Five of Six African American Mayoral Candidates Share Their Priorities For Day One In Office


Five of Six African American Mayoral Candidates Share Their Priorities For Day One In Office

BY KATHERINE NEWMAN

As one of the first candidates to throw her hat into the ring and the first openly LGBTQ candidate to make the ballot in Chicago, Lori Lightfoot is regarded as an experienced reform expert and has worked at the city and federal level to make government more accountable and accessible. As mayor, she has said that she will work to create opportunities for every Chicagoan, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic status, or neighborhood.

CITIZEN: What is your number one priority and if elected, what will be your first action upon taking office?

LIGHTFOOT: Making sure that we have a plan to keep people safe. Public safety is a huge priority for me. It’s kind of the overarching issue to I think every other substantive challenge that we have in the city and fundamentally if people don’t feel safe they are not going to stay and if people don’t feel safe businesses aren’t going to invest. If there is no safety in neighborhoods then we are not going to be able to make the kind of investments that we need to really kickstart a lot of economic and other activity in the neighborhoods so public safety is, to me, the number on issue. For more information visit www.lightfootforchicago. com.

After a public endorsement by Chicago’s own Chance the Rapper, Amara Enyia’s mayoral campaign was quickly catapulted into the spotlight. After getting her start as a journalist, Enyia earned a Masters degree in education, a law degree where she focused on international and environmental law, and a Ph.D. in Education Policy. As a consultant for education organizations and community groups, she helps design community-centered education plans and she created Thanks for Paying Your Taxes, an animated series that simplifies public finance topics to help residents understand how their tax dollars are being used. She believes in helping residents and community groups understand the numbers so they can advocate for their own interests.

CITIZEN: What is your number one priority and if elected, what will be your first action upon taking office?

ENYIA: I’ve been pretty insistent that because of the nature of the issues and the nature of the challenges that we face in the city we cannot do just one thing. We don’t even have the luxury of being able to say ‘this is the one thing that I would focus on.’ I think there are a number of things that need to happen across departments. I talk a lot about really changing the philosophy of many of the city’s departments as it relates to economic development and making sure we have more balanced development and investment in neighborhoods and that deals specifically with the Department of Planning and Development. We have to get a handle on our economic issues.

When we talk about budget and revenues, I plan to make sure that we are moving down the path of financial sovereignty which for me means establishing a public bank for the city. In education there are structural things that we have to do that go beyond just day one. For example, addressing the student-based budgeting model which needs to be changed, establishing not just a chief equity officer but a department or an office of equity that is fully staffed so that they can address a lot of what we have seen in terms of inequitable allocation of resources in CPS and the inequitable spread of programmatic offerings in CPS. There are so many issues tied to equity in CPS that it needs an entire office.

A lot of times folks want to talk about the one thing that they would do and I just don’t think that we have a luxury of focusing on one thing, I think we need to be firing on all cylinders and the biggest areas for me are the economy, education, and public safety and violence prevention. For more information visit www.amaraenyia. com.

Prior to beginning his second mayoral campaign in Chicago, Willie Wilson had already made a name for himself as a successful businessman. He is also an author, Grammy-award winning gospel singer. He calls himself a humanitarian and has assisted in passing economic fairness and bail reform laws to help the people of Chicago. He and his wife donate hundreds of thousands of dollars every year and Wilson said that he believes inclusion is the key and that together is the way.

CITIZEN: What is your number one priority and if elected, what will be your first action upon taking office?

WILSON: Following the election, my first order of business will be to make it clear to City Council that all tax dollars, both local and federal, will be re distributed to the citizens of Chicago, in all 77 communities and on a fair and equitable basis. Thereafter, by law, expenditures around the city must be balanced. For more information visit www.williewilsonformayor. com.

For the last 12 years, La Shawn Ford has served as State Representative for the Eighth District of Illinois. Within his role as a Representative, he serves as Chair of Restorative Justice, Chair of Financial Institutions, Chair of Small Business Empowerment and Workforce Development, and on the Appropriations Committees for Elementary & Secondary Education and Human Services. With the support and encouragement of his west side constituents, Ford decided to run for Mayor of Chicago.

CITIZEN: What is your number one priority and if elected, what will be your first action upon taking office?

FORD: Immediately we have to make sure that we have a healing process where we bring people to City Hall to say that City Hall is open to the people of Chicago, we have to make sure that we bring people back to government.

We want to send a strong message that this administration, the Ford administration, is going to be powered by people. We want to immediately have a Town Hall to let people know our vision. We can’t wait to share our vision and take in ideas from the people to move the city forward and we know that there are some pressing issues that need input from the community. We have to figure out how we are going to have a better Chicago Police Department, better Chicago Public Schools, and how we are going to deal with our pensions. We have to make sure that people on parts of the south and west sides are going to let us know what we should be doing to develop and make the cities economy more inclusive.

It’s a lot of work to be done but the most important thing is to send a message that the Mayor of the City of Chicago will not tolerate racism or discrimination in any form and to lead the city down that path. If the city is speaking that it will send a message to the private businesses and it sends a message to communities about our vision for the city. If we can do that I think that is going to start us off on the right track of healing the city. We have to make sure that we meet with all of those families that have lost people to street violence because they have ideas about what we should be doing to help their families. There is a lot of work to be done in the city of Chicago For more information visit www.fordforchicago. com.

Currently serving her third term as the Cook County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle is a well-known name in Chicago politics. Preckwinkle served as Alderman of the Fourth Ward for 20 years and says that she is a lifelong advocate for equity and equality. Through her work as County Board President, she has successfully expanded access to healthcare for 350,000 people, brought increased fairness to the criminal justice system, spearheaded a new economic development strategy, and expanded employment opportunities for the people of Cook County.

CITIZEN: What is your number one priority and if elected, what will be your first action upon taking office?

PRECKWINKLE: I am a teacher by profession, I spent ten years in the classroom and there are three things that I always talk about in terms of my vision for Chicago. One is strengthening our neighborhood public schools, the other is building up communities that have been challenged and need revitalization, and the third is trying to make our city safer.

I would begin with public schools. We have to have great public schools in all of our communities and where we are now is that you can pretty much tell the success and performance levels of a school by the zip code that it’s in just as you can predict life expectancies on the basis of zip codes. If we are

going have a great city and if we are going to have a world-class city we have to have good neighborhood public schools. I would work with the school district, with the board of education, and with CPS staff and leadership to try and be sure that we strengthen the schools in all of our neighborhoods and particularly those schools that are under-resourced. For more information visit www.toniforchicago. com.

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