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player ready...Petition gatherers are officially on the streets, marking the real beginning of Chicago’s 2027 mayoral campaign. With the election still roughly seven months away, much of the conversation has centered on who’s running, but we’re just as interested in how each candidate plans to govern.
Choice is never the problem in these mayoral races, as plenty of folks want the job and thus voters have many different flavors of leadership to consider. Clarity is harder to find.
In our view, this race will come down to four major issues: public safety, housing, economic growth and, above all, fiscal stability, the unresolved challenge hanging over every other issue.
Candidates should level with Chicagoans. Period. This city’s problems aren’t going to be solved with slogans or campaign consultants’ talking points. They require difficult choices, and voters deserve to hear what those are before Election Day.
Would-be mayor: What is your four-year plan?
We’d like to see one that identifies priorities, establishes measurable benchmarks and explains not just what you’ll do but how success will be measured. Something more akin to a business plan than a laundry list of campaign promises.
The tenure of our current mayor, Brandon Johnson, illustrates why Chicago should demand more specifics. His allies released First We Get the Money just after he took office, and his administration’s transition blueprint followed nearly two months later. Whatever one thinks of those documents, Chicagoans never had the opportunity to evaluate a detailed governing roadmap before casting their ballots.
But a plan without substance is no plan at all.
Crime still is at the top of our list. Johnson, whose supporters have started to gather signatures though he has yet to announce a bid for reelection, continues to tout a substantial decline in crime, certainly a welcome change from serious spikes during the pandemic and summers of unrest. No doubt former Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling and Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke have much to do with this shift. Across the country, crime has fallen since its COVID peak. That’s all to the good and Johnson is entitled to trumpet that achievement, as we heard him do last week.
And yet, many folks’ lived experience these days doesn’t jibe with the rosier picture the Fifth Floor presents. Chicagoans hear reports of assaults on trains and violent robberies in places like Wicker Park and mass shootings on the South and West sides, which have also crept into the Loop. Many Chicagoans still feel less safe here than they did a decade ago. We need to know candidates’ views on police staffing, investigative priorities, prosecution and technologies such as gunshot detection.
Housing is another obvious priority. Our housing market is hot in certain neighborhoods, yes, but in a way that sees soaring prices and limited supply locking out would-be buyers, especially if they’re not able to go way over asking price for a good spot. Renters face similar challenges. Ask anyone apartment- or condo-hunting and they’ll tell you it’s tough out there right now.
We applauded the mayor’s Cut the Tape housing initiatives, which build on the abundance model of increasing supply to drive down cost and ensure there’s enough housing to go around. But the Johnson administration’s decision to build overpriced affordable units — including one $38 million project costing $884,000 per taxpayer-subsidized rental unit each — falls short on increasing supply at all too high a cost. Not good.
Candidates should tell voters whether they intend to reduce regulations that make housing harder to build (and much harder to build a rental portfolio) or continue adding new ones.
We’d also like to hear from candidates how they plan to grow our tax base.
When the local economy is growing, it’s less of an imperative to dig endlessly for more revenue. The best way to encourage business investments and the jobs that come with it is to build confidence in fiscal stability. In Chicago, a good start would be as simple as ending the seemingly constant barrage of new tax hike threats against the business community.
In our view, true growth doesn’t come from luring companies with massive subsidies and special carve-outs; it requires running the city well and sending a genuine message that Chicago is both dynamic and open for business. Meaning: Job creators aren’t living under perpetual threat of higher taxes and fees, and that city leaders aren’t ignoring the ticking time bomb of a fiscal crisis.
Which leads us to the hardest, but most essential, part: truth-telling about the city’s finances.
Candidates, you’re going to have to tell people some unpleasant truths to be serious in our eyes. Your high-priced consultants might tell you that’s a mistake, but fixing Chicago requires a hard dose of reality coupled with a plan for how to right the ship.
No vague promises, no magical thinking, no dogmatic ideology trumping all.
Mayoral hopefuls need to be straight with voters about the challenges the city faces, what cuts they’re open to, how they plan to bring the reluctant along and what reforms they are ready to put in place. Quickly, for they are needed fast.
Ultimately, we want to know that candidates have ideas for what we will be doing differently, because more of the same isn’t going to work
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Chicagoans have heard enough comforting fiction.
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