She also wants a public bank that would make loans to businesses in neighborhoods redlined by for-profit banks. Specifically, he wants to use state capital funding to rebuild abandoned houses. Rahm Emanuel is not running for re-election in large part because the black community, which provided his margin of victory in , has not forgiven him for covering up the Laquan McDonald video.
The coverup has intensified a breach of trust between the police department and communities of color. Consequently, the clearance rate on homicides is an abysmal 17 percent. Lori Lightfoot was a member of the Police Board, and headed the Police Accountability Task Force, which was put together to make recommendations for reforming the department after the McDonald shooting. Lightfoot believes our crime stats can be turned around only by encouraging economic development in poor communities and building trust between police and citizens.
She suggests more police training in areas such as technology and procedural injustice, and more engagement between detectives and the community.
Toni Preckwinkle says that as an alderman, she learned to work as a bridge between the police and the community. In fact, I think understanding that reality is a requirement for the next mayor. McCarthy argues that he got results.
In , his last full year as superintendent, Chicago recorded murders, its lowest total since the mids. Jerry Joyce is also running as a law and order candidate. He has promised to hire more police, particularly detectives.
Does Gery Chico have a lot of old furniture in his garage? No candidate has taken a stronger stand in favor of dibs, the Chicago tradition of setting sawhorses and lawn chairs in the street to reserve a parking spot from which you've shoveled the snow.
If dibs is the most important issue for you in this campaign, Chico is your candidate. Paul Vallas , the man with the broom , has a plan for everything. The first two items are things every municipality and county will be supporting and could be phased in over the next four years during the pension ramp-up….
Just a five percent reduction in base spending over the next five years would enable the City to meet the balance of the pension funding ramp up.
No child should have to worry about the consequences of going to the park and no parent should have to keep their kids inside on a warm day for fear of violence. Lori believes that everyone deserves a safe, clean, and affordable place to live and is committed to finding ways to keep families in their neighborhoods amidst gentrification.
She has extensive experience as a former federal prosecutor, a leader in investigating police misconduct including police-involved shootings, and more recently as president of the Police Board and chair of the Police Accountability Task Force. As mayor, Lori will. Lori is running for mayor to build a Chicago that works for every person and every community. For years, Chicago government has catered to the wealthy few and politically connected while ignoring everyone else.
Lori will build a transparent and responsive City government Chicagoans can trust to serve their needs. Small businesses are critical job creators and economic engines, but all too often we sacrifice their needs as we cater to big corporations. In her leadership role in City procurement, Lori held the City and companies accountable to promises to hire women and minorities and made sure that when the City contracted with small businesses, they paid for these services on time.
Investing here and not there; providing advantages to some but not others; listening to a few but ignoring far too many. We can and we must invest downtown while also providing resources to our neighborhoods.
In addition to supporting public schools, addressing violence, and supporting small businesses, as mayor Lori will:. Chicago must be a city where every person from every background has security and opportunity. The war on drugs has disproportionately targeted people of color, tearing apart Chicago families and burdening taxpayers with costs of prosecuting these low-level offenses.
I believe the greatest investment we can make is in our young people. Read more. During my time as Cook County President, we reduced the unnecessary and costly detention of non-violent offenders by more than 30 percent. I have been an outspoken in calling for accountability in the Chicago Police Department and a vocal advocate for juvenile justice reform; reducing the number of children tried as adults and the population in the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center.
I believe clean water is a human right. It is intolerable that there are still , lead water service lines to homes. I have a plan to immediately put in place a program to inventory all lead service lines, disclose their location to residents, create a replacement schedule, and bundle replacements geographically for cost efficiencies and to minimize further displacement of lead into drinking water.
The time is long overdue for Chicago to show dignity and respect for transgender lives. When Toni is mayor, she will work with Cook Co. One of the biggest challenges facing the next mayor of Chicago is addressing the severe racial economic inequality in the city.
To do this, the next mayor must focus significantly more attention and resources on the communities that have suffered from decades of disinvestment. Toni believes one of our first responsibility as government is to ensure that there is equitable public investment in public education, public safety, health care, transportation infrastructure, and housing in our communities.
Our other responsibility, when necessary, is to intervene when private markets have failed due to misinformation and frankly, discrimination. Read more [82]. Ballotpedia identified the following as major issues in the race based on candidate forums and statements, media reports, and events surrounding the election.
Below, you will find overviews of each issue and a collection of candidate statements from campaign websites and questionnaires. To suggest other major issues for coverage, email editor ballotpedia.
The four pension funds combined were 27 percent funded. Of 96 city- and county-sponsored pension systems analyzed by the investment management firm Wilshire Associates in , 3 percent of those systems were below 30 percent funded. Until , the city's required annual contributions to the funds were set as a multiple of employee contributions and were not adjusted to match projected costs of pension benefits.
In July , the bond rating agency Moody's gave the city of Chicago a rating of Ba1, indicating high risk for bondholders. Most of Chicago's payments to the four pension funds come from property tax revenue. The state legislature passed a bill in , supported by Emanuel and a group of labor unions, that made two major changes: 1 increased employee contributions to the system from 8. The legislation was challenged by a group of labor unions, workers, and retirees.
In , the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the law, saying it violated a state constitution clause asserting that pension benefits "shall not be diminished or impaired. A government's goal with POBs is to earn more from investments than it owes in debt and interest to bondholders.
Pensions are a promise. I grew up in a union household, and, in the old steel town we lived in, lots of workers lost their pensions.
The next mayor must look into reforms that can result in meaningful cost-savings without breaking our contractual obligations to workers. The city also needs to engage in TIF reform. In doing so, we will not balance the City budget on the backs of low-income and working class families, nor will we adopt measures that drive business out of Chicago. City workers have held up their end of the bargain by paying into the pension system throughout their careers and we must seek opportunities to ensure they can have the secure retirement that they have earned.
In addition, as mayor I will do everything in my power to fiercely oppose any attempt by the state to reduce current or future city retiree benefits. To solve our pension debt problem we must enact constitutionally permissible reforms that save money on the repayment of the debt, and access revenue in order to front-load that repayment.
I will seek legislation that will permit Chicago pension funds to offer discounted benefit buyouts to tier 1 employees, as was enacted by the state last year. I would also seek to ensure that a portion of revenue raised by the adoption of progressive rates be diverted through the Local Government Distributive Fund, to all municipalities to be utilized for pension debt stabilization.
Additionally, I will work with Springfield to pass legalization of recreational marijuana and gaming expansion with all revenues dedicated to pension debt stabilization. On February 11, , the University of Illinois at Chicago released a report finding that between and , 1, individuals in the Northern District of Illinois the northern third of Illinois including Chicago, the nation's third-largest city were convicted of public corruption—the most of any metropolitan area in the country.
The Central District of California including Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city , was second with 1, individual convictions for public corruption. Ethics reforms, especially those related to the city council, became a prominent theme in the mayoral race after Ald. Edward Burke was charged with attempted extortion on Jan. Click here to learn more. Lightfoot proposed a nine-point plan entitled Cleaning Up City Government, including: two-term limit for mayor; limiting outside employment for city officials; shifting responsibility for the workers' compensation program from the council finance committee to the executive branch; centralizing the Office of Inspector General; complying with the Freedom of Information Act; increasing transparency in the tax increment financing program; merging the Chicago and Cook County boards of election; requiring separate counsel for the legislative and executive branches; and holding public town hall meetings during the budget season.
Read the full plan here. In , the Chicago Board of Education voted to close 50 schools—around 7 percent of the city's total number of schools. He and the board cited under-enrollment and poor academic performance as reasons for school closures. Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett instituted a five-year moratorium on district-run school closings in the city that began in the fall of and ended in the fall of In December , local news outlet WBEZ released a report containing the following figures, covering from to the report's release: [].
A Chicago Public Schools report deemed of the city's schools underutilized, meaning they had less than 70 percent of the target number of enrolled students. Closing low-performing schools; 2. Closing schools more than 50 percent under-enrolled; 3. The following is the candidate's extended answer:. It means we have failed to help children learn, failed to save a community anchor, and in recent cases has meant we failed to provide black and brown children with the good quality, stable educational environment they deserve.
A Lightfoot administration will engage in a respectful partnership with parents, teachers, and other stakeholders to support and maintain clean, safe, quality public schools for every student in every neighborhood. In this collaborative environment, a closure would be the very last resort after all other options have been exhausted and after a transparent and engaged dialogue with all stakeholders.
I would never agree to such a hard and fast rule that does not allow for nuance or community input to help turn a school around or give our kids the best quality public education in their neighborhood.
As with the first question, I would not commit to a rule that does not allow for community engagement in these critical decisions. Of course, our children should learn in an environment where they can enjoy a full range of educational experiences and resources. Those objectives become challenging to meet where there is material under-enrollment.
However, our first reaction should not be to close those schools, which places the burden of failed economic development and disinvestment on our students and often on black and brown students in particular. Instead, we must increase enrollment by addressing the root causes of flight and working collaboratively with all stakeholders to turn our schools around.
As with the first two questions, I would make critical decisions about our schools collaboratively with stakeholders. Every student in every neighborhood deserves a safe, clean, quality school nearby; however, this is not the case in every neighborhood right now. I would work with parents, students, teachers, and other stakeholders to make this vision for a more equitable CPS a reality. Closure should be the absolute last resort, after a process of engagement with people who are stakeholders around that particular school.
Nobody benefits from a school that is severely under-enrolled. We are not going to have enough programming. The offerings for the students are going to be diminished as compared to other fully populated schools. But we have to be much more transparent about the demographics and the trends and engage the parents and the teachers and other stakeholders around that school and what the future looks like.
We have to come up with a process in which we think creatively about how to further enrich that school. Now, if at the end of the day the population continues to dwindle, then that is a problem we have to reckon with. The schools labeled as "chronically low-performing" are in the same neighborhoods on the South and West sides subject to massive disinvestment, over-policing, the destruction of affordable housing, and Great Depression-era unemployment. The answer, then, isn't to take even more from the same folks.
Instead, my first steps as mayor will be investing in schools so they have the things they deserve based on the elements of the state's new evidence-based funding formula: additional social workers, nurses and school counselors; lower class sizes; early childhood education; and the resources and supports for a broad and rich curriculum.
And I will address the structural issues that impact what happens in schools: build additional affordable housing, expand job opportunities for people outside of downtown, and criminal justice changes that make it possible for people to make it on the outside. Rahm's school closures were an abject failure, as a recent University of Chicago report made clear.
The school closures unnecessarily harmed students and destroyed community centers, and demonstrated a key problem with policy by formula - if the formula elements change, the outcomes change, too. Those same so-called underenrolled schools under CPS' numbers would be optimally used if we made tweaks to the formula, such as lowering class sizes, especially in the early grades, and expanding the sustainable community schools model to provide additional wraparound supports for students, healthcare access, and adult education opportunities.
The problem with school closures is the austerity they forced on only some residents in Chicago. To be clear, the decline in students in CPS is almost entirely attributed to the decline in Black students. Their families were pushed out of the city by unaffordable housing, a lack of jobs, and regressive fines and fees. And in the past year, that pushout spread to Latino families, as those same factors and the Trump Justice Department's immigration enforcement forced untenable choices on greater numbers of people.
The city's school enrollment and population are linked. Closing schools doesn't fix either. We can't foreclose the need to build new schools to replace ones that are in need of replacing.
But I do commit to few important ideas. First, I dramatically favor investing capital in existing schools to make sure that they have what they need: engaging learning environments, technology infrastructure, appropriate climate controls so students aren't sweltering or freezing, and health and safety repairs that ensure our children don't get lead poisoning or mold poisoning at school.
Second, we need a freeze on new charter schools, which only made the enrollment issues worse as more schools served fewer students, thereby forcing a hunger games scenario on children and families. Third, the new schools over the last ten years have been predominantly built for selective enrollment students who are disproportionately white and higher income. That's an inequity that must end. Test scores should not determine the facility you learn in. Finally, I commit to having a capital plan that is an actual plan rather than a series of political favors to be doled out.
School repairs should be allocated on basis of need, not based on access. You have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. What is the reason for the decline in enrollment? Are there possibilities of enhancing enrollment through additional programming or changing school boundaries?
There are a variety of options that you might pursue. Schools are neighborhood anchors, in addition to being educational institutions, and we should be very, very cautious about closing them. I am in favor of a moratorium on school closing and a moratorium on charter schools.
That doesn't mean we would never close schools. I am in favor of a moratorium now because the school district, prior to five years ago when it closed 50 schools in one year, was closing 10 to 12 schools a year and able to manage that. But what they did in that one year, closing 50 schools, they clearly were not able to manage very well.
I think your reporters have said 38 of those 50 schools are still vacant. In , the state legislature gave the mayor the power to appoint members of the Chicago Board of Education. In , the state legislature established a member school board nominating commission, which generated a list of proposed members from which the mayor chose. In , direct appointment power was restored to the mayor.
The Chicago Teachers Union supported an elected school board, saying an elected board would allow for greater transparency, accountability, community input, and representation of Chicago residents. Former board of education vice president Jesse Ruiz argued against an effort to establish a member elected school board in , saying that it would disperse accountability among 21 politicians as opposed to having one person—the mayor—accountable.
According to the Affordable Requirements Ordinance and subsequent amendments to it, developers with residential projects in the city meeting certain criteria such as those receiving public funding must:. The required percentage of units at least 10 percent , regulations around offsite construction, and amount of in-lieu fees vary by area.
Proponents of increasing affordable housing requirements for developers argued that it is necessary both to meet affordable housing needs and to have some of those units located in neighborhoods that are economically thriving rather than concentrated in poorer neighborhoods. Developers argued that increasing affordable housing requirements would increase the cost of their projects. In , the Illinois General Assembly banned rent control in the state, prohibiting municipalities from regulating how much landlords could charge for rent.
In January and February , three bills were introduced into the general assembly that would repeal the ban on rent control. Lift the Ban, a Chicago-based group advocating for the repeal of the rent control ban, argued that wages had not increased at the same rate as rents; that rising rents were driving minority families out of Chicago; that about half of Chicago renter households paid more than 30 percent of their income on rent; and that rent control would increase the affordable housing supply in the city.
According to the group, regulating rent increases would reduce the affordable housing supply as investors would choose other locations for their residential development projects and as people without financial need remain in rent-controlled housing.
The group also said rent control would diminish landlords' ability to perform needed maintenance and that it would increase property taxes on homeowners. WBEZ asked: "Will you force developers of new projects to build affordable housing units in gentrifying communities where long-time residents are being displaced? As set forth in my housing plan, I support amending the Affordable Requirements Ordinance to increase the number of affordable units built, including requiring affordable units to be built within market rate developments, and shrinking the radius where affordable units can be built so developers are forced to build affordable units in gentrifying neighborhoods.
I also support limiting an alderman's ability to keep affordable housing from being built in his or her ward. We have a huge affordable-housing crisis in the city. In two-thirds of the city, not a single affordable unit has been built.
Families who have occupied their homes and neighborhoods for generations find themselves pushed out due to gentrification and rising costs of living. It is important that there are affordable housing options in gentrifying areas to ensure that longtime residents can stay in the communities they've called home long before the demographic change.
When considering city legislation to establish a rent control, I believe this power should be given back to local municipalities so they can decide how rent control would best work for them. Reported murders in Chicago increased 60 percent between and The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported murders in compared to in The total represented the city's highest number of reported murders since were reported in From to , Chicago's annual murder totals peaked at in and hit a low of in In , there were murders.
A Pew Research Center report stated that Chicago had the 14th highest murder rate, at The following table shows the city's murder totals as reported by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics database from to Incidents of murder and other violent crimes were more prevalent in the city's West and South sides.
Chicago Police Department data showed that, from mid-December to mid-December , 50 percent of reported violent crimes took place in 12 of the city's 50 wards.
Lightfoot released a six-part public safety plan. The following are excerpts. Addressing Violence as a Public Health Crisis First, in order to tackle the violence, we must address it as a public health crisis. Framing the challenges in this way will compel the City to address the root causes of the violence and meet those challenges head on with a toolkit that extends beyond law enforcement. We must solve the illegal gun problem if we are going to reduce the crime and violence that plague the city.
And we will do that through a proactive, coordinated response led by federal law enforcement officials, strengthening state and federal gun laws, creating a centralized department within CPD responsible for tracking illegal guns throughout the city, and strategically deploying police cameras in neighborhoods. And for far too long, and despite the efforts of the vast number of current and former officers who are dedicated public servants committed to lawful policing, CPD has not succeeded at bridging the gap between it and the communities it serves.
The curriculum will also include sections devoted to conflict resolution, social justice and identifying and treating trauma associated with guns and violence. Preckwinkle released a "Building a Safer Chicago" agenda with 15 steps. To see the full agenda, click here. There is no greater responsibility for any government than ensuring the safety of its constituents. For far too long, for far too many, the City of Chicago has failed to meet this basic need.
As a mother and grandmother, Toni empathizes deeply with the toll and trauma this violence has imposed on generations of families, many of whom have lost multiple loved ones to violence. There is no pain worse than that of a parent forced to bury a child.
And while the CountyCare program Toni helped create as Cook County Board President has brought unprecedented behavioral and physical health care into our communities, we still face deficits due to years of neglect. The violence, combined with these underlying factors, has contributed to a growing exodus of families from these communities, removing critical economic and social resources, and making the devastating cycle of disinvestment and decline worse.
My approach to public safety will enhance racial justice and equity. Contrary to what some argue, these goals actually work together.
When we over-incarcerate for nonviolent offenses, we destabilize communities, increasing the likelihood for criminality and violence. Those reforms reduced the County jail population by thousands without negatively impacting public safety. Thirdly, Toni will ensure that Chicago Police Department strives to become the most effective police department in the country, by improving training, supervision, promotion, collaboration and crime-solving capacity within the department and demanding real improvement in homicide clearance and overall crime reduction.
All of these efforts must work in tandem with robust investment in our public schools, our neighborhoods, and our access to mental health services. Our bold agenda on these fronts will be just as critical, if not more so, to the security of our city as the reforms we make to policing. Therefore, as mayor Toni will see to it that our investments in these key areas match with their value to the public safety of all Chicagoans.
Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, was shot 16 times and killed by white police officer Jason Van Dyke in Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery in October He was sentenced in January to six years and nine months in prison. In December , the U. The department released a report in January concluding that "CPD officers engage in a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, that is unreasonable," attributing this partly to a lack of adequate training and lack of accountability measures for officers who commit misconduct.
The report recommended that the city enter a consent decree —a court-ordered plan to reform the police department's policies that would be enacted by a federal judge, who would appoint an independent monitor to oversee the plan's implementation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions R opposed entering a consent decree with the city of Chicago, saying police department reforms should be a local and state effort.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he would continue to pursue police reforms without federal involvement. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan D sued the city of Chicago to continue negotiating a consent decree with federal oversight in August and Emanuel agreed to do so.
The local Fraternal Order of Police FOP union had attempted to get the lawsuit between the state attorney general and the city dismissed. The FOP questioned the methodology used by the Department of Justice in its investigation leading to the proposed decree and called its findings biased against police.
The FOP said the consent decree would have a "devastating impact on the ability of our members to protect the public. The city of Chicago and the state attorney general office drafted a consent decree that "requires changes in the areas of community policing; impartial policing; crisis intervention; use of force; recruitment, hiring, and promotions; training; supervision; officer wellness and support; accountability and transparency; and data collection, analysis, and management.
Follow Us:. Share Tweet Email. Share: Share Tweet Email. See their one-on-one interviews with ABC7's Craig Wall and get important voter information before the election. The run-off mayoral election between Lightfoot and Preckwinkle will be held Tuesday, April 2. The Chicago Board of Elections issued a proclamation to open early voting in wards and vote by mail early, on Thursday, March The board said due to a calendar fluke the run-off season is seven days shorter than in , and so they are opening early voting earlier to help offset the difference.
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