Garcia: 'I will transform the way we run city government'
Mayor Emanuel claims that he has led our city forward. But whenever light is shed on his actual record, we find he has violated the public trust, squandered opportunities for reform, and left the working families of Chicago with the bill. What’s worse, we don’t even know the extent of the problem.
OPINION
For four years, the current mayor has hidden critical information from Chicagoans — about how he’s spent tax dollars, about the debt he’s saddled on future generations, and about the savings we could realize from the “waste, fraud and inefficiencies” that even Mayor Emanuel has admitted riddle his budgets.
As mayor, I will transform the way we run city government. I will put the people of this city back in the drivers’ seat through real accountability. And I will bring the leadership it takes to bring people together and make tough decisions collaboratively.
My administration will open our books to the light of public scrutiny. And — for the first time in history — we will audit city budgets and operations to take a hard look at how Chicago spends its money.
No one outside of the mayor’s inner circle can tell you how badly Chicago’s books are cooked. But I will not look taxpayers in the eye and ask them to shoulder a greater burden before we have exhausted all other options and made sure that the very wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.
We also need to be honest about the mismanagement that got us here.
Mayor Emanuel hired a City Comptroller who’s been convicted of taking kickbacks. Mayor Emanuel claimed to have saved $60 million in Streets and Sanitation operations when the Inspector General says that number is $18 million or less. The Emanuel administration claimed the red light cameras were for safety when the evidence shows they are a revenue grab. The mayor “renegotiated” the hated parking meter contract to make it harder for the city to change the terms of or even exit the contract, at the same time that the city forked out tens of millions of dollars in overpayments.
Emanuel has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in police overtime without a single audit or month-to-month breakdown of expenditures, despite repeated requests from City Council members for hard documentation.
Emanuel has said he hasn’t raised property taxes, but property taxes for city agencies under his control have spiked by 11 percent, or $342 million, since he took office in 2011. And he’s used those new taxes meant for our schools to funnel over $70 million to for-profit education companies that enrich ‘consultants’ and corporate owners, while closing 50 neighborhood public schools.
Instead of retiring bond debt, the current administration has refinanced expiring bonds in “scoop and toss” deals that will balloon in cost and soak taxpayers for millions in interest payments for decades.
The current administration has also continued to use TIFs as a piggy bank to give big corporations and campaign donors millions of dollars for development projects that don’t need these handouts such as the Marriot Hotel near McCormick Place.
And he tried to back-door a property tax increase of hundreds of millions of dollars into a pension deal that alienated workers and may not survive a court challenge.
Emanuel’s pay-to-play raids on the public coffers have crashed the city’s bond rating and left us in worse shape financially than when he took office. At the same time, he’s shortchanged workers’ pensions by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Mayor continues to say “trust me” — when he has failed to earn our trust.
Instead, we need a system-wide budget overhaul — for the City, CPS, the Park District and City Colleges. These operations together spend more than $17 billion in hard-earned tax dollars for frontline services that our residents need and deserve. My budget advisors estimate we could save at least hundreds of millions of dollars by using economies of scale to leverage better deals and wiser combined spending for these agencies.
As mayor, I’ll end the gimmicks, hidden taxes and growing debt that Emanuel has relied on to run the city — because Chicagoans have a right to truth in taxation.
As mayor, I will put our fiscal house in order. I’ll start running this city for the people, not the privileged few.
We can create financial stability and build a world class city where all Chicagoans can survive and thrive. We just have to build it together.
Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is a candidate for mayor of Chicago.Garcia: 'I will transform the way we run city government' | Chicago:
Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website