Mayoral election in Chicago shows game change

Tuesday’s mayoral election in Chicago was a game change for the city, both a change in gender and race for the top job, for a city long segregated by race, and dominated by machine politics that governed, say its critics, by fiat.

The two front leads, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and attorney and former police review board chief, Lori Lightfoot are poised to return, the spirit of the late Harold Washington, Chicago’s only previously elected black mayor, and one in who many residents felt was going to change the way government was run, but sadly ended in his death in 1987.

For Lightfoot, who lacked both a large campaign chest, and a troop of foot soldiers, the front lead was an affirmation of her self-identification of not being part of the machine, but also said that Chicago was ready for, and deserved, a change of leadership more associated with a grass roots style that focused on the world outside of the downtown Loop business center, and towards the hundreds of working families, and individuals, who want a more equitable local government.

Chicago has been tainted by scandal, for some time, with the revelation of aldermanic misdeeds, and that of others like former Chicago Public School head, Barbara Byrd Bennett, jailed for bribe acceptance, and falsified teacher training program with a former employer.

The recent raid on the City Hall office of the longtime head of finance on the city council, Ed Burke, has also given notice to most observers, that the end of machine politics may be nearer than previously many would have thought possible.

Reaching even further back there was former U.S. Federal Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald who, “As the top federal prosecutor in Chicago, Fitzgerald took down two former Illinois governors, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich, sending them both to prison for corruption charges.”

For political observers who are sensing a pattern, they might be wise to begin with Fitzgerald.

Preckwinkle was given a surprising second place, as many had thought she should be the first, but her aborted sweetened beverage tax, and her association with a “funded” study by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, earned her the sobriquet of “boss”, just as she was ready to assume the mantle of a crusader for social justice reform: battling the unequal sentencing guidelines for black and white prisoners, and especially for those convicted of marijuana possession.

Then add to that, her denial of knowing Burke, until the Chicago Tribune revealed that she was the beneficiary of a fundraiser at his home, and then the hiring of his son.

Lightfoot on the other hand, untainted by Burke, campaign “donations”, and nepotism began to emerge as a crusader. And, getting added support from the LGBT community for being an openly gay woman, she began to emerge from the field of lesser known candidates.

With the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting, and cries for the resignation of Emanuel, who was accused of hiding the police body cam tape of the shooting by officer Jason Van Dyke, many began to take an earnest look at her work on police accountability boards as a future mayoral candidate.

Some are scrambling, like the business community, for how to approach either woman, since they supported Bill Daley, as Crain's Chicago reported.

There may be a menu of long-neglected items forthcoming, and especially if Lightfoot wins the April runoff election: much needed work in the infrastructure outside of downtown, a sustaining need for Chicago Public Schools, especially in black neighborhoods, and the continued growth, sought by some with the end of moratoriums on charter schools, seen by the Chicago Teachers Union as siphoning off money from neighborhood schools.

Change also came for definite changes in the aldermanic races when a distinct left turn -- notably with the Democratic Socialists of America, where the lead was taken by a DSA veteran, Carlos Ramirez Rosa, and others; a total of five after the April election>

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that “If their success on Tuesday carries over to the April runoff election, as many as five members of the Democratic Socialists of America could be on the Chicago City Council — the most in more than a century.

“Shadowing the Congressional elections and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, prompted Ramirez-Rosa to state: “The oligarchs are shaking in their boots tonight,” Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) told supporters Tuesday at Puebla Restaurant celebrating his re-election over challenger Amanda Yu Dieterich,” reported The Chicago Sun-Times.

“Our continued organizing and movement-building over the last four years is paying dividends. And it appears to be a total transformation of political power at City Hall from the bottom up.”

This is not hubris say supporters, but a reflection of a new political reality.

The other, Daniel La Spata, upset Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno in the Near Northwest Side’s 1st Ward, but this may also be a reflection of personal scandals on the part of the latter, and some questionable assertions by other, now ill-reputed aldermen.

“Socialist Rosanna Rodríguez-Sánchez will be in April’s runoff against incumbent Ald. Deb Mell (33rd). Rodríguez-Sánchez broke into tears at her election-night party at Chief O’Neils in Avondale after hearing she’d gotten the most votes in a three-way race.

“Chicago had a way of doing politics, and I feel like that died tonight,” Rodríguez-Sánchez said. “I’m very very confident that I’m going to win” in April.”

Mell whose father Dick Mell, for those with long memories, is not only part of Chicago’s dynastic political families but also had him famously jumping on his desk with a colorful style to make a point in establishing the successor to Washington.

“Byron Sigcho-Lopez, who heads the Pilsen Alliance, credited the socialist organization — which says it’s not a party but instead a “political and activist organization” — with helping him in the race for the seat vacated by retiring Ald. Danny Solis (25th).”

“DSA members were instrumental, and I’m thankful to the volunteers who spent hundreds — thousands — of hours campaigning,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “We’ve had a rubber-stamp City Council beholden to corporate interests, and that’s why the DSA candidates resonated with people.”

Andre Vazquez, who joined the socialists in June, will be in the runoff against 35-year incumbent Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th). O’Connor took over the powerful finance committee after Ald. Edward Burke was charged in January with trying to extort a Burger King owner.

As The Economist noted, “Looking past the label, however, American socialists are more progressive Democrats than Castros in waiting—and their rise poses more of a challenge to the Democratic Party than to capitalism.”

While a recent poll suggests growing support for the DSA, “the poll never defined “socialism”, so precisely what people were expressing support for remains unclear. For decades, the cold war defined it, at least for most Americans. They were capitalist and free, while socialism was a step removed, at best, from Soviet communism. Americans under 30 have no memory of the cold war. To them, socialism may be little more than a slur they have heard Republicans hurl at Democrats—particularly Barack Obama. They may well have reckoned that if supporting universal health care, more money for public education and policies to combat climate change are all socialist, then they are happy to be socialist too.”

“The platform of Bernie Sanders, the socialist who gave Hillary Clinton a run for her money in the 2016 Democratic primaries, left capitalism fundamentally intact, calling instead for a broader and more redistributive social safety-net. His supporters seem enamoured of Nordic-style social-welfare policies. But those countries are not socialist; they are free-market economies with high rates of taxation that finance generous public services. Indeed, the “socialist” part of those countries that Mr Sanders’s fans like would be unaffordable without the dynamic capitalist part they dislike.”

Maurice Isserman, a professor at Hamilton College and charter DSA member, “contends that DSA members “are not utopian, and we certainly don’t believe in Bolshevik-style revolution”. He approvingly cites Michael Harrington, the DSA’s founder, who said that the group should represent “the left wing of the possible”.

A surprise for some might be this: Sara Innamorato, a DSA member who won her election to the state house, from a heavily Democratic district of south-western Pennsylvania, says that “capitalism isn’t working…but I don’t think that capitalism and socialism are necessarily opposites. There are good lessons to be gained from both.”

Circling back to Chicago: historic change in the mayor’s office, and socialist wins in the aldermanic races, may mean that Chicago is truly ready for reform.

Chicago's next mayor faces a changed city

Tuesday is election day in Chicago and up for grabs is the nomination of the next mayor, along with most of the 50 ward aldermen; powerful people in a city, not only of strong shoulders, but big money, made nearly from the beginning, when men of means came to the prairies to build-up or make fortunes. The metropolis that was created, has now, evolved into a city of deep contrast between races, and income with inequality rampant, and, ironically, against the glittering backdrop of Lake Michigan and the commercial spires of trade.

After the announcement, last fall, that incumbent Rahm Emanuel was not going to seek reelection, after creating a campaign chest of millions, the field of candidates was filled to the brim, and now has fourteen men and women of varying races and gender, and all committed to tackling major problems for the city: an unfunded pension liability of $113.5 billion, a public school system mired in debt, struggling to meet new per pupil financing, and a crime problem, that despite technological advances, sees near daily shootings, even while overall homicides were reduced.

With a painful legacy of segregation, and the consequent shunting of African Americans onto one side of town, and an equally painful history of police brutality, race relations came to a head with the shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald, by a white police officer, Jason Van Dyke, and the suppression of the body cam tape by the then states attorney, there were calls for Emanuel’s resignation.

Another added criticism is that much of the monies being spent from the city budget, 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.

The mayoral election will be of critical importance to see if the city can rise, from even the mercurial ashes of distrust, disbelief and satisfaction.

Polls are showing that the two leading contenders are Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and former US Commerce Chief William “Bill” Daley, the son of the legendary Richard J. Daley and the brother of the controversial Richard M. Daley, but there are cries of ‘No more Daleys” after a parking meter deal that gave away millions, say critics, to New York bankers, in this case J.P. Morgan.

Political king maker, David Axelrod told The Chicago Sun-Times that “The differences between the top rung of candidates — Preckwinkle, Daley, Chico, Wilson, Mendoza, Lightfoot are marginal enough that nothing would be totally surprising,” he said.

In another nod, he also said something that might not bode well for anyone but Daley: “All of this suggests a modest turnout and an older and perhaps, whiter electorate — which, in theory, should help Daley sneak into the runoff."

“He (Daley) has a familiar name, which has cache with older voters and has by far the best funded campaign and the most robust TV.”

Most Preckwinkle backers are looking elsewhere after denying that she knew Alderman Ed Burke, subject of a federal raid, of racketeering and trying to shakedown a local Burger King franchise to steer money to his law firm.

The fact that she not only took the campaign donation, and a massive fundraiser at his home, which she conveniently forgot, and hired his son, are making her less of a social crusader and more of what rival Susana Mendoza called “Boss Preckwinkle.”

“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.

Meanwhile coming on strong is Lori Lightfoot, and former head to the Chicago Police Board who has given answers to questions that others might want to avoid, but, self-identifies as not being part of machine politics -- and may prove to be a stronger candidate than previously thought.

Charter schools, erroneously thought to have greater test scores than neighborhood schools face opposition from the Chicago Teachers Union, and some feel that an elected school board can remedy this, and other issues, like an aging physical plant, and lack of social workers and special education teachers, yet others are not so sure.

One of the more bizarre ideas, for the schools came from Daley, who suggested an unwieldy combination of the city’s community colleges with Chicago Public Schools, and the reduction or near elimination of local school councils, an idea that the union rejected.

In a statement from December of 2018, CTU President Jesse Sharkey said, ”Shortly after we release poll results that show Chicagoans want a mayor who prioritizes education and is willing to support new methods to increase revenue for our schools, Bill Daley suggests one of the more ridiculous ideas we’ve heard in recent memory. His plan to combine Chicago Public Schools and the City College of Chicago is the kind of tone deaf proposal you hear at thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners frequented by the donors supporting his campaign, and would add multiple layers of bureaucracy to two systems already struggling under their own weight.”

No one candidate has shown great economic ideas, and with the pension liability it seems that the Emanuel legacy, which became infamous for a raft of new taxes, some of them regressive, and “the district has used money from new taxes and state aid to manage a still-woefully underfunded pension system but faces ongoing fiscal stress and a lack of public details on how lawmakers will pump billions of new dollars into an overhauled state education funding formula.”

The the idea of an elected school board has merit, and some candidates notably Preckwinkle Lightfoot, Aymara Enyia and Willie Wilson are supporting an elected board and the rest Daley, Paul Vallas, Gery Chico and former police superintendent Garry McCarthy are favoring a hybrid.

It does bear repeating the words of former alderman, and now professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago: “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, 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.”

Whoever takes the top job, has to contend with 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 McDonald.

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.

Last but never least are the economic woes, 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 “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.

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.

Maria Hadden: A new voice for Chicago's 49th Ward

In what seems to be a seismic shift in Chicago’s 49th Ward, the 28-year incumbent, Joe Moore, now has a challenger: 38 year-old Maria Hadden an Ohio native, with extensive community work: organizing and educating citizens on how to govern the often murky world of local politics, a thankless task, but also one that has given her a vision to reshape the leadership for one of Chicago’s most racially and economically diverse wards.

Avoiding the frigid winds of February, she agreed to a telephone interview, where I asked her, straight off, what her much heralded desire for transparency meant, and how she could achieve it.

“I’m talking about a commitment to have the 49th residents to have the same information that I have, and I want to make people know how things work; we have to engage the electorate,[that is] something important in a democracy.”

“One of my role models is former Alderman Dick SImpson, his vision and commitment to the people; I want to give them a booster shot, and take what they say to a higher level, and reach out to them.”

Newcomers to Chicago politics are usually swept away by the sheer inertia of the bricks and bats, not to mention, the bickering. Hadden seems undaunted by the challenge, and self-identifies as a process person, with a strong desire to effect change, particularly in Rogers Park, an area that has seen population shifts across the black and white divide, and where some middle class professionals often feel, in moments of private confession, that they are marooned, waiting for the area to be transformed to a northern extension of tony Lincoln Park.

Some have questioned, maybe undecided voters, to media responses, exactly what experience would prepare her for the role, and should she get elected.

To answer that question, she led me on a well-traveled journey of ‘ten years with non-profits and participatory budgets, working with community groups, in both the US and Canada, helping to train, educate citizens. . . plus decision making, including two weeks in Jackson, MS, with their city budget; and, working with aldermanic staff, teachers in high school, in [such places] as Detroit, Denver, and New York City, to make government better, and increase local public services.”

In Chicago, she has also “worked with Aldermen throughout Chicago to design participatory budgeting processes around Aldermanic menu money, school budgets and TIF funds.”

With a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Ohio State University she also earned an MA in International Public Service Management from Chicago's own DePaul University.

As if this was not enough, Hadden’s website also says that she “currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Black Youth Project (BYP) 100, and Voqal. BYP is an organization of activists aiming to create justice and freedom for all Black people through the principles of leadership development and inclusivity using Black, queer, feminist lens. Voqal is a nonprofit that uses technology and media to build an educated, empowered and engaged public.”

Within that transracial volume of work I described what others in the media have pointed as her “outside the box approach”, or perhaps better described as an “out of the ward” approach, one that encompasses city wide issues, and not those that are solely ward specific,  offering something unique, and that Chicago has not seen before.

Hadden emphasized that is “a deliberate course from my past work, and in my ward, where we have not looked at this, but instead turned over the decision making to the city executive, the mayor, but, there are these issues, the pension crisis, a failing infrastructure, and there has to be accountability, there are 50 aldermen, and we need to increase that level of responsibility to the people of Chicago, and help solve the bigger issues, instead of looking only at one person, the mayor making [city wide] decisions.”

One of the biggest issues facing both aldermanic, and mayoral, candidates is public education, specifically keeping neighborhood schools open, limiting charters, and enriching quality, and resources, for the nation’s second largest school system, which prior to last year, had a much lower per-pupil funding cost, that many observers, and residents, saw as inequitable for its mostly black and brown student population.

In the 49th, two elementary schools, last year, Kilmer and Gale, had severe physical plant issues that resulted in lead paint exposure, along with leaking roofs, and other horrors that had one Kilmer parent, Dawne Moon, telling Chalkbeat.org, that it was “not currently a safe environment.”

“Moon, a Local School Council member, complained of rusted lockers, “bathrooms that smell like urine, even after they are cleaned,” temporary covers over holes in the roof that keeps water from pouring into classrooms, and of bricks falling from the ceiling in the school’s gym.” 

Later, after media exposure, Kilmer received monies needed to fix the roof, estimated at $5 to $10 million, but only after the principal and parents complained that their school, of whose academics they praised, was severely neglected.

Hadden emphasized that “this is an important issue in the 49th ward, and that the school system, and especially K-12 schools are well funded,” and noted that there have been “decades of neglect.”

She noted that while there is an urgency to keep schools safe and well-funded, was one important aspect, but, that also an aldermanic intervention can take the form of harnessing parents, and CPS to help with “another reboot; and at the local school council level, we want solutions.”

That discussion, led, of course, to the increasing demands over the last few years for an elected school board, an issue, that concerns many parents, and lawmakers, that has been well covered, and which she supports, both an unadulterated version, but also noted that she would “also support a hybrid.”

Expanding on the need for education reform, she stressed the need for “an equitable democratic process” one that would contribute to “predictable results, being democratic, as well as equitable and diverse, using participatory budgeting.”

Hadden was quick to point out that this task “should not be taken lightly” and that “a strong process” had to be central to the prospects of local political and racial domination, a possible result, that Simpson had warned of in earlier interviews.

Repairing revenue deficit is a major plan in her platform, on all levels, and one possible source promulgated by newly inaugurated Governor J.B,. Pritzker as well as state Sen. Heather Steans, as well as State rep. Kelly Cassidy, and that is marijuana legalization.

Steans previously said, “In a regulated system, the money would go into the cash registers of licensed, tax paying businesses. [where] It would generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year in new revenue for our state. Prohibition is a financial hole in the ground, and we should stop throwing taxpayer dollars into it.”

Cassidy added that given the current dire financial situation in Illinois, the legalization and taxation of marijuana could help fill the much needed revenue gaps in the state budget.

In Colorado, marijuana sales generated about $70 million in revenue during the first year of legalization.

Hadden has given her support to the idea, and when I mentioned that at the recent Women’s Mayoral Forum, sponsored by Chicago Women Take Action Alliance, mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot, gave mixed support to the idea, saying that “Colorado is not Illinois” and that further study is needed, and was not entirely convinced of its efficacy, she replied, true to her centrality, that the regulatory process “should involve more people,” but also stated that while she, like Lightfoot, was okay with further study.

Consistent with her style, she asserted that the financial results should contain an equitable distribution of funds, humorously noting, that “the hardest thing with Colorado was what to do with all that money.”

In closing, I noted that many of my more jaundiced associates and, even some friends, all longtime Chicagoans, noted that at one time, Joe Moore, among other aldermen, such as Helen Shiller, had mellowed out, after time, and like the former, had actually become less of the rebel, and more of the establishment.

Asking point blank, if she this might be her, if elected, and that, later on, maybe four or more years, if ward residents, might be saying, “Oh, gosh, let’s get rid of Hadden, she’s just like the rest, now part of the machine.”

Responding with much laughter, she said, “No, I don’t think so, that’s definitely a constituent statement - from the people -- I love people . . . and I am being honest, I know the challenges, this is a difficult job, and with a definite shelf life, but I’m not yet among those with a long history of reform, I know that I’m young, but I want to keep myself close to residents, and always be accountable; and I am thinking of people like David Orr, when he was part of the Harold Washington administration, so this is not a new tradition of reform, that I want to be part of.”

Chicago mayoral candidates jockey at Women's Forum

Chicago Women Take Action Alliance took another leap Saturday into shepherding the crowded field of mayoral candidates, to stake out positions on issues important to women;  in CWTA’s third effort in informing both the public, and the press, on candidates running for elected office, lead by the indefatigable Marilyn Katz, who recently gave the same opportunity for the Illinois gubernatorial candidates.

Moderated by two of Chicagoland's prominent women: Julia Stasch, President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Angelique Power, President of the Field Foundation of Illinois; the afternoon gave 11 candidates an unrehearsed opportunity to stake their claims to not only women’s issues, but those that concern city wide residents.

Notably absent was Bill Daley, who also did not complete the CWTA questionnaire asking for positions of support on everything from an increase in the minimum wage, to reproductive rights, assuming, for some attendees, a Jacob Marley like presence.

He was joined by Jerry Joyce who submitted no survey and no appearance. And, curiously, Neal Sales-Griffin did not respond to either request.

Divided into and two panels, the first candidates, Gery Chico, Toni Preckwinkle, John Kozlar, Amara Enya, and Paul Vallas, all declared support for the organization’s stated goals, and, for the most part, gave the appearance of corporate collegiality, on the pertinent issues of crime, education and economics, despite being competitors for the office of the nation’s third largest city -  an unenviable task.

There were some surprises: a strong and vigorous Kozlar, adamant in his positions, and a more dynamic Enya, who sounded more confident and mayoral, and in advance of Monday’s investigative report by The Chicago Tribune on her troubled finances.

Mr. McCarthy

Coming at a pivotal point in her campaign, the piece revealed that she was behind in her rent, about to be sued for it, (the suit was later withdrawn), and that she underreported a third of her income gleaned from her work on Chris Kennedy's bid for governor, and received a larger tax refund, as a result, among other problems.

The second panel consisted of La Shawn Ford, Garry McCarthy, Susan Mendoza, Lori Lightfoot, Bob Fioretti, and Willie Wilson; and, continued in much the same way, but also had some unintentional humorous moments, as when Ford, a Catholic said that, being pro-choice, he was “going to change my cardinal’s mind” of the need to support abortion,” to catcalls, and cries of “Oh, sure” and “good luck with that!”

For many seeing McCarthy - known to some as “Big Mack” - with a developed sense of humor and humility, honoring both his mother and wife, might have been worth the price of admission.

Mr. Chico

Chico affirmed his support for women, as did all of the others, a given considering where they were, but, emphatically added that corruption had to be rooted out, and that Chicagoans were living in a divided city, and unity was paramount, if progress was to be made not just in the downtown corridors, but also in the neighborhoods, and especially on the South and the West sides of the city.

In an unexpected move, Chico called for removal of Chicago Police superintendent Eddie Johnson for police misconduct.

Kozlar seemed to hit his stride, and continued his theme to “to end corruption” that has been the aftermath of the recent fed raid on the offices of longtime aldermen, and powerful finance committeeman, Ed Burke, who faces federal charges of corruption, that has both shocked and titillated some residents, but also galvanized the candidates to enhance their message of ethical reform.

“I never accepted a nickel from [Burke], so therefore I don’t have to pay him back anything,” Kozlar said.

Mr. Kozlar

 Joining in was McCarthy who said that “that [what] has been going on in the city, the county, and state, for decades,” and that some people stating, ‘I gave the money back, well if you took the money in the first place . . .’” in an obvious reference to Toni Preckwinkle’s assertion that the money she received in campaign donations from Burke, she gave back after the Burke expose.

Lightoot, not to be outdone, took up the mantle, saying that she, and others are “fed up and knowing that we need change . . . to break from the machine past,” and quoting Shirley Chisholm, I am “unbossed and unbought,” to loud applause. 

Education was prominent, when Stasch asked how improving schools could be explained to her nine-year-old daughter, and McCarthy, and Mendoza jumped into the discussion, with the former saying that nearly all of the problems Chicago can be traced back to education.

Ms. Mendoza

Mendoza claimed that her program “could utilize $7 million” for schools not only for education, but supper, as well; and also “double down the resources for a longer school day, including wrap around service for the parents. “

With the long-standing fact of a system that has an overwhelmingly student body of color, a previously inadequate funding formula, (not fully implemented yet), which disenfranchised low-income students, it was clear that the issue of education, as we have seen was paramount, and Mendoza's ideas have some measure, if not weight, and on it she says her:

“50NEW (Neighborhood Education Works) Initiatives focused on doubling down on the neediest schools by expanding wrap-around services, increasing the number of social workers, and investing in school-based supports in high-poverty schools. Where buildings are underutilized, she will work to put unused space to use by additionally offering subsidized rent to local nonprofits, so that our schools become true community hubs.”

Problems with the formula have also centered on tax relief for some districts that seems shadowy in light of how the Illinois State Board of Education is formulating them. As NPR Illinois stated on Tuesday:

“Last week, ISBE notified 28 districts that they’re eligible for grants. But they don’t get the money right away. Before eligible school districts can receive the grants, they must prove that they have actually lowered taxes for one year. ISBE will then disburse the grants at a percentage inversely linked to each district’s level of funding adequacy. That means, for example, that Ohio Community High School District 505, which applied for more than $100,000 in tax relief, is eligible to receive just about $20,000, because it’s already operating at about 90 percent of adequate funding.

There is a glitch, “. . . some educators are questioning why such a comfortable district is eligible to receive even more state funds. Mike Jacoby, director of the Illinois Association of School Business Officials, is one of the chief architects of the school funding reform plan, and he says the fact that Ohio and other well-funded districts are eligible for this grant suggests the tax relief formula needs more discussion.

I understand the motivation for property tax relief, but I do believe we need to look at a linkage to percentage of adequacy,” he says. “For districts that are already highly-funded, they probably don’t need a property tax relief grant to give relief to their citizenry, and that takes dollars away from the other districts that have a long way to go before they have adequate resources for all their children.”

Enya along with Wilson emphasized the need for children to be able to walk to school and that “people who are different” can “cross boundaries” and be free from the more draconian rules of “selective schools. and have a “responsible school board”, hinting at what she has said, before, for her belief, in an elected school board, containing some “mayor-appointed members. This ensures mayors are invested in the success of neighborhood schools, while guaranteeing community members avenues for engagement in public education.”

Ms. Preckwinkle

Toni Preckwinkle endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, and a former history teacher, praised the work of CPS head, Janice Jackson, but suggested changes in the HR department to support educational goals, and allocation of the budget to ensure early education, to ensure success for K-12 attainment goals.

In one of the less expected questions the candidates were asked why those living in neighborhoods not affected by violence, should be concerned.

 Enya said, to shouts of support, that all residents, regardless of their neighborhood, live in the same city and that violence affects everyone in the city, not only in impacted areas.

Another area of, mostly, agreement was that the city dodged the bullet by not getting the Amazon HQ and that the tax incentives - some say give-away - was not worth it; and also added that TIF - tax increment reform was paramount to returning it to its intended target: blighted neighborhoods said Fioretti and Vallas suggested stopping Lincoln Yards, a controversial project that involves $1.3 billion dollars of taxpayer money, plus an additional $400 million in borrowing costs, for a city mired in red ink over pension debts.

Finally, with the primary just around the corner, there are more forums scheduled to help voters learn candidate positions, proving that a Chicago voter has lots of means to educate themselves on candidate positions with repercussions on nearly every aspect of their lives.

Mayoral candidates face Chicago public schools

Chicago mayoral candidates face a myriad of problems, and just behind filling the pension debt hole, is the state of the Chicago public schools --- nearly all of which confront inadequate funding, an aging physical plant, and meeting the needs of a mostly low-income student population of color that was decimated by the closing of nearly 50 schools, in 2013, by incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

With competition for resource equity, versus the more profitable demands of gentrification in increasingly less African American neighborhoods, the struggle with gentrification has also bumped against the continuing tug of war between traditional neighborhood schools and charter schools, both of whom are vying for the attention of discerning parents.

Some parents, and their educators, have also expressed their goal of persuading local school officials to prevent the education deficit that often leads some young people to prison, keenly felt in many low-income communities of color, especially on the city's South and West sides, which, over several decades, has experienced economic disinvestment.

School closings are also widely recognized, by residents, as a loss of cultural anchors to their communities; and, the prospect of crossing dangerous gang-dominated neighborhoods has added to the controversy.

A conundrum has appeared with declining CPS enrollment, as many students, (especially those from African American families), leave Chicago, yet CPS continues to build schools built to meet the needs of white middle class families moving to the city.

The moratorium on new charters is ending soon, and many are complaining, especially the Chicago Teachers Union, that they continue to be a drain of money and resources from neighborhood schools.

For the uninitiated, charter schools are essentially private schools within a public school system.

What the candidates say

Taking the issue headlong was The Chicago Sun-Times, who said: “In an Editorial Board questionnaire emailed to the 18 mayoral candidates, asked, “What is the appropriate role of charter schools within the Chicago Public Schools system?”

Fourteen answered, “and only three candidates expressed support of charters without pointed caveats: Bill Daley, Garry McCarthy and John Kenneth Kozlar. Kozlar didn’t mention charters specifically, but he embraced a central tenet of the charter movement: giving parents school choice through competition.

“Competition within our education is much needed,” he wrote, “so that schools in every area can be good schools.”

Daley wrote: “It’s time to move beyond the debate of charters vs. traditional public schools and recognize that they are all public schools. Parents just want a good school and the debate should focus on what is in the best interests of kids.”

And McCarthy, saying that his views on charters “evolved” as he saw more labor union involvement, wrote that charters “can be good neighborhood schools, especially in communities where neighborhood schools have been closed.” McCarthy, though, didn’t say why charters might make sense in those neighborhoods, and the logic is not obvious, given that those neighborhood schools usually were closed because of under-enrollment.”

The role of big money

If this all seems a bit skittish, then consider that big money is being donated to the cause of charter schools, despite the five-year moratorium that is near, “Members of the pro-charter Walton family, heirs to the Walmart fortune, are shoring up — with $1 million in December and counting — the PACs associated with the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, as Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet recently wrote.

“The old expression about money that “talks” might be behind some of these statements, as the candidates look to a near distant political  landscape, where their words may come back to haunt them.

Less cautious are “Dorothy Brown, Amara Enyia and Toni Preckwinkle [who] clearly are more skeptical, having little or nothing good to say about charters.

Brown wrote that she opposes charters and supports more unionizing by charter school teachers. That’s a trend in full swing here in Chicago, where the nation’s first strike by charter teachers recently was settled.

Preckwinkle, who has been endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, wrote that charters are “a weapon for corporate privatization of education.” She called for “a freeze on any new charter schools until a fully elected school board can be implemented.”

Enyia did not make clear what role charters should play in Chicago, but she offered an extended critique. “With few exceptions,” she wrote, charters create a “separate and unequal” education system that reinforces class and racial bias.”

A new era dawns

Charters are also losing their chief supporter, Emanuel, who from the onset of his first term touted his support, despite stumbling over quoting test store stats, that he thought were from charters, but were, in fact, culled from traditional neighborhood schools, who have, despite conventional wisdom, exceeded the charters.

Continuing from the Sun-Times format, “Six candidates took more of a middle ground on charters. Gery Chico, Bob Fioretti, Jerry Joyce, Lori Lightfoot, Paul Vallas, La Shawn Ford and Susana Mendoza saw some good in charters, with caveats or restrictions.

Chico, a longtime charter supporter, said he would call for a “a full review of all charters before opening new ones.” Fioretti said there should be a moratorium on charters until the next mayor has an “education strategy.”

Lightfoot wrote that charters “play a significant role in educating our children,” but she said she would impose a freeze on new charters. “We must change the relationship between CPS and charters,” she wrote, somewhat vaguely.”

Part of the relationship and the recent strike from Acero, and the almost strike with Passages, was on the investment of money into the classroom and the academy, versus the corporate sponsorship.

“We care deeply about our students,” says third grade teacher Gina Mengarelli, a member of Passages’ ChiACTS bargaining team. “Many of our kids, as refugees and immigrants, look to the school as an environment to support the hopes and dreams they bring to their new country. It is simply wrong for management to invest so little in these children and the frontline workers who are responsible for their education.”

What teachers need

For CPS, the lack of so-called “wrap around services” are needed to support children in a wide variety of issues, not just a subsidized lunch voucher many of whom come from single-parent households, where the principal caregiver may be working two jobs to make ends meet.

Many of the services from additional social workers, nurses, and teacher aides have been missing from the budgets, and that also includes special needs students who need trained staff and faculty to help them matriculate.

One lone teacher, even if embedded in the classroom cannot do it alone.

Can a new mayor help, or hinder?

The Chicago Tribune reported that recently, “. . . union President Jesse Sharkey and top deputies delivered a sheaf of written demands to lame-duck Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office at City Hall. CTU officials said their proposals include a 5 percent pay raise for union members. The union is also demanding maximum classroom sizes that range between 20 and 24 students in early grades, counselors for every 250 students, and librarians and nurses staffed at every school.”

“We intend to bargain hard,” Sharkey said. “We intend to bring both our allies and our members into a fight for the schools that our students deserve. We’re going to support a new mayor to the extent they do the right thing by our schools, and we’re going to act independently of them and fight them to the extent they don’t.”

It seems that some candidate ideas might outweigh reality, and in a statement from December of 2018, Sharkey said, ”Shortly after we release poll results that show Chicagoans want a mayor who prioritizes education and is willing to support new methods to increase revenue for our schools, Bill Daley suggests one of the more ridiculous ideas we’ve heard in recent memory. His plan to combine Chicago Public Schools and the City College of Chicago is the kind of tone deaf proposal you hear at thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners frequented by the donors supporting his campaign, and would add multiple layers of bureaucracy to two systems already struggling under their own weight.”

Show me the money

The Emanuel administration became infamous for a raft of new taxes, some of them regressive, and “the district has used money from new taxes and state aid to manage a still-woefully underfunded pension system but faces ongoing fiscal stress and a lack of public details on how lawmakers will pump billions of new dollars into an overhauled state education funding formula.”

To note, “Two-thirds of this year’s roughly $6 billion CPS budget is already devoted to educators’ salary and benefits, according to the district., the Trib notes, and “There’s also this: While CTU and CPS may negotiate over many of the subjects the union identified as priorities . . . state law largely prohibits city public school educators from striking over those issues.”

An elected school board to the rescue?

Perhaps no issue is more contentious in the donnybrook for local education, than the desire for an elected school board for Chicago. And, as noted, and quoted before: an elected school board may not be the answer to all of the problems all of the time.

Former Alderman Dick Simpson, has said, “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, 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.”

“In 1995, at the behest of Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Illinois General Assembly returned control over CPS to City Hall. This means that all members of the Board of Education are picked by the mayor, making Chicago the only city in Illinois to not elect its own school board. While there are a handful of cities nationally that employ mayoral control over the school system, there is inconclusive evidence that this leads to better outcomes,” noted the Tribune.

Chalkbeat recently submitted questionnaires on this issue and 15 of the 21 candidates submitted their answers, “And while the majority said they support an elected board outright, two of the candidates who’ve raised the most cash in the race so far — Bill Daley and Gery Chico — each described visions of a “hybrid” school board whose majority would be appointed by the mayor, while community members would select the remainder.”

“But, it’s important to note: Researchers lack consensus about whether elected school boards or mayoral control results in better fiscal management and student performance. Many factors affect those outcomes, like student demographics, funding levels, and quality of leadership at schools, districts, and in city and state government. But, as noted in this 2016 analysis of school governance systems by Pew Charitable Trusts, “there is broad agreement on at least one conclusion:

“Governance systems that produce uncertainty, distrust, and ambiguous accountability can impede districts’ progress on any front,” regardless of how they are constituted.”

Getting there may be the most contentious and the severe cold weather cancelled a candidate forum on education, this Thursday, but looking at the results of their questions, we can see gauge candidate reactions, and response.

“Five candidates support creating a school board with some members appointed by the mayor and the rest chosen by community members:

Bill Daley, Gery Chico, Susana Mendoza, Garry McCarthy and Paul Vallas

This camp includes candidates with ties to former Mayor Daley: his former budget director and schools chief Paul Vallas; Daley’s first board appointee Gery Chico; and Daley’s brother Bill Daley, who like Mayor Emanuel, once was chief of staff to former President Barack Obama.

“. . . , Bill Daley proposed a seven-member school board with four members, including the board president, appointed by the mayor, while three board members would be recommended by Local School Councils.”

“CPS has taken steps in the right direction under mayoral accountability, including rising graduation rates,” Daley said in his statement. “Removing mayoral accountability would result in multimillion-dollar politicized elections and risk derailing tentative progress at a time when we need to take big, bold steps for the future of our kids.”

Last December, “Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza appeared . . . at a breakfast for the City Club of Chicago, whose membership includes business and civic leaders, she characterized a fully elected school board as “just plain bad policy.”

“A purely elected school board, that leaves the mayor out and lets the mayor, frankly, off the hook,” said Mendoza, who served as a campaign surrogate on Emanuel’s 2015 re-election bid. “And we need more accountability from the mayor, not less.”

With the dustup over the raid on Ed Burke’s office and the federal charges of a shakedown, and the subsequent revelation of incestuous political relationships, among the leading candidates, t’s easy to see that the road ahead has already been travelled.

Most candidates for mayor do support a fully elected school board, and they include:

Catherine Brown D’Tycoon, Amara Enyia, Bob Fioretti, LaShawn K. Ford, Ja’Mal Green
Jerry Joyce, Lori Lightfoot, Toni Preckwinkle ,Neal Sales-Griffin, and Willie Wilson.

“Fioretti, a former alderman, maintains that elected school boards empower and return control to people. Every other district in Illinois has one, Fioretti said, and denying Chicago theirs “was part of a grand scheme by a Daley in the first place,” referring to the 1995 state law backed by Daley that granted him power over the school board.”

Plans have not been announced, yet, for a rescheduled candidate forum on education, but it’s a safe bet that it will be contentious.

Pritzker promises a balanced budget in inaugural speech

Monday’s inauguration of J.B. Pritzker as the 43rd governor of Illinois comes after his entrenched predecessor, Republican Bruce Rauner, held the prairie state at an impasse, by withholding a budget, for nearly two years, as the state slid into financial disarray, to put it mildly, while the latter insisted on the Democratic legislature agreeing to a so-called “turn around agenda”, that included the weakening of public unions, and tort reform, for workmen’s compensation benefits.

In the end, the state assembly passed a budget over Rauner’s veto, and after the last glass of champagne was drunk, and the bands stopped playing, playing catch up will be the main task of the new governor.

In no small measure, it was duly noted, in Pritzker’s address: "Balancing the budget means lowering the cost of government while delivering the high quality services Illinoisans deserve," Pritzker said.

Taking both the high road, for social welfare advocates, and also to right the ship of state, he emphasized, “But be clear about this: I won’t balance the budget on the backs of the starving, the sick, and the suffering. I won’t hollow out the functions of government to achieve an ideological agenda – I won’t make government the enemy and government employees the scapegoats. Responsible fiscal management is a marriage of numbers - and values,” to great applause.

Some have suggested that if action is not taken then layoffs can be seen, of public employees, and a cap on some salaries, as well as combining benefits with cost of living raises, known as COLA’s; all  as possible solutions.

Beset by a nearly two year absence of a state budget, the state accumulated more than $14 billion dollars in unpaid bills, and sent incoming freshmen to out of state colleges, rather than face diminished resources at Illinois public universities; social service budgets were slashed, and some forced to close, or severely limit the services they provided.

The largest challenge is how to address the $250 billion of unpaid pension obligations to public employees, a great cause of concern, especially to rating agencies such as Moody’s which rated Illinois as having the largest pension debt in the nation, as a percentage of GDP and personal income.

As Bloomberg News reported in February: “$2.3 billion of deficit spending in the form of unappropriated liabilities held at state agencies as of Dec. 31; are also a significant hole.”

The road less traveled is the change in the Illinois tax system of which Pritzker ”vowed to work toward what was one of the main tentpoles of his campaign agenda: a progressive income tax system. Illinois is bound by its state constitution to a flat tax, meaning the change would need a constitutional amendment - a task more difficult than the passage and signing of legislation.”

A simple definition, provided by the IRS, is that “A progressive tax takes a larger percentage of income from high-income groups than from low-income groups and is based on the concept of ability to pay. A progressive tax system might, for example, tax low-income taxpayers at 10 percent, middle-income taxpayers at 15 percent and high-income taxpayers at 30 percent. The U.S. federal income tax is based on the progressive tax system.”

Nearby, neighbors, such as Wisconsin and Michigan, have progressive tax systems, and for the new governor, "The current tax system is simply unsustainable. Others have lied to you about that fact. I won’t," Pritzker said. "The future of Illinois depends on the passage of a fair income tax."

Others disagree, such as the Tax Foundation, which noted on its website that while “Policymakers may believe that more progressive rate structures will reduce inequality, however, there is relatively little evidence of this. In fact, states with more progressive tax codes have higher inequality, on average, than states with flat or no income taxes. Academic research by Raj Chetty and Emmanuel Saez (of Piketty and Saez fame) found that the progressivity of a state’s income tax had no significant correlation with upward mobility (though greater reliance on property taxes to fund local government apparently did increase economic mobility). Thus, policymakers may be adopting high tax rates that do real economic harm while doing little to encourage equality and upward mobility.”

"I’m not naïve about what it will take to do this. All who enter a discussion about our state’s budget and a fair tax system in good faith will be welcomed to the table. But if you lead with partisanship and scare tactics you will be met with considerable political will," Pritzker said, in recognition of the difficulties in adopting the change.

What we he do with the proceeds of a progressive system? His responses included, an update on infrastructure like roads and bridges, deliver high-speed broadband internet to everyone across the state, and more,” noted the Sun-Times.

Addressing threatened layoffs, as some companies move their headquarters out of state, and as of last September, “Multiple Illinois employers have recently issued layoff notices, warning of roughly 1,200 job cuts across the state. Those lost jobs are in addition to 1,000 jobs that will move to Boston as Deerfield-based Takeda closes its Illinois headquarters,” noted patch.com, and scheduled for this year is “Follett Higher Ed Group, Aurora: 81 workers affected, layoffs will happen between Oct. 26 and Feb. 28, 2019,” they added.

Still pending, this week, at least, is if Eddie Lampert can rescue Sears, the storied retailer, headquartered in Chicago, with an offer topping $5 billion dollars, and whose demise could send thousands more to the unemployment office.

Inaugural speeches have to include a near laundry list of favored items and, in keeping with tradition, he also vowed that one of his first acts as governor would be Illinois' joining of the U.S. Climate Alliance, to uphold "the goals and ideals of the Paris Climate Accord," the landmark international environmental protections agreement from which President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. in 2017.”

Focusing on two of his campaign planks, in a vigorous campaign, Pritzker also highlighted his push for a $15 minimum wage and the legalization of recreational marijuana, (he says that he expects profits to be between $700 million to $1 billion a year) hallmarks of local progressives, and one part of his speech “that drew perhaps the loudest round of applause was his praise of diversity in government.”

"Thank you Illinois, for your faith in me," Pritzker closed. "I promise to live up to it every day. Together let’s go into this new century with enough faith to help each other out of our troubles, with enough foolishness to believe we can make a difference in the world, and with enough kindness to find the courage to change."