31st.

Deadline looming to pass the city budget Mayor Brandon Johnson City Council remain divided over how to close the budget gap.

Meanwhile, alders demand reforms to the city's do not hire list.

And in the 7th week 7th, everybody could imagined trial.

It was the defense's turn to grill.

Former alderman turned FBI mole Danny Solis here with all that more is our spotlight.

Politics team Amanda, Vicki Hatter, Sharon and Nick Blumberg.

Hello again, everyone maybe the holiday season, but of course, there is no holiday from dealing with the budget deadline at City Hall.

Heather, where are the mayor and the city council in terms of getting to a compromise?

Well, that's a good question, because as I reported yesterday, Mayor Johnson said he stopped negotiating the budget in public.

So >> the city council is going to try to pass the budget on December.

11th in December 13th, the 2, 2 step project.

But they have somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 million dollars ish to fill.

And that's assuming that they raise attacks on computer services leases by 2% to generate about 130 million dollars.

So there's a sizable gap left by that refusal of the city council to pass a property tax increase.

Now everyone at City expect some level of property tax probably tied to inflation over the last year to be included in the budget because otherwise the math just doesn't work.

But it's not clear what else will be included or if there will be cuts.

And Mayor said that his red line, he won't approve a budget that cut services or lay-offs.

City employee got to come from somewhere Heather.

We also heard Mayor Johnson for the first time he's addressing the firing of his longtime friend and close aide Ranieri's addressing it yesterday.

>> What are we here?

So he said that he basically inherited a process and that process was 5 followed, but that he didn't know anything about the allegations against Ranieri's until the Chicago Tribune and other news media organizations, including Wt Tw requested the file that prompted Ranieri's to be fired.

Now, we should say that he denies any allegations of harassment or Anti-Semitism or misogyny.

And the mayor said, look, there's a process.

We followed it.

There's you know, I will not allow any of that to take place in my office, but he said he didn't know about until it's sort of rock over the media.

We heard several older people today sort of question about why he appears to have been the last to know about this issue.

Someone who works so closely with him on the 36th Ward Alderman Gilbert Villegas and 30nd Ward Alderman Scott Webb.

It us back held a news conference outside City Hall demanding reforms to what's known as the city's do not hire list.

>> There's a lot of inconsistencies around.

Just do not hire list.

And it's very, very, very great.

And so what Alderman want back and rest of us are going put some guardrails around here to make sure there's more transparency around this process.

>> So, Nick, what exactly is the do not hire list and why were these 2 mayoral critics calling for changes to it?

Well, this is a longstanding practice in the city.

It's exactly what it sounds like.

If someone is fired for serious misconduct or if it's they resign rather than being fired or retire.

Or if it's discovered later that there was some serious misconduct while they were on the job, they are placed on this.

Do not hire list.

You cannot appeal it until at least one year has gone by department heads are supposed to put together, you know, essentially a memo saying here's what went wrong.

Here's the you know, the supplementary information.

But, you know, the policy has has come under fire because there's just not enough detail there.

We don't know enough about what serious misconduct could potentially entailed violating department rules.

We don't necessarily have a robust enough appeals process and then this is tied up in, you know, sort of the Ranieri's firing.

This is not why he is gone from the city.

But, you know, he came under fire for pushing out some former Lori Lightfoot staffers and then putting them on the do not hire list for reasons that critics and a lot of were purely political.

So all this is coming together and sort of a swirl of what are the right policies that should be in place.

How do we ensure that a chart city hall is actually doing right by most recent meanwhile, has at least thus far not been placed on that.

Do not hire list.

I can report that they expect him to be added to that list it.

And reported that there was a deputy chief of the police that should have been placed on the do not hire list.

And for some reason, what's not after city's watchdog found that he gauged engaged in excessive McCown misconduct in August 2020.

So this is sort of a black hole of city operations.

>> And it's designed to prevent people who have committed sort of wrongdoing or malfeasance from finding another job with another city department or another city agency.

I think what we heard from the all the people today is it working as expected?

But yet here point, Amanda, the fact that there were these serious allegations that he did end up, you know, leaving the city and was not initially placed on that list raised.

I think, you know, understandably a lot of questions.

So turning to the Vatican trial week, was the defense's turn to grill.

Former alderman turned FBI mole Danny Solis.

Amanda.

>> How did he hold up?

>> I mean, he there.

He had to go under many days, first of direct examination, the cross.

And let's be clear, this is what he had expected and frankly signed up for.

If you get a get out of jail and get to keep you in $100,000 plus pension card from prosecutors.

You're going to have to do something for that mess and faculty dead standing up to questioning that really coming under fire for not just what we heard on the tapes and continued questions from defense attorneys as to whether it was ever the former House speaker himself that was pressuring for a deal or a quid pro quo.

And in fact, in exchange highlighted where you had on Danny Solis saying, you know, you've done so much for and again, I want to do something for you in the former speaker saying don't worry about it.

That was highlighted.

But also, I mean, it his own indiscretions came up.

Some we talked about previously be is more the little blue pill, but also questions about campaign finance violations, potentially tax fraud, potential other areas that may have sort of come up against the law that he might be embarrassed about.

And so really what you went through a flogging on the stand, OK?

So from the federal courthouse to the state's attorney during Eileen O'Neill, Berks swearing-in ceremony yesterday, it could count as the county's top prosecutor.

Of course.

>> She compared Chicago war zone.

Nick, what does she plan to do about that?

Will she announced some new changes to the pre-trial detention policy?

You know, previously prosecutors had had discretion as to whether they would request that.

>> But now there's a policy in place for certain very serious offenses are very serious allegations.

>> They're going to go after that.

4 defendants who had something like an extended magazine on a gun or a ghost town.

They're going to go after it automatically for domestic violence related cases.

When there's, you know, a weapon involved, you know, for a assault cases with the victim under 13.

So these are the kinds of things that, you know, based on the numbers that we've seen, prosecutors were regularly asking for pretrial detention and a lot of these cases.

>> Now, this is the message from the top.

And she said this is necessary, as you mentioned, because Chicago is in, you know what she sees as sort of a war zone with gun filings.

We should mention, as we've reported before, you know, homicides shootings are trending downward, including this year over last.

And it's interesting to see because this is the kind you know, rhetoric that we've heard from, for example, President elect Donald Trump who has, in fact used those words, said Chicago is about as dangerous as Afghanistan.

Certainly she's coming at this from a very different political perspective, but trying to use some pretty strong language to or, you know, draw the lines are out what she thinks her new office needs to be doing.

All right.

So a former Mayor Rahm Emanuel is back on the political scene few months before ending his time as U.S. ambassador.

>> To Japan now during an interview with The New York Times, he did not rule out a run for chair of the Democratic National and defending his time in Chicago.

Heather, what stuck out to you?

As you know, his political reemergence in about 30 seconds?

What was interesting that he was neither asked about in our mention pluck one McDonald course the 16 year-old who is murdered by Chicago police officer.

He also defended the school closures that were so controversial more than a decade ago.

And he bemoaned the red tape that he had to sort through to build the new Green Line Station near McCormick Place.

And it was an interesting defense of his tenure in time that I had not heard many a year, which means we're in for another round of