At issue with the issues: Chicago’s next mayor?

Jesus Garcia

In one of the more bizarre sights that Chicago has seen was the recent projection of a giant mustache on downtown buildings, reminiscent of an immediate takeover from space aliens in a Grade B horror film, or one of the many Hollywood films shot on location in the Windy City -- instead, it was a visible push for Jesus “Chuy” Garcia to reconsider running for mayor, after his stated run for Congress to replace Luis Gutierrez, who has tendered his resignation in a move to Puerto Rico, where he owns a home.

As we’ve said before, “Holding an elected office in Chicago has become akin to either death by a thousand blows, or sheer masochism, and those are during the good times. Certainly, the job of mayor falls under that category.”

With the recent news of incumbent Rahm Emanuel decision not to run, the door opened wide to others to run, and the number of candidates has grown to 17, and it is apparent that someone, or many “someones”  will drop out, or be forced out of the race, but the current top slate has been expanded to include, to the horror of many locals, Bill Daley, brother of Richard M. Daley, and son of Richard J. Daley, and who was also chief of staff for President Obama.

Daley’s announcement brought grief to many in the city for the much ballyhooed, and costly, parking meter sale, arranged by his brother, and its management to J.P. Morgan Chase in New York; a move, that, some critics say, resulted in a loss for much needed local jobs, and economic development for Chicago. 

And, this is just one of  the many controversies associated with the Daley name.

Just one step away was Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, announcing her candidacy. She has developed a reputation for many social reforms such as drug sentencing, as well as prison reform, but whose name as a “do-gooder” was embittered by a recent sweetened beverage tax that left Chicago residents reeling from yet one more burdensome tax including a bag tax, and one of the highest sales tax in the nation. And, while the tax was later repealed, it will leave a taint of suspicion, among many voters.

Toni Preckwinkle

Lately, some have questioned, as discussed in a Chicago Sun-Times analysis if there is more spin, than substance, in her position as the de facto frontrunner.

“They point to polls conducted for other Democratic campaigns showing Preckwinkle with an approval rating lower than Emanuel’s and negatives “through the roof” that have never been fully exploited.

Most of all, they anticipate the mayoral candidacy of Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who is 25 years younger than Preckwinkle and a proven vote-getter along the lakefront and among younger voters now dominating the political scene.

Mendoza can’t enter the mayor’s race — or even talk about it — until she is safely re-elected as state comptroller. But after the Nov. 6 election, she’ll have 20 days to gather the 12,500 signatures needing to get on the mayoral ballot.

“Toni starts out in a good place with a sizable base. But it’s not enough to avoid a runoff or make this an inevitable outcome for her,” said one Democratic operative, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of alienating Preckwinkle.”

“She raised the sales tax after saying she wouldn’t and tried to impose a soda tax, only to have it repealed. It’s gonna be hard to convince that same group of voters you’re the person to elect as mayor after two of the most regressive tax increases in history,” the source said.

Preckwinkle does have her supporters, and one of them, is Richard Clough, of Edgewater Beach, who said of his support, “She's run a large local government organization before, and it's about time again we had someone of color and a woman in the office.”

A brief conversation, overheard on the subway, between two middle-aged, and grizzled, African-American veterans, concerning the election said a lot about past behavior: One asked the other who he was going to vote for. The other replied, “I’m going to vote for the sister.”  “Huh”?, responded his friend, then correcting himself, the other said, “Preckwinkle”, but his friend countered with, “Yeah, but she raised the taxes on my pop, so I feel that if she can do that, she can tax anything.”

Another supporter, a retired government worker from West Ridge, said this, in her support for her: “If the election were held next week, I'd vote for Toni Preckwinkle, she doesn't grandstand and I voted for her most recent re-election  Although, the soda tax wasn't successful, I gave her credit for trying SOMETHING to get the budget balanced.”

  

The specter of police reform

Of course, whoever takes the top job, has to contend with long standing problems, and a significant one is the long history of police abuse, stemming from the early days of the 1968 Democratic Convention, to the brutality, and torture of black men, by the late Cmdr. Jon Burge, and the multiple shots fired at the teenaged Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times as he walked away from police, in the by now, infamous video; and whose shooter, policeman Jason Van Dyke has just been found guilty of second-degree murder.

Trying to deal with the perception that all Chicago police are bad, when the reality is that only some of them are, is like wrestling with an alligator, that has been greased before the fight begins..

Coming on the heels of a sunset DOJ investigation, by the Obama administration, that was later rejected by the Trump administration, in the person of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has led to a consent decree constructed by Emanuel, and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, to try and heal past wounds, and that has as one of many core issues in Chicago’s long history of racial segregation.

Lightfoot, in particular, has a strong sense of what is needed in light of police reform, and, “She’s got a long track record on police reform. She’s not viewed as being part of the establishment. She has positioned herself to be a change-agent,” said Victor Reyes, the former Daley political operative who ran the now-defunct Hispanic Democratic Organization at the center of the city hiring scandal.

Other residents seem to be distrustful of politicians in general says one senior living in Lakeview, who said, when queried, “I don't believe any politician can be believed, [that] doesn't have hers/his own interests at heart, is beyond being susceptible to bribes ($$$ or in-kind) or doesn't use the patronage system.”

Chicago public schools: making the grade

Moving to another long-standing issue is the quality of the public schools which has seen deterioration, in a system that has changed to a majority of brown and black students, and at best, has led to some vocational success, but less to academics, and in a weakened state, is low fruit for the picking.

While it has faced a dwindling high school graduation rate; yet, this has changed and there has been marked improvement in both areas.

With a proven track record, Troy LaRaviere, turned around a failing school, with increased test scores, and now, after working tirelessly on behalf of students, as well, as parents to give students an equal footing with their suburban cohorts he wants to take that passion and energy to City Hall.

Troy LaRaviere

The enrollment was just under 900, and the school, Blaine Elementary, was recognized by Chicago Magazine in 2010 as the 16th best elementary school in the city, and also the 6th best “neighborhood school.”

But there were obstacles he said that prevented it from reaching the number one slot. And, in this struggle, public enemy number one, at least according to him, was Emanuel, whose tenure has been marked by what he has often failed to do, more than what he did: close city schools in mostly black and brown neighborhoods, and turn some into luxury condos, only to open, or build some, in areas that were being gentrified, or on the brink of; while failing to develop a strong revenue stream to give them equity with suburban schools, not to mention necessary improvements to maintain the physical plant required for a healthy environment.

Taking the mayor head on, with a pointed figure, albeit a virtual one, made LaRaviere a leader outside of City Hall. And, as we wrote, then: “While the mayor has touted charter schools as having the best test scores, the opposite has been true, and the former principal  has “published research that revealed public schools produced significantly more academic growth in students than charter schools; exposed filthy conditions in Chicago schools that were the result of botched custodial privatization deal; and uncovered the manipulation of charter school test score data by CPS officials.”

A vital issue, for many, is a change, from a mayoral appointed, to an elected school board, which as we’ve shown before, has as many pitfalls, as it does gains, especially with racial divisions, trumping other benefits.

As former alderman Dick Simpson, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has said: “Ninety percent of the students in the system are black and Hispanic, but most of the elected board could be white. Second, with more than 600 schools to supervise, it is unclear how much any school board -- appointed or elected -- can do to really govern the system.”

Follow the money, or lack thereof

The big kahuna in Chicago city politics is economic:  an overburdened pension system that took on added debt under Emanuel as interest cost, from borrowed funds, soared as he created debt to cancel debt, what a generation ago, we called, “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

Mired in debt, after a series of pension holidays, and robbing the teacher pension fund to pay for the CTA, was yet another blunder from the Daley legacy, and Bloomberg News did later report on the mixed results: “Emanuel has made progress, pushing through higher property taxes and utility levies to shore up the city’s retirement funds that were on track to run out of money. His plan has the public safety pensions on track to be 90 percent funded by the end of fiscal year 2055, and the municipal and laborers pensions at that level by the end of 2058. As of Dec. 31, the four funds were only about 27 percent funded, after years of inadequate contributions.”

Rahm Emanuel

“As mayor, I will be upfront about the cost of good government, end the practice of indebting taxpayers to big banks and raise enough revenue to adequately fund city services,” LaRaviere says on his website. He did not specify, however, what taxes he would raise, or create, to raise enough money to wipe out such debt, bringing a stinging rebuke from Emanuel’s office that he had no plan.

The financial analysis shows that the Chicago, in 2023,  will need more than $2.1 billion to make its required contributions to the city’s four worker pension funds, up from about $1.2 billion in 2019.

“All in all, the city of Chicago is in a better structural position than prior years,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, which monitors state and local finances, “but it will continue to face revenue and expenditure pressures resulting in projected growth in future deficits.”

That too has changed with the recent stock market free for all, as Crain’s Chicago reported Thursday:  “With his time in office down to just a few months and the credit markets moving the wrong way, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his financial team have decided to at least temporarily shelve plans to borrow up to $10 billion to refinance a part of the city’s yawning pension debt.

Officials insist the idea is not dead but merely set aside while the administration focuses on other financial priorities, such as passage of Emanuel’s proposed 2019 city budget that will be introduced Oct. 17. But with Emanuel's clout fading as the reality of his lame-duck status sinks in, that means he’d have to gather City Council votes in the midst of a heated aldermanic election or leave the final decision to his predecessor—either alternative politically problematic.”

It will also need a mayor that needs to take in more than the proverbial wind from backroom meetings, and to bring in the needed “shock” economic troops to prevent, such mistaken efforts, like regressive taxes, to help fill empty coffers.

Another added criticism is that much of the monies being spent, are in the Loop, the city’s business area, and other parts of downtown, and not in the neighborhoods, and not entering the deeply impoverished areas of the city’s South and West sides; home to much of the black population, and whose level of disinvestment is high.

Back to the schools

Adding to the area of economic development requires an investment in social capital, that is centered on education, and this may be an area for a younger candidate to lead, and one of the less known candidates is Neal Sales-Griffin, whose appearance on WBBM “At Issue” with host Craig Dellimore seemed to give a firm nod in that direction from the self-made man, who at age 31, and who cited the hunger strike to preserve the Dyett high school from closure, as an example of community involvement, especially in light of the 50 school closings by Emanuel in mostly black communities.

Sales-Griffin notes the importance of “preserving and investing in neighborhood schools,” and cited the failure of leadership, without mentioning Emanuel by name, but stressed that “we have to reimagine our community members.”

Neal Sales-Griffin

Without mentioning the debacle of having two school CEO’s leave, in scandal and one serving prison time for bribery and embezzlement, Sales-Griffin, expressed support for new CEO Janice Jackson, but did not reveal that many were not happy with her promotion, and that she was the right hand of the now disgraced, and former, head, Forrest Claypool, and that many of the closings, and the cat and mouse games Emanuel has played with opening schools with lowered enrollment, she was his co-director.

CPS’s Executive Officers have one job: “To get their talking points from the Mayor’s education people, memorize them, and repeat them at every opportunity,” LaRaviere, now president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, said in an email to Chicago Tonight.

“That was Ms. Jackson’s job as (chief education officer), and the only thing that will change as CEO is her salary.”

There were also some that said she might, in fact, hurt black children’s educational opportunity -- and some going further criticized her in 2017, reported the Chicago Tribune, saying that “she has been a vocal supporter of the district’s plan to close four under-enrolled Englewood and West Englewood high schools next year, despite the fact a nearby replacement won’t be completed until 2019.

That proposal has already sparked protests by those who say students have been driven from the area not by a lack of quality options, but by CPS’ own disinvestment in the existing schools in their communities.

“When I look at Englewood, at the experience some kids are getting, I can’t make the case they’re getting a good high school experience,” Jackson told Chicago Tonight earlier this month.

Multiple teachers took issue with that comment, saying Jackson understands what schools need to succeed and “should know better” than to claim there simply aren’t any good high school options in that area. They’ve questioned her involvement in the Englewood decision and are holding out to see if she’ll continue standing by that plan moving forward.”

As previously noted, Emanuel, skirted, or tried to, with these school closings, unlike before, by that cited disinvestment, only to invest, anew in areas soon to be gentrified.

Whoever is elected, besides city finances, and crime, has a looming disaster in dealings with opportunities for educating black school children. Who will it be?

Chicago archdiocese pays $2.95 million to victim of pedophile priest

Daniel McCormack

On Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune reported that “a man has reached a $2.95 million settlement with the Archdiocese of Chicago over claims he was sexually abused as a young boy by disgraced former Catholic priest Daniel McCormack, according to the man’s attorney. The man, who is in his late 20s, sued the archdiocese in 2013 alleging that McCormack abused him twice when he was a student at St. Agatha’s Catholic Church.”

“Father Dan McCormack’s predatory behavior never left his mind,” his attorney Eugene Hollander said in a news release. “(While) it has been a long and difficult time, my client wanted to send a message to other victims of sexual abuse — that you should not suffer in silence.”

The news comes in the aftermath of the recent Pennsylvania investigation by their attorney general , where it was revealed that there were seven Roman Catholic priests mentioned, of those that had abused 1,000 children that are now in Illinois. And, in response Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has asked all six Catholic dioceses in the state to show all of their records, policies and procedure, and files, associated with pedophile priests.

In addition she has also set up a telephone hotline and email address for victims to report their experiences.

It is obvious that this, now, pandemic, threatens the moral authority of the church, and its survival, and Francis is in a tight spot to “talk the talk” that he espoused in his early days, when liberal Catholics were eager to embrace an expected, and dramatic, change in the church,  unseen since Pope John XXIII, in the 1960s.

The pontiff had, as his main charge, to stem the tide of the departure of Catholics, not only in Europe, from the church, where Mass attendance had dwindled, but specifically in the U.S. (where the bulk of the money comes from), and to harness the irritation towards the liberals by the more conservative Vatican officials and prelates.

On Thursday, the liberal National Catholic Reporter, said that “Pope Francis has defended the measures undertaken by the Catholic Church in recent years to respond to clergy sexual abuse, saying the global institution has grown in its understanding of the "monstrous" problem and has "spared no effort" to protect children.

Lisa Madigan

In her statement at the end of August, when announcing the Illinois investigation, Madigan said “the Catholic Church has a moral obligation to provide its parishioners and the public a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior involving priests in Illinois, and, “she expects the dioceses to cooperate fully or she will work with states' attorneys and law enforcement throughout Illinois to investigate.”

By contrast, the pontiff said that the number of children abused over past decades "has diminished because the church has realized that it must fight in a different way."

"In older times, these things were covered up," he said. "They covered it up because there was a very great shame. It was a way of thinking in the ... past century, “plus, "The church has ... become aware of this and has spared no effort," Francis emphasized.

Critics of the church note that the McCormack abuse was revealed shortly after the U.S. bishops met in Dallas, and said that there would be zero tolerance, yet his abuse continued, despite that assertion.

Journalists appeared to be stonewalled, by the Pope, when after the recent trip to Estonia, one directly asked Francis “about the Sept. 25 formal release of a report in Germany that documented the abuse of more than 3,600 people by Catholic clergy over a period of 68 years.”

The pope, in his reply, appeared to construct a rhetorical defense around the issue when he said: "An historic fact is interpreted with the hermeneutic of the time in which it took place, not by the hermeneutic of today.”

“Francis has been under intense global scrutiny for his handling of clergy sexual abuse after former Vatican ambassador Archbishop Carlo Viganò released a document in August alleging a systemic cover-up of allegations against now ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, “ NCR noted.

To date, his only response to the accusations, was in late August, after his last trip to Ireland, when he said, that the document contained “a host of unsubstantiated and ideological claims and has now been revealed to have been drafted with the help of several ultra-right-wing Catholic figures,” and that it "speaks for itself."

Details of the abuse have grown increasingly sordid, as evidenced in Pennsylvania, by, “Fr. Chester Gawronski of Erie, who told young boys he abused he was giving them cancer checks.”

Adding to the dysfunction, when “Fr. Michael Lawrence confessed his sexual abuse of a boy to a monsignor, who through the diocese ruled the experience wouldn't be a "trauma" for the victim.”

Tracking the trauma, Madigan has said, on record: “I plan to reach out to the other dioceses in Illinois to have the same conversation and expect the bishops will agree and cooperate fully. If not, I will work with state’s attorneys and law enforcement throughout Illinois to investigate.”

The right-leaning publication, The Catholic Register, has reported that most Illinois dioceses were cooperating fully with Madigan. And, by example, they noted that, “The following day, the Diocese of Rockford stated: “We look forward to discussing with the attorney general’s office the diocese’s sexual-abuse policies and procedures.”

Concern for the victims has not always been evident from church officials, yet Harrisburg (Pa.) Bishop Ronald Gainer called the abuse allegations a cause of great sadness and called for victims to continue coming forward.

"Many of those victimized as children continue, as survivors, to suffer from the harm they experienced," he said in a statement. "In my own name, and in the name of the Church of Harrisburg, I ask for forgiveness for the sinfulness of those who have committed these crimes and helped create an environment that tolerated or accepted this behavior."

While there are many theories relating to many of these allegations, most are older, often decades and the men themselves are often graduates of minor seminaries where boys as young as thirteen received little more education, than how to say Mass; and continuing to major seminaries, often at Catholic colleges, they were often isolated from the general student body.

One person, who asked not to be identified remembered his experience at a seminary in the Mid-Atlantic, when they would enter the dining room, a “giant screen was pulled to shield us from the temptations of the lay student body, as they were known.”

They were also shielded from the developmental realities of youth including sex, and often relations with each other, which were frowned upon, but not as egregiously, as “punch and Judy” a reference to alcohol and women.

A Dutch psychologist, Anna Terruwe concluded after intense research, and interviews that many Catholic priests are emotionally immature, and had “insufficient development” in their emotional lives, perhaps, in part, by this older path towards ordination.

Certainly, the all male environment that excludes women from any authority, has not helped, but there are those that see the dilemma as rooted in gay male culture and less than a week ago, a Chicago Catholic priest  burned a rainbow flag.

The Rev. Paul Kalchik, pastor of Resurrection Catholic Church in Avondale, burned a gay friendly rainbow flag that former pastors used to welcome LGBTQ people to the parish.
 
“What this priest did, and his uninformed and bigoted statements, give scandal to the people of God and promote bigotry, violence and hatred,” said Rick Garcia, longtime LGBTQ civil rights activist and a practicing Roman Catholic. “As far back as 1976 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops stated that gay people are entitled to ‘friendship, love and justice’ (To Live in Christ Jesus, 1976). What Kalchik did was neither friendly, loving nor just.”
 
“To his great credit Blase Cardinal Cupich told the priest to not move forward with the flag burning and if he did there would be ‘canonical penalties’ and the cardinal was clear in affirming the dignity of all people, including gay people,”  noted Garcia.
 
Kalchik was critical of the Cardinal and especially previous priests at the parish who he accused of promoting “the gay lifestyle” and he linked the Church’s pedophile scandal to gay priests.”

Cardinal Cupich

“Nothing is farther from the truth,” Garcia stated. “All studies and analysis and even our Cardinal have debunked the idea that gay people are pedophiles” or threats to our children he said. “Moreover, his comments about gay people and our lives demonstrate that at best he is ignorant of the truth and at worst a total disregard for it.”
 
“There is no room in our Church, much less among our clergy, for bigotry the promotion of animosity and violence against any group of people, said Garcia.

On Saturday, less than a few days later, “at the 4:30 Mass a visiting priest read a letter from Cupich saying that effective immediately Father Kalchik was removed as pastor.”

"Hearing the announcement of Kalchik's removal swelled my heart," said Garcia and noted that, “The Cardinal not only acted appropriately in removing this anti-gay and seriously troubled priest he did it in a timely manner."

What is certain, is that Francis has a huge ticking time bomb, under his feet, and that without swift and immediate action, there will be more lawsuits, and more victims coming forward, at continued cost to the moral authority of the Roman church.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will not seek re-election

Like a thunderbolt, the news was startling --- the day before the trial of the Chicago Police Officer, Jason Van Dyke, accused of shooting black teenager, Laquan McDonald, 16 times, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced this Tuesday with his wife, Amy Rule, at his side, “ As much as I love this job and will always love this city and its residents, I have decided not to seek re-election.”

Many City Hall observers have said that the timing of the announcement was crucial, and that knowing that there would be planned demonstrations, all over the city, but especially in front of his office and also near the courthouse, that could have not only become unruly, but a violent protest against his alleged suppression that the infamous dashcam tape, might turn ugly, and in a coda to his stacking dollars in a campaign fund, it might not be enough if he faced the shame of being drummed out of office, in the 2019 election, but also an earlier public embarrassment on the national stage, before he could get in campaign gear.

Even fresh from being President Obama’s chief of staff, Emanuel held himself above the fray, not even committing to a hard core campaign for his first term, and mostly avoided the typical rush to shake hands at the subway stations, preferring instead to take an extended vacation with his family - a move that many thought of as presumptuous, even arrogant.

Elected with over 45 percent of the Black wards, and over a black candidate, Carol Moseley Braun, Emanuel took this as a mandate, but then, as critics noted, later closed over 50 schools in black neighborhoods, and a near equal measure of mental health clinics, for a population that could scarcely afford food, not to mention psychotherapy, that many saw as betrayal.

In his remarks the 58 year-old acknowledged the old Washington cliché, of “I am leaving to spend more time with my family,” an old canard that the late Meg Greenfield, columnist for the Washington Post and Newsweek, that evoked suspects of losing an important political fight, or a financial peccadillo.

What he did say was, after thanking Rule for being a “remarkable First Lady”, and that, “We’re blessed with three great children, and I owe them so much as well. Politicians always say they’re leaving office to spend more time with their family. My kids were smart enough to see that coming and scattered to the two coasts, so as of the other day we are now empty nesters.”

Humor, and love, aside Emanuel, despite raising millions for his campaign chest, was on thin ice, and after his last campaign, was forced into a run-off, against Cook County Commissioner, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a first in Chicago mayoral history, was perhaps no better illustrated than a picture of him running along an ice-covered street eager to talk to a tall, fashionably dressed black woman, head wrapped African style, who shot him a wary glance, as he tried to shake her hand with an almost heard plea of “Just let me go home, please!”

While he served the LGBT community well in a number of ways that they acknowledged: “". . . on behalf of the LGBTQ community, he secured funding and worked with the Chicago City Council to develop and complete the city’s first affordable housing complex for LGBTQ seniors. Mayor Emanuel partnered with former City Clerk Susana Mendoza and current City Clerk Anna Valencia to develop the municipal ID program that allows transgender and gender non-conforming individuals to select the marker of the gender with which they identify . . . “

But, for many black and brown people it was different, with many calling for his resignation, after a local judge ordered the release of the aforementioned tape, not to mention a teachers strike that had many women of color fighting for parity.

While some of supporters praised him for mandating a longer school day, the Chicago Teachers Union, took umbrage when he did not want to pay them more for a longer day.

Despite inheriting a financial mess, Emanuel’s efforts at improving the pension crisis, was mostly bungled with a series of regressive taxes, and a reluctance to look at best practices from other cities, he augured for more loans and at higher and higher interest rates; so much so that it appeared that Chicago had to borrow to pay the latter.

Test scores improved at the schools along with graduation rates, yet he played a cat and mouse game with closing some schools, only to reopen others, even as student enrollment dwindled, but was revealed to be a surreptitious plan when the surrounding neighborhood was being gentrified, depriving once again black and brown CPS students of a decent education.

Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey said in a statement: after acknowledging the Mayor's unpopularity and resentment by many residents, said of  Emanuel’s reputation, “Maybe it’s different down in Emerald City, in the gleaming downtown, but out in the neighborhoods … in the working class parts of this city, this is not a popular mayor,” Sharkey said.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that “Sharkey said the CTU would only back a candidate that supports an elected school board, is committed to raising revenue for schools and will work towards raising school standards across the city.”

Former police superintendent Garry McCarthy had to fall on his sword to appease the mayor’s critics over the McDonald issue, only to have to face a scathing Department of Justice appraisal and a consent decree to do better, and an equally scathing statement when he announced his mayoral candidacy, in an already crowded field.

Now that field that includes education leader Troy LaRaviere, City Clerk, Dorothy Brown, business man Willie Wilson, former CPS CEO, Paul Vallas and former police accountability board leader, Lori Lightfoot, are all under the spotlight, but the field remains open, and for many Chicago residents, who welcomed a change, they can put their sights on a new face to tackle the many challenges the city faces, rather than battle the maligned incumbent.

New school year for Chicago brings both praise and concerns

An analysis of the trends, patterns, and challenges facing Chicago Public Schools in  2018-2019.

It’s back to school soon for Chicago Public Schools, just after the Labor Day holiday, it will, once again, be time for the bells, the smell of chalk, and the hum of fluorescent lights as the schools return to life after the annual summer break. But, the nation’s third largest school districts faces a myriad of problems, or more accurately challenges, that threaten its mission of education.

Number one is leadership - after the imprisonment of former CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett, last year, for taking bribes from a former employer for a series of dubious teacher and principle continuing education classes, and then the ethical violation of her successor, Forrest Claypool, a longtime Chicago political insider, it seems that the job is associated with criminal behavior, and ethical violations.

That was followed by another scandal, discovered in late July, of this year, with Camelot Education “to open publicly funded schools for students who’ve dropped out or are at risk of doing so,” said the Chicago Sun-Times, where Byrd-Bennett, once again, followed the same format, with bribes and payouts of $25,000 for each school that was opened with her influence; and, skirting the bidding process, said Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Nicholas Schuler.

The current occupant, Janice Jackson, is a product of CPS, and seems to be, at least on the surface, a good choice, but critics argue that many of the movements from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand picked board, were also signed off by her, as Claypool’s right hand.

While many like the idea of a homegrown executive whose own daughter is in the system, other voices are more critical: “CPS’s Executive Officers have one job: To get their talking points from the Mayor’s education people, memorize them, and repeat them at every opportunity,” Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, said in an email to Chicago Tonight.

“That was Ms. Jackson’s job as (chief education officer), and the only thing that will change as CEO is her salary.”

LaRaviere is one of Emanuel’s most vocal critics, and he headed an award winning school, some say, by breaking all of the rules as the student test scores and parental satisfaction soared. He is also running for mayor in the 2019 municipal elections.

Then, another, even more egregious investigation, this time by The Chicago Tribune which revealed the sexual abuse of  students at CPS, 523, over a nearly ten year period, from 2008 to 2017, and then shortly afterwards, another painful revelation: incidents where students had sexually violated other students; and where a majority of the perpetrators, and victims, were special needs students.

In all, as the investigation showed, there was a lack of thorough background checks, including meta checks for sex crimes, as well as violent behavior, even including the use of firearms; a situation that traumatized the students as well as their parents, by the system’s failure to protect their children.

In an eerie similarity, with the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests, it was also revealed by the school investigation, that “The Tribune found that the CPS Law Department sometimes cut confidential deals with problem educators to get them to resign. To other potential employers, the district provides dates of service but no details about sex abuse investigations — a practice that puts students in other districts at risk.”

School Closings

In 2013 the mayor infamously shuttered 50 schools in mostly black and brown neighborhoods,  who, of a total population of 371,000 students, are also the dominant student population. Angered residents, both black and white, protested, and as sociologists have noted, schools are the cornerstone of city neighborhoods, and their closing represents a further disinvestment in those neighborhoods, many of whom are on the South and West sides of Chicago, long neglected areas for economic and social opportunities.

WTTW ‘s program Chicago Tonight noted, at the end of last year, that “Chicago Public Schools’ five-year moratorium on school closings runs out in 2018, and a new slate of schools is already on the chopping block.

“Among those are four Englewood-area high schools – Hope, Harper, Robeson and TEAM Englewood – that would be shuttered in favor of a new $85 million school that would open in 2019. But those existing schools will shut down in 2018, leaving a gap year between them and the yet-to-be-constructed facility.

The proposed actions will also include the long-discussed Ogden-Jenner merger and a plan to convert the existing National Teachers Academy elementary into a high school, while shipping current NTA students over to South Loop Elementary beginning in 2019.”

Changing the award winning elementary school created an uproar, when it was announced last month, and “NTA parents have protested that move, and students at Harper have held sit-ins to voice opposition to their school’s closure.”

For Emanuel, critics, such as Chris Kennedy, former gubernatorial candidate, this represents, part and parcel, of the gentrification of some of the city’s most developing, and desirable neighborhoods; underscoring, and accelerating, the trend of city living especially by affluent whites, with school age children.

“NTA students would move into buildings controlled by the nearby South Loop Elementary School, which will take over NTA’s attendance boundary. That plan continues to face stiff opposition from a well-organized group of NTA parents and teachers.

No one is going to argue integration is not a good thing. Integration is a great thing,” said Elisabeth Greer, NTA’s school council chair, after a protest . . . “  and she clarified her statement by saying, “But there is natural integration, and then there is, essentially, forced busing — which brings two communities together by force.”

An elected school board to the rescue?

Hovering in the background of many of these controversies is the desire to have an elected school board, as many critics, lawmakers and parents feel that removing power from Emanuel's hand can advance CPS into some level of parity, if not equality.

Sponsoring a bill to do just that is House Rep. Robert Martwick who was quoted as saying that, “The thing about 2017 is our toes were at the goal line,” he said. “It’s literally hammering out two little legislative details and then the bill sits on the governor’s desk.”

Growing unease headed into legislative victory as “The House this past spring approved a bill eliminating mayoral control in favor of an elected Board of Education on a 105-9 vote. The Senate then followed suit with its own amended version, passed on a 53-2 vote.”

Segueing next into structural reforms, “This legislation would divide the city into specific voting regions and grant each the power to elect its own board representative. In one version of the bill, a 12-member commission would be tasked with creating 14 district zones, each of which could then elect its own school board member beginning in 2023,” and “A board president would also be chosen through a citywide at-large race.”

Former alderman, and now associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago at Illinois, Dick Simpson wrote last year that, ““there are problems. First, if we held school board elections citywide rather than by district, we could end up with racial imbalance. Ninety percent of the students in the system are black and Hispanic but most of the elected board could be white. Second, with more than 600 schools to supervise, it is unclear how much any school board -- appointed or elected -- can do to really govern the system. Third, when we had elections of other local agencies like Model Cities Chicago, the political machine controlled the outcome in order to control the patronage jobs. The Democratic Party could control the outcome of school board elections as well.”

That might support the age-old adage to be careful of what you ask for, and as I previously noted, in my now shuttered column for The Examiner, in our later interview with Simpson, he said that the probability of political party domination still exists, but also might be highlighted, even with district wide elections, and “some of these county board districts are huge, and many people may not even know their county board members.”

Simpson also cautioned that there could be an increased role for different participants whether they are parents, teachers unions, or others, “all with different ideological positions, and each with their own slate, and from their own perspective.”

Noting that while an elected board is not a perfect panacea, especially for quick solutions for CPS indebtedness, Simpson concluded that, “on balance we need a positive start [towards change] and no solution, no financial solution, or representation problem can be solved easily.” 

Finances: New budget shows hope

Money, or lack of, is another critical aspect of survival, for CPS, and after heavy borrowing ay high interest charges, many were ready including bond agencies to downgrade CPS’s financial outlook.

This past April, “The best news came from Wall Street, where the three firms that rate CPS debt now have all brightened their view of its future,”  noted Crain’s Chicago Business.

“Last fall, it was Fitch that moved CPS debt up a notch from B+ to BB-. Kroll followed by changing its outlook . . .  S&P moved its outlook from stable to positive, an indication, according to the firm, that there is a 1 in 3 chance of a ratings upgrade within the next year.

S&P based its shift on what bondholders like to see: increased liquidity and ability to cover debt. It specifically noted the $220 million in additional state aid CPS is getting this year under a budget vetoed by Gov. Bruce Rauner but overridden by lawmakers; $130 million in increased property taxes to pay soaring pension costs; $79 million in other new state aid; and $80 million from the city, mostly for assumed security costs.”

As a result of those "notable wins," CPS cash flow has "notably improved," S&P said, and the Board of Education has been able to diversify the purchasers of its tax-anticipation notes, "a positive sign given its reliance on lines of credit to support operating and debt service expenses,” with its new budget for FY 2019.

In 2017, the district had “budgeted roughly $79 million just to pay the expected interest costs associated with that borrowing,” noted the Chicago Tribune nearly two years ago, to this date.

Now Crain’s reports the good news that money to shore up pensions is not coming from the same pile used for teacher salaries, supplies and lunch programs, due to the groundbreaking bill, for statewide education funding

The clue to that confidence was the increase in a tax levee from 0.383 to 0.567, that in, and of itself, represented an increase from 2017, and which mostly affected affluent homeowners.

"We're in a completely different place than we were," says Chicago Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown. "We are at a point where the money (for pensions) comes from dedicated revenue sources that do not cannibalize operating revenues."

Not so fast, say others

Critics noted that the foundations of that statement are not solid, and are, in fact, based on projection: “For instance, the projections assume that growth in pension expenditures will be limited to 2 percent a year. While newly hired state workers, indeed, will get smaller pensions, assuming 2 percent average annual growth could be a bit optimistic, given that annuitants now get a guaranteed 3 percent compounded annual cost-of-living increase.

Continuing in that vein, “At least debatable is the assumption that the city's property tax base over the next 20 years will increase at least 4 percent a year. Brown says Chicago historically has easily passed that mark, but when it comes to real estate values, there are no guarantees.”

The 2019 budget does have its advocates, however, cautious that they are, and leading the pack is the non-partisan Civic Federation of Chicago who in their press release praised the budget, the first under Jackson, and said: “Fortunately, the Chicago Public Schools’ finances have begun to stabilize following Springfield’s much-needed overhaul of the decades-old education funding formula—though the work is far from over,” said  President Laurence Msall. “Unfortunately, because Illinois continues to languish in its own financial crisis, State funding will remain a source of uncertainty for CPS and other districts.”

“While CPS’ credit ratings are still below investment grade, improved outlooks from ratings agencies and upgrades from Moody’s and Fitch translate to reduced interest costs for the District’s debt issuances. . .. At the end of FY 2018, CPS is projecting its first operating surplus in several years.

Despite an improved financial position, the Federation has concerns that the nearly $1 billion capital budget will require CPS to generate $750 million in additional capital funding, the majority of which will come from issuing long-term debt on top of the District’s $8.2 billion in outstanding debt.”

After the nearly two years absence of a state budget, Illinois now has an unpaid backlog of $14.3 billion dollars, making state contributions uncertain.

“Msall is also concerned that CPS will borrow $750 million of the nearly $1 billion it plans to spend on capital projects announced  . . . That’s on top of $8.2 billion in outstanding debt — plus the public has no way of knowing which capital projects get priority, according to the 96-page analysis,” said the paper.

Finally, this extremely cautionary note, “CPS’ finances have barely reached more stable footing; this is not the right time to issue massive amounts of additional debt with only a portion going to the most critical facility needs,” said Msall, in reference to Jackson’s open letter touting the budget, where she said, that, by priority, it would help those with “the greatest need.”

Reactions

The reaction from the Chicago Teachers Union was swift, and stark. In part, their statement said: “Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey responded to Mayor Rahm Emanuel touting CPS’ new bond rating as a sign of "progress," while neighborhood schools confront desperate shortages of resources and neglected facilities.”

“The brutal truth is that this mayor is still starving Black and Brown schools across the city in every way, shape and form. The Chicago Teachers Union has advocated tirelessly in Springfield and City Hall for new revenue, and that advocacy has a real impact. We’ve succeeded in winning passage in the state legislature of a vastly more equitable school funding formula and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funds, while removing pension payments from CPS’ operating funds.

We’ve forced the mayor to dip into his TIF slush fund to pay for public education. Yet conditions in the vast majority of our schools, for the vast majority of our students, effectively remain ‘junk’ because this mayor will not spend revenue equitably, and refuses to create sustainable sources of revenue that will guarantee our students the quality of education they deserve.”

Noting who the losers are, in the absence of a varied and sustainable revenue stream, the final question is: “Who ends up paying? Chicago taxpayers, including our teachers and paraprofessionals, and most critically, the Black and Brown children who make up 90 percent of our students.”

"In 2018 the district was rocked by the news in an investigative report that it had neglected special education students, and now despite the injection of $32 billion, in the new budget, the shortage of trained special education students is not enough to fill its mission, toward that student population.

The Sun-Times noted that “Chris Yun, Access Living’s education policy analyst, also questioned when the school system would be able to fill those positions given Illinois’ chronic shortage of special ed teachers. After CPS officials announced in January 2018 that they’d hire 65 more special education positions, they filled only 25 of them by that May,” she said.

“We have one month to go, one month to fill those positions by the 2019 school year,” Yun said. “I don’t think they can fill it.”

Declining Enrollment

Another glaring aspect is the decrease in student enrollment, attributed to many black families leaving Chicago, either for Northwest Indiana, or the South, or even nearby suburbs, or else to charter, or even other private schools, and, there is now a call from conservative lawmakers to decrease the budget.

Complicating matters is that CPS has played some old-fashioned back door politicking to either get public support for closings in exchange to new schools, such as the one in Englewood, but paradoxically opened 15 alternative schools were in areas that saw declined enrollment; and some are blaming the Emanuel administration, in an attempt to avoid confrontation about closings, or to even avert another teachers strike, at the beginning of the new school year.

Adding to the conundrum is the political blowback from conservatives, as seen in the following statement from the Illinois Policy Institute: “The underutilization problem has only grown worse since then. CPS has lost at least 20,000 students since 2013. And as of 2015, 50 CPS high schools were considered underutilized, with nearly three dozen of them less than half full.

With the school-closing moratorium set to expire in 2018, CPS officials should be looking for ways to combine and close the most underutilized schools – while also focusing on minimizing the disruption to students and parents. But there is little chance district or city officials will do that. With so much new state funding rolling in, they’ll have no reason to endure the wrath of Chicagoans by making necessary school closures.

So the moratorium will continue, unofficially. And state taxpayers will effectively pay for CPS to keep its underutilized and inefficient schools open.”

By the best accounting, 32,000 students left CPS in 2013, with a result of 370,000 total enrollment, down from a high of 580,000 in 1970.

In 2016, there were layoffs, and they “had been expected since the district announced last week that enrollment on the 10th day of classes was down almost 14,000 students from last year. The layoffs come on top of the more than 500 teachers and 500 school-based staff members let go in August, a move also attributed to enrollment declines.”

In 2018, the die was cast and “The roughly 371,000 students enrolled at CPS this year is a 15 percent decrease compared with the year 2000, when enrollment topped 435,000, according to CPS data. And there’s no sign the numbers will trend upward soon:  The district projects about 20,000 fewer students to enroll in the next three years. The trends mirror population drops in Chicago, which has about 182,000 fewer residents than it did 18 years ago, according to Census data. More than 220,000 black residents have left since the year 2000.”

What seems to be disinvestment in the South and West Sides, angers mayoral and CPS critics, pending an increase in gentrification, read white gentrification, and that is when schools would be built, with prominence given to charter schools.

In other areas charter, or alternative, schools are built to siphon off the existing enrollment, and close certain neighborhood schools, as they are either edging themselves to gentrification, or on the edge of a nearby neighborhood that is.

A case in point is that the Uptown neighborhood on the city’s North Side, a long desired spot for gentrification, is now getting closer to that goal: They received the extra push when CPS closed the lovely old Graeme Stewart school; and its subsequent redevelopment into expensive condominiums, despite that there remains a substantial student population, but again, being mostly black and brown, these students are on the losing side.

78 percent of CPS students are low income, giving them little bargaining power, and support from lawmakers, in the face of mayoral domination, cannot afford to offer them protection.

Chalkbeat.org an educational advocacy website had this to say recently: “Despite the criticism, and despite declines in city population and enrollment, CPS said it is taking a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach to creating new schools and academic opportunities. In a statement to Chalkbeat Chicago, CPS defended its decision to open new schools, despite enrollment declines, by citing community demand. And CPS CEO Janice Jackson told a room of business and nonprofit executives at the City Club of Chicago on Monday, “we can’t do great work without investing” — and not just in school staff, but in buildings themselves.

Critics reading between the lines note that the investment seems lopsided and that this plan, like others may be less than what the students need, but what CPS wants. It also speaks volumes of what the 2019 school year will bring to eager students on the first day of school.

No tax increase says Emanuel, others say Chicago needs more money

2019 may prove to be a landmark year for the nation’s third largest city in a mayoral race dominated by an embattled, and controversial, incumbent, beset by a myriad of financial and social ills, not to mention a consent decree to help harness a long-held problem of recorded police brutality, and their racial prejudice towards black and brown people.

For Chicago, despite these ills, and challenges, the one area that needs an equal measure of attention are city finances --- despite the recent report heralded by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office giving the good news of no upcoming tax increases.

The Chicago Tribune reported that  “his budget team on Tuesday ruled out any major tax increases to close a relatively small projected budget shortfall in the coming year.

The 2018 Annual Financial Analysis, a starting point for shaping next year’s spending plan, pegged the 2019 operating budget shortfall at $97.9 million — the lowest predicted gap since Emanuel took office in 2011, when the mayor had to close a 2012 budget chasm of $636 million.”

The intention of confidence, however, may not be the last word, but there are those that are looking for more from the mayor’s office with a laundry list of other debt that still threatens the city.

The Tribune also reported Budget Director Samantha Fields saying that “a property tax increase would not be needed to balance next year’s books.

“We don’t expect to have a tax increase that you’ve seen in the past, but we’ll have a better idea of how we’ll solve for the gap in the next few months,” she said, before flatly ruling out a property tax increase. “We may have small recommendations from the departments on revenues here or there, but I don’t anticipate any large ones that will move heaven and earth.”

Bloomberg News reported that “Emanuel has made progress, pushing through higher property taxes and utility levies to shore up the city’s retirement funds that were on track to run out of money. His plan has the public safety pensions on track to be 90 percent funded by the end of fiscal year 2055, and the municipal and laborers pensions at that level by the end of 2058. As of Dec. 31, the four funds were only about 27 percent funded, after years of inadequate contributions.”

In 2014  “Emanuel proposed a budget for the following year that included a few relatively minor increases in targeted taxes to raise $61 million. Months after winning re-election in early 2015, he pushed through a phased-in $543 million increase in property taxes to boost contributions to pension funds for city police officers and firefighters.”

Taking the beast by the horns, say his critics, is exactly what he is not capable of and “if he emerges victorious from what is shaping up to be a large field of mayoral contestants in next year’s election, he may again have to deliver bad news to city taxpayers. The financial analysis shows that the city in 2023 will need more than $2.1 billion to make its required contributions to the city’s four worker pension funds, up from about $1.2 billion next year.

“All in all, the city of Chicago is in a better structural position than prior years,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, which monitors state and local finances, “but it will continue to face revenue and expenditure pressures resulting in projected growth in future deficits.”

The city projects that spending for day-to-day operating costs will increase next year to more than $3.8 billion, an increase of nearly $50 million over budgeted spending for this year. That’s attributable to rising personnel costs and some expansions of city services, Fields said.”

In addition, Chicago “could find itself facing higher costs that were not included in the projected budget forecast. Those potentially include tens of millions of dollars for raises and back pay for police, firefighters and some other city workers whose unions are negotiating new contracts — as well as any costs added to the expense of running the Police Department as a result of a proposed federal consent decree aimed at restoring community trust in the long-troubled department.”

Mayoral challenger Lori Lightfoot, in a recent news conference, noted the absence of costs in the report by the mayor; what she called the absence of  “specific dollars” and noting that the cost for the monitor alone might be as high as $2.5 million, with an overall price tag to implement the reforms would cost at least $10 million a year, insisting that those costs be written into the document itself.

Emanuel in his first term tried to reduce the city’s pension fund obligations, but the Illinois Supreme Court overruled the changes, saying they violated a state constitutional clause that state pension benefits, once granted, “shall not be diminished or impaired.” That left him little choice but to turn to tax increases.”

The hue and cry over the price tag of the tax increase also resulted in a raft of regressive taxes from barking dogs to their tags, and a near revolt over additional county charges for sales tax, that is among the highest in the nation’

Adding a severe lack of affordable housing, has made city finances glow like a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day.

This also came on the heels of the closing of more than 50 schools in predominantly black areas, ostensibly to make them better, but the result  has been a boon for real estate developers, since the sale of the buildings to be recast as condos, as part of a city-wide move to gentrification.

For example, In the Uptown neighborhood, one centrally located school, the Graeme Stewart, has been made over into a series of pricey condos designed to hasten neighborhood gentrification. And, as sociologists have noted, the presence or absence of a good schools can make, or break a neighborhood, but especially, for the low-income residents that will be displaced.

To be fair, the mayor did inherit a pile of debt and bad ideas: frequent pension holidays by Mayor Richard M. Daley, and raiding the teachers’ pension fund to prevent a fare increase for the CTA, and the infamous parking meter deal with J.P. Morgan Chase, that left a bitter taste in the mouths of Chicago taxpayers.

Emanuel, in turn, has not looked at other ways to handle the pension payments and city finances in general, seemingly, as his critics point out, is his penchant to pass any legislation, no matter how effective, just as long as something is passed.

When I interviewed David Fernandez, a New York based public finance attorney with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney for my now defunct Examiner column, he said in an emailed statement, ”Perhaps it is time for Chicago to look back at NYC in the ‘70’s and find a way to create its own Municipal Assistance Corporation.  The restructuring of debt within the constraints placed by the courts and utilizing creative ways to provide access to the markets while preserving both the requirements of the existing obligations and the reserves being held by the City are going to be paramount in allowing Chicago to avoid the drastic measures of increased property taxes.” 

Words that were not heeded, and have now, with the pending election, can be a political albatross as the mayor seeks reelection.

Still a matter of controversy is the Tax Increment Financing, a vehicle to improve blighted neighborhoods, the city describes as a tool “to promote public and private investment, with funds generated by growth in the equalized assessed valuation of properties within each TIF district,” but has come to be known as a slush fund for Emanuel, and which now has seen a dramatic 17.9 percent increase in the take.

While there are suburban TIFs, in fact twice as many, their combined revenue is bringing much less than half that is seen in Chicago. And, expanding the concept further are Transit TIFs, which for Chicago, generated $40 million, but as critics have noted, do not have to be designated as “blighted,” and such funds are used to attract major big box developers.

For Emanuel the charges of a slush fund are compounded by the lack of an annual debate on TIFs bringing in more property tax revenue, which has not been done.

Cook County Clerk David Orr has said, “Unless a municipality can demonstrate ongoing blight, taxpayers should not be required to continue funding additional development.”

Significantly also, despite some improvement, there is no easy way for taxpayers to track exactly how TIF funds are spent.

With all of the twists and turns that Chicago finances have taken, especially around pension obligations, there is more to come with public school financing, just around the corner.  And, it’s a reasonable assurance that it too will be a campaign issue.