Chicago ballots carry advisory questions on a festival site, gunshot detection and school funding

Chicago voters will find five advisory questions on their Nov. 3 ballots, three placed there by the City Council and two by the Chicago Board of Education.^{1, 2, 4} The results are not binding, so none of them will change a law or a budget on its own.^{1, 2}

David Merriman, a professor of public policy at the University of Illinois Chicago, told CBS News Chicago that lawmakers still pay attention to the answers.¹ “In a way, it’s a kind of opinion poll,” Merriman said.¹

The City Council’s questions

The first asks: “Should Chicago develop a permanent festival and outdoor event space for large-scale events?”^{2, 3} Nicole Lee, the 11th Ward alderperson, introduced it, and it names no site, cost or operator, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.³ It follows complaints from residents who object to privately run festivals in public parks, such as Lollapalooza in Grant Park and Riot Fest in Douglass Park.³

Lee told Block Club Chicago she was not sure that hosting such festivals in city parks was “a good investment for us at the end of the day,” the Sun-Times reported.³ Sara Heymann of the Little Village group Únete La Villita, who was not involved in drafting the measure, supports it.³ “I think that it is an amazing opportunity for the public to finally weigh in on how our parks are being used,” she told the paper.³

The second question asks whether the city should “restart use of gunshot detection technology that informs first responders when gunshots are detected.”¹ Aldermen who tried and failed to stop Mayor Brandon Johnson from removing ShotSpotter organized that effort, CBS News Chicago reported.¹

The third, proposed by Johnson, asks whether the city should pursue all lawful means to recover money from the federal government for the costs of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations, including Operation Midway Blitz.^{2, 4} The question, as worded on the ballot, calls those operations “violent, militarized ICE operations.”⁴ The council approved it in July, NBC Chicago reported.⁴ City rules allow the council to place up to three nonbinding questions on a ballot.⁴

The school board’s questions

The Board of Education placed two questions about school funding on the ballot.¹ One asks: “Shall Illinois use revenue from a surcharge on millionaires to increase funding to public schools?”² The other asks whether Chicago should require owners of long-term vacant or undeveloped commercial or investment properties to pay an annual charge to support Chicago Public Schools.^{1, 2}

Merriman told CBS News Chicago that a millionaire’s surcharge would likely require a change to the Illinois Constitution.¹

Cook County voters will also see a separate advisory question on a proposed amendment that would add a 3% income tax surcharge on millionaires, with the money split between property tax relief and public education, FOX 32 reported.²

What happens next

The festival question does not say whether the city would own and run such a space or contract it out, and it is unclear what would follow a yes vote, according to the Sun-Times.³ FOX 32 advises voters to check their county clerk’s website for the exact wording of every question on their ballot.²