To inform voters and to help the baiduhai Editorial Board make endorsements, the board posed a series of questions to the candidates running for alderman. See their answers below. See how other candidates answered here.
Name: Ruth Cruz
Ward: 30th
Current job: Assistant Director of Admissions, Roosevelt University
Previous political experience: Elected Community Representative – Local School Council at Foreman High (currently)
Education: Master’s Degree, Management, Roosevelt University (RMUI); Bachelor’s Degree, Business Administration, Roosevelt University (RMUI)
Spouse’s occupation: Union Laborer, LiUNA Local 76
Sources of outside income: None
The rise in violent crime remains a top priority for City Hall. Homicides, shootings and carjackings are all unacceptably high. Tell us how city government can be innovative in combating crime, and explain what measures you would propose if elected.
At a broad level, we need to address root causes of crime such as education, poverty, mental health and lack of opportunity. Many types of crime in Chicago, such as carjackings, are being committed by young people, often teenagers. We need to invest more in youth programs and restorative justice programs to help give young people the chance to turn their lives around.
It’s also time to stop talking about how we need more crisis intervention staff working within the Chicago Police Department and it’s time to start HIRING them. Police Officers should not be expected to be able to diffuse every citizen suffering a mental health crisis. We need to dispatch mental health professionals on disturbance calls to help de-escalate. Let’s expand the potential applicant pool and fill more police vacancies by hiring social workers and mental health professionals, and put them in our police districts as response resources.
Modern tools and tech are important as well to fighting crime and solving cases. Let’s add experts to our policing toolkit and help restore some trust and confidence to our department that they’ll be able to better respond to ALL calls for service in a diffusing and life-saving manner.
The CTA, one of the nation’s largest transit systems, remains a troubled agency grappling with issues ranging from violent crime and ghost buses and trains, to flagging ridership. Give us your thoughts on what specific measures CTA should take to make train and bus service safer, more reliable and more equitable for Chicagoans.
Public transit systems only work when they are well funded and provide more connection points across the city. We need to look outward towards more State and Federal grant opportunities for rail expansion to historically underserved areas, or places where rail service once existed decades ago. We also do need to look closer at how CTA is using such funds, and make sure it’s going to where it needs to.
Ten years ago, enrollment at Chicago Public Schools was 403,000 students. In September, enrollment stood at 322,000 students. Enrollment at CPS has dropped for 11 consecutive years. What specific measures should CPS undertake to reverse the trend of ever-dwindling enrollment?
We have to do a better job talking about the success stories within the Chicago Public Schools as a whole. CPS needs to do more public awareness and marketing campaigns to inform the public about great things happening with our schools. Enrollment is dropping because families are increasingly moving out of the city and into suburban districts because of the perceived education quality gap between CPS and neighboring school districts.
CPS also needs to take a more analytical approach to understanding why certain schools are losing so many students. Let’s go back and look at what programs were in place at a time when enrollment was strong, and see if there are things we need to change or even bring back.
We also need to support our teachers and administrators and help get parents more involved in schooling. Studies have shown that increased parental involvement in their childrens’ academics helps increase student achievement. While understanding that many working families may not be able to put in long hours helping their children, involved parents do make a difference in their schooling.
To that end, City Council must enact better laws supporting parental leave, so parents can take care of sick kids without the fear of losing their job or worry about lost wages.
Disinvestment on the South and West sides is a decades-long problem with myriad causes. Give us at least one innovative idea that you believe could play a role in reversing South and West side disinvestment, and explain why the idea is realistic and feasible.
Over the last decade, Chicago has done well in attracting business relocations into the downtown districts. I would like to see incentives offered for companies seeking to relocate to Chicago who are willing to develop campus style headquarters complexes in other areas of the city, and develop these sorts of campuses as mixed-used developments that serve the workforce during the day, and the surrounding communities after work ends for the day on-site.
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I want to see 21st century manufacturing zones set up in places where traditional industry has exited but the buildings are structurally sound, and develop better zoning classifications that can help attract new or developing sectors.
We’ve talked about Chicago as a Silicon Prairie for years, and we are attracting tech leaders like Google and Facebook and others to the core of our city. I want to see our tech partners engaging with the Chicago Public Schools to develop curriculum to attract future tech talent through after-school programming or summer camps.
I want to see our post-secondary education systems better engaged to retain their students in Chicago over the course of their careers. Chicago is a destination city for young people, but it isn’t always a place where they want to stay after they graduate and settle down. I want our universities and colleges to be involved in developing modern workforce retraining for the ever-evolving tech fields that look to the now and the future.
Do you support giving Chicagoans property tax relief? If yes, please explain how you would accomplish it. If no, please explain why not.
I absolutely support property tax relief for Chicagoans. However, the challenge is coming up with a substantial new source of revenue to offset any relief. Chicago’s budget has been cut to the bone time and time again, and we are seeing the consequence of these cuts through diminished city services year over year. With thousands of vacancies in departments all throughout city government, offering relief must come with a new revenue offset, not further cuts. I would be open to conversations about a congestion tax as well as a progressive city income tax for households over certain income levels. We also need to grow our population to increase the tax base, so we need to be aggressive in developing policies to attract good paying jobs to Chicago.
Give us your take on the city’s use of tax increment financing districts. Do you feel they have been useful, or do you feel that the problems associated with them outweigh their usefulness? What if any reforms would you want to apply to the city’s usage of TIFs?
Chicago must do a better job talking about what TIF districts do and how TIF works at the general level. Many projects and programs that benefit so many Chicagoans were financed by TIF. I think we need to see better concepts or details put into TIF legislative language towards the intent of potential projects so we are not drawing away tax revenue from other taxing districts, effectively creating a “specialized” TIF district for more specific types of projects.
For example, if a TIF is expected to raise revenue for transportation or business development purposes only, then that specific TIF should only generate revenue from property taxes, and allow tax revenue for schools, parks, or libraries would still go towards their respective taxing body. By requiring more specific project scope in the legislation, we can help ensure we’re not depriving the schools or parks from revenue for up to 21 years.
I also want to see a lot more community involvement and input in future TIF discussions, to make sure our communities are seeing development that benefit them, but also that we are factoring in the need for equity across all areas of the city.
Understanding that reform to TIF criteria may require action by the Illinois General Assembly, we should not delay in developing reform ideas at the start of the next City Council, so we can be prepared to take legislation to Springfield for the start of the 2024 Session.
Lead in drinking water is a major health concern for the city. It is estimated that in Chicago there are roughly 400,000 homes and small apartment buildings with lead service lines. So far, the city has replaced less than 300 lead service lines. Do you feel the pace of lead service line replacement should be expedited, and if yes, what is the best, most feasible way to accomplish that?
We are not replacing lead service lines fast enough and it is wholly unacceptable.
Understanding that replacing lead service lines will come with an exorbitant price tag, we need an infrastructure ordinance to finance this for all residents. Many lead service lines are being replaced in neighborhoods seeing substantial rehabilitation or teardown-rebuild projects and those costs being folded into the overall development cost.
We cannot penalize residents with continued health issues who may not be able to afford the cost of lead service line replacement by pushing the replacement cost down the road. Environmental justice is also a priority of mine related to this issue, and I would like to see the Department of Environment come back.
If you are an incumbent, please explain what is it about your service on the City Council that makes you most qualified for the job. If you have never served on the council, please explain what is it about your background that makes you most qualified.
From a standpoint of representation and personal perspective, my background as an immigrant who came to the US at age 7 from Mexico is similar to the stories of a significant number of our Ward residents. I am also a mom in a working family, raising my two kids in CPS with a husband who is a Union worker. I know firsthand the issues and problems our families and residents are facing in the 30th Ward and Chicago as a whole. My life growing up in CPS schools, getting a Master’s degree in Management, and now working over 16 years in administration for a university has provided me with a lifetime of experience in education, and management as well. I will use best management practices to make sure my residents are getting top level constituent services from my office, and also in how I advocate for them to the City. Accountability is a crucial component to this, holding our city departments and staff accountable by asking questions and following up; as well as supporting good routines and practices with expectations and benchmarks.
What is the most pressing issue facing the people of your ward, and how would you address it?
Public safety is the most immediate pressing issue, although related issues such as education and the crisis in mental health are also top of mind. I want to get the community much more engaged with our CAPS programs, and will use my office, staff and resources to do outreach and encourage more blocks and neighborhoods to get involved. As I said in the last question, accountability is a big component of solving problems, and accountability for public safety means everyone in the community – not just the police – have to step up and work together to take this on. We all have roles to play in keeping our neighborhoods safe. I want to bring together local police districts, non-profit organizations, youth programs, mental health resources and professionals, our schools, small businesses, and all residents to be talking and working together. I would allow my office to be used for frequent meetings between these groups and stakeholders. The mental health crisis facing our city also needs to be addressed, and taken as seriously as we do with physical health pandemics. More resources for mental health not only de-escalates volatile situations, but also frees up the police to focus on other problems our community is facing such as gang violence and thefts.
Sum up why should voters elect you and not your opponent(s)? (Please limit this to policy and approach, not a biography recitation.)
I will use my experiences in education and management to serve my constituents and advocate for them. I will also be taking many bold stands and bringing new ideas. Such as, if elected, I would push for a new City Council Committee on Mental Health to address the crisis and give it the attention it deserves. I also will be pushing to bring back the Department of Environment to be a tool in the fight for environmental Justice.
Chicago is also a city steeped in the tradition of political dynasties, with the promise of legacy service carried down between the generations of leadership. All too often, however, these aspirations fall short of what was, and the best interests of the residents of the district fall to the wayside.
Dynastic legacy was one of the major narratives in the 2019 race for the 30th Ward, and the residents of the old 30th Ward made it clear that the type of leader they wanted representing them before City Council was someone from our neighborhood.
My family and I have been in the 30th Ward community over 20 years and I am proud to be raising my family here as well. I am running for Alderwoman of the 30th Ward because I know the issues that matter deeply here; I live with the issues and challenges we face and am in the best position to push for policies that our residents want and need.
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