Ronald Watts.
Settlement for Bernard Williams v. Kriston Kato, et al. (Or2025-0017896): A settlement for an individual who was wrongfully convicted of a murder and held in prison for 23 years.
Settlement for James Gibson v. City of Chicago, et al. (Or2025-0017897): A settlement for an individual who was wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit and served 29 years in prison.
Minor Revision of Curbstoning Prevention
You may recall that a version of this was passed a few council meetings ago that grants the Department of Streets and Sanitation the authority to tow unlawful vehicles parked on public streets for the purpose of sale, without the involvement of CPD, as well as allowing DSS to tow the offending vehicle immediately. A minor revision was made to the code language (SO2025-0017559) to explicitly omit the need for a 2-day notification provided beforehand for DSS to be able to tow. Process improvements are sometimes iterative based on ground-truthing them and that is what we did here, thanks to Ald. Mitchell for his partnership on this!
Legislative Referrals and Introductions
For a list of all Sponsored legislation, see here.
Data Provision Regarding June 4th Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Incident
On June 4th 2025, many immigrants who were participating in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program received surprise texts for check-ins at the ISAP BI Building on S. Michigan Ave. When City staffers and Alders arrived on the scene to join organizers supporting these constituents being surprise detained and torn from their family members by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), CPD was present and seemed to have a high level of interaction with DHS. This raised red flags around potential violations of Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance. Ald. Vasquez has therefore introduced an order (Or2025-0017810) to understand more about the City’s dispatch of CPD to this incident to make sure that Public Safety Departments are well-trained in ordinance compliance.
FOIA Reporting on Sensitive Data
Ald. Vasquez was notified of a DHS FOIA request to the City that was responded to by a CPD FOIA officer that included arrest records of immigrants with names, places of birth, pictures, and home addresses. In response to this, Ald. Vasquez introduced an ordinance (O2025-0018168) for the Executive Director of the Office of Public Safety and Administration to provide monthly reports to the Chair of the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights to understand FOIA patterns of inquiry by the federal government and to make sure the appropriate redactions to protect personally identifiable information in accordance with FOIA law are being followed in responses. This was referred to the Committee on Public Safety.
Call for Hearing on FOIA Training and Response Practices
Following the above-mentioned disclosure of sensitive data, Ald. Vasquez introduced a resolution (R2025-0018172) calling on all City departments and offices that respond to Freedom of Information Act requests to discuss internal training, response policies and public maintenance of FOIA records to make sure the Bodily Autonomy and Welcoming City Ordinances are not undermined. This was referred to the Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight and we hope to work with Chair Martin to hear this item.
Call for Hearing to Address Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes
Ald. Vasquez and Ald. Martin introduced (R2025-0018164) calling for hearing(s) by Chicago Commission on Human Relations on pattern of anti-Jewish hate crimes, hate incidents, and hate-based tensions.
Call for Hearing to Address Smoking on CTA
Ald. Vasquez co-Sponsored a resolution (R2025-0018153) introduced by Ald. Conway to increase enforcement of non-smoking ordinance and to install new CTA president with public transit experience
Commemorative Resolutions
- Pride Month: The City passed a resolution celebrating pride month and honored LGBTQIA+ individuals, calling for a continued commitment to inclusivity and diversity. The individuals who help organize the City’s pride parade on the 29th of June were recognized and many council members condemned the hateful rhetoric that queer individuals have experienced under the current federal administration. Yet the City chose to focus on a message of hope and solidarity, because as Ald. Vasquez said, “Ignorance is a temporary state,” and the struggles of the queer community are connected to other groups and all peoples in Chicago.
- Juneteenth: As Juneteenth celebrates the end of chattel slavery in the United States, acknowledging and honoring the Black community is representative of acknowledging the history of that struggle for freedom and the ways in which it still manifests today. The Council acknowledged the reparations task force and honored its members in their fight for the African-American community. This included former Congressman Bobby Rush who was one of the founders of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. As the reparations task force is focused on studying the ways of amending the historic injustices that the African-American community has faced, the Council focused on the history of the Black community, as well as the contributions of notable Black community members.