Mayor's Office

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office on Friday announced Chicago’s departments of Streets and Sanitation and Transportation plan to plant 5,400 trees around the city this year; CDOT is projected to spend $1.6 million planting roughly 2,600 trees and executing similar projects, while Streets and Sanitation is slated to plant about 2,800 trees and perform related measures at a cost of $2.9 million

Emails between Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s staff and the producers of CNN’s docu-series “Chicagoland” that were obtained by the Chicago Tribune revealed the parties communicated to cultivate Emanuel’s image in the series; Tribune reported, “Producers asked the Mayor’s Office to help them set up key interactions in what the cable network has billed as a nonscripted eight-part series”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday announced plans to develop the selective enrollment Barack Obama College Preparatory High School, which would open for the 2017-2018 school year and could take in a freshman class of almost 300 students; School, which would be developed at 640 W. Scott St. on Chicago’s Near North Side and benefit from about $60 million in TIF monies, could add freshman classes of nearly 300-students in each subsequent year

Mayor Rahm Emanuel cited the findings of a study of Chicago Public Schools high schools that was recently released by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research while on Thursday touting his efforts to improve education in the city; Study found that CPS’s freshmen-on-track rate had improved to 82 percent, from 57 percent in 2007

Sarah Hamilton, spokeswoman for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on Tuesday said in regard to the possibility that Chicago hosts the 2016 Democratic National Convention that, “We will evaluate the opportunity this could provide and proceed accordingly”; U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the DNC, in a Monday letter asked Chicago and 14 other cities to submit proposals to host the convention; Hamilton in February said the Mayor’s Office was “not actively pursuing” the DNC

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday attended a ground-breaking ceremony for West Rogers Park’s $15 million Devon Avenue streetscape project, which is funded primarily by Tax Increment Financing monies and for which work began earlier this week; Widened sidewalks, new trees and new artwork are slated to come under the project; Emanuel said, “I cannot think of a better street that represents the coming together of many, many, many different faiths in a common purpose”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday announced the city is offering about 23,000 city jobs to undocumented students who immigrated to the United States five-or-more years ago; City has made more than 22,000 summer job program-positions, 500 city internships and volunteer jobs and 30 Mayor’s Office fellowships available to such students

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to establish a task force charged with identifying possible sites for “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’ $300 million Lucas Cultural Arts Museum after Lucas expressed an interest in Chicago hosting the museum; Emanuel administration said it plans to submit a proposal to Lucas, who recently married Mellody Hobson of Chicago-based Ariel Investments

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday said it’s “not even worth applying” for summer jobs program funding after the federal government has reduced its funding for such programs; Emanuel said, despite the lack of funding, the city this year plans to offer summer jobs programs to 22,000 Chicagoans between the ages of four and 24, up from 20,000 last year