Mayor's Office

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has plans to propose levying a lease tax on downtown office towers as part of an attempt to generate revenue for a $600 million hike in the city’s required contribution to Chicago’s firefighter and police officer pension funds, a source told the Chicago Sun-Times; Aldermen Brendan Reilly (42^nd), Scott Waguespack (32^nd) and Bob Fioretti (2^nd) are expected to express opposition to the proposal

Mayor Rahm Emanuel at Wednesday’s City Council meeting responded to aldermen’s passage of a resolution last week in which the city called for the end of Russia’s military takeover of Crimea by saying Chicago shouldn’t create its own foreign policy

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Tuesday that his pension negotiation proposal, which would replace Chicago public workers’ 3 percent COLA with increases equal to half of the inflation rate and require a 2.5 percent increase in workers’ retirement contributions, does not qualify as a “cut” to benefits; Mayor said, “I’ll tell you what a cut looks like, not getting a retirement check”; Emanuel’s measure also calls for a city property-tax increase

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Howard Tullman, CEO of the 1871 technology startup hub, on Tuesday announced commitments from area businesses to create 10 or more new jobs each over the next two years; Centro, Food Genius, SpotHero, Cleversafe, Context Media and AdYapper were among the companies to make job-creation commitments

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday used a $1.5 million Equi-Trust Life Insurance Company contribution and a $1 million Laura and John Arnold Foundation pledge to help offer the Match Education program to 1,000 Chicago Public Schools students; Program for at-risk teenagers, described as a combination of “math tutoring on steroids” and sports-based guidance, served 600 students before the new funding

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday announced a push to triple the amount of Chicago students that obtain STEM certificates within the next five years; Museum of Science & Industry is among the roughly 40 universities, nonprofit groups, and cultural institutions that will help provide training to 1,000 teachers that will provide STEM education to students under the measure

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday expressed support for an ordinance sponsored by Aldermen Joe Moreno (1^st) and George Cardenas (12^th) that would place a ban on the use of plastic shopping bags at Chicago’s retail stores; City Council Committee on Health and Environmental Protection, of which Cardenas is the chair, held a hearing on the ban earlier on Tuesday and is slated to vote on the ordinance on April 15

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a Tuesday press release that a partnership with Google Inc., under which free Wi-Fi service has recently been provided at the South Shore Cultural Center and the Garfield Park Conservatory, “supports [Chicago’s] efforts to boost wireless services to public places in neighborhood[s] across the city”; Emanuel and the Chicago Park District last year began offering free Wi-Fi at the Montrose, Foster, Rainbow, North Avenue and Osterman/Hollywood beaches