By Manny Ramos, includes “Community organizers and Ald. Rossana Rodriguez (33rd) are calling on federal officials to investigate the city’s use of COVID-19 relief funds, claiming the mayor’s office wrongly allocated money to pay down city debt instead of helping residents, as intended. Saqib Bhatti, co-executive director of Action Center on Race and the Economy, accused Mayor Lori Lightfoot of siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars to large banks rather than investing in public health and safety which would’ve helped the city brace for the emergence of the Omicron variant.”