In a special meeting that lasted less than 15 minutes, the budget soared through, in part, because it included no tax or fee increases that would be passed on to residents.

 

“This budget is a great budget,” Commissioner John Daley, 11th, told the board before it voted. He emphasized that this budget is one that won’t directly impact residents’ pocketbooks and that the governing body should be proud of it.

 

Commissioner Larry Suffredin, 13th, echoed Daley’s remarks.

 

“This budget is a well-crafted budget,” Suffredin said. “The fact that our pension is in the best shape … is a credit to the work that’s gone on in the last three years.

 

Preckwinkle inherited a $487 million budget deficit when she took office, a hole that was reduced to around $18.7 million next year.

 

Activists and transit advocates have long argued that transforming South Side and south suburban Metra lines into rapid transit service could be a boon for areas suffering from disinvestment and population loss, providing equitable transit and better access to employment.... This year, they’ve gained a powerful partner in that vision: Cook County. After a recent study on mobility, county officials have proposed a pilot program targeting areas that currently have the least access to transportation among transit-dependent zip codes. The plan would add 22 more trains to the Metra Electric line each day and discount Metra fares in the south suburbs. On both the Metra Electric and Rock Island lines, the pilot would also reduce fares within city limits, matching CTA prices, and provide free transfers to Pace and CTA.

James Darby remembers the moment he first saw the man who would one day be his husband.

 

“I was so taken aback by how beautiful he was that I whistled at him,” Darby said, imitating the wolf whistle he hoped would entice Patrick Bova on that hot July day.

 

But a friend chastised him, saying “we don’t whistle at guys on the South Side.”

 

“And I said ‘I don’t give a s---, look at how good looking he is,” Darby remembers.

 

That was 1963. The two men were eventually able to marry, but it would take more than half a century.

 

Darby and Bova were the lead plaintiffs in a 2012 suit against the Cook County clerk’s office, challenging its refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

 

The following year, the state legalized marriage equality.