Mayor's Office

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday declined to comment on whether he received a commitment from state lawmakers to provide a solution for the city’s pension crisis; Chicago's public pension funds have an outstanding defecit of $19.5 billion, and Emanuel said financially struggling cities must be helped before the statewide pension deficit can be solved

Sources told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has established an intergovernmental task force between the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office charged with reducing and preventing domestic violence

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was scheduled to host a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Eataly Italian grocer and restaurant located at 43 E. Ohio St. in the River North neighborhood Monday afternoon; Uber car service is offering free rides to or from the new store from 3:30 p.m. to midnight for new and existing Uber users who use the CHILOVESEATALY offer code

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday defended his decision not to allocate $25 million in his 2014 budget to hire more Chicago Police officers, saying that plans to continue existing staffing levels and rely on overtime hours for additional street patrols will be adequate for fighting crime

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday introduced to the City Council a number of ordinances pertaining to land development in the city; Allocation of $15.7 million in TIF funds for the Chicago Transit Authority’s redevelopment of the Quincy Street station in the Loop and the allocation of $1 million in TIF funds for the development of a Humboldt Park supportive housing center were among the ordinances introduced by the mayor

Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced to the City Council on Tuesday an ordinance that would allow for the classification of electronic cigarettes as “tobacco products,” which would be contigent upon further regulation from the Food and Drug Administration; Emanuel introduced another ordinance Tuesday that would increase to 500 feet from 100 feet the distance from a school wherein the smoking of flavored tobacco products is restricted

Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined Vice President Joe Biden Monday to mark the start of construction on the new 40-bed WINGS Metro domestic violence shelter, the first domestic violence center to open in Chicago in over 10 years

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday congratulated Jennie Magiera, digital learning coordinator for the Academy for Urban School Leadership and Chicago Public Schools’ Tech Innovator of the year, for her recent Champion of Change recognition by the White House; Emanuel said, “The City of Chicago is grateful for her efforts to find creative ways to incorporate technology into lesson plans to maximize each child's creativity and prepare our students for jobs in a 21st century economy”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday while speaking at the Bloomberg Business Summit lunch accused the press of largely ignoring three large health care benefits that stem from the Affordable Care Act in their reporting on the problems with the website’s rollout; Emanuel explained that those three benefits are: coverage of pre-existing conditions, coverage of children under a parent’s policy until age 26, and lower rates of health care inflation for the last three years 

Chicago Tribune’s Hal Dardick reported that $70 million in expected revenues from speed tickets issued to motorists caught speeding by new cameras near city schools and parks are slated to be added to the city’s $3.3 billion general revenue fund in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed 2014 budget; Emanuel promised that the city would use the speed cameras revenues to fund public services for children, and Dardick argued those fund should have been set aside in a special, separate fund