Welcome to Newswire — your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what action we can take to make our city great, featuring public meeting coverage by City Bureau’s Documenters.

Quote/Term of the Week

Codesign / verb

To design (something) by working with one or more people, or to design (something) jointly.

It’s time to change things up. Can you help?

Since launching Newswire in 2021, we’ve tried out various ways of sharing civic information with our audience. Now, we’re ready for our biggest transformation yet, and we need YOU, our readers, to be our codesigners in the process. 

Here are some overarching questions we’re considering:

  • What kind of information do you want or need?

  • What format(s) grabs your attention and makes the information easiest for you to use?

  • How can we shape Newswire so it has the, “stop and watch/read” factor?

Whether you just subscribed last week or you’ve been reading every week for the past five years, we want your input to create a product that keeps you informed and involved with your community.

What you can do:

Stay tuned for a special survey about Newswire and other content you like, which will help guide our next steps. We also are going to host some focus groups, and you can let us know if you're interested in that. 

In the meantime, you can always email suggestions to grace@citybureau.org.

Court watching: what’s next?

Last month, we wrapped up the Chicago Documenters court watching pilot. We launched this effort in March with the aim of tracking how the Cook County court system is implementing the SAFE-T Act’s pretrial fairness protocols following the elimination of cash bail in 2023.

We’ve learned a lot about pretrial detention hearings and the murkiness of the Cook County court system. We also hosted a debrief where documenters and our community partners reflected on what they saw, learned and took away from this experience. 

We’ll be sharing these reflections and learnings publicly in the coming months. In the meantime, you can read our published court watching notes here.

A version of this story was first published in the June 10, 2026 issue of the Newswire, an email newsletter that is your weekly guide to Chicago government, civic action and what we can do to make our city great. You can sign up for the weekly newsletter here.

Have thoughts on what you'd like to see in this feature? Email Civic Editor Dawn Rhodes at dawn@citybureau.org.