Dear Neighbors,
As we head into the final days of the year, I want to wish everyone in our community a warm, safe, and joyful rest of the holiday season—and all the best as we welcome the New Year. If you missed our holiday card from last week, you can view it here or below.
When you take down your decorations, consider using the City’s annual Christmas tree recycling program that runs from January 3rd-17th. Residents can drop off natural trees at one of 27 locations citywide. Be sure to remove all lights, ornaments, stands, and bags first. The trees are chipped into mulch, with free mulch pickup available at select sites starting January 5th, helping keep thousands of trees out of landfills each year. See details here.
For New Year's Eve celebrations, the CTA will once again offer free rides on both trains and buses from 10:00pm on December 31st through 4:00am on January 1st, making it easier to celebrate and get home safely. Residents can see details on the free ride program, extended service, and other CTA holiday hours here. You can find guides to local New Year’s Eve celebrations in Lakeview here, and holiday pop-up bars here from the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce.
As a reminder, the next recycling pick-ups for the 44th Ward are occurring the week of January 5th. Garbage curb pickups will occur on their normal dates, and alley pickups may be a day early. Streets and Sanitation crews are off Thursday for New Year's Day, but pickups will still occur this week. You can find your full garbage and recycling pickup schedule .
Earlier this month, I joined 29 of my fellow Alderpeople in voting in favor of the alternate budget. While this budget isn’t perfect, it is the responsible path forward for our City—it invests in our communities, makes our full advance pension payment, taxes large social media companies to ensure they pay their fair share, enacts efficiencies identified in Ernst & Young's audit of the City, but avoids placing overly burdensome taxes on our businesses that would hurt our economic growth. My decision to support a different proposal from the Mayor’s proposed budget also directly reflects what I heard from hundreds of constituents across the 44th Ward over the last few weeks. Through our survey, nearly two-thirds of residents expressed their opposition to the Mayor’s budget and less than twenty percent expressed support for the Mayor's budget. Residents also communicated support for finding ways to improve government efficiencies, and most shared strong opposition to the Head Tax.
I’m glad that the Mayor shared last week that he will not veto the budget passed by the City Council, and will let it go into effect at the end of the year, avoiding a reckless and harmful government shutdown. There is certainly still more work to be done in 2026, but I believe this budget puts us headed in a stable and balanced direction.
As 2025 comes to a close, we’re grateful for the opportunity to serve this neighborhood and look forward to continuing our work together in the year ahead. Please celebrate safely, enjoy time with loved ones, and here’s to a healthy, happy New Year for Lakeview and beyond.
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We are closed for the holidays from December 31st–January 2nd, with 9:00am-5:00pm hours on other weekdays. We will reopen on Monday, January 5th. Happy holidays!
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