2023 Mayoral Candidate Responses

Every member of Chicago City Council should be holding regular meetings with residents regarding planning and zoning, with openness and transparency being the floor, and not the ceiling. Residents deserve to have input on development in their communities, and I’m committed to urging alderpersons as well as city agencies like the CHA to not only improve and streamline communication with residents, but hold meetings, forums, etc. during hours of convenience for working families. 

I believe we can always be doing more, and doing it quickly. I support the betterment of any initiative that improves the lives of all Chicagoans, but we have communities such as Austin, where my wife and I are raising our three children, that have been mired in disinvestment and neglect for generations. We have seen long-term visions of the past amount to very little in our present. 

We have more than 65,000 unhoused residents of our city, neighborhoods besieged by violence, special education crises in our schools and refugees in need of accommodation and immediate assistance. What we need is a sense of urgency – not a plan for the next decade, but what we can start doing today. 

We need a Green New Deal for Chicago – a set of priorities to ensure that we are tackling the most pressing problems affecting our climate and our jobs. As mayor, I will make sure to build on the work that is already moving forward at the federal and state levels, but in regards to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan, ensure that the City also requests the funds necessary to execute the Plan to create new jobs and career opportunities as part of a just transition away from fossil fuels. Specifically, I would also prioritize fully funding and restructuring a Chicago Department of the Environment, green schools in CPS, a Green New Deal for housing, and public transportation and transit upgrades.

My wife and I send our children to Chicago Park District programs in the summer, but programming that ends at 1 p.m. is not beneficial. Other families struggle with the same. But funding is key. I will continue to champion TIF reform that would automatically return the annual TIF surplus to the taxing bodies that need revenue for staffing, programming, and maintenance and infrastructure expenses for the park district. This is a critical piece to ensure that our parks are fully funded, and if they are, then fully resourced and staffed. And as part of my pledge to expand youth employment, I will create a “park ambassador” program to help steward environmental seminars and keep the parks serviceable and accessible for Chicagoans. 

This is without question an equity issue. As a Cook County commissioner, my work on the Budget for Black Lives led to the creation of the Cook County Equity Fund, which has driven hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding towards the needs of Black, Latino, immigrant and working class communities. As mayor, I will continue prioritizing the fight against these inequities, and bring this same approach to City government, whether through the Park District, Department of Public Health, our libraries, Chicago Housing Authority or the CTA. 

We need to invest in infrastructure that will make buses more accessible and efficient, and create true bus rapid transit (BRT) lines that combine dedicated bus lanes and signal prioritization with new infrastructure. True BRT systems include bus stations that allow riders to pay before they board and enable multiple riders to board simultaneously, just like CTA stations. BRT should be expanded and fully implemented across key corridors in Chicago.