Erin Allen: Good morning. It's Friday. I'm Erin Allen and this is The Rundown. 

Yesterday was the last day of veto sessions this year for Illinois lawmakers and they finally approved changes to the controversial SAFE-T Act. The criminal justice reform bill will among other things, eliminate cash bail on January 1. My colleague Alex Degman tells us what will change.

Alex Degman: One change to the so called SAFE-T Act clarifies that people being held on bail before the law kicks in can either stay on bail or petitioned to move to the new system. Those accused of low level crimes get a hearing in seven days, those considered flight risks or a public threat get a hearing in two to three months. The measure also says police cannot immediately detain a person for certain burglaries, but it outlines other instances like non probation double felonies or hate crimes where they can. It says prosecutors have to use specific facts to show a person is dangerous enough for detention. It clarifies when police can arrest trespassers, and judges can issue arrest warrants for people who missed court dates.

Erin Allen: That was WBEZ reporter Alex Degman. 

Banks that hold the city's money haven't made much progress and fixing the lending gap in Chicago. That's according to a quarterly progress report city officials gave aldermen yesterday. Aldermen mandated these meetings after a WBEZ and City Bureau investigation. It found that banks aren't lending in black and Latinx neighborhoods at the same rate as white neighborhoods. Alderman Harry Osterman says the city needs to do more to hold these banks accountable.

Harry Osterman: It's not numbers on a page. It's people It's Miss Young, but it's also communities. If there are five homes on a block that are vacant rehab, they can't get loans. That impacts everybody in that community.

Erin Allen: The city encouraged smaller community banks to apply to become a municipal depository, but no one applied. 

Most Cook County property owners will see a larger tax bill this year but owners and gentrify Latinx neighborhoods in Chicago will see some of the biggest hikes. Some will see tax bills three times as large. Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas released an analysis of the new tax bills yesterday. She says gentrification was behind the biggest tax increases that hit mainly minority and Latin X neighborhoods. On the lower West Side property owners saw their median tax bill more than double from just over $2,000 to more than $7,000. According to the analysis. In Avondale, another heavily Hispanic neighborhood, the median tax bill went up to 27%. Those increases could price out many people from their homes. 

The battle over the beloved La Pietà statue inside a Pilsen church came to a crescendo this week as work crews removed the Michelangelo replica after having camped out for weeks outside the close St. Albert parish to protest the removal. Five people were arrested on Wednesday according to Block Club Chicago, and now Catholic protesters in the neighborhood are suing the city of Chicago. My colleague Adora Namigadde has more on that.

Adora Namigadde: Now they filed a lawsuit in federal court saying their religious rights were violated when Mayor Lori Lightfoot allies blocked a city council vote on a plan to rezone Adalbert to protect it from development. That plan was backed by Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez, who represents Pilsen. The lawsuit claims the city gave favor to future developers of the property. Sigcho Lopez says the protesters want to prevent Adalbert from being demolished, or at least have a say in how it would be redeveloped. The city declined to comment on pending litigation.

Erin Allen: That was my colleague WBEZ reporter Adora Namigadde. 

The University of Chicago men's soccer team is headed to the NCAA Division three finals tomorrow. The Maroons won their semifinal match yesterday and the team is coached by a Chicago woman who is making history UChicago's Julianne Sitch is the first woman to lead a men's soccer team in the final fort in any college division. She's a former all American forward at DePaul, and a pro player she took over as head coach last spring and the team is undefeated. Sitch is only the second woman to coach a division three men's college soccer team. 

And before we get to weather a few quick hits, only 49% of Chicago students are fully vaccinated and the percentage of Chicago children who have gotten any booster shot is far lower. With winter and the holidays coming Chicago Public Schools is ramping up the number of COVID and flu clinics at schools. And I hope your car still there where you left it yesterday because almost 250 cars were towed the first night of Chicago's winter parking ban. This was the highest number since before the pandemic. 

As for weather, windy again and mostly cloudy today, high in the upper 40s. Some showers will come down this morning. Tonight getting down to the mid 20s with some rain and more wind. And that's it for now. This afternoon's episode is for the historians, it's for the hip hop heads, sneaker heads, and the general lovers of pop culture. Sneakerhead University is an interactive sneaker culture museum that opened up this fall in Chicago. I'll talk to the creator about her journey from tech to fresh kicks. That's today at two o'clock on the rundown. I'm Erin Allen. Talk to you then.

WBEZ transcripts are generated by an automatic speech recognition service. We do our best to edit for misspellings and typos, but mistakes do come through.