Mayor Brandon Johnson presided over a special meeting of the Chicago City Council on Thursday where alderpeople unanimously voted down his property tax proposal.

The overwhelming vote was largely symbolic. Negotiations aimed at reducing or eliminating the property tax increase and replacing it with a healthy mix of new revenues and reprogrammed federal pandemic relief funds began last weekend.

The Chicago City Council emphatically voted down Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to hike property taxes by $300 million Thursday, creating a yawning hole in the city’s 2025 budget that must now be closed.

In the 17 short months since his inauguration as Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson has transformed his bold vision for the city’s future and a narrow electoral win into a legacy of — well, not much.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is all but giving up on his proposed $300 million property tax hike before aldermen kill it, and pushing them to find other revenue in its place to avert layoffs. Johnson’s administration is combing over alternatives to the tax jump ahead of a meeting Wednesday where the City Council is expected to vote it down.

Dozens of Chicago alderpeople are expected to attend a special city council meeting on Thursday. They're expected to vote down Mayor Brandon Johnson's $300 million property tax hike proposal. Mayor Brandon Johnson wouldn't commit on Tuesday when asked if he would support possible alternatives to his proposal to raise property taxes to close a nearly $1 billion budget gap for 2025.

The City Council will take a vote Thursday on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed $300 million property tax hike, announced when he unveiled his $17.3 billion city budget for 2025 last month. That means the mayor could make it official that he’s essentially giving up on his proposed property tax hike for city residents,

Dozens of aldermen called for a special meeting to vote down the mayor's proposed $300 million property tax increase.

The hike would boost taxes by 4.8% — raising them, for example, $318 on a $350,000 Chicago home — at a time when many have watched property taxes double over the last decade. Catch up fast: The mayor proposed the hike in his $17.