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Dec. 2.
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Alex Nitkin
18.2K posts
Alex Nitkin
@AlexNitkin
Gov't Finance & Accountability reporter, @IllinoisAnswers/@BetterGov. Formerly of @thedailylinechi, @trdchicago & @DNAinfoChi. Tips: [email protected]
Chicago Katılım Haziran 2009
924 Takip Edilen5.5K Takipçiler
Alex Nitkin retweetledi
Months After Late Property Tax Bills, Thousands Are Still Waiting With No Resolution in Sight. by @ad_quig @chicagotribune and @AlexNitkin @IllinoisAnswers illinoisanswers.org/2026/04/26/mon…
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Watchdog finds the City Council's in-house financial research body hasn't been living up to its mandate to provide reliable, independent counsel — even as it's added some more members in recent years.
Context from our story last year on @ChicagoCOFA:
illinoisanswers.org/2025/05/06/ami…
Chicago Office of Inspector General@ChicagoOIG
OIG finds @ChicagoCOFA provided limited assistance to City Council in budget planning and decision making. 🔗 igchicago.org/publications/c…
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Damn. Definitely never heard the head of a sister agency speak this way about a sitting mayor:
(Context from @jus10chi:
chicagobusiness.com/politics-polic…)
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Alex Nitkin retweetledi
Hearing on the CTA’s motion for a TRO in its Red Line Extension case against the feds is today at 10am. From court filings: “A city’s infrastructure is its lifeblood; it is what makes a city a city”
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New: Chicago officials have for years resisted calls to mandate proactive apartment safety inspections, even as renters keep dying in preventable fires.
The City Council just passed an ordinance directing departments to study the idea in earnest:
illinoisanswers.org/2026/03/18/pro…
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@FrankCalabrese Frank unless you have a copy of the letter, please link to an article that reported this!
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Alex Nitkin retweetledi
After more than three decades in network news, I find this @bariweiss direction a massive misunderstanding of the TV audience. Paid opinion is ubiquitous. Real reporting is precious.
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Alex Nitkin retweetledi
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting may be gone, but the mission it fueled lives on at the @NewsHour : free, fair, independent journalism for all -- without paywalls or partisan pressure.
If that work matters to you, help us keep it going. Support our work by donating here: give.newshour.org/page/80037/don…
philip lewis@Phil_Lewis_
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been dissolved, ending its 58 years as the primary funder for PBS, NPR and local TV and radio stations huffpost.com/entry/latest-n…
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I'm sure no one wants to hear this right now, but worth keeping in mind:
Any meeting of more than 12 alders that isn't open to the public is a violation of the Illinois Open Meetings Act
Paris Schutz@paschutz
A three hour weekend meeting between Alders and Mayor didn't yield much... this email from Ald Samantha Nugent to other proponents of the "alternative budget" indicates they will go forward with budget votes of their own this week... as the two sides engage in a congress-like spending standoff:
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Context on this practice, before anyone thinks Council staffers are getting $200K bonuses...
illinoisanswers.org/2025/04/14/chi…
Citizen 𝑣𝑠 Machine, PhD@CitizenVMachine
It's happening again... 🎅 Christmas bonus season for aldermanic staff! 🎅
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Anecdotal evidence abounds to support these programs. No allegations of waste or fraud. But the city's impulse to hide from Qs like "what's your evidence for sustaining youth employment" is feeding its trust deficit w/ City Council as they strain to pass a budget by 12/31.
/END
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Budget officials said they conducted a "sustainability analysis" for whether each ARPA-funded program should be preserved.
So we FOIA'd for that analysis. After more than a month of delays, they finally delivered last night, and almost every page looks like this:
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New from me: budget hawks have called on @ChicagosMayor to cut ARPA-funded programs before considering any new taxes. But it's been hard to nail down the exact price tag of federal programs the mayor wants to keep.
After six weeks of reporting, we found the number: about $33M.
The BGA's Illinois Answers Project@IllinoisAnswers
With a $1.2B deficit looming, Johnson defends pandemic-era programs he says helped cut crime. Much of City Council remains skeptical. From @AlexNitkin: illinoisanswers.org/2025/12/02/chi…
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Alex Nitkin retweetledi
A stat worth knowing: McKinsey the consulting firm has more employees than there are journalists of any kind in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The New Yorker@NewYorker
Newspapers are closing at an emergency-level rate—over the past 20 years, America has lost more than 3,000. For the past six years, the photographer Ann Hermes has been documenting the lives lived in these dying places across the country. See more images: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/059DXx
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Alex Nitkin retweetledi
Reporter @AlexNitkin will be on @ABC7Chicago today to discuss his recent story on property tax increases.
Watch live at 8:45 a.m. here: abc7chicago.com/watch/live/
And read the story here: illinoisanswers.org/2025/11/17/rec…
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Must-read @sidneeking on how a U-turn in federal housing policy is about to make it much harder for Chicago and other cities to fight homelessness:
The BGA's Illinois Answers Project@IllinoisAnswers
The Trump administration is dramatically cutting the money available to help pay for housing for people in need, including those with mental illness or disabilities. illinoisanswers.org/2025/11/18/new…
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