In a discussion by journalists Dave Glowacz and Ben Joravsky, Dave and Ben listened to and evaluated September, 2023 meetings of the Chicago City Council.

Traffic safety committee chair Ald. Daniel La Spata
(1); police and fire committee chair Brian Hopkins
(2); and finance committee chair Pat Dowell (3).
Photo by Dave Glowacz.

In the standard version of the episode, Dave played audio of the full council meeting that happened on Sept. 14. In the excerpt, Mayor Brandon Johnson and aldermen introduced a measure that would boost Chicago's real estate transfer taxes, to provide revenue to help the city's unhoused residents.

The premium version of the episode has more audio from the Sept. 14 meeting. Listeners can hear aldermen discuss tax-increment financing for the city to buy a building intended as a migrant shelter.

Also in the premium version, listeners can hear a controversy around aldermanic approval of Mayor Johnson's pick for city comptroller. That debate took place at a Sept. 11 meeting of the council's finance committee.

Finally, in the premium version of the episode, Dave played audio from the "phantom" meeting of the full council that happened on Sept. 13—and told why that meeting took place.

Length 10.3 minutes standard, 46.7 minutes premium.

Music: "guns v butter" by Health & Beauty
Copyright 2018 (CC BY-SA).

Standard audio:

Premium audio: