The Chicago City Council held its full monthly meeting yesterday.  We've got some of the highlights:

Budget Priorities Take A Beating

All eyes have been on Mayor Daley's 2010 spending plan as of late, which relies on $370 million from the city's asset-sale proceeds to help balance next year's $6.14 billion budget. Despite this windfall, the safety net is still going to take a hit.  During the public portion of yesterday's meeting, several social service providers testified in favor of restoring the cuts to substance abuse and mental health funding. As regular readers may recall, the city's 12 mental health clinics will lose an additional $3 million in state funding this year because of the Daley administration's own incompetence at implementing a new $16 million billing system.

In response, Ald. Joe Moore (49th Ward) voiced support for rescinding the cuts and blasted Daley's "property tax relief" gimmick -- a plan introduced yesterday to pull $35 million from a reserve fund created by the parking meter lease to refund some taxpayers between $50 and $100 on their bills. "What impact is that going to have on those homeowners lives? It's very negligible," Moore said. "I think you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck by helping the mentally ill lead productive lives through counseling and other support services."  Listen:

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Ald. Moore isn't the only one slamming Daley's meager property tax rebate. After combing through the budget proposal, the Civic Federation concluded (PDF) that, while the city should indeed pull $56.5 million from the parking meter human infrastructure fund for operating expenses, none of it should go to Daley's so-called property tax relief.  Elsewhere in their report, the business-friendly think tank pushed for greater cuts and chided the mayor for dipping into the asset sale reserves, urging the City Council to enact certain safeguards.

The Federation also called out Daley's efforts to keeping the vast tax increment financing (TIF) budget hidden in the shadows, noting that there's no excuse for excluding "full financial information including expenses, revenues, fund balance and debt" from the annual budget.

Lyle Slams Proposed Wal-Mart Expansion

Later in the meeting, one of City Hall's most reliable critics of Wal-Mart's race to the bottom, Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th Ward), went toe-to-toe with Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper yesterday over the mega-retailer's push to open additional stores in Chicago. The common refrain from pro-business groups like the Chamber has been that the South Side is lucky to attract any new jobs in this economy and that the community is starved for low-cost retailers.

Lyle isn't so sure.  "We have been taught as a people in the past 20 or 30 years that we're just consumers and all we should be looking for is the lowest price. But we're not just consumers," she said. "We're citizens, we're parents, and hopefully, we're taxpayers ... While I want the lowest price, I don't want to do it at a cost of impoverishing my neighbor."  Listen:

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Lyle's remarks came after several other aldermen questioned Roper about Wal-Mart without bringing up the issue of wages.

Keeping The DREAM Act Alive

Yesterday, aldermen reaffirmed their support for Sen. Dick Durbin's DREAM Act by handily passing a resolution (by a 49 -1 vote) that calls on Congress to create a path to citizenship for young adults who've spent most of their lives in the U.S. The plight of Rigoberto Padilla -- an honor student from the University of Illinois at Chicago who is scheduled for deportation next month based on a misdemeanor DUI offense -- has become a prime example of the need for comprehensive immigration reform. With Congress poised to act next year, aldermen are calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to halt the deportation of students like Padilla who would be eligible for legal status under Durbin's measure. Alds. George Cardenas (12th Ward), Manny Flores (1st Ward), Ricardo Muñoz (22nd Ward), Danny Solis (25th Ward), and Toni Preckwinkle (4th Ward) took the lead on the resolution (Ald. Jim Balcer cast the sole "no" vote).

Here's what the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) had to say following the roll call:

The plight of Rigo, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), illustrates what is wrong with current immigration laws. He came to Chicago at age 6, and has lived in Chicago most of his 21 years. During this time, Rigo has been deeply involved in the community, volunteering, studying, working and in general making Chicago a better place. Nevertheless, he is scheduled for deportation on December 16.

More than 400,000 immigrants have been deported in the past year, with damaging consequences for countless communities.  Rigo is a great kid, an outstanding student, a hardworking young man with many aspirations and dreams to become better and to contribute more to this country, the country he calls home. The passage of this resolution is a symbolic action that sends a very powerful message to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and DHS: we cannot allow more lives to be destroyed by an unfair, outdated immigration system that doesn’t reflect our values as a country of opportunity and fairness.

More Transparency From The Police Board?

The Chicago Justice Project (CJP) made a splash last month when it released a report questioning why the city's Police Review Board -- the last line of defense for police accountability -- is so reluctant to fire wayward police officers. Despite the police superintendent's own recommendation to cut certain officers loose, CJP found that the board inexplicably kept 63 percent of those officers on the payroll.

Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd Ward) responded yesterday by introducing an ordinance that would require the board to better explain those decisions. The Sun-Times explains:

Fioretti is proposing that board members’ individual votes on officers’ disciplinary cases be posted within two business days on the Chicago Police Board’s Web site and stay online for at least two years. He also is proposing that all findings and decisions — including an explanation of the reasoning behind them and a rationale for dissenting votes — be posted online for two years, too.

Under Fioretti's measure, board members -- nearly half of whom skipped 30 percent or more of the monthly meetings -- would also see their annual stipends cut. Term limits would also be imposed so board members could only serve consecutive five-year terms. “CJP fully endorses these ordinance revisions,” writes executive director Tracy Siska.