Mayor Rahm Emanuel The Best Choice for Chicago

Editorial

Since taking office in 2011, the Mayor has been on a fast track to stay true to campaign promises he made in 2010, particularly his promises to improve critical issues including Chicago’s educational system, economy, technological infrastructure, and crime.

In the Chicago Citizen’s Newspaper’s opinion, and to the city of Chicago’s fortune, Mayor Emanuel, in an appealing go-getter kind of way, kept his promises. How did he do it? We have detailed the Mayor’s stellar accomplishments beginning with his, progressive stance on education...

Emanuel and Education

A key talking point for Mayor Emanuel during his 2010 campaign was that every child in Chicago, no matter their circumstances or where they live, deserves a world-class education from cradle to career. Again, Mayor Emanuel came out swinging.

Asked during a Jan. Chicago Women Take Action Alliance, Mayoral Forum, why he felt it was necessary to close 50 Chicago Public Schools, Mayor Emanuel answered saying, “Closing those schools was part of a series of things that needed to be done. Those kids were trapped…we made changes to give them a chance for a better education.”

A proponent of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) focused education for Chicago Public Schools students, with an emphasis on college and career preparation, Mayor Emanuel’s initiatives have contributed to a record-high graduation rate of 69.4 percent for the last school year, up from 58.3 percent in 2011.

Mayor Emanuel, in his first two years, expanded full-day kindergarten to all Chicago children, ensuring, for the first time, that every kindergarten aged child in Chicago gets a full day.

Starting with this new school year, 3,000 CPS students will be able to enroll in free, college-level courses at City Colleges – a tenfold increase over the number just three years ago. Also, 1,500 more high school students will take college-level courses taught by qualified CPS teachers. Emanuel also launched the Chicago STAR Scholarship that offers free tuition and books to CPS graduates with more than a 3.0 GPA.

Emanuel Lays Out Economic Development Plan

First and foremost, Mayor Emanuel and the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance in Dec. raising Chicago’s $8.25 minimum wage over the next four years to $13 per hour by 2019. A job well done!

On the south side so far with Shops and Lofts on 47 and the new Walmart located at 47th and Street and Cottage Grove, the new Englewood Whole Foods grocery store and the Bronzeville Mariano’s grocery store that’s coming soon to the corner of 39th Street and King Dr.

Attracting corporate headquarters to Chicago was a key component of Mayor Emanuel’s Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs Mayor Emanuel came out swinging when dealing with this issue.

For example, West Monroe Partners, a full-service business and technology consultancy, announced in Feb. plans to expand its headquarters in Chicago adding more than 150 jobs. The Chicago office, which opened in 2002, serves more than 400 clients in key industries, including banking, private equity, life sciences, insurance, utilities, and retail.

A long-touted idea to make Chicago a premier tourist and entertainment destination and use tourism as a way to increase revenue for the city, Mayor Emanuel announced recently that Chicago broke the 50 million visitor mark for the first time in 2014, setting a new visitation record estimated at 50.2 million visitors, a 3.5% increase over 2013.

According to Emanuel, Chicago's tourism industry is directly responsible for continued job growth, direct spending and tax revenue. Since 2010, the tourism and hospitality industries have added 9800 jobs, generating $13.7 billion in direct spending by visitors and $871 million in total tax revenue. Mayor Emanuel's goal is 5.5 million visitors a year by the year 2020.

Emanuel’s Technology

Since taking office in 2011, Mayor Emanuel has used technology as one of the vehicles to propel the city’s infrastructure and marketability into the 21st Century. Emanuel’s uncompromising vision for Chicago is to increase the accessibility and affordability of internet service in underserved areas citywide, create a gigabit-speed fiber network in targeted commercial and industrial corridors, and establish free wireless service in parks and public spaces.

On May 31, 2011, Mayor Emanuel and Comcast announced the launch of Internet Essentials, a low-cost access to the Internet and affordable computers as well as digital literacy training to families with children who receive free lunches under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Running for at least three years, Internet Essentials services eligible families within the Comcast footprint.

In Sept. 2012, Mayor Emanuel launched the Broadband Challenge which opened the door for dialogue and suggestions for all Chicagoans to get involved, be innovative and get invested in the process of building the city’s digital infrastructure. Individuals who were interested in taking on the challenge were asked to answer how can the city make better use of its current broadband infrastructure and potential use for future high speed broadband access citywide and where and how should the city make these adjustments/improvements.

Also in Sept. 2012, the City of Chicago launched Open 311, which allows residents to track service requests made to the city. After a report has been filed the user will receive a tracking number which allows them to check on the status of their request and see how close it is to completion.

Recently, Mayor Emanuel and City of Chicago Public Library (CPL) Commissioner Brian Bannon announced the “Internet to Go” (ITG) hotspot lending pilot program.

In partnership with the Chicago Public Library Foundation (CPLF), ITG was funded a $400,000 grant from the Knight Foundation with an additional $175,000 in support from Google, the second major CPL tech lending initiative supported by Google.

ITG will allow library guests the ability to borrow a laptop or mobile device in order to connect to the internet from home or on the go; the three pilot locations will each have up to 10 tablets available.

ITG is scheduled to launch in this month at CPL branches: Brighton Park, 4314 S. Archer Ave., Greater Grand Crossing, 1000 E. 73rd St., and Fredrick Douglass, 3353 W. 13th St.

Once tested, the pilot will expand to at least three additional communities.

Emanuel Takes Down Crime

Upon taking office, Mayor Emanuel’s and his Superintendent of Police, Garry McCarthy, worked quickly to restore community policing and strengthen Chicago’s Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) program.

After years of failing to keep up with attrition, the Chicago Police Department has put an additional 1,000 officers on Chicago’s streets – most of them deployed in the neighborhoods experiencing the worst violence. Many of them are on foot patrols and bikes – interacting daily with local residents rather than just driving by.

Mayor Emanuel also expanded the highly successful Safe Passage program, which hires neighborhood residents to watch and protect children on their way to and from school.

Last year, the program covered 91 routes. In the current school year, Rahm is expanding the program by adding 40 routes, increasing the number of children served by 15,000 to 69,000.

The Emanuel Administration boasts a 33% decrease in all recorded crime categories since taking office in 2011 according to the CPD CompStat statistics. Incidences of robbery, aggravated battery, burglary, and motor vehicle theft in Chicago have all declined by at least 21%; motor vehicle theft is down by 48%.

Additionally, Mayor Emanuel ordered CPD officers on desk duty and in specialized units to join community based foot patrol officers after in the city’s neighborhoods.

During Rahm’s time as mayor, the Chicago Police Department initiated a focused gang-violence reduction strategy, starting with a gang audit that identified every gang and gang faction, individual gang members, gang turf and gang conflicts.

This has enabled the CPD to better intervene in gang conflicts and prevent retaliation. Along with more intensive policing, this effort also involves social services and job training to steer gang members away from drugs and crime.

Rahm is also dedicated to preventing children from joining gangs in the first place by providing them with safe alternatives to the street.

Despite deep cuts in federal funding, he increased the number of summer jobs in Chicago by 57 percent, to 22,000 in 2014 from 14,000 in 2011. Not a single participant in the city’s summer jobs program was involved in a violent incident this summer as either a perpetrator or victim.

There’s not much more that needs to be said about the success of Mayor Emanuel’s first term as mayor of Chicago or why the Chicago Citizen Newspaper is endorsing him. In other words, proof positive!

Please join us in our support of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel!

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