Grande dame trio in charge of Chicago – now THERE’S a historic first

The Associated Press billed Monday’s inaugural as a “first black woman” being sworn in as mayor, while other news entities found ways to work either “gay” or “lesbian” into the headlines so as to justify the use of the word “historic.”

LIGHTFOOT: No. 55 in Chicago history

Yet the intriguing aspect that I think truly justifies considering this date historic, rather than just another political hack put into place, is the composition of our city government.

AS IN THE fact that our city’s mayor, treasurer and clerk are not only all women, but not quite so Anglo-oriented as people once would have thought possible.

We have, aside from Lightfoot as mayor, Anna Valencia as city clerk and Melissa Conyears-Ervin as city treasurer. As in an African-American woman, a Mexican-American woman and another African-American woman – to be specific.

The “old boys network” at City Hall is most definitely a thing of the past.

Unless they’re now going to be convening in that legendary (and most-definitely cliched) “smoke-filled room” and complaining in some 21^st Century version of the “He-Man Woman Hater’s Club” (remember the old Our Gang film shorts that continued to air for decades to come along with “The Three Stooges?).

VALENCIA: Getting clerk term in own right

FOR THE NEXT four years, it will be the women in charge around City Hall. Instead of the old variation of what was once considered diversity in city leadership – various ethnicities along the lines of the old New York political “Three I’s” structure (an Irishman, an Italian and someone of Israel – as in Jewish).

Not that it’s a total change. For in the case of Valencia, she already was Chicago city clerk. Her post was considered one belonging to Latinos (she’s of Mexican-American ethnic origins).

She took over the office when Susana Mendoza gave up the clerk’s post to become Illinois state comptroller in 2017, finishing up her city clerk term. The significance of this year’s municipal elections is that Valencia managed to win a four-year term as clerk in her own right.

 

CONYEARS-ERVIN: Returning to Chicago

Making her potentially the city government official with whom the typical city resident will have contact. It will be her name printed on all those city stickers that motorists are required to purchase if they wish to avoid being constantly ticketed by police while driving their cars around the city.

WHILE CONYEARS-ERVIN IS the one life-long resident of Chicago amongst the trio. Born on the South Side and raised on the West (the Austin neighborhood, to be exact), she was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives.

Until she gave up her Springfield-based post to become a part of the city political structure proper. As opposed to Mendoza, who gave up her city post to become a part of the Statehouse-based Illinois political structure.

Conyears-Ervin will be in charge of the city entity that manages municipal monies and investments, along with pension funds for city employees and the Chicago Teachers Union.

Which will put her right in the middle of the financial morass that will wind up preoccupying much of Lightfoot’s time and attention. Lori Lightfoot may well get the blame (or praise) for whatever becomes of Chicago’s financial situation. But Conyears-Ervin may well wind up being the person who will suffer severe headaches trying to figure out the convoluted fiscal mess and what (if anything) can be done to fix it.

VALENCIA HAD THE easiest path to election – since she managed to get all her opponents knocked off the ballot. She ran unopposed. While Conyears-Ervin had to beat now-former alderman Amaya Pawar – who if he had won the April 2 run-off would have been the first Indian-American citywide official.

PAWAR: Historic in own right, or standing in way?

Although his victory would have been perceived as screwing up the grande dame scenario of female leadership at the top of Chicago. Which is what we’ll see through the spring of 2023.

I do find one aspect intriguing in that there are those of Chicago who insist one has to be native-born and raised to really belong here. But in the case of Lightfoot of Massillon, Ohio and Valencia of Granite City, Ill. (where the nearest big city is St. Louis), it would seem we’ve handed over our city’s leadership to outsiders.

Or at the very least, to people who came to Chicago later in life – and came to realize how wonderful the city could be, to the point where they’re not likely to want to leave.

  -30-

EXTRA: Does it take an out-of-towner to realize Chicago’s the place to be?

“We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
--Gwendolyn Brooks, as quoted by new Mayor Lori Lightfoot

  -0-

LIGHTFOOT: Chicago's new mayor

I couldn’t help but note the bit Monday where newly-inaugurated Mayor Lori Lightfoot cited some words of wisdom from one-time poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks.

The first-ever black, female to be Chicago mayor found something wise in the words of the first-ever black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize (1950, for poetry).

I FIND IT refreshing to think that we are one, and that we all ought to be working together if we’re to succeed.

Because we’re in an era where some people are way too eager to peddle the notion that everybody of any sense is fleeing Chicago, AND Illinois. Usually claiming that it’s all BECAUSE OF Chicago’s existence that they don’t want to be a part of our state any longer.

I don’t doubt that some people have such a dismal outlook on life that they’re willing to leave. Maybe they even think that places like Indiana, or somewhere down South, are better.

I’m inclined to think we’re better off without such people. We don’t need such downers dragging us all down to their level in life.

MAYBE IT’S EVEN appropriate for Lightfoot to look to Brooks. The poet was a Topeka, Kansas, native who wound up living the bulk of her life in Chicago and became as much a native as someone born and raised here.

Similar to that of Lightfoot, a native of Massillon, Ohio, who wound up coming to the University of Chicago to study and figured out that her life was here.

 

BROOKS: Providing words of wisdom

Maybe for every person with no faith in Chicago who flees for a life elsewhere, we’re attracting a higher-quality of individual who realizes just how special the Second City can be.

And now we can spend the next four years seeing whether Lightfoot is capable of upgrading our city to the point where we won’t be griping four years from now, wondering just “What was I thinking?” when we voted for her. If we can follow the advice of Brooks and realize we are “one,” perhaps we’ll all be better off.

  -30-

How much of a change-agent can Lori Lightfoot really represent for Chicago?

Come Monday, Lori Lightfoot will take the oath of office essentially promising to uphold the constitutions of the United States and Illinois while overseeing the municipal structure of the city of Chicago.

Chicago's new 'first' family, Lightfoot, wife Amy and daughter Vivian. Photo by Lightfoot for Chicago

It is one that she has engaged in quite a bit of rhetoric implying she plans to revamp everything about the city. I also don’t doubt one bit that many of the people who voted to give Lightfoot three-quarters of the vote in last month’s election have visions of sugar plums dancing about in their heads.

ALMOST AS THOUGH the coming of Lightfoot is a Christmas holiday present for Chicagoans, along with residents of any other community whose operations are impacted by the Second City – only St. Nicholas’ visit has come along with the May flowers.

But I’ll have to admit that whenever I read the reports about how Lightfoot is going to come in and make significant change and is prepared to push around anyone who tries standing in the way of her vision – well, I’m skeptical.

Mostly because I can see all those political people of experience and influence who aren’t about to let their own amount of control be reduced by some woman who’s never held a day of electoral office before in her life.

Same kind of rhetoric once was used  … 

But then again, I also have been skeptical of the whole image that has been peddled about Lightfoot, the candidate. I actually think many of her backers have created an image of Lori that bears no reality as to who she really is.

THE LIGHTFOOT I saw during the campaign cycle (I never really paid much attention to her prior to this year’s elections, as did most Chicagoans, I suspect) had her experience with the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago – along with a corporate law firm and that stint she did with the Chicago Police Board.

She may well be a prosecutorial-type who viewed city government from the perspective of trying to figure out who needs to be taken down a notch or two – and who now thinks she has the authority to do just that.

But we may well find out that the daily operations of the city may be beyond her grasp. As though she has a learning curve to go through before she can truly get a grasp on the city’s operations and trying to figure out which of its problems she can actually have influence over.

… to describe Jane Byrne's 1979 mayoral victory

Otherwise, she could find herself bogged down in the morass of the city structure. Which would result in Lightfoot finding herself four years from now having achieved nothing of lasting significance.

SHE COULD BE the woman who made it through her term as mayor having been thwarted by aldermen at everything she talked about trying to achieve, but couldn’t because aldermen weren’t about to be reduced to the level of insignificance that some of Lightfoot’s backers, I don’t doubt, dream she’s going to do.

Of course, I suspect that the number of people who were concerned about having a person of some experience in charge of city government is probably about 26 percent.

That figure is the number of voters who actually cast their ballot for Toni Preckwinkle in the run-off election back on April 2.

When you combine that percentage with the roughly two-thirds of Chicago’s registered voters who didn’t even bother to cast a ballot for mayor, you realize how embarrassing the 2019 election cycle was for the city.

'House that Rahm built' will host Lightfoot inauguration

THE REAL QUESTION may well be how much more embarrassing will it become if Chicago’s municipal government structure devolves into petty bickering by the over-bloated egos of those officials who are going to be in charge of our city – and the influence it exerts over other parts of our Midwestern society.

Now I’ll concede it’s possible that I could be underestimating Lightfoot or exaggerating the level of pettiness that the City Council will exert against her.

But then again, my years of writing about political influence in Chicago have taught me that far too many things have been wrecked by the egos of all who have managed to gain a majority of the vote in past election cycles.

So come 10 a.m., when Lightfoot takes her oath at the Wintrust Arena (a structure that likely wouldn’t exist if not for the vision of soon-to-be former Mayor Rahm Emanuel -- despised by many of Lightfoot's most vociferous backers), we’re likely to see for ourselves just how much (if any) of the political trash-talk stands a chance of becoming reality.

  -30-

No more Mayor Rahm-bo?!?

For all practical purposes, the era of Rahm Emanuel as Chicago mayor is over.

EMANUEL: Kaput as of Monday, but will he return?

The transition to the Lightfoot Years comes Monday, so unless Rahm has some sort of “midnight surprise” planned for the weekend, his time being able to do much of anything in municipal office is kaput!

ALL THOSE “HUZZAHS!!!” we’re hearing are from people pleased that we’ve managed to survive the past eight years, and that Emanuel is no more. Or so they think.

Because personally I think it’s wishful thinking to believe that the Era of Rahm is over and that we’ve sent the man packing into political oblivion.

I’ve heard the same political reports of the mayor saying he’ll focus his life back on the business community – for the time being. But I can’t truly envision him a political has-been.

If anything, I won’t be the least bit surprised to learn Emanuel becomes a “behind the scenes” political player who winds up being connected in some form to whichever of the dozens of Democrats with dreams of becoming president in 2020.

THE MAN DID, after all, serve as a significant part of that 2006 effort that shifted the House of Representatives back to Democratic Party control. He did serve as a White House chief of staff under the “beloved’ Barack Obama presidency that many progressive politicos fantasize about returning to in spirit.

TRUMP: Do we despise more than Rahm-bo?

Could it be that many of the same people who are thinking thoughts of “Drop Dead!” at the very thought of Rahm Emanuel’s continued existence will wind up touting the man’s merits (through gnashed teeth, most likely) at the fact he’s likely affiliated with whoever it is they wind up touting for president?

Because it may wind up being that these people of progressive political leanings will despise the notion of “four more years” for Donald Trump far more than they do the thought of Emanuel.

They may wind up coming to appreciate his hard-core political leanings that are willing to play hardball just as much as any Republican ideologue does. Adopting the notion that history only remembers who won an election, and doesn’t care in the least about praising the merits of the good loser.

Can Rahm turn unknown Dem into 2020 winner?

OF COURSE, THERE were those people who always despised the notion of Emanuel as mayor – maybe because they’d rather be the loser with a so-called sense of morals who can then blame the opposition politicos for running roughshod over everything they desire for our society.

Looking back on commentaries I wrote back in those days of 2011 when Emanuel beat three other mayoral hopefuls to avoid having a run-off election, what catches my attention was the notion that Emanuel would be the mayoral hopeful who placed the business interests of downtown first.

Not all that different from the days of the Mayor Daley eras (both elder and younger), if you think about it. So perhaps we shouldn’t be the least bit shocked by the way the Emanuel era turned out.

For those who still rant about the way Emanuel early on oversaw the closing of public schools in predominantly black or Latino neighborhoods, the reality is that many of those schools were failing their students. You can say Rahm didn’t do enough to replace them, but we’d be worse off if many of those schools were still lingering in existence – providing inadequate services for the students stuck there because of a lack of alternatives.

THEN, THERE’S THE key issue that I’m sure upsets people – the relations between police and the African-American segment of Chicago. As evidenced by the 2014 shooting death of a teenager that took more than four years to finally get a case to trial – and resulted in a police officer getting a minimal penalty.

LIGHTFOOT: Her era begins Monday at noon

Although to some, even that three-plus year jail sentence is too harsh. But for others, the injustice is that it wasn’t Emanuel himself who had to suffer some punishment.

I don’t doubt that the same people who were pushing for a 90-something-year prison term for Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke are also the ones who would have wanted Emanuel to suffer an indignity – rather than being able to walk away from office with his political win streak intact.

A streak that I really believe will be put to the test by those people eager to Dump Trump next year. We may have to decide just which character do we despise more – and will we have to put aside our contempt for Rahm if it achieves a “greater” good.

  -30-

Dems hope ideologues shoot selves in 'right' foot with Alabama abortion law

There’s a lot of rhetoric flowing around about abortion these days – what with the state of Alabama having passed an overly restrictive law against terminating a pregnancy that many believe is intended to be the measure that the Supreme Court ultimately upholds as a way of striking down the Roe vs. Wade ruling of 1973 that found women have a right to abortion being legal.

Much of it is coming from Democratic partisan politicos who are quick to express their revulsion at people who think ending a pregnancy ought to be a criminal act. As the Washington Post is reporting, many Republicans are going out of their way to keep quiet.

ALMOST AS THOUGH they’re behaving like accused criminals who are exercising their Miranda rights “to remain silent” as “anything you say can be used as evidence in a court of law against you.”

That actually has some of the proponents of abortion remaining legal hoping that Alabama is the bit of evidence as to the immorality of the anti-abortion argument – along with the legal legitimacy of Roe vs. Wade!

Have the Republican ideologues overplayed their hand by showing how repulsive their intentions truly are? Will so many people wind up being turned off by what Alabama has done that it will drive many people into the “pro-choice” column?

Has Alabama done the progressives a favor by provoking the legal fight that will take down their pet cause – which is to go back to the days of viewing a woman as a criminal if she wants out of that unplanned pregnancy!

AND IS THIS going to make an even bigger priority out of abortion come the 2020 cycle – making the issue a key point for voters who may already want Donald Trump kicked out of the White House on his keister?

Right now, Trump benefits from the potential circumstances that Democratic voters may not be able to agree on a single candidate to challenge the president.

But if they really see that abortion could become such a mess, it could be the factor that forces many Democrats to shut up and vote for the nominee – even if their preferred candidate doesn’t win in the primary portion of the election.

As things stand, Ralph Reed, one-time head of the Christian Coalition, tells the Washington Post, that the possibility exists that anti-abortion stances will be turned on the campaign trail into support for what Alabama is trying to do – which could put abortion critics on the defensive.

OF COURSE, PUTTING those ideologues on the defensive may well be the just thing to do. Because all too often, the abortion critics want to claim a high-and-mighty moral tone to their stance – which is really nothing more than having people butt in to the actions of a woman whose pregnancy puts her in a predicament.

Personally, I know of one person (whom I’ve known for decades) who recently posted on Facebook that Alabama officials should be thanked, “for doing what is right instead of what the world tells you.”

To which I can only think that everybody has the right to be wrong. Although for all I know, she probably thinks the same of me (I don’t think the two of us have ever explicitly discussed the issue).

Perhaps it’s time we should. And I mean everybody -- and not just the usual ideologue nonsense about "baby killers."

THAT COULD BE the benefit of what Alabama has done with their measure – which basically is meant to take away the argument conservative politicos have long used to try to make themselves sound sensible. They say they favor abortion restriction exemptions for women who are impregnated by rape or incest.

While the ideologues are trying to undo such talk by claiming that a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy ought to end at the point when a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

Which comes so early in the process of human conception that many women aren’t even aware yet that they’re pregnant. Causing many to complain that old, white men in Alabama are trying to impose their own morals on us all about what a woman should be permitted to do with her body.

I’ve often wondered if my own thoughts about abortion are of less importance because, as a male, I’m never going to be in a situation to have one. But am I now going to be dragged into the argument to provide a sense of balance to the political debate – rather than letting the ideologues and their bullying-like behavior prevail.

  -30-

Lightfoot fantasizes about dumping city parking meter deals – but can she?

It’s not unheard of (in fact, it’s all too common) for government officials to “talk tough” about things they’d like to be able to do – but truthfully would have to admit they don’t have a shot in Hades of making reality.

Haven't parked here in years, even though I used to work right next door

So it’s with that attitude in mind that I regard Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot’s talk on Wednesday that she wants to undo the parking meter deal.

YOU KNOW, THE one where the city (back in the final days of Mayor Daley, the younger) sold the rights to operate parking meters on city streets to a private entity.

City government managed to blow through the payment that Chicago Parking Meters LLC pretty quickly, but that firm still has 65 years to go on the 75-year lease they signed with Chicago.

Meaning there are still decades for them to make big bucks off their one-time investment. Which also means many more lifetimes for Chicago residents to pay ridiculous rates if they wish to park their cars within the city limits – without running the risk of having their cars towed away with even-more ridiculously-absurd fines implemented for one to reclaim their car, if they so wish.

So Lightfoot, who officially becomes mayor on Monday, would certainly be speaking to the choir of Chicago residents who’d love it if somebody could undo the parking meter deal.

LIGHTFOOT TOLD THE Chicago Sun-Times, “the fact that they’ve already made their money 10 or 15 years into (the deal) underscores that it was not a good deal for the taxpayers.”

Which has the mayor saying she wants to study the issue further. “I feel an obligation to take a look at that and see if we can craft a better strategy for taxpayers,” she says.

It would be nice if she could accomplish something along those lines.

But the reality is that the business entity has an agreement with the city – one that has managed to stand up to scrutiny in the courts, with the support of soon-to-be former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

IT COULD TURN out that for Chicago to get out of the parking meter deal it has now, they’d have to be prepared to give up something of even more value to the company that’s getting rich off our parking meter fees.

Can we afford to buy our way out of one stupid deal by making an even more atrocious one?

Seriously, for all we complain about the need for more revenue to maintain city government services, it is galling to think that in 2018 alone, the parking meter system in Chicago generated some $132.7 million.

That’s real money that could have been put to use by the city. Instead of letting it slip away to a private interest.

SO LET’S HEAR it for Lightfoot, if she can actually achieve something along these lines. Not that I’m getting my hopes up. I’m not counting on any significant change any time in my lifetime (which already has lasted just over a half-century).

LIGHTFOOT: A parking hero? Or cheap talk?

Personally, I use public transportation whenever traveling anywhere within Chicago – particularly if it involves going anywhere in the downtown business district that entails the Loop.

I used to have parking garages where I’d like to leave a car on the occasions I had to go there, and I used to consider them a pricey luxury. I remember one time I had to park my car in a garage for one week every weekday. I was outraged by the $55 the experience cost me.

But then I think of the last time I drove downtown – and parking my car cost me $34 for making the mistake of not getting back to my car within one hour. An experience that turned me into a pedestrian, and I’m not convinced that Lightfoot will be able to do much of anything to change that during my lifetime.

  -30-

EXTRA: Guaranteed Rate not quite so absurd, now that we have Ring Central

Now can we stop bashing about the Chicago White Sox for supposedly playing their ballgames in the most ridiculously-named of all stadiums that have taken on a corporate identity? 

Will the new Ring Central Coliseum … 

What brings this topic to mind was the report Wednesday from the Oakland Athletics, who are now playing their games in a facility called Ring Central Coliseum.

WHICH IS REALLY the building that for the past half-century was known as (and most likely still thought of as) the Oakland Coliseum. Or if you want to be overly formal, add in the “Alameda County” portion of its old name.

But the stadium that has been home to such Hall of Fame greats as Reggie Jackson, Jim Hunter and Rollie Fingers, then later Rickey Henderson and Dennis Eckersley, now has a new identity – as the cloud-based communications company is paying $1 million to the team for the naming rights.

Of course, the fact that the building is so old (opening in 1968) and has such a strong identity that no one is going to really use the “Ring Central” name is the reason why its naming rights value is so low.

Now it is the hope of Athletics fans that they will be moving to a new stadium in the not-too-far-distant future. This could just be a short stint.

BUT YOU HAVE to admit, “Ring Central” is even more ridiculous than “Guaranteed Rate Field.” Although when you think of it, all the corporate ID-ed stadia have a sense of absurdity to them.

… detract ridicule from "Guaranteed Rate?" Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Personally, I always thought the Houston Astros ought to be stuck with the “Enron Field” moniker for their ballpark even after it became public knowledge that the company had its share of corruption within its ranks. 

So can we stop the mockery of Guaranteed Rate, what with the corporate logo of an arrow pointing downward supposedly showing the status of the White Sox themselves?

Probably not, since I suspect fans of the Chicago Cubbies wouldn’t be able to handle life if they couldn’t claim their favorite ballclub somehow had a sense of superiority – even though with its history of mediocrity to downright cruddiness, they really have no right boasting about anything no matter what happened three years ago.

  -30-