RAHM'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Four years of Rahm's Achievements
Chicago likes a tough mayor that gets things done. Let's take a look at what Mayor Rahm Emanuel has done in his short tenure. From finance and crime, to education and jobs, Rahm has touched every aspect of our city in less than four years.
- Of Emanuel’s top 106 contributors, 60 of them received favors from the city.
- Evaded his own, much-trumpeted executive order banning campaign contributions from city contractors by shoveling $38 million in city resources to his donors via “direct voucher payments,” a sketchy loophole that lets businesses get city money without bids or contracts — without, in fact, any way of documenting what the money is used for.
- Disregarded ethics and laws and accepted more than $600,000 worth of donations from executives at firms managing Chicago pension money.
- Doesn’t attempt to recoup more than $100 million from issuance of $1 billion in risky auction-rate debt paired with interest-rate swaps…despite a federal rule that requires banks to "deal fairly" with governments when they underwrite government bonds.
- Established regulations favorable to Uber, a company Rahm’s brother stands to make a billions dollars from.
- Pays for preschool using dubious scheme in which investors could double their money and cost the city dearly.
- Missed the only opportunity to fight the parking meter deal, and instead locked the contract in place for the next 75 years.
- Chicago’s bond rating dropped to near junk-bond levels.
- Appointed board member Deborah Quazzo, who invests in companies that privatize school functions tripled their business with the Chicago Public Schools while she was on the board.
- Cut pensions of middle-class workers and diverted funds to enrich some of his biggest campaign contributors.
- Fails to reform disability programs, costing taxpayers millions.
- Facing budget crisis, spends $2.7 million on armor for horses for a NATO summit.
- Outsourced CTA fare card, despite having one that worked fine, to a company for $454 million, which then added new fees that bilk the poor on a grand scale.
- Top donor bought stock in Marriott immediately before City awarded company huge contract.
- Accepts $50,000 donation from George Lucas and $138,000 from executives of Star Wars parent company Walt Disney, then demands Lucas Museum placed on public park land with little public debate.
- Chicago has slower population increase than other major cities, despite claims that families are returning.
- Gave $55 million in public tax dollars to DePaul, a private university.
- Gave $5.2 million in public tax dollars to a company owned by the Pritzkers, one of the wealthiest families in the world.
- Hikes property taxes $750 million dollars.
- Steals credit for closing coal plant.
- Steals credit for minimum wage hike.
- Closed 54 schools yet has $1.71 billion in special accounts often used to finance corporate subsidies.
- Fails to hold charter schools accountable in the same way neighborhood schools are held accountable.
- Significant decline in number of African-American teachers.
- CPS has lowest enrollment since 1970.
- CPS can’t find 434 students since closing 54 schools.
- Closed 54 schools for underutilization yet continues to open new charter schools.
- CPS altered charter school test data.
- CPS sued for discriminating against pregnant teachers.
- CPS was able to juke the statistics on high school graduation rates — which supposedly went from 70 to 85 percent over the last decade — by contracting with for-profit online education companies that demanded very little work from students, while still allowing them to receive diplomas from the last school they attended.
- Argues against elected school board to prevent politics in education; refuses to proctor high-stakes test to gain votes before election.
- Interrogated young children without parental consent.
- Outsourced custodian and food services to Aramark; principals, teachers, and parents complain about the increased filth in schools due to the poor services, in part because they laid off hundreds of janitors.
- First teacher strike in 25 years.
- Cuts $11 million from public libraries budget, 363 positions reduced.
- Demolished public school library, against the parents' wishes, and arrested protesters.
- Promised libraries for schools that accepted students from 54 closed schools; a year later only 4 schools received new libraries and only 38% have librarians.
- Costs of school closings triple the amount estimated, millions more than promised, leads to vandalized and unsecure buildings.
- Crime statistics altered to hide murder rate, including a woman who was bound and gagged declared dead not from murder but by “unspecified means”.
- Chicago Murder rates increase 50%.
- Number of shootings increases.
- Spends $95 million in police overtime.
- Arrest rate for marijuana hasn’t changed, despite decriminalization, costing City millions and disproportionally affect Hispanic and African-American youth.
- CPD Homan Square “black site” where arrestees are locked up for days at a time without access to lawyers, including a 15 year old, and a 44 year old that died in custody.
- The administration insisted the red-light cameras led to a 47 percent decline in “T-bone” crashes, when the true number was 15 percent — and they also caused a corresponding 22 percent increase in rear-end collisions.
- CPD eavesdrops on protesters' cell phones.
- Yellow light times too short causing more rear-end collisions and more red-light tickets.
- Claims red light cameras are for safety; personal motorcade routinely runs red lights.
- Closes half the mental health clinics in the city.
- Chicago’s African-American unemployment rate higher than other large cities.
- As of 2013, black unemployment was hovering around 25 percent, not significantly different than it was when the mayor took office. Poverty, too, has barely budged.
- Youth unemployment, especially for African-American youth, higher than other cities.
- Job growth trails the suburbs by nearly half.
- Gave $7 million in tax dollars to Mariano's, a private company, that drove Dominick's out of Chicago. Mariano's pays lower wages than Jewel.
- Increased regressive taxes, which disproportionately affects the poor; Chicago now has the 4th highest regressive taxes in the nation.
- Dismisses seriousness of racial segregation, as if it's a good thing.
- CHA socks away $353 million, failing to issue 13,000 vouchers for families to receive housing.
Does Rahm deserve another four years?
Rahm's Accomplishments
