Even in the crowded annals of Chicago City Council malfeasance, Ald. Willie Cochran’s indictment this week on federal criminal charges puts the 20th Ward in some rarefied air.

When the federal paperwork hit at the start of Wednesday’s council meeting, Cochran, a retired police sergeant turned politician, officially became the third of the past four aldermen from the South Side ward to be indicted while in office. It’s the City Council’s version of the office of Illinois governor, where four of the nine to previously serve ended up convicted.

Food trucks would be allowed to dish out their savory and sweet treats for up to six hours at a time on Chicago’s streets under a measure introduced by 1st Ward Ald. Joe Moreno.

Moreno said he crafted the measure after a Cook County judge upheld an ordinance approved by the City Council in 2012 that keeps food trucks 200 feet away from any eatery and limits the trucks to no more than two hours in one location.

Six Illinois Department of Transportation employees were fired and another eight were disciplined this year after a state investigation discovered that Emergency Traffic Patrol drivers had filed hundreds of false reports about helping stranded motorists on Chicago-area expressways.

The investigation of IDOT’s Emergency Traffic Patrol Division by the executive inspector general’s office ran from 2012 to 2016. The probe concluded that several IDOT drivers made up reports about helping motorists to make it look like they were doing more work than they were, the inspector general’s report said. In other cases, the drivers recorded inaccurate information in reports about people they actually had assisted.

A plan to add one car pool and express toll lanes to Interstate 290 has been identified as the Illinois Department of Transportation’s preferred option for the roadway, officials announced.

During an advisory group meeting Wednesday at the Carleton Hotel in Oak Park, IDOT officials provided an update on their proposed reconstruction of the Eisenhower Expressway.

The total number of licensed cabdrivers in Chicago is nearly 9,500 — the lowest in a decade — while the average value of a taxi medallion required to operate a cab has plummeted to about $66,000 this year from a peak of $349,000 in 2013, according to city data. The number of new drivers entering into the taxi industry, which is often an entry point into the workforce for immigrants, also has slowed to close to 300 this year as of Oct. 6, down from about 770 last year and 1,350 in 2014.

Meanwhile, fewer taxi drivers are renewing their licenses. Through Oct. 6, 9,200 taxi drivers had renewed their chauffeur’s licenses, down from more than 12,000 in 2014 and 2015.

Federal indictment charges against a Chicago alderman are the work of the city’s ex-inspector general, who says that type of corruption is likely all over the state, but there’s no one watching as closely.

Project Six CEO and former Chicago Legislative Inspector General Faisal Khan says the indictment of 20th Ward Ald. Willie Cochran began in his office in 2013, but the powers-that-be in Chicago stopped him at every turn when it came to true ethical enforcement.

Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo on Friday expressed serious reservations about the push to relax police hiring standards to attract more black and Hispanic officers.

At a time when police officers across the nation have “never been this scrutinized,” Angelo said the Chicago Police Department should be looking at raising standards — not lowering them.

A court-appointed monitor investigating patronage hiring at the Illinois Department of Transportation can also review hiring at other state agencies, a federal judge has ruled.

Judge Sidney Schenkier ruled in favor of plaintiffs in the IDOT case who wanted the authority of the special master expanded to “encompass not only a review of positions at IDOT which have been designated exempt, but also the positions labeled as exempt at all of the agencies, boards, commissions, or other instrumentalities under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Governor of Illinois.”