Live Blogging the City Council Meeting

By Margaret Lyons in News on Sep 27, 2007 3:50PM

This is going to get way boring, but what the eff. The City Council meeting is streaming online! Watch it yourself, or just follow along with us. Updates at the bottom, until we get too tired of doing this.

10:02 They take attendance.

10:03 This stream is...meh. It keeps cutting out. "We have taken a major step in making our city government more transparent." Turns out they didn't know how hard it would be to make a webcast.

10:08 They have a prayer in the name of Jesus. "We pray, oh God, for all the representatives.... we ask to bind together these alderman and our great mayor." Yeah, it's going to take an act of God to get everyone to work together. The feed cut out when they introduced whoever offered up that prayer, but it was very churchy.

10:11 We're recognizing Private First Class Omar E. Torres, a 20-year-old soldier from Chicago who was killed in Iraq. No objections to the resolution to honor his memory.

10:16 Time to quote Abraham Lincoln.

10:18 More aldermen offering condolences/thoughts about patriotism. "Whether you're for or against it, we always must support the troops....remember those who have died in defense of our nation. "

10:21 "With time and prayer, this will heal," says Aldermen Suarez (31).

10:23 Ald Carothers (29) is also offering his thoughts.

10:24 Hey, Daley's turn. He's wearing a big ribbon on his lapel, but I can't tell what it is. He gives a nice if standard spiel about what a hero Pvt. Torres is.

10:28 Damn you, incredibly jumpy feed!

What what? You want more?

10:29 Police Officer Kathleen Klein is being commended for her bravery. She subdued a violent criminal (who'd been arrested 113 times before, holy smokes) and rescued a disabled senior citizen.

10:35 Now someone is God-blessing Officer Klein. How much g'blessing does a City Council meeting need?

10:38 Ald Smith (48) just told a story about how once, there was a naked man running around with a knife in her ward, and everyone was so disillusioned with the police that no one called 911. Moral of the story: Thanks to officers like Klein, now people WOULD call. OK!

10:41 Mayor Daley extends his thanks as well. Now everyone claps. Yay good cops!

10:42 More resolutions. Now we're honoring firefighters.

10:46 A guy drinks coffee. See photo. A prize to whoever IDs our fellow coffee drinker.

10:55 Daley's finishing up the resolution saluting firefighters and paramedics who saved a toddler.

10:57 Looks like we're getting down to business. We're racing through Daley's ordinances, appointments, post-it notes, etc, and they're being referred to committees.

11:03 Now we're doing De Valle's stack of papers. Seems like there's a lot of background chatter.

11:04 Ald Burke (14) introduces something about a parking lot on Bosworth.

11:05 A vote!! Ald. Willie Cochran (20) says "here" instead of "aye." Everyone laughs.

11:09 Resolution urging the Dept. of Procurement Services to cancel a contract. It's nonbinding.

11:10 Resolutions for appointments in two wards. No vote--they're just saying "so ordered."

11:13 Oh, sure, now we're just RACING through stuff. Some non-union city employees are being forced to take an unpaid day off, and the aldermen are going to take one too or something. I'm...not totally following this.

11:14 Coffee drinker is Ald. Burnett (27)! He's talking about a bond deal.

11:17 We're saluting the Mayor and the finance committee for approving a $900 million bond deal whose underwriting businesses are all minority-owned.

11:25 More super boring resolutions they're not even voting on.

11:37 Everyone loves Gary Chico.

11:42 Wow, they seriously love him. He's the new head of the Park District.

11:54 Losing. Steam.

12:04 Now we're talking about Fashion Focus. Aldermen...not the most fashionable people I've ever seen. And don't forget about World Boxing stuff.

12:06 Ah, now I get it: We're doing committee reports. Just FYI: We're never live-blogging this again. This was a huge mistake.

12:16 Aw, Ald. Tom Tunney's (44) father died, and now everyone's talking about it. It's kind of sweet, actually. We really hope all the Aldermen hang out together. In a club house.

12:28 Proposed ordinances being distributed to various committees. This is less interesting than watching hair grow.

12:38 It's ending. Hallelujah. Next meeting: Wednesday, October 31. OMG, costume party!

12:41 Adjourned. My coma is over.