He continued: “I’m not going to cut, and take away, layoff, fire, privatize so that other people can benefit, and the people of Chicago can lose. Not under my watch.”

” All I did was say these liberal policies are killing my community and that was labeled as hate speech. They did that to protect their power, their money, and their identity.”

So far the Chicago Department of Water Management has replaced only 5,844 of the city’s lead service lines. In a statement, the department said there isn’t enough money, equipment or trained workers to meet the Biden administration’s mandate. Chicago has more than 400,000 of the toxic pipes, by far the most of any U.S. city.

A property tax increase would go back on the mayor’s campaign promise, but could avoid layoffs and, with them, a disagreement with unions. Additionally, the finance committee has approved the city to issue $1.5 billion in new bonds at lower interest rates to replace outstanding bonds at higher interest rates. It’s estimated that would save the city $110 million.

“Apparently, there’s some people who are confused about the power that I have,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “There’s a few people that somehow forgot there was a whole election that gave me the power to transform this city. The world is ready for transformation, because we have figured it out.” The mayor did not give specifics.

Criticism from business and civic leaders is mounting.

“Sure, cuts hurt schools. But so does trying to fire a CEO, and engineering the resignations of an entire board, for having the fiscal sense to say no to a bad loan that would make the district’s long-term financial picture even worse.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision to elevate such a stalwart champion of aldermanic prerogative to lead the Zoning Committee comes nearly a year after a probe by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that aldermanic prerogative fuels segregation in Chicago and violates the civil rights of Black and Latino residents by limiting the creation of affordable housing.

Eric Smith, vice chair of BMO Harris Bank and co-chair of a public safety task force at the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago said business leaders worry about lives that could be lost without ShotSpotter or another gunshot detection system in place.

“By any measure, Evanston’s schools are well-resourced. According to the adequacy formula adopted by Illinois, it has 117 percent of the fiscal capacity required to educate its students properly. Chicago, which borders Evanston to the south, has just 75 percent. And yet, Evanston’s schools are nearly broke. Something feels off, right?”

CPS is a so-called “sister agency” of the city, with its own board and budget. And unlike other sister agencies, CPS board appointments don’t require a City Council vote. That structure is written in state law. The council does, however, vote on certain types of spending for CPS. Funding for projects like playground improvements, athletic fields, roof repairs and other infrastructure needs regularly comes from special city taxing districts.

The Chicago Fire Department has been operating for more than three years without a contract, which has capped the department’s expansion of its ambulance fleet at 80. Having 127 would move the department in line with the national average when it comes to the residents-to-ambulance ratio in major cities. With the current state of the city’s budget, firefighters are trying to bargain for an extra 20 to bring them even at 100.

“The university thought we were finished,” one speaker at Northwestern University said. “We are picketing here to say, ‘We are back.'”

“When our people wanted to be liberated and emancipated in this country, the argument was, ‘you can’t free Black people because it would be too expensive,’” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “They said it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate Black people. And now you have detractors making the same argument of the confederacy when it comes to public education in this system.” (with video)

Garien Gatewood, deputy mayor of community safety: ” I believe that to truly create safety in all communities, we need to take a ‘both/and’ approach: moving upstream to address the root causes of violence and implement proven prevention strategies, while at the same time working to address multigenerational acute and systemic traumas that affect individuals and communities.”

“Comparing Chicago to a basket case such as Detroit during the period of state intervention might seem like a stretch, but it isn’t. As in the Detroit of that era, CPS finances aren’t sustainable, and Illinois keeps squabbling over who calls the shots.”