Mayor Rahm Emanuel says that he has helped take Chicago away from a "crossroads."
During his first term as mayor, Emanuel has endured numerous controversies, with closures of several dozen schools, tumultuous relations with city teachers and constantly looming financial problems chief among them. Should Emanuel win a second term, those problems likely won't get any easier. Emanuel will have to steward the city through a resolution to its pension conundrum and manage the city's infrastructure and educational resources through a changing political climate in the state.
But Emanuel, who is up against several opponents Feb. 24, says he is ready, and has comprehensive plans to keep the city on what he says is the right path.
Windy City Times sat down with Emanuel to talk about his first-term accomplishments, his second-term plans should he win, and his relationship with the LGBT community. The interview was conducted by Matt Simonette and Gretchen Rachel Hammond. Responses have been edited for clarity and length; the interview can be viewed in its entirety at www.youtube.com/watch .
Windy City Times: How is the campaign going for you?
Rahm Emanuel: It's going well. It's not how it's going for me—it's how it's going for the public. Are they getting ideas or solutions that I'm laying out? In general, what I would say is, "Look, four years ago, this city came to a crossroads. It couldn't keep doing what it was doing and expect a different result. A record number of people were leaving, and a record number of jobs and companies were leaving."
So, rather than push off our challenges, I believe we had to confront them, and if we confronted them head on, people would have the confidence to move back to the city and jobs and companies would [as well]. I've proposed four budgets in a row that have all been balanced, without raising property, sales or gas taxes. We eliminated the per-employee head tax. Four years in a row we put money back into the rainy day fund, and four years in a row we invested in after-school, summer jobs, early childhood-education for our kids and basic neighborhood services.
Now—since the time in which we confronted our challenges—more people are moving into our city than other cities, and more people are moving companies to our city, and jobs are coming back at a record number. In my view this is not the time to go back to our failed politics, and the failed status quo, but to confront our challenges with both the solutions and the strength that provide more opportunity for the people of the city of Chicago throughout every neighborhood and community.
WCT: What will be your key goals in a second term?
Rahm Emanuel: To continue educational growth for our families and our kids, most importantly. While we've established all-day kindergarten for every child, and pre-K, for four-year-olds in families with need—that will be half-day and I'd like to take that to the next level, which is a full day of pre-K for families in need. On the other end, at high school—that's one of the main reasons people leave our city, and I think we can make high schools one of the main reasons people want to stay in the city, [if] people liked their neighborhood schools and by offering educational high-quality choices at neighborhood schools, like International Baccalaureate and STEM, we can reinvigorate our high school education, re-think our senior year, so it's really a college- or career-transitional year through both the dual-credit and dual-enrollment. I'll continue to look at the budget, balance it every year obviously, but do it in a way that makes reforms and efficiencies.
WCT: If you're re-elected, you'll be contending with enormous financial challenges when, next year, many of the city's enormous pension liabilities are going to be coming to a head. What steps do you as mayor need to take in order to protect the city's balance sheet? Are Chicagoans going to face increased property taxes or service cuts?
Rahm Emanuel: Let me say this: I balanced four budgets in a row, without a property, sales or gas tax [increase]. We eliminated the per-employee head tax; we didn't cut it, we eliminated it. Four years in a row, we put resources into things that are really valuable. In the same time that we were doing that, and putting money into the rainy day fund rather than taking it out, we have worked through the issues with park district employees, municipal employees and laborors, to secure their retirement for the workers, and to do it in a way that was both fair to them and fair to the taxpayers of the city of Chicago.
Sometimes, I jokingly say that's three more pension deals than anybody else, or any of my predecessors combined. The fact that [with] the police and fire unions, we worked through their contract, without having to go to arbitration, creates a conducive environment to work through the issues of retirement security for their work force—our work force, that we've come to rely on.
WCT: In recent years, Chicagoans have heard contradicting statistics about the prevalence of crime, both citywide and sometimes within their own neighborhoods, such as in Lake View. How "safe" a city do you perceive Chicago to be? What should be done to combat crime effectively and justly?
Rahm Emanuel: If Superintendent McCarthy was here, he'd show you, it's true. Last year we finished with the lowest homicide rate since the mid-1960s. Crime is down now 30 percent in the last four years. People don't walk around going, "I haven't felt this good since 1966." What you can take away from the data is that we're making progress. So now we have to ask, What is working, and what's not working? I fundamentally believe that putting more police on the street, and getting kids, guns and drugs off the street, and investing in those areas because they're essential for safety in all parts of the city.
Now I understand, as you said, many of your readers live in [differing] parts of the city. My job as the mayor is for all of the city. Homicides aren't the same, robberies aren't the same, throughout the city. So we've taken officers from behind the desks to apply them, though Operation Impact, where we saturate, put more officers on bicycles and on the beat, to give the community's most affected by gun violence a greater police presence. As I've told you, we've dramatically increased by about 40 percent our after-school, and by 60 percent our summer jobs. We've gone from about 14,000 to 24,000 kids in summer jobs.
Now the hardest challenge we had is when the court threw out Chicago's gun laws. I aggressively moved and landmarked the city gun laws. But we're not an island, given that guns are floating in from surrounding areas. So we have to work with Springfield and Washington in passing comprehensive gun control legislation.
WCT: Incidents in Ferguson and New York this past fall highlighted tensions between persons of color and police officers. Some Chicagoans of color have said that they have been subjected to over-policing or harassing traffic stops by Chicago police. What can be done to keep police officers accountable?
Rahm Emanuel: This gets to the core of what community policing is. I've always believed in community policing, so when I came here our community policing—which was started here in Chicago—had become an office rather than a [strategy]. So I took everyone out of the office and moved them out into the districts. We retrained the police department officers on trust, because that's what community policing is.
If you know the officers in your community and the officers know their community, you are working at trust-building, which is essential for safety and security. The beat officer, while being the backbone of the police department, is not the only individual operating community policing. The superintendent, by meeting with religious communities, is operating in community policing.
By the district commanders, having regular meetings with leaders in both educational, neighborhood, business and religious leaders of the surrounding area, they're building community policing. It's fundamentally about the trust between the community and law enforcement. … When there's an incident, you don't want it to be the first time you're having this conversation or dialogue.
WCT: Some parents contended that after the school closures happened, some children must walk through gang-infested areas. What is being done to protect them? To be specific, it was a concern of some people in Austin we've spoken with.
Rahm Emanuel: First and foremost, last year was the best year in attendance in CPS history, and the worst winter. We dramatically expanded our safe passage routes, putting adults on street corners for six, seven or eight blocks. This year, I took [that] and increased it, with another 35 or 40 schools included in the safe-passage routes. So I'm very sensitive to the concerns of safety during the time that the kids are walking to school or coming home from school, and dramatically—since day one, but principally in the last two years—increased our safe passage workers out on the street, giving the parents and the kids the confidence that there will be an adult there responsible for a series of blocks on a route that kids are to take. Last year that led to record attendance and this year so far we're continuing that trend line of [improvement].
WCT: President Obama just announced support of community college tuition, and you have done so as well. But a big barrier for youth in attending and completing college is housing. Would you support creating dorm-style housing for community college students, so that all full-time students attending such schools would receive housing or housing vouchers?
Rahm Emanuel: My first goal, first and foremost, is giving the Chicago-STAR scholarship—if you earn a B average, community college will be free. [Chicago is] the first city to really change the educational makeup of a city. A lot of cities are in the K through 12 model. We're now saying our model is pre-K to college, which is a dramatic difference. I know that there are challenges ahead. We are doing a lot on affordable housing, but I do not just need to develop the idea that I have, but I need to see it through to its success as well. My effort in the first term was turning our community colleges in Chicago towards a career-based education. That took a lot of effort to refocus it.
When I became mayor, we had the worst graduation rate of any community college system in America—seven percent. It's now 14 [percent] and on its way to 22 [percent]. A lot of that had to do with focusing the schools on very specific industries and then making sure that kids were educated and trained for the most promising jobs in those fields. The second piece is to make sure that no family goes into financial hardship trying to get their kids access to community college, which is what I think is access to the American dream. So before I take on that, I need to execute what I've laid out. I don't want to say housing is not an issue. I accept that it is, but I don't want to get my eye off the ball for what we've just done, which is landmark.
WCT: Your administration has done work on the homeless youth issue, which is something the paper does a great deal of work on, since 40 percent of homeless youth—
Rahm Emanuel: Forty percent.
WCT: Right, are LGBT.
Rahm Emanuel: But that's different from what you were just asking. As it relates to homelessness, we made some major changes and now we've expanded the beds by a third, specifically targeting homeless youth, and in four different places providing basic services to help homeless youth get back on their feet, and get back into an educational [setting].
WCT: Would you be in favor of opening these schools to more hours of service, including opening early for use of showers, and staying open year-round for use of lockers, and perhaps even opening them overnight during winter months for allowing youth to sleep over?
Rahm Emanuel: I'm not going to say I'm not, but we have specific services for homeless youth. Now let me draw back a little. This coming year, because of the budget we just passed, we're actually providing eliminating homelessness among veterans, we've expanded services to homeless youth and I and I work with [Family & Support Services Commissioner] Evelyn Diaz and her deputy in developing strategies targeting areas of our homeless population so we make real progress. Before I say yes as to what I want to do at our schools, I'd rather work with service providers, see where we are and what our progress is, so my main goal is what I pledged to see through, which is, by January of next year, there are no homeless veterans in the city of Chicago. Evelyn is working with a network of providers as well as those focused specifically on homeless issues, [asking], 'What is the next population we make major gains on? How do we target them? What are the resources we need to do it?'
WCT: What work have you done and will you do surrounding immigration issues, and in particular undocumented immigrants?
Rahm Emanuel: One of the main things beyond what we've done—I helped pass the DREAM Act here in the state, got driver's licenses for immigrants, making sure that in every neighborhood library there was what we called a Citizenship Corner to help folks. We made Chicago Star available to undocumented [persons], which makes it unique, because if parents brought there kids here, they've made that sacrifice or struggle, we don't want lack of education or further education to inhibit their kids. I continue to want Chicago to be the most immigrant-friendly city … our main effort is to make sure that, with the president's executive order, families are enrolled in this historic opportunity.
WCT: A lot of undocumented LGBT immigrants we have spoken to are living in fear—fear of ICE breaking down doors. Many aldermen, both incumbents and new candidates, have said so as well. Incumbents have said that in primarily Hispanic communities, undocumented persons won't go into offices for fear that ICE might break down their doors. It's a federal issue, but is there anything you'd tell undocumented immigrants, a message to them?
Rahm Emanuel: We have in mind to make the president's executive order a unique opportunity to take advantage of this change. It is a change in the law at one level. It's not a new law but it's a change in how the federal government deals with our immigration laws. … The city, before the executive order came, used to be a sanctuary city just by mayoral executive order. I passed an ordinance at the city level that's now policy of the city of Chicago. That clearly gives an indication how we as a city treat immigrants, regardless of their status. That's the clearest sign to come from the shadows in pursuing your work, lifestyle, how you want to live, because our city welcomes people of all types.
WCT: What do you perceive as being the biggest issues facing LGBT Chicagoans?
Rahm Emanuel: While there are challenges, I don't think we should forget the gains we've made, [such as] hate-crimes legislation, marriage equality, repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." There are other issues, like bullying, ahead. While I'm also pleased that the [Supreme Court] is going to take on marriage equality, while we as a state have done it, the clearest sign ahead of us is to make sure when the court interprets it, that's now the law of the land. … [The] court decision will not change Illinois or Chicago, but it may change, if they get married here, how they'll feel if they move as a couple to another state depending on where they move.
As it relates to the quality of life specifically in the city, we want to always communicate as to how this relates to our youth—that's both on the homelessness front that you talked about, in our schools, [ensuring] kids are constantly respected regardless of their sexual orientation, and our diversity is held up as a sign of strength. That's also true in making sure that our police department works with the community, and making sure that it understands their individual issues, and does it from a position of respect both from the law enforcement community working with the [LGBT] community, knowing that there's a trust between the police department and the law enforcement community, and the community as a whole.
WCT: Maybe if you could comment on the expansion of the police profiling law to cover transgender individuals. Can you speak to training measures that would be in place for CPD recruits and Cook County correctional staff?
Rahm Emanuel: For Cook County, sorry, you have to go over there and ask somebody else. But as it relates to us, we've put our entire police department—don't get me on the specific number here, but almost like 10,000 officers have gone through retraining, working on the most basic principles of policing. Your most basic principle is to build trust, but do it from a position of strength and respect. That to me is key. Whether dealing with individuals of color, or of sexual orientation, that you respect the community that you're responsible to, and know that your goal is not just to enforce the law but build a level of trust between the individuals who make up that community and the police department.
WCT: Transgender women of color have detailed horrific cases of abuse by CPD officers that have come from profiling them as sex workers, etc. "Walking while trans" has become a common concern. A lot of them feel that making complaints is useless because they fear no one is going to take them seriously. This leads to accountability. What measures are in place for CPD accountability, especially for women like this who feel so disenfranchised?
Rahm Emanuel: Chicago's unique, in that a lot of people are looking at our model of the police board, IPRA, which obviously investigates any actions related to the police. Now that sometimes is merely about—if there's a shooting it goes to the IPRA board. That's not what you're talking about, you're talking about isolation, of how they're dealt with on a case-by-case basis. There is accountability in the police department. It's something you work towards all the time. If there's a trend, that needs to be brought directly to the police department … [to] the district commander where that happened, because they know how we want to, as a city, interact with the community. You can't have people feel safe if they feel that the officers responsible for public safety are not to be trusted. You can't build safety [alone]. It's something you build together with a community. So individuals targeted because of their sexual orientation—or because they are transgender women of color—that needs to be brought forward so we can make sure there is a change in attitude, culture and enforcement, and hold anybody accountable if they've done something that does not adhere to the policy of the police. It's hard for me to react to a generic [scenario] without knowing something specific, but my call is that, nobody should fear coming forward because the philosophy of the trust that we are building.
WCT: A disproportionate number of transgender individuals—90 percent—live in poverty. What kind of resources can the city put behind them?
Rahm Emanuel: My general attitude and philosophy is behind the city effort to raise the minimum wage. My philosophical approach has been for raising the minimum wage. Back in my days in congress was when it was last raised at the federal level. It's why I did what I did when I worked for President Clinton, when it was raised at the time prior to that. I was proud that the city of Chicago led the effort to raise the minimum wage to $13.
If people work, they should not be in poverty or raise a child in poverty. In addition to the minimum wage, not only in my time at the federal level, expanding dramatically the earned income tax credit, but also doing it here with Gov. [Pat] Quinn, expanding it here at the state level. That ensures specifically for families, if you work, no child is raised in poverty. So to the transgender community that overwhelmingly lives in poverty, obviously support and assistance. The main thing we can do is, beyond that support and assistance, raise the minimum wage so that work pays.
WCT: When they talk about even trying to get a job, there's a non-discrimination law in place. But when you interview for a job, an employer doesn't have to tell you why they're not giving you a job, and there's a lot of people who say they can't even get their foot in the door, especially transgender youth. Is there anything that can be done to encourage employers to give these kids a chance?
Rahm Emanuel: The first thing we have to do is make sure employers know our policies as relates to discrimination. … I owe you more work, and I have to look and talk to Mona [Noriega, head of the Commission on Human Relations] about what we have done as it relates to employers on that specific [issue]. One of the areas we're working on, not direct to the questions you're asking, is hiring ex-offenders who are returning citizens. That's been a major effort to help returning citizens in the place of employment and making sure that, for example, in public transportation we do that. I want to make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure that we're clear about the policies of the city as it relates to discrimination, which is not allowed.
WCT: What resources will the city use to stem and reverse the number of new HIV infections, which are still a serious problem, especially among young gay men of color?
Rahm Emanuel: Working with Dr. [Bechara] Choucair, my health commissioner, I think we've dramatically increased the resources through our applications and grant applications for state and federal money. So the city of Chicago is actually putting more resources in total towards that effort. I'm going to continue to do as we look for the next health commissioner, they're going to be a key part in making sure they keep up the work that Dr. Choucair and I did in seeking greater resources from the federal government and the state government in the HIV area.
WCT: Do you think the Pride Parade should be moved out of Lake View?
Rahm Emanuel: That's not for the mayor to decide. Like with all issues, I'll work with the community so we can have both a parade that people can be proud of and that respects the diversity of the city. But I'm not going to say where it should go. In my tenure, the route was slightly changed, and I'll continue to work with the leaders of the gay community if they want to change it. But I want it to go on so all parts of the city can embrace a community that is significant, that contributes to a city that represents not just a diversity of immigrants but people of all orientations.
Visit www.chicagotogether.org .
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