One day after the mayor cast the tie-breaking vote that saved Ald. Carlo Ramirez-Rosa from a Council censure, senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee said it was not a mistake for Johnson to empower the chair of the Council’s Socialist Caucus as both floor leader and Zoning Committee chair.
First published on Mon 3 May 2021 06.00 EDT
On 20 May 2019, the freshly elected Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot delivered her inauguration speech to a jubilant audience.
It was imbued with promises of fundamental change â tailored care for blighted neighborhoods, solutions to government corruption and endemic violent crime, an ambitious agenda for tackling deep-rooted faults in the city.
âFor years theyâve said Chicago ainât ready for reform. Well, get ready, because reform is here,â Lightfoot, Chicagoâs first Black woman and openly gay mayor, and a former federal prosecutor, said.
She pledged to reform the Chicago police department, promising to âcontinue the hard but essential work of forging partnerships between police officers and the community premised on mutual respect, accountability and a recognition that the destinies of police and community are inextricably intertwinedâ.
alderman rosa s colleagues. they have explained to me how this works. the city lawyers come in. rahm s lawyers come in and say, this is how we re going to save the city money. we might have to pay out $16 million to the mcdonald family, but $5 million is the deal. they say great. they don t ask questions generally at all and so there are three or four of these that come before them every month. by the way, this is pre-rahm. right. this is sounds so rotten to the core. that for me, i guess part of it is, maybe rahm should step down but this also sounds way bigger than the mayor. again, which is not to exclude the mayor from a sense of responsibility here but also feels way bigger than that. chicago is a city it s not the only city, by the way, in america that s become standard to just pay. the city is literally, you point out the half a billion dollars in settlements. that includes a represereparati