State Rep. La Shawn Ford — one of 14 candidates running for Chicago mayor — resurrected a bill that would give Chicagoans the right to recall the next mayor of Chicago.

Chicago’s three candidates in the wide-open race for Chicago treasurer want the office charged with managing the city’s $8 billion investment portfolio as well as five retirement funds to play a more prominent role as the city grapples with a looming pension crisis.

[audio mp3="http://thedailyline.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Treasurer-aldercast_mixdown_01.mp3">[/audio]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

City Treasurer Kurt Summers, who flirted with a run for mayor before announcing that he would not seek another term, has not endorsed any of his potential successors.

Summers, a former chief of staff to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle who is running for Chicago mayor, championed a $100 million investment fund in an effort to breathe new life into the South and West sides of Chicago and help fight crime and blight with affordable loans between $100,000 and $1 million — but the fund has yet to make its first investment despite being approved by the Chicago City Council in October 2016.

Ameya Pawar, who served two terms as 47th Ward alderman, said the treasurer should be an “aggressive advocate” for social change by using city dollars to pay off residents’ student loans, smooth the legalization and banking of marijuana, and push corporations to better represent workers. Pawar has been endorsed by U.S. Reps. Mike Quigley and Jan Schakowsky, SEIU Local 1 and St. Sabina pastor the Rev. Michael Pfleger.

Pawar, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Illinois governor in March, has $212,000 in cash on hand, according to the Illinois Sunshine database.

Peter Gariepy, an accountant who tried unsuccessfully to unseat Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas in the March Democratic primary, describes himself as the “grounded one” to hold down the fort during “an unprecedented time of financial challenge for the City of Chicago.” Gariepy has the backing of Ald. Scott Waguespack (32). Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1) and Ald. John Arena (45) served on his exploratory committee.

Gariepy has $49,000 in cash on hand, according to Illinois Sunshine.

Melissa Conyears-Ervin (D-Chicago), elected in 2016 to represent a West Side district in the Illinois House, has the support of the Chicago Teachers Union, the Chicago Federation of Labor as well as Secretary of State Jesse White, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, and more than two dozen incumbent aldermen.

Conyears-Ervin is married to 28th Ward Ald. Jason Ervin, who is running for re-election. The 28th Ward Democratic Organization, which is controlled by Ervin, gave Conyears-Ervin’s treasurer campaign $5,000 on Feb. 1, on top of $56,000 in in-kind donations in December, according to reports filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Conyears-Ervin has more than $255,000 in cash on hand, according to Illinois Sunshine.

Conyears-Ervin said the treasurer should serve as “an independent financial watchdog” to serve everyone across the city, and has proposed taking over the auditing functions now performed by the Council Office of Financial Analysis and the city’s sister agencies.  

Pawar’s proposal to create a public bank has dominated much of the conversation around the race. Under his proposal, the bank would be limited to “refinancing student loans, funding affordable housing and banking cannabis.”

Both Gariepy and Conyears-Ervin point out such a proposal would require state approval. Several other cities and states are considering the creation of public banks, and it is part of mayoral candidate Amara Enyia’s platform.

Conyears-Ervin said she supports pursuing a public bank, she said her first step would be to discuss it with state Treasurer Michael Frerichs’ office “to make certain it is a benefit and not a financial burden to taxpayers.”

The cost to capitalize such a bank, which Gariepy pegs between $3 billion and $4 billion, could put taxpayers’ priorities at risk and invite corruption.

“As the city’s finances become more and more strained, I think the propensity for wrongdoing increases exponentially, and there’s a very good reason why no one else has created them,” Gariepy said. “If you find the money to create it, you find the political will in Springfield, you now have a bank whose deposits are solely guaranteed by the tax revenue of Chicago, and it’s run by elected officials, so you would have political appointees deciding the risk appetite for that bank. Who’s going to get loans? Who’s not going to get loans?” he asked.

Pawar waved off Gariepy’s concerns, and said the bank would be governed by a non-political board. He noted Gariepy worked as an accountant on Pawar’s gubernatorial campaign.

“He sounds like a cynical incumbent fending off upstarts who are trying to go big on public policy...  it’s odd for a newcomer to politics to stake out that position,” Pawar said. “We have to go big on some of these issues. I’m not running to be a bookkeeper.”

Financial missteps spurred by activism will cost taxpayers in the long run, Gariepy said, noting repeatedly that the city’s pension bill is set to jump 31 percent in 2020, and officials have yet to propose a way to cover that expense.

“If you make bad investments, if you purchase bad debt, if you do things that are aligned with political goals rather than financial goals that also are in accordance with our principles, you’re putting the taxpayers on the hook,” Gariepy said. “So that’s why it’s important that this office, to the greatest extent possible, is not being used as some political stepping stone, because major damage can be done to the affordability and the solvency of the city.”

Pawar said using the treasurer’s office to achieve policy goals will be his highest priority.

He said it’s been difficult to offer bold proposals while corruption swirls around City Hall, eroding public trust. But he suggested the office can do much bigger things, including partnering with other municipalities to weaponize portfolios for social good.

“Imagine if the treasurer organized with the state treasurer, organized with other cities and said, you know, there’s a big opiate crisis,” Pawar said. “We are going to go after big pharma and we’re going to short you. We’re going to short your stocks. Or we’re going to divest from you, or we’re going to divest with funds that have major investments in big pharma unless of course you do something about the opiate crisis.”

Summers warned in a recent City Club speech that if city leaders set up a public bank, they will also have to be prepared to foreclose on homes or put a lien on a student’s assets.

Gariepy, a Detroit-area native, received his accounting and taxation degrees from Fordham University and a civil engineering degree from Northwestern. He worked at Amtrak on planning and real estate, and now works at BKD LLP, a national CPA and advisory firm.

Gariepy complimented Summers’ work as well as his predecessor, Stephanie Neely, saying he’d be in favor of “tightening screws rather than burning down, rebuilding the house.”

The treasurer’s office should adopt environmental social governance standards and take advantage of newly designated federal opportunity zones to promote development in under-invested neighborhoods, Gariepy said, adding that he wanted to explore replicating New York City’s AFL-CIO housing investment trust, which has used union labor to build approximately to 35,000 affordable units.

Conyears-Ervin earned a master’s in business administration from Roosevelt University and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Eastern Illinois University. Conyears-Ervin worked for close to 15 years as a manager for Allstate Insurance’s claims customer experience and catastrophe teams.

“CPAs, they tell you the story of what happened, finance folks make things happen,” Conyears-Ervin said.

Under her control, she said the treasurer’s office would perform analyses of the city’s pension funds, Chicago Public Schools and the city’s sister agencies.

Approximately half of the members of the Chicago City Council have endorsed Conyears-Ervin. She said she will operate independently of her husband, the current vice chair of City Council’s Budget Committee.

“Anyone that knows me know that I am independent,” Conyears-Ervin said. “I am an independent thinker. I was a leader before I met my husband. He was a leader before he met me.”

The Chicago treasurer has been held by an African American since 1999, when former Treasurer Miriam Santos resigned in disgrace as part of a corruption scandal.

Conyears-Ervin’s campaign has emphasized that she will be the first West Side resident to be treasurer.

Pawar, the first Asian American elected to City Council, has represented a ward that is about 90 percent white for eight years after defeating former Ald. Eugene Schulter's hand-picked replacement, who had the backing of the Chicago machine.

“I don’t look at it as change,” Pawar said. I don’t see that not having a black treasurer and having an Indian treasurer is change.”

“It’s enormously important that those who serve Chicago in elected office look like the population of Chicago. Our current mayoral field is extremely diverse, City Clerk [Anna] Valencia is currently unopposed, and I think there’s a very high likelihood that the next mayor of Chicago is a woman of color. And so times are changing,” Gariepy said.

All minority representation is good, Pawar said.

“I don’t like the crabs in the barrel mentality, we end up hurting one another… if we allow that narrative to persist.”

Update: This post was updated on Feb. 7, 2019 to reflect that Gariepy currently works at BKD LLP, a national CPA and advisory firm, and not Vora Certified Public Accountants.

Election Day may be just 20 days away, early voting is underway and candidates are filling mailboxes and the airwaves — but several court challenges could change the ballot, even as early voting is underway.

The city’s Community Development Commission endorsed plans Tuesday for a $700 million subsidy for a development between the South Loop and Chinatown along the Chicago River, despite calls from City Council hopefuls to delay in light of the corruption scandal swirling around City Hall.

The monthly meetings of the Community Development Commission are usually sleepy affairs that feature nothing more exciting than members appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel approving new tax increment financing districts and city owned property sales already blessed by Emanuel.

U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley toured a training for judges preparing for the Feb. 26 municipal elections, and said the 14-year-old machines set to be used on Election Day should be replaced as soon as possible. Meanwhile, candidates scrambled to line-up big-name endorsements as new new television ads hit the airwaves.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle convened a 23-member anti-harassment working group to review and enhance “our policies and practices regarding the prevention and prohibition of harassment in the workplace” in the wake of her termination of her chief of staff John Keller after allegations of “inappropriate behavior” with a woman.

The Civic Federation weighs in on one of the municipal campaign’s hottest issues, while the campaign mail flooded mailboxes across the city.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel put pressure on lawmakers and Gov. JB Pritzker Sunday to support a bill that would ban the sale of tobacco products to those younger 21.

 

If Chicago Police officer turned firefighter Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41) wins a second term representing the Far Northwest Side on the Chicago City Council later this month, he will have to do it without two of his biggest backers in 2015 — the Service Employees International Union and the Chicago Teachers Union.

Napolitano defeated former Ald. Mary O’Connor in a run-off after SEIU paid for approximately $80,000 worth of negative ads blasting O’Connor — an ally of Mayor Rahm Emanuel — as bad for working families.

But neither union has endorsed Napolitano this time around — a move Napolitano called “disheartening” and “frustrating.”

“I supported the unions 150 percent like I promised them,” Napolitano said.

Representatives of SEIU declined to discuss Napolitano and the 41st Ward race, while CTU leaders did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Line.

Napolitano — the only member of the Chicago City Council who is not a Democrat — faces Tim Heneghan, a retired Elmwood Park firefighter who is also the Democratic committeeperson for the 41st Ward.

Both SEIU and CTU, which are backing mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle, declined to endorse Napolitano again after he “took a massive lurch to the right” once he was elected, according to a union source who did not want to be identified.

“That’s comical,” Napolitano said. “I just care about my ward.”

In 2016, President Donald Trump won 43 percent of the vote in the 41st Ward, which includes O'Hare, Edison Park and parts of Norwood Park — more than any of the city's other 49 wards. In Edison Park, Trump won four of its 10 precincts, a higher proportion than any other neighborhood beside Mount Greenwood on the Far Southwest Side.

In March, Napolitano stood with conservative Republican gubernatorial candidate and former State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) to condemn the city’s municipal identification card, which can be used by citizens as one of the forms of identification they need to register to vote.

The Chicago Board of Elections is required by State law to accept the identification, known as the CityKey as documentary proof of an individual’s identity and residency, according to City Clerk Anna Valencia.

At the news conference, Ives — who would narrowly lose the Republican primary for governor to now-former Gov. Bruce Rauner by three points — said the cards are “literally suborning voter fraud.”

Napolitano said the cards are designed “to entice or encourage people to go register to vote who are illegal immigrants.”

Napolitano later appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to debate Ald. Ameya Pawar (47) about the cards.

Napolitano was one of four aldermen who voted against creating the municipal identification card, which is offered by the clerk’s office to undocumented immigrants as well as homeless Chicagoans and those just released from prison.

Napolitano, 42, also voted against a proposal from Mayor Rahm Emanuel to use $1.3 million in city funds to defend undocumented Chicagoans from legal threats posed by the Trump administration.

“There are rules, and those rules and laws should be followed,” Napolitano said.

Napolitano, who got help in 2015 from the Chicago Republican Party, said he is truly an independent who has no use for partisan politics.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about parties,” said Napolitano, adding that he voted in March’s statewide Democratic primary.

Napolitano does have the endorsement of AFSCME Council 31, the state’s largest public employee union, as well as the Chicago Federation of Labor, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 and the Firefighters Union Local 2.

“We're supporting Ald. Napolitano for re-election because during the previous term he had a 100 percent voting record on our issues,” said AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall.

Napolitano earned the Chicago Federation of Labor’s endorsement because of his support of “collective bargaining and Chicago’s union families,” the group said in a statement.

Heneghan has been endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134, Plumbers Local 130, Operating Engineers Local 399 and the Chicago Regional Council Carpenters.

In June, Napolitano blocked a seven-story, 297-unit luxury apartment complex near the Cumberland CTA Blue Line station that would have included 30 units set aside for low- and-moderate income Chicagoans.

After the City Council’s Zoning Committee narrowly to reject the project at Napolitano’s request, a debate erupted that continues today over whether the city should do more to build housing for working-class and middle-class Chicagoans as part of an effort to reduce the racial and economic segregation that plagues the city.

Jerry Morrison, special assistant to the president of SEIU Local 1, urged aldermen to disregard Napolitano’s opposition and approve the development he said could house workers at O’Hare Airport.

Napolitano said he does not regret his decision to block the complex. The project’s developer, GlenStar, initially sued the city alleging that the housing complex was improperly rejected. But the firm later dropped that lawsuit and announced they would instead build office space.

Heneghan said he would have approved the project, which he said was in the perfect location for a dense residential development.

“Napolitano played to his base, who don’t want people of color to move into the ward,” Heneghan said, accusing Napolitano of “fear mongering.”

Heneghan said the 41st Ward needs more affordable housing, noting that his three college-age children can’t afford a home in the neighborhood they grew up in, Edison Park.

However, Napolitano said there are plenty of affordable apartments for rent in his ward.

“Affordable housing is just the cool thing to talk about,” Napolitano said.

Napolitano said he was proud to have resurfaced 250 streets, worked with the Chicago Blackhawks to bring a skating rink to Brooks Park and helped approve two annexes at Ebinger and Dirksen elementary schools, which were among the most crowded in the city.

“If people want me to stay, I’m happy to stay,” Napolitano said. “I’ll respect the will of the people.”

Napolitano campaigned in 2015 with then Cook County Clerk David Orr — considered by many to be the dean of Chicago's progressive movement — and touted the endorsement of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Now retired, Orr praised Napolitano’s independence as an aldermen, but declined to endorse him for re-election.

Napolitano was one of only 14 aldermen to vote against Emanuel’s 2016 budget, which included a $589 million property tax increase — the largest in Chicago history — touted by Emanuel as the only way to fill the city's massive deficit and shore up pensions for police officers and firefighters.

At the time, Napolitano said Emanuel's plan "put too much of the burden" of paying off the city's debt "on the taxpayers and small businesses" of the 41st Ward.

Heneghan, 56, said he would have voted for the budget, and the tax increase, to ensure that pensions for police and firefighters were not threatened.

After O’Connor lost to Napolitano in 2015, she stepped down as committeeperson and appointed Heneghan to fill out her term. Heneghan won a full term in 2016, after defeating Andrew DeVito, who was endorsed by Napolitano.

Heneghan said he was proud of his work as committeeperson, as well as his record of volunteerism. If elected, he said he would increase the office’s communication with residents and operate more transparently.

Napolitano has about $54,000 in cash on hand for the final weeks of the election, according to the Illinois Sunshine database, while Heneghan has about $22,000 in cash on hand in two committees he controls, according to Illinois Sunshine.

Chicago Police are now under the watchful eye of a federal judge, more than four years after an officer fired 16 shots at Laquan McDonald, remaking both Chicago politics and the day-to-day operation of the police department. A strike by charter school teachers looms, as the Chicago Teachers Union schedules a rally.

Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown — who has been under investigation by federal authorities for several years — will make her pick in the crowded mayoral contest, but it won’t be Toni Preckwinkle, who booted her from the ballot. Amara Enyia sat down with one of her most famous supporters, while Lori Lightfoot backed three challenges trying to unseat incumbent aldermen.

As the city enters its third month of Burke-related scandal, with news continuing to break about Ald. Danny Solis’ (25) role in Burke’s troubles with the feds (and his own debts), and with few weeks to go until the polls close and the field likely narrows, mayoral candidate Bill Daley sat down for The Daily Line’s Aldercast podcast.

[audio mp3="http://thedailyline.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Daley-Pod-Final_mixdown.mp3">[/audio]

The former Chief-of-Staff for Barack Obama and former U.S. Commerce Secretary for Bill Clinton had stints in the private sector at SBC Communications, JPMorgan Chase, and at  Swiss hedge fund, Argentiere Capital. And, of course in Chicago, Daley’s name carries weight – baggage or clout, depending on who you talk to –  as the son of Mayor Richard J. Daley, the brother of Mayor Richard M. Daley and Comm. John P. Daley (D-11) and uncle of Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

Daley is sticking to bread and butter issues on the trail – crime, education, and housing affordability – but expounded in this interview to discuss continuing #MeToo issues in Chicago, the potential for future school closings, and his thoughts on progressivism.  

Five takeaways:

• Surveillance on every block; build the new police academy – “We have more cameras than most cities, I’d have a camera on every block in the city, a very high definition camera in order to give comfort to people, not just in those areas that have high crime, but throughout the city,” he said. The ACLU described the city's already-extensive surveillance system in 2011 as "a pervasive and unregulated threat to our privacy." His crime platform also includes further investments in police Strategic Data Support Centers, incentives for businesses to invest in security cameras, and the use of drones. “I think the training part is the most important, that’s one of the reasons I think I’m the only one of the 13 people that are actually for a new academy,” Daley said. That’s in addition to investing $50 million in violence reduction programs similar to CeaseFire, a reinvestment in CPD’s CAPS program, and asking Springfield for harsher gun penalties and an assault weapons ban. 


• Strip down the FOP contract – The city’s contract with the Fraternal Order of Police is long-expired, and for reformers, is a key impediment to changing the culture of the police department. “The contract should be there, I get, to protect the police officer. He has rights. But it should not be there as an impediment for investigations or actions where actions are needed to correct a wrong,” Daley said. “I’ve asked somebody to bring in the copies of the contracts and I’ll be you need a Harvard Law degree to figure them out, which is ridiculous, okay? And usually, when it’s hard to understand these thing, it’s done for a reason – nobody wants you to understand them. So I think we ought to simplify them.” Many public employee contracts are “layered on, layered on, layered on,” he said. The FOP’s should be streamlined so they can be used “for the purpose they were originally developed: to make sure people are paid fairly, compensated fairly, and that they are not subject to political interference and a fair process for them to be adjudged when they make mistakes and not just the sort of tragedies we’ve seen with Laquan McDonald.”  


• On the millions he’s raised from out of state and corporate interests – “I’ve been fortunate over the years of having a lot of friendships and relationships around the country. I had one senior businessperson, a Republican, give me a substantial amount of money and has no interest in Chicago other than his attitude was we need reasonable sensible leadership in urban America,” he said. While many connected Chicagoans have donated to his campaign, including the Ricketts, former Tribune owner Sam Zell’s trust, and dozens of Chicago-based investors, he said, “The people that have supported me don’t play in the game of Chicago politics, they have no business interest in that sense. I’m proud of the fact that I am pro-business. I think the opportunity to address so many of our issues in this city relate to our ability to grow economically.” 


• On his definition of liberal – “Let’s be honest, ‘progressive’ is just because Democrats didn’t want to call themselves ‘liberals’ anymore because it was such a negative term... I think you understand that government is there to provide a service to help people and that it must interact and must interdict themselves for social good, but that you also must be part of making sure that the economic pie grows and isn’t just the economic pie of government, it’s the economic pie of the private sector, which is much larger and much more meaningful than government’s ability to affect things. Some people look at using government as a stick to force private sector to do what you want, or what you think is the right policy. I think you’ve got to work with the business community in many ways, and that’s one of the biggest challenges for the next mayor.” 


• On the CTU’s demand for higher pay and hiring nurses, librarians and aides – “Conceptually, everyone would like to see everybody get a pay raise as much as she could, and give everybody whatever they want. The reality is, we have to deal with reality. I’ve had three sisters teachers, daughter a teacher, I understand what a tough job and how we expect much more of them. I have respect. I plan to sit down with the leadership if I’m elected mayor, and we will work to being fair to them, fair to the kids of Chicago, and fair to the taxpayers and the future of this city,” he said. He floated a private partnership to provide some of those services, including healthcare, but said he didn’t believe “one should say that’s totally out and therefore you must just layer on more people into a system” already struggling to pay teachers.

A rendering of the proposed Lincoln Yards development. [Sterling Bay]

Nine aldermen are on record as of Thursday vowing to vote against the $6 billion Lincoln Yards development because it fails to combat Chicago’s affordable housing shortfall or reduce the economic or racial segregation plaguing the city.

As the opposition to the project swelled Thursday, Ald. James Cappleman (46) — who controls the fate of the megaproject as the new chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee — said he would insist developer Sterling Bay commit to building affordable units earmarked for the city’s poorest residents in the 2nd Ward — but not as part of the development itself.

A hearing is set on whether city officials should create a new tax-increment financing district to fuel the massive development set to reshape the riverfront between the South Loop and Chinatown. Mayor Rahm Emanuel touted a new record for Chicago Animal Care and Control, as more animals than ever are finding forever homes.