RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Mayor Brandon Johnson charged Monday that the same billionaire business interests that closed schools and mental health clinics under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel are trying to “take us back to a time of trauma and torment” and declared that Chicago is “not going back.”
Johnson never mentioned Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias by name. But on the day after Giannoulias entered the race with a promise to confront the thorny issue of school closings, Johnson used the comment to his political advantage.
A previously planned announcement of the 15 more “sustainable community schools” bankrolled by the new teachers contract allowed Johnson to contrast his vision for Chicago Public Schools with Giannoulias’ tough-love message.
Sustainable community schools operate as comprehensive community centers that combine education with an array of social services for students and their families.
Johnson noted that the 15 choices “primarily service people of color and families who are in a social-economic strain right now that Donald Trump has exacerbated.”
That’s why, he said, he’s more focused on “protecting Chicago” than on mayoral politics and the lingering question of whether he will wage, what will almost certainly be an uphill battle for a second-term or walk away after four years in office.
“Right now, you have people who are declaring their candidacy for offices while already giving the word that they’re gonna close schools. The same interests that shut down schools,” Johnson told reporters at Malcolm X College.
“The same interests that closed mental health clinics. The same interests that fired working people across this city. Those same interests want to take us back to a time of trauma and torment and pain. I want to make this absolutely clear — and not just about sustainable community schools: We are not going back, Chicago.”
During a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Sun-Times last week, Giannoulias condemned as “dangerously irresponsible” the Chicago Board of Education’s decision to approve a nearly $10 billion budget that counts on $150 million from Springfield that it doesn't have and a $285 million tax increment financing surplus that the City Council has not approved.
He accused schools members aligned with the Chicago Teachers Union of having "jammed through" an alternative budget that "avoids any hard choices about structural changes."
“I will work with the board president to advocate for more funding. But we have to start with a more responsible budget. ... Glittery possible revenue is not responsible," he told the Sun-Times.
Giannoulias also vowed to close some of the 145 schools with more empty seats than students, but with a community- and parent-driven process “paired with real investment in students and staff affected — not closures imposed from Downtown with little notice.”
“Past closures, particularly in 2013, were handled in a way that broke trust with Black and Latino communities, and that history can’t be ignored or repeated,” Giannoulias said.
Giannoulias’ remarks — and the $22 billion that he has raised from some of the same millionaire and billionaire business interest that bankrolled Emanuel’s two mayoral campaigns — provided a political opening for Johnson — and the mayor took it.
He firmly declared that the "days of school closures, consolidation and privatization ... ended officially under the Johnson administration."
"We have come too far to have the same interests that have created pain and turmoil in this city to try to take back seats or positions of power that, when they had it, they didn’t even use it for the benefit of working people,” Johnson said.
“They used these positions to fatten the pockets of the ultra-rich," he said. "They are carrying the same agenda of the Trump administration that released the largest upward transfer of wealth in the history of America. And none of those politicians said a word.”
When a caravan of buses was descending on Chicago during the $639.6 million migrant crisis, Johnson said he alone made the difficult choices and paid a political price for decisions that reignited an us-versus-them conflict between Black and Hispanic people.
“Who stood up for people in this city? My administration stood up for this city when there were no solutions across this globe of how to respond to a global population shift and migrants being shipped to create political turmoil,” the mayor said, his voice rising.
“I stood firm, 10 toes down. Even when it upset people, we took the humanitarian stance — not the political stance. And too many politicians in this city, in this state, are taking the stances and the interests of corporations.”
Giannoulias hopes to blunt some of those attacks by joining the mayor in campaigning for a 3% tax on annual income over $1 million.
But that's not enough to satisfy Johnson.
At a time when "too many politicians" are doing the bidding of corporations, the mayor said it has to be "yes to anything and everything" that makes Chicago the "safest, most affordable big city in America."
"Unless someone has that message, they are not fit to lead this city or anything else for that matter," he said.
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