Daily Whale Originals

While ESPN was broadcasting the Little League World Series this past weekend, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was attending Chicago’s citywide youth softball and baseball tournament, the first such tournament to be held in decades.

On Saturday, Chicago Park District Superintendent Michael Kelly, representatives from the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox, and Aldermen Patrick Daley Thompson (11^th) and Danny Solis (25^th) joined Emanuel at the tournament, which took place at the University of Illinois-Chicago. 

During a meeting on Thursday, the RTA board approved a resolution pledging to support and provide financial assistance to the Union Station redevelopment project.

The resolution is intended to serve as a “preliminary indication” of the agency’s commitment to the redevelopment, RTA Executive Director Leanne Redden explained. A master plan for the redevelopment project, which the city spearheaded in partnership with Amtrak, Metra and the RTA, contains two key components: transportation improvements and real estate development.

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday vetoed a bill establishing an implied warranty of merchantability for any cars sold by used motor vehicle dealers in Illinois.

The Chicago Infrastructure Trust is taking steps to replace its aging street lighting system.

On Friday the trust’s board of directors approved a resolution to put out a request for information on a project to swap out the city’s existing street lamps for more energy-efficient LED lights.

The city currently operates a stock of some 350,000 street lights. It is not clear how many of those would be replaced with the smart lights as part of the project, Claire Tramm, energy director for the trust, told the board.

Attorneys for telecom giant Verizon Wireless Services voiced concerns to the Chicago Transit Authority on Wednesday over what they characterized as an opaque relationship between the transit agency and AT&T.

During a meeting on Wednesday, the Chicago Transit Board approved a $19.6 million, three-year deal for landline services with AT&T, which will “[f]urnish local, long distance, toll-free, and data telecommunications services.”