>> Now the city plans to spend the last of its dwindling federal COVID relief funds.

Fresh efforts to rid the Chicago Police Department of extremist officers and how the elimination of a state grocery tax could impact municipalities across the state, including Chicago here with all that and more is our spotlight politics team.

Of course, Amanda Vicki and Heather Sharon.

Welcome back.

Team.

Mayor Johnson was asked today about the city's proposed 830 million dollar borrowing plan and a lack of trust between the mayor's office and the City Council.

Here's a little of what he had to say referencing a question at a recent W t Tw Forum.

>> It was a constituent who came to the wt tw open for him and she said mayor either fixed the streets or fix my car.

Guess what?

I would do.

I'm going fix the streets.

>> Some of us were there for that.

It was a funny moment from that resident Heather City Council is set to vote on the plan as we've been discussing tomorrow to borrow 830 million dollars to repair everything from streets, roads, bridges.

Why is this so controversial?

Well, it's really become the center of a social media furor with people worried that this money would be used for >> purposes other than what the mayor says it will be to repair roads and streets and bridges.

>> And also the 2027 mayor's race is already sort of starting with people looking to sort of carve out fiscally responsible lane for them, perhaps to run in 2 years.

>> And also, as you said, there's a really deep lack of trust between City Council with just endured a bruising budget negotiation and the mayor's office.

And nobody's quite sure where exactly that leaves everybody and nobody likes piling more debt on top of more debt us.

already owes nearly 30 billion dollars in general obligation debt.

So that's on top of the pension debt.

And of course, everybody's worried about finances.

The federal government pretty much in chaos.

The state government is grappling with big deficits.

And Johnson says, look, the city's got to take care of itself.

Borrowing is the really the only way he says that that's possible?

Well, and interestingly, he was also asked in general, you know, what about City budget?

What are you going to do?

For example, a federal budget cuts occur and that hurts the city as everyone sort of expecting will be the case and >> mayor is he's consistently has done albeit the Senate bit of a different direction than he's focused on previously in terms of expecting the state to send more money to schools, something that, again is part of the governor's budget plan, but not anywhere near the amount that CPS has talked about.

He said, all right, look at the local government distributive fund.

That's tax really that the state sends to municipalities statewide.

The mayor keeps I'm talking about.

We want more used to be 10%.

Now it's in the range between 6 and 7 that it's states for this municipality said he's received.

Nobody is talking about that.

Just today, the Illinois Municipal League presented their 2025 agenda raising the amount that municipalities get in this L GDF funding from the state, not one of their asks the mayor's the only one that's really talking about it.

I don't think that that portends well for it happening.

And Amanda sticking with this issue of revenue for the city of Chicago and of course, municipalities across the state.

>> Governor Pritzker has been talking up his administration's decision to eliminate the grocery the state grocery tax state.

And that takes effect at the start of next year.

Sounds like it might be good for those of us who buy groceries.

But what impact will it actually have on revenue for Chicago and other cities in Illinois?

The governor has talked about it a lot.

This is part of his budget last year and ever since and really introduce, he's been building it up and saying that while for example, President Trump is doing these tariffs and is going to >> A cost that you have restaurants and groceries.

Illinois helped cut the state's grocery tax.

It is only one percent.

So it's going to save you only a buck on $100 in as part of that package because that's money that all went to municipalities.

Chicago stands to lose between 60 to 80 million dollars starting in January.

This far the city has not voting to bring that back.

And that is something that when the state alum needed this and the grocery tax all over, they gave municipalities the option.

You can go ahead and sort of reinstitute it yourself locally.

So in many places are actually not expecting to be able to save that one dollar on $100 of food purchases because many municipalities are probably going to do that themselves.

Gust bar, according to the U.S. believe only about 60 half.

>> They say they're expecting more to do it as the time approaches.

They got to get it done by October, but really today we're having a primary race right for municipalities.

Then in April comes the general election.

They don't want to vote in a tax increase right before election.

Also, the justification for municipalities is that they want to see who wins and leave it to the new folks to make a decision on bringing that tax and a lot to keep an eye on their.

Okay.

So, Heather, you've also been doing some reporting on the city's remaining federal COVID relief funds because sticking with money tonight.

>> So just over 140 million dollars left from the 1.9 billion dollars.

How is the city going to spend that?

Well, about 450 million dollars of that total amount went to programs designed to repair the city's.

>> Tattered social safety net.

But the city had a lot more in the bank before.

As I said, this really rough budget season and the city council voted to reduce spending on these programs 87 million dollars to help balance that budget and avoid a property tax site.

So sure, 142 million dollars sounds like a lot to spend over the next 2 years when it expires.

But the city would have had significantly more had it figured out how to balance its budget without canceling programs like a renewed, guaranteed basic income program and more money for violence prevention, which we spent a lot of time talking about in last couple of weeks.

This Lee.

>> also Governor Pritzker, Amanda.

He was on CNN today.

So this is something we heard from him due to a lot of attention.

It got national attention news on Rachel Maddow after.

>> Using the end of his state of the state in the budget address, too, really talk about the state of the nation and then he made comparisons to what is happening in the United States right now under President Trump to that lead up early to World War 2 and what happens in Germany under under Hitler and he talked about that same situation again today on CNN.

So really, I don't think that I heard anything but he is bringing this message of dangers of the Constitutional Republic to a national audience.

And of course, that could perhaps a sign that he has national ambitions.

We've long known that harbored those.

He was, of course, in the running to be a vice presidential running mate.

But he also says that this is a true fear and a warning that he wants individuals to take seriously.

And there's a lot of frustration that other Democrats are not sounding the alarm with such fury.

And so the governor doing a lot of it on his own.

>> Heather, you've done extensive reporting.

Also in police misconduct, the issue of alleged extremists within the Chicago Police Department city is just no forming a task on this issue.

So, listen, we've got about 45 seconds.

Well, 8 months ago, Inspector General Denver Westword revealed that she had recommended the mayor's office formed a task force to look at sort of a whole of government approach.

How do we root out extremists might be on the city's payroll?

And at that time, the mayor's office declined but reversed course just last week but didn't issue a press release didn't hold a press event.

Really didn't throw the full force of the bully pulpit behind that effort.

This is a tough issue involving a lot of difference rules and people's First Amendment rights of association.

It's not clear whether this task force is going to start to solve problem.

That has been doubling the city for a while.

But at least there's going to be some meetings, I guess, meetings.

Hopefully you'll let us know.

I'm sure.

one thing we did not get to former Governor Jim Edgar announcing that he is battling pancreatic cancer.

Of course, we wish him