Lightfoot awards $16.2M contract to supply water filtration systems to homes with elevated lead levels

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has created a new political action committee to scare off opponents amid concern that her City Council majority could shrink when it comes time to cut spending and raise taxes to erase a $1 billion shortfall.

Lightfoot will talk about the financial mess she inherited and the painful road ahead during an Aug. 29 speech at the Harold Washington Library that is expected to be carried live on “all major local TV and radio newscasts.”

That’s when the City Council majority that Lightfoot has used so far to deliver ethics reform, predictable work scheduling and install her City Council leadership team could begin to evaporate.

When aldermen walked the tax plank to help former Mayor Rahm Emanuel chip away at Chicago’s $28 billion pension crisis, Emanuel had their backs.

They got tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Chicago Forward, a super PAC created to reelect the mayor and strengthen his City Council majority.

Now, Lightfoot is following in her predecessor’s footsteps.

She’s created a new political action committee she calls “Light PAC” that shares office space at 100 W. Kinzie with Lightfoot for Chicago.

Light PAC is chaired by Laurel Appell Lipkin, a mayoral friend who has known Lightfoot since the 1980s, when they both worked in Washington, D.C. The treasurer is Linda Loving, another Lightfoot friend and supporter. The custodian is Jennifer Khosla, who worked on Lightfoot’s mayoral campaign.

Dave Mellett, Lightfoot’s full-time political director, said the new PAC was created Monday to allow Lightfoot for Chicago to be used exclusively to reelect the mayor.

All of Lightfoot’s other political activities will be paid for through “Light PAC,” where the fundraising ground rules are more liberal.

Political action committees can accept maximum donations of $10,800 from individuals and $23,200 from corporations, labor organizations, associations or political party committees. Other PACS or candidate political committees can donate $57,800.

“Our political activity in the next couple years will not be about the mayor’s re-election. It’ll be more broad and about supporting her agenda and supporting candidates who are in line with that agenda. That’s why we have two distinct committees. It’s just separating the mayor’s reelection from her political activity,” Mellett said.