In a Nov. 11 conference call with the City Council's Black Caucus, for instance, the mayor threatened to play hardball when choosing projects in her $3.7 billion capital plan. The message was, if you don't support my budget, your ward won't be prioritized. Or, to put it another way: "Don't come to me for shit for the next three years" if you don't support the budget, several aldermen recalled her saying.
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.