Yesterday, the day after Cook County Clerk David Orr released property tax rates, the Mayor’s Office of Budget and Management started briefing aldermen on potential rebate plans the city could offer homeowners to offset this year’s historic tax hike. Those rebates will offer much less relief and require a lot more work to implement than the homeowners exemption the Mayor tried to pass through Springfield earlier this year. And none of the proposed plans include a way to pay the cost of the rebates.

The average City of Chicago residential taxpayer should expect to see a 12.8% increase on the tax bill set to land in their mailbox in the coming weeks, Clerk Orr estimated. More than half the increase (60%) is due to the $318 million property tax levy that kicks in this year. [A ward by ward breakdown of the median home value, impact of the property tax increase, and tax bill reduction from the homeowners exemption can be viewed on pages 24-73 here, but keep in mind it doesn’t reflect reassessments.]

The Budget Office released details of four rebate plans that have been floated in the months since the budget and property tax hike passed, adapted from those proposals, or a somewhat pared down version of the 2010 rebate put in place by Mayor Daley. [Details of each rebate option and how rebates are calculated here]. Each rebate plan comes with an estimated cost, but no mention of how the programs would be paid for.

“We’re trying to provide an offset for families and seniors as a direct result of the police and fire pensions,” Budget spokesperson Molly Poppe told Aldertrack. “We are trying to focus on the flow of income in middle class families. $50,000 is about the median income in Chicago.”

Ald. Walter Burnett (27) said he was late to the briefings, but “saw all four of them. My main question is, how are we going to pay for it?” Mentioning the recent news of McDonald’s relocating its corporate headquarters to Chicago and the improving area economy, Burnett says he’d like to get a clearer picture of how much the city is benefiting from commercial property taxes as well. “It’s kind of hard for me to make a decision on [a rebate] when I don’t know when all the moving parts are.”  

He and Budget Chair Carrie Austin told Aldertrack they did not hear from the Mayor’s Office on how revenue would be generated from the plans, which range in estimated cost from $10.4 million to $50 million, but Austin and Burnett agreed they’d like to see a plan that would benefit the most people, without hitting others too hard with new taxes or fees.

The plan that could cover the most people, per the Budget Office’s count, is not surprisingly, the costliest. That plan (Option 2) was first proposed by Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35), and would potentially cover 237,000 taxpayers: both homeowners and those who rent properties. The average rebate would be $195 for homeowners and $254 for rental property owners, but could go as high as $2,000. Rebate amounts would be determined based on assessed home value, the increase in the city tax rate, income as a percent of the federal poverty line, and whether residents receive social security or disability payments. Under Rosa’s plan, those who owe debt to the city (like unpaid parking tickets) and city employees would be eligible for a rebate.

The property tax rebate proposal first pitched by Ald. Michele Smith (43) and Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1) also made the list (Option 1). Their rebate plan is limited to only the growth in City of Chicago property taxes due to the police and fire pension property tax increase. Household income is subtracted from $100,000 and multiplied by the growth in the City’s tax rate. This amount is multiplied by the home’s Equalized Assessed Value (EAV) to generate the rebate. The average rebate amount is estimated to be $116.

That proposal also includes a senior supplement for those over 60 years old, who have lived in their home for at least 18 years, and whose EAV has gone up by at least 30% from 2014. But those who receive the Senior Freeze or Home Improvement Exemptionwouldn't be eligible.

A more modest version of Mayor Daley’s 2010 plan also made the list (Option 3): the rebate would be a fixed amount between $25 and $200, determined by using a combination of household income and the eligible increase in the homeowner’s city property taxes. Daley’s plan, intended to ease the impact of the 2008 recession, was eligible for homeowners earning up to $200,000. Today’s plan would only impact households earning less than $50,000.

A modified version of what Moreno and Smith introduced was also included (Option 4). It would impact 107,000 homeowners and would cost roughly $12 million. The growth in the City’s tax rate is multiplied by the home’s EAV to determine the eligible increase. The homeowner receives a rebate which varies depending on income.

Poppe says she anticipates the city will use some kind of non-profit partner or outside delegate agency to carry out and promote the rebate program, similar to how the city handles Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) administration. Mayor Daley’s program was administered by an office within the OBM: the Chicago Tax Assistance Center. At its first application deadline, just 36,621 of 200,000 eligible homeowners applied. $35 million was set aside for the program, but ultimately the city paid out just $2.1 million. The program drew its funds from a portion of the city’s parking meter revenues, and was paid out using bank cards rather than checks so the city could avoid accounting for tens of thousands of individual grants.

Poppe could not say whether rebates would be offered on a card or a check, but said some rebates could be applied to pay off debt individuals have to the city.

All of the rebate proposals on the table would last just this year, and would only offset the increase in the property tax due to police and fire pensions. Poppe said there was no discussion of rebates for commercial properties like small businesses. Commercial property tax bills will go up an average of 10% this year, Orr’s office said.

The Mayor’s office will also continue pushing on a doubled homeowners exemption in Springfield, Poppe says. Property tax bills are expected to be mailed out in the coming weeks, and are due August 1.

This conversation is coming later than aldermen called for during the budget last year. A resolution approved in October called for the City Council to consider a city-administered property tax rebate program “Regardless of any action taken or not taken by the Illinois General Assembly… by June 1, 2016.”

Poppe says the budget office gathered input from aldermen and their staffers at yesterday’s briefings and might return with a hybrid proposal or “some type of melding of all the options” to introduce at the June 22 City Council meeting, or possibly at the July meeting.

As Chicago Public Schools calls for a dramatic increase of state funding to fill its projected $1.1 billion 2017 deficit, South Suburban school districts are keeping a close eye on the state’s response as plummeting home values make it harder for them to raise the cash needed to fund basic operations.  

In many ways, Chicago Public Schools’ calls for dramatically increased state funding is a precursor for an even bigger crisis for South Suburban Cook County school districts set to transpire next year, when the Cook County Assessor is scheduled to reassesses the value of those homes. Like CPS, many districts have maxed out their property tax caps, but South Suburban districts are also struggling with rapidly declining property values in their jurisdictions. In these communities, because property values are dropping, breaking the caps to raise local taxes would not be enough to provide basic educational services, making the need for state assistance more likely to make up for their growing property tax receipt shortfall.

School districts in South Suburban Cook County’s Bloom, Rich, Thornton and Lemont Townships, where property taxes make up roughly two-thirds of school funding, have seen overall property values drop significantly since they were last assessed in 2014. This has made it harder for these school district to tax the amount need to fund operations and has left districts to keep budgets lean.

These areas are faced with a multitude of challenges, from declining home prices to an exodus of commercial and industrial companies that typically relieve homeowners of swelling property tax bills.

But when the Cook County Assessor’s Office conducts its tri-annual assessment of South Suburban property values in 2017, the expected assessment drop will confront many school districts with the inability to tax properties at the rate necessary to provide basic funding for schools and local government services.

Depreciating home values especially impact property tax receipts for local school districts, because a district’s tax rate is based on an equation that divides the amount of money the district has requested in their levy by the total value of taxable property within each district, called the Equalized Assessed Value (EAV).

So when the denominator bottoms out due to depreciating home values, the tax rate increases, while total receipts continue to drop. This means homeowners are stuck with sinking home prices and higher tax bills. And school districts are left to cover operations with less money than they need.

One school district, Consolidated High School District 230, located about 25 miles southwest of Chicago and includes Orland Park, Orland Hills, Palos Park and Palos Hills, saw its EAV plummet more than $136 million between the 2013 and 2014 tax years, while its year-over-year tax rate increased by 4.88%.

Another district in Oak Lawn, Community High School District 218, saw its EAV drop roughly $109 million over the same time period, while its tax rate jumped 7.26%.

It’s the same case for Bremen Community High School District 228, a district covering parts of Oak Forest, Country Club Hills, and Hazel Crest, which saw its EAV fall roughly $81.4 million while its tax rate rose 8.63%.

“Cook County is the only county in the state of Illinois that has an upside down tax structure,” said Park Forest Mayor John Ostenburg. As the current president of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, a former member of the Chicago Teachers’ Union, and a one-time State Representative for the 80th District, Ostenburg has been following the debate over education funding for decades.

Ostenburg describes Cook County’s complex tax system as outdated, fashioned around a time when the South Suburbs had a thriving industrial economy. Unlike the rest of the state, Cook County is the only county where commercial and industrial properties are taxed twice as much as residential. At a time when factories were driving the economy, this helped relieve the property tax burden off of homeowners.

But times have changed, and when the factories closed their doors and relocated out of Illinois, so too did much of the retail economy that was dependent on workers spending their wages, and more and more, South Suburban homeowners are being saddled with ballooning property taxes that are outpacing actual receipts. “The South Suburbs had a ton of industry when the system was created, but when all the offshoring occurred, we lost jobs, then we lost retail, then we got stripped of virtually everything,” said Ostenburg.

For example, Thornton Township High School District 205 in 2015 received about $5.7 million less than what it requested in its 2014 property tax levy. For Lemont Township High School District, the shortfall was $7.6 million.

“Those of us who have been active in the South Suburbs over the year have been arguing the state needs to the change the way it supports schools,” said Mayor Ostenburg.

Like Ostenberg, the Community Relations Director for Lemont Township High School, Tony Hamilton, says the tax structure is unfairly burdening homeowners in their district, especially those located in a small pocket of the school district that lies within DuPage County. “When Cook County depresses property values, it puts more pressure on DuPage County taxpayers,” he said, explaining his office, in 2014, received calls from several DuPage residents from Woodridge, Downers Grove and a portion of Darien asking why their taxes rose at such high rates. “A larger portion of the burden is being put on a group that is only a quarter of the total size [of the school district].”

“So, we have two different tax rates for two different counties [that] don’t talk to each other when this happens...DuPage doesn’t know when Cook [County] is depressing its values,” he explained.

To remedy the shortfall in property tax receipts from the Cook County side, Hamilton says the district has been relying on its reserves. “But our goal is to make them last as much as possible...we’ve done more to limit expenditures. No extraneous staff.”

Hamilton said over the last five years, the district has closely monitored enrollment in elective classes to determine which teachers to keep on the payroll, added participation fees for athletics, and tried to keep student and enrollment fees flat.

Lemont Township School District is also heavily reliant on federal aid, as it benefits from a subsidy from the federal government for Argonne National Laboratory, part of the Department of Energy. Since federally-owned property is tax exempt, the federal government reimburses the school district for lost revenue. That money varies from year to year. According to Hamilton, the district could receive between $400,000 and $1 million. “We get about five cents on the dollar of what it would have been if it was residential land. But every year it gets zeroed out and then we have to fight for it.”

Hamilton says the district will be able to open next fall by depending on reserves should the state fail to pass a budget in time. But the district is watching the debate between CPS and the state over the school funding formula. Hamilton’s district receives about $700,000 in state aid every year, about 6-8% of the annual school budget. “That’s a significant amount of money we would be losing...if the formula was changed. What happens at CPS is unfortunately tied to us.”  

Meanwhile, Park Forest has been slow to recover since the Great Recession, says Mayor Ostenberg, as it was one of the hardest hit regions. The village of about 22,000 people saw roughly 700 homes go into foreclosure, he said. Some of those homes, about 70, fell so far into disrepair that they had to be demolished, and the village is working with Habitat for Humanity to repair some of the more livable foreclosed properties.

This has left the tax burden on a smaller share of homeowners. According to Cook County Clerk David Orr’s property tax update for 2015, residents of the Village of Park Forest have the second highest property tax rate in Cook County at 36.834%. “There are not enough dollars to go around. The [property tax] rate keeps going up and up and up,” Ostenburg explained. “I know people spending more on taxes than their mortgage.”

Ostenburg has been trying for years to push the state legislature to use state income tax revenue to fund schools as a way to provide some relief to smaller school districts where property values have been on the decline.

“The only solution to the problem of school funding in Illinois is to take the dependence off the property tax and take it from the income taxes,” he said. “If funding was based on income, then if I make more I’ll pay more.”

Ostenburg is pushing for the state to create a pilot program that focuses on alleviating the financial burden of local school districts, especially at a time when state and federal assistance has been unreliable.

“The critical thing in the South Suburbs is that we need to attract more business and industry in the area. The burden falls on homeowners, and there are fewer people participating,” he said. “Homes can’t fund the entire burden of schools and municipalities.”

The pilot program Ostenburg envisions would incentivize businesses that relocate to struggling townships or villages to offset the property tax burden by lowering the tax rate for those businesses.

Ostenburg called Gov. Bruce Rauner’s suggestion that CPS declare bankruptcy “outrageous” and has signed a letter drafted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Office calling for a more equitable share of school funding. The letter, Ostenburg said, was brought up at last week’s meeting of the Metropolitan Mayors Conference. Mayor Emanuel’s press office tells Aldertrack that the letter hasn’t been made public yet, because they are still gathering signatures.

An intergovernmental agreement between the city and the agency that oversees McCormick Place and Navy Pier to employ off-duty police officers for security at private events received a significant amount of pushback from a few aldermen on the Public Safety Committee as they expressed worry that the city would foot the bill for any police overtime incurred.

While the agreement between the city and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) eventually passed in committee, with Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29), a former police officer, as the sole no vote, Committee Chair Ariel Reboyras (30) had to temporarily recess the meeting to iron out some of the issues with aldermen, MPEA officials and the police department.

MPEA was seeking approval to reinstate and amend an agreement first approved by the Council in 1996 that lets the agency hire off-duty Chicago police officers for private events or conventions at Navy Pier. Currently, MPEA employs about 35 plain clothes police officers, but not all work at the same time. The amended agreement would give those officers the option of wearing their uniform while providing security, in addition to extending the terms to McCormick Place.

Michael Merchant, Director of Governmental Affairs for the MPEA, said officers working at Navy Pier are considered MPEA employees, paid by the pier authority at $30-an-hour and hired under a 1099 form as “independent contractors”.

According to Merchant, customer advisory boards, which organize shows and conventions at McCormick Place, requested the extra security. “They asked us if there was something we could do to engage the Chicago Police Department to be present at some of the shows. They are willing to pay these officers for their services,” he explained, adding that the convention operators would pay MPA. In turn, MPA would compensate the police officers.

But Ald. Willie Cochran (20), a former police officer, took issue with the fact that the city would bear the cost of compensating an officer for overtime incurred for court appearances should the officer arrest anyone while working security for the pier. “The city should not have to take the burden of paying any expenses associated with officers working in the capacity for the Pier Authority. Why would our budget have to be challenged on that when you have a budget of your own?” Ald. Cochran asked.

Police overtime has been a huge sticking point for aldermen during budget negotiations, as the police department has, at least in the past two years, underestimated overtime expenses by tens of millions of dollars.

Ryan Nelligan with the Chicago Police Department said the bill would go to CPD, because once an officer has “taken police action”, they’re on-duty and covered under the police contract. That Fraternal Order of Police contract includes a clause detailing how much officers must be compensated for court appearances. Merchant added that the agreement aligns with CPD’s secondary employment policy, although Ald. Cochran questioned why no one from the FOP was on hand to testify.

Nelligan explained that the agreement between the Pier Authority and the police department is unlike other intergovernmental agreements the department has with the Chicago Housing Authority and the Chicago Transit Authority, mainly because MPEA will have to take out a $10 million liability insurance plan to cover uniformed police officers. The City and CPD are listed as co-insurers. But as soon as any of those off-duty police officers takes police action, whether it be an arrest or firing their gun, city liability kicks in, Nelligan explained.

Ald. Cochran, Ald. Taliaferro, and Ald. Carrie Austin (34) also expressed concern that hiring preference would be given to officers in the First Police District, where Navy Pier is located. A former police commander from that district, George Rosebrock, heads security at Navy Pier. But aldermen questioned the fairness of giving those officers priority. Ald. Taliaferro, who had to go to another committee meeting, requested that Chairman Reboyras defer the item until that issue was clarified. Reboyras, instead, chose to recess the meeting for five minutes so aldermen could convene privately with Merchant and Nelligan.

When they returned, Merchant clarified that officers from around the city would be invited to apply. He added that they had specifically mentioned the First District because of its proximity to Navy Pier.

Meanwhile, Eva-Dina Delgado’s appointment to the Police Board went through mostly without a hitch, as Chairman Reboyras made a point to bar any discussion on specific police reforms or the mayor’s task force.

Although, Ald. Harry Osterman (48), more than once, urged Chairman Reboyras to make sure the ongoing discussions over police transparency remain open to the public and asked for him to hold another hearing similar to the one held last December in the wake of the Laquan McDonald video release.

Referencing a press conference Police Board President Lori Lightfoot, who is also the chair of the Mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force, held last week calling on the Emanuel Administration to do a better job of including the public in the ongoing debate over police reforms, Ald. Osterman asked that Reboyras invite members of the Task Force to the Council Chambers for a public hearing on their report.

“I strongly believe this committee needs to take a leadership role in these efforts in a very open and transparent way,” Osterman said. “Reforms that do not have a lot of transparency or conversation and back and forth with members of the bodies that have to vote on this, I think, will lead to bad public policy.”

And Delgado, a registered lobbyist for People’s Gas and a longtime Daley administration fixture, was still asked to weigh in on the ongoing debate over police reforms, as she’ll be sitting on a Board in charge of making recommendations of disciplinary action for officers found of misconduct.

“You’re right that we are at a critical juncture at the city where there are going to be lots of conversations about what police accountability should look like, and I think that’s a conversation that has to happen, of course, here in this chamber as part of your roles, obviously. And having some community input on that,” she said.

Both items are expected to be reported out at the June 22 monthly City Council meeting.

The City Council’s Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development approved a designation of blight and a property tax break for a parcel of land near McCormick Place to facilitate the construction of a new 466-room Hilton Hotel.

According to Brad McConnell, a Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Planning and Development, the site at 111 East Cermak Road had already received a designation of blight in 1999, when the 24th and Michigan TIF district was created. But the Cook County Assessor’s office requires that a property can only qualify for a Class 7(b) tax incentive if that designation was made within the last ten years.

Gliding down the James R. Thompson Center escalators, former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn arrived for a lunchtime meeting in the food court in every way you would expect Pat Quinn to do so. It was hot, so he lacked a jacket, but wore his shirt unbuttoned two buttons. Carrying a thick accordion folder he says hello mildly but with a firm handshake.

After settling in at a quieter table, Quinn chit chatted a bit, but was excited to talk about his new effort to create an elected Chicago Consumer Advocate and to set a term limit for Chicago’s mayor, beginning in 2019. He brandished a dogeared copy of the Illinois Constitution, wrapped with a rubber band and full of underlined passages. For half an hour, Quinn expounded on his new referenda, his opinion of the performance of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner and what he's doing to fill his time out of office.

The following is transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Aldertrack: What spurred you to do this referenda now?
Quinn: I’ve always been interested in Article VII, the local government article, because I want to see more initiatives and referendum statewide. You can pass a constitutional amendment for that, and I think we can.

But a city council can enact its own local initiative process, so this is already existing, it only pertains to certain subjects, the manner of selection and creating an office. You can do binding initiatives on this. I’ve been interested in this since I was in law school.

Do you think Rahm Emanuel is doing a good job?
I don’t want to get into too much into the personalities and performance. I believe in the policy, whether Emanuel is mayor or someone else is mayor. I believe that two four year terms, consecutive terms, is sufficient.

But you could have written this so it could take effect in the next one. You very specifically said in 2019.
Because the current office holder is on his second elected term.

You could grandfather him in for one more.
But I think the two term, two consecutive terms is the proper way to go. A number of communities in Illinois, twenty, have used this to have various things in terms of term limits on their mayor. And most of them are consecutive four year terms. And there’s another factor, probably even bigger, the big cities of America, the ten biggest, only Chicago doesn’t have term limits on its mayor. New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Houston, San Diego.

Your spokesman said you’re not ready to roll out supporters just yet. How are you going to put together the organization to put together a 100,000 signatures, let alone the 53,000 good signatures you need.
Keep in mind our goal is to get 100,000 names and take as long as necessary to get it.

So it doesn’t have to be for the November 8th ballot?
Having been around Illinois politics for a while, sometimes there are politicians who keep you off the ballot. You might have heard of that.

This goes on the ballot at least 92 days after the filing of this petition, so when we get the names, then we’ll put it–we’ll file. We’re not going to be in a situation where our adversaries perhaps try to keep this off the ballot by trying to hog the ballot.

Has this sort of thing been done before? The Fair Maps Amendment team, they were really hemmed in by the time period, and the first time around they had a hard time–
That’s a different part of the constitution, which I have used as well. Since 1980. There, there is a specific deadline, you cannot have, you can’t do the 92 days. You must put it on a General Election ballot. That’s Article XIV. That’s different.

I’m curious to know, what do you think of the fight going on between Michael Madigan and Governor Rauner? You had issues with Madigan too.
Obviously I ran against Rauner, and many of the things that I, more than many, of the things that I predicted he would do, he has done and made a mess of things. I am very disappointed in the performance of Rauner as governor. People like Jim Edgar, who is in a different party than mine, and he supported Rauner, have the same disappointment. The first job of the governor is to get a budget, and not to engage in alibis about why not.

Is it possible we could go a whole Rauner term without a budget? Is that conceivable?
I hope not. But our state has the highest unemployment rate in the country now. We’ve had six straight months of higher unemployment. When I left office, we had 25 straight months of unemployment rate that was stable or declining. Never rising. Now it’s up. And I think it’s in due part to poor leadership by the governor.

You’re basically the template for the populist politician in Illinois. I think you’ve done that on purpose.
I believe in it. It’s not hard. This was on the ballot in Chicago in 1982 [pulls out old flyer for Citizens Utility Board initiative]. Chicago had a referendum on CUB, it passed overwhelmingly, within a year it because the law in the state of Illinois. So I was the guy who got it on the ballot, and I believe in it.

Thinking as a populist, is Rahm Emanuel doing the right thing spending so much energy on something like the Lucas Museum, versus school funding and the police force?
Yeah. There are core priorities like safety, education. This thing they’re having at Crain’s? [The Crain’s Future of Chicago Conference] What was missing? Fighting violence, good education, economic development–what’s missing? Democracy. What Chicago is missing, is giving voters more opportunity to call the policies they think are right. To me that’s a big problem. In other words, if you empower and strengthen the voice of voters we’ll have a better city, right now it’s too top down. That’s why term limits are so important. They’re the ultimate of campaign finance reform. You can just incumbency to raise money for their election.

So is the Lucas Museum the kind of thing a mayor should be expending their energy on? 
To me, that wouldn’t be my top priority. But that’s his, I guess.

Have you reached out to Rahm Emanuel to talk about [the referendum]?
On this one, I haven’t talked to him directly. But imagine that time will come. I think he would be well advised to support this. Believe it or not, quite a few municipalities who have come together on this, twenty all together, have put it on the ballot by themselves, without a petition. Some had to have a petition. This is a good policy. Two consecutive elected terms, then you step out. Worked for George Washington!

You’ve got an office in River North. So what else are you spending your time on?
I volunteer for everything I can. I was called the Broadband Governor, I do a lot with high speed internet for schools and hospitals. Wrongful conviction. I did quite a few clemencies when I was governor, one of the last ones was a man named Tyrone Hood, who was in Menard 22 years for a murder he didn’t commit, I pardoned him at the end. I got involved with folks who, our criminal justice system, you can’t make mistakes and put innocent people in jail, so I worked on that and I’m going to do the food bank walk this weekend and I do a lot of work for veterans. They’re called Gold Star Veterans who lost a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan. Last year I went to The Cell, for a baseball game, we had a suite, and we did one for the Cardinals, for the fans there. So we had a Gold Star family group at a Cardinals game.

Have you been doing and private legal work?
No.

Have you been taking private clients or advising anyone, that sort of thing?
No. I believe in volunteerism. I do believe in petition passing. I got 150 names yesterday.

What’s the likelihood of the passage of an elected school board by 2019 for Chicago?
In some ways, our petition helps it. If things aren’t moving on stuff like elected school board, which is a perfect example of why we need local initiative. People voted on that in an advisory way. But how did they get it on the ballot? They had to go ward by ward.

Right now the bill passed the House, I asked Madigan to be for that, he looked at me like there was a man from the moon. Now he’s for it, bless his heart. Some people have a change of heart. Now it’s up to [Illinois Senate President] John [Cullerton] to call the bill, and it would pass if he did, but John and the Mayor are pretty tight.

So you think Cullerton will hold on it?
I think the Mayor has got to realize, the longer he blocks the elected school board the bill that passed the house, the more people that are going to sign on the petition.

How many candidates for mayor do you think we’re going to see for 2019?
I hope a good number. I think it’s healthy to have viewpoints.

What do you think of Donald Trump?
He’s a charlatan. In a lot of ways, the guy who ran for governor against me, used some of the Trump techniques in 2014. Insulting, calling people corrupt. He called his three Republican opponents in the primary corrupt. That kind of stuff. When you attack the character of your political adversaries, it doesn’t lend much to civility, which is very important to run a democracy. [Former Republican Governor Jim] Edgar said that last week.

Is the Fair Maps Amendment going to pass?
I’ve been involved in a number of cases in the supreme court level on that part of the constitution and initiatives. I think they have some drafting challenges in their proposal. THey way it is drafted. Two years ago it was not very well done. And I really feel looking at it, they are going to have survive a court case.

So you think it will be knocked off the ballot?
Because of poor drafting. You gotta read the cases.

Are we going to see Pat Quinn running for Governor or Mayor?
You’ll see me passing petitions right now. [Interrupted by two construction workers saying hello. “Good seeing you brother!” one says.]

So, are we going to see you running for Mayor or Governor?
I’m not even thinking about that. If you want to do an initiative and I do on this, you really need to put a lot of heart and soul into that. When it’s time to run for office, I’ll think about that when that time comes. Right now this [taps initiative petition] is the time.

Are you going to be fundraising for that?
I made a contribution, a loan. We have enough money to get started. I believe in this. If you invest in it, your own money, that’s really underlines you believe it.

Aldermen are expected to hold a confirmation hearing today for a new appointee to the Chicago Police Board, Eva-Dina Delgado. If approved, Delgado, a registered lobbyist for People’s Gas and longtime Daley administration fixture, would replace Claudia Valenzuela, who resigned.

Between 2003 and 2008, Delgado served in various capacities in Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, moving from Assistant to the Mayor to Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Soon after, Delgado was Senior Vice President, Chief Development Officer, then Legislative Counsel to President of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), representing CTA in front of the U.S. Congress, General Assembly, Cook County Board, and City Council, according to her LinkedIn.

If approved by committee, her appointment would last until August of 2017, to complete Valenzuela’s term.

She comes aboard as Police Board President Lori Lightfoot has hinted she and the board might more actively pursue their own policy proposals on reforming the Chicago Police Department.

The committee will also consider an amended intergovernmental agreementbetween McPier and the Chicago Police Department. The agreement, first made in 1996, would extend a contract for CPD Officers to patrol Navy Pier, and would expand the location of services to include the McCormick Place complex and campus. Under the agreement, off-duty, uniformed CPD sworn officers can wear their uniforms while patrolling McPier facilities as independent contractors.

111 E. Cermak, the site of an ambitious data center and hotel near McCormick Place in Ald. Pat Dowell’s 3rd Ward, is the subject of two agenda items today: one from Mayor Rahm Emanuel declaring certain portions of property at the site are blighted; the other, support for a class 7b tax break for the owner, Michigan Cermak LLC, who intends to build a 466 room Hilton Hotel at the site.

A portion of the site is within the Michigan and Cermak TIF, and another part is located within the 24th and Michigan TIF. The city is reaffirming the site’s blighted status to achieve the property tax break.

The 7b application includes a blight report, which details the site’s deteriorating property value, odd site shape, chronic flooding, severely deteriorated and vacant buildings to the south and east, and poor site planning. “Most of the properties within the study area were originally platted and developed on a parcel-by-parcel and building-by-building basis with little evidence of coordination and planning among building and activities,” the site analysis says.

Properties awarded with the 7b incentive receive a reduced assessment level of 10% of fair market value for the first ten years, 15% for the eleventh year and 20% for the twelfth year, instead of 25%.

Two 6b incentives are also on the agenda. 6b breaks have a similar structure to 7b, but are designed to encourage industrial development at new facilities, the rehabilitation of existing industrial structures, or the industrial reutilization of abandoned buildings. Alpina Manufacturing, a picture frame manufacturer, is looking to rehabilitate an approximately 99,000 square foot industrial facility at 6460 W. Cortland Street in Ald. Chris Taliaferro’s 29th Ward.

Ald. Nick Sposato (38) is also resurrecting a stale 6b incentive extension for Columbia Metal Spinning Co., located at the southeast comer of Montrose Avenue and Normandy Avenue (in the Read-Dunning TIF). The first tax break for the property was implemented in 2003.

Flexing the muscles he knows best, Sunday press conferences and populist referenda, former Governor Pat Quinn jumped back in the political scene yesterday when he launched a website and a drive to collect 100,000 signatures in support of two referenda for the November 8 ballot: to limit the Chicago mayor to just two terms and to create an elected Consumer Advocate for Taxpayers and Consumers for Chicago.

[Read the petition language.]

Quinn’s press conference, held mid-Sunday afternoon with State Representative candidate Theresa Mah as the only notable politico joining him, is the biggest political move he’s made since leaving the Governor’s office in 2014. Since his defeat by Republican Bruce Rauner, Quinn has kept a low profile: he's appeared at various union pickets and political rallies, and his political committee, Taxpayers for Quinn, has been steadily drawn down and was last reported at $411,045 at the end of March.

The first referendum he is proposing calls for limiting the Chicago mayor to two four-year terms, effective in 2019. The second referendum would replace the Commissioner of the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection with an elected Consumer Advocate, who would receive the same salary and elected rank as the City Clerk.

“We can make history: these would be Chicago’s first binding referendums in memory,” Quinn said in a statement. “I expect it will be a healthy exercise in democracy and hope it sparks a citywide debate over the structure of our government.”

Contacted yesterday afternoon, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office did not provide a comment on the referenda by publication.

Quinn will have a number of significant challenges to get the two referenda on the ballot. In an unusual move, the two questions are placed on the same petition, a decision at least one election attorney questioned.

“In my almost fifty years of experience, I’ve never seen a two part referendum where one part didn’t have anything to do with the other,” said attorney Rich Means. “I’m sure opponents can think of all kinds of reasons to tie this up. There’s loads of problems with it if you can have an ex-post facto poisoning of an incumbent, telling him you can’t run again.”

Quinn’s team will also need to gather just over 52,000 valid signatures by August 8 if they want to get on the November ballot, a deadline a mere 7 weeks away from today.

There is also some question of whether or not the referenda will even be allowed on the ballot, since on June 22 the City Council is expected to vote on three ballot referenda, and only three are allowed per jurisdiction. However, a Quinn spokesman contends that doesn’t apply to their proposals.

“Those are all non-binding referendum questions, so [ours] takes precedence,” said Quinn spokesman William Morgan.

As of yesterday, Team Quinn was not ready to announce a field operation for the petitions, but Morgan says Quinn will be personally involved in the petition effort.

“He plans on bringing that clipboard from corner to corner around the city,” said Morgan. “He’s not just a figurehead, he’s a petition passer.”

Chicago will get another chance to see what a Pat Quinn political effort looks like this morning. He’s scheduled a second event at 11:30 a.m. on the Randolph Street side of City Hall.

Behind closed City Hall doors, aldermen are meeting to put more regulations on home sharing sites like Airbnb–we talk about possible next steps. And a committee passes a new amendment to the city’s Human Rights Ordinance that aims to prevent discrimination against transgender people, even though some worry about “knuckleheads” abusing the new rules. Plus we dive into Cook County’s pension woes and a "stable" outlook from ratings agencies.

Since the passage of the city budget last October, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has promised to create a property tax relief program to alleviate last year’s record property tax increase. But the last program operated by the city encountered significant legal and bureaucratic barriers to success.

To better understand how a new property tax relief program could work, Aldertrack delved into documentation and news reports of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s 2010 program. This report reviews our findings.

Since draft legislation promoted by Mayor Emanuel in Springfield to doubling the homeowners exemption failed to pass the General Assembly, aldermen are expected to receive their first briefing from mayoral staff next Tuesday on options for a city-run property tax relief program.

The biggest barrier to any city-managed property tax relief program is the Illinois Constitution’s Article IX, which which states all “taxes upon real property shall be levied uniformly by valuation” and limits the power of providing tax exemptions to the General Assembly. This forces the city to contort the program into a “rebate” or grant program, which poses its own bureaucratic hoops to jump through.

Aldermen have proposed their own solutions–to protect older, long-term homeowners with high reassessments; owners within 400% of the poverty level; landlords who don’t raise rates on renters; or owners earning less than $100,000 a year– each one making calculating relief a bit more complicated for a city-run program.

“Any rebate plan will remain true to the Mayor’s goal of protecting low- and middle-income families that can least afford it,” city Budget spokesperson Molly Poppe told Aldertrack in April, saying the office would take aldermanic suggestions into consideration. Poppe’s office is hampered by the same problems that plagued the Daley administration when they instituted their own property tax relief plan–constitutional limits, administering and paying for promotion and rebates, and making sure residents have the right proof to support their payout.

Mayor Daley’s 2010 property tax relief program, aimed at offsetting impacts from the 2008 recession, has been remembered in recent weeks for its low participation rates. At its first application deadline, just 36,621 of 200,000 eligible homeowners put in an application. $35 million was set aside for the program, but ultimately the city paid out just $2.1 million. The program drew its funds from a portion of the city’s parking meter revenues and was administered by the Chicago Tax Assistance Center within the Office of Budget and Management.

The plan offered a small offset for property tax hits during the 2008 recession: relief between $25 and $200 for primary residences. The recession had hit homeowners hard. Making matters worse for low value homeowners was a phase-out of a state law capping the annual increase in a home’s taxable value at 7% and a drop in that year’s exemption (from $26,000 to $20,000).

When then-Mayor Daley announced the plan in October 2009, he pegged the average relief amount at about $150 and that half of Chicago’s 400,000 homeowners would be eligible. At the time, Ald. Joe Moore (49), a frequent mayoral critic, called the program a “gimmick” and later told the Tribune, “Most people didn't even see any value in taking the time to apply for it," because the relief was so low.

Moore joined four other aldermen in voting against the measure in the Finance Committee that year, and the plan was deferred and published a few weeks later. Seven aldermen submitted a substitute ordinance to give lower income homeowners more relief, but it failed.    

To work around the Illinois Constitution’s Article IX, Mayor Daley chose to implement his $35 million relief program as a series of individual grants. Government accounting rules made it even more complicated: the city was required to track every grant issued, meaning each of the estimated 200,000 eligible homeowners in the program would represent a grant line in the budget, and each grant would have to maintain a trackable account with city. Dodging an accounting nightmare, the city issued bank cards with Chase Bank.  

Under Daley’s plan, lower income homes with higher property tax increases were eligible for more money. For example, if someone's income was less than $25,000 a year, and their property tax increase was over $350, they'd receive a $200 grant from the city. The chart provided in the relief grant application:

Homeowners were required to complete a paper application, provide a copy of their Second Installment 2008 property tax bill (received in October 2009), a Certificate of Error Recommended (if one was received), a copy of a photo ID, and write in their income from their 2008 federal tax form. The application essentially relied on the honors system: applicants wouldn’t have to provide a copy of their tax form, but would have to sign an affidavit saying the income statement was true. The form reminded signers that lying on the form could lead to a city penalty between $500 and $1,000, and the city reserved the right to ask for proof of income and other information as part of its audit program.

Homeowners could drop off applications during business hours at City Hall, four revenue sites around the city (North Center, Gage Park, River North, or Calumet Heights) or mail them to City Hall.

The catches:

• The program was only for owner-occupied properties. No relief for renters.
• Anyone who owed debt to the city–parking tickets, drinking tickets, building code violations, or taxes–wasn’t eligible.
• Anyone who received it was “encouraged to seek advice from a tax advisor,” because the grants qualified as taxable income.
• It took staff between six and eight weeks to process requests and get bank cards out to recipients. A misspelling or improperly transcribed number could throw off the all-paper system between different revenue office locations and City Hall.

The initial program was slated to have an open application period of two months, and though it was “heavily promoted”, it was extended to bring in more applicants.

Seven days after receiving a letter from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holderdenouncing his plan mandating that Uber drivers in Chicago get fingerprinted, Ald. Anthony Beale (9), chair of the Council Transportation Committee, responded.

Holder, who left Obama Administration in 2015 and now works at law firm Covington & Burling, sent Ald. Beale a letter earlier this month telling him his efforts to strengthen background checks on drivers for ride-hailing services actually disenfranchises minorities.  

“Requiring fingerprint-based background checks for non-law enforcement purposes can have a discriminatory impact on communities of color,” Holder told Ald. Beale in the letter, first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Yesterday, Aldertrack obtained a copy of Ald. Beale’s response to the former Attorney General. In it, Ald. Beale maintains his efforts to require fingerprinting for all Uber, Lyft and other ride-share drivers is about equity. “There is no reason why Uber should be exempted from the rules that every cab driver, bus driver, business owner and city employee follow,” Ald. Beale writes, before accusing Holder of bias.

“I understand that your firm has a member serving on Uber’s Safety Advisory Board,” Ald. Beale says. “Perhaps, this is from where your opinion calling for Uber’s exceptionalism is derived.”

Holder had told Ald. Beale that when he served as U.S. Attorney General under the Obama Administration, he had asked Attorneys General in every state and Cabinet officials to “consider how they could eliminate policies and regulations that impose unnecessary burdens on individuals reentering society.”

Holder claimed Ald. Beale’s proposed regulations counter those goals. Holder also noted that the FBI’s database, which Ald. Beale hopes to tap into with the fingerprinting requirement, was designed to help law enforcement officials during investigations, not to “determine whether or not someone is eligible to work for a company.”

Noting that the database, referred to as the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS), is “incomplete and lacks information about the final outcomes of a significant percentage of cases”, Holder said a person could be flagged for an arrest, even if it never lead to charges.

But Beale counters that all taxi drivers and city employees are already required to get fingerprinted, so exempting Uber and Lyft drivers from the requirement gives them an unfair advantage.

City Council has held one subject matter hearing on Ald. Beale’s proposed ride-share regulations. Ald. Beale’s office told Aldertrack yesterday that he still plans to hold a joint Transportation and License committee vote and advance the plan out of committee in time for the June 22nd monthly City Council meeting.

Officials from Cook County’s Pension Fund presented an abbreviated version of their most recent actuarial findings to commissioners at Wednesday’s board meeting, and painted an unsurprisingly bleak picture. The fund faces similar problems to many other municipalities: fewer employees signing up and more retirees collecting benefits, lower than anticipated returns on investments, and the cannibalization of assets to pay beneficiaries. The pension fund currently has more than 40,000 members and is headed for insolvency by 2039.

Even though commissioners approved a one year agreement to contribute $270 million in sales tax revenue to the pension fund, that extra contribution is going straight to paying benefits, the fund’s Executive Director & Chief Investment Officer Nickol Hackett said. “Those proceeds are going right to work,” Hackett said. “It allows the fund to adhere to our long term investment strategy” rather than liquidating assets to make payments.  

Commissioner Bridget Gainer, the chair of the Pension Committee, pointed out Hackett’s statement assumes the sales tax contribution continues into the future, and suggested a longer-term IGA might give the fund more certainty for future investment moves.

During budget negotiations, Gainer pushed for a longer intergovernmental agreement between the county and the fund, so future boards couldn’t redirect sales tax revenue elsewhere and leave the fund in the lurch.

The FY16 county budget did project extra contributions of sales tax revenue for the next 30 years. A $340 million contribution is projected FY2017, with annual contributions projected to grow at no more than 2% per year until 100% funding is reached in 2046.

While actuarial assets have trended upward, the unfunded liability is growing. In 2015, its funded ratio fell from 57.51% to 55.39%.

“We have a fundamental problem: the investment return has not met the actuarial assumption for a really long time,” County Chief Financial Officer Ivan Samsteinsaid, which will affect funding required year to year. But Samstein did point out what he viewed as the good news–that the three major credit rating agencies recently revised the county’s general obligation bond outlook to stable, citing the county’s effort to address pension funding problems.

While true, ratings agencies warned that the County might have a difficult time building up strong enough reserves to weather another recession. Standard and Poor’s actually downgraded the County to AA- when issuing its “stable” forecast. S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Helen Samuelson said the fact that Cook County shares a tax base with the City of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools, which are both facing funding and pension problems, "could impose practical limitations to the county's revenue and expenditure flexibility.”

But Samstein still said the pension fund is on the upswing. “They are beating the median. They are above average for comparable pension funds,” he said, crediting Hackett’s leadership for the turnaround.

Commissioner Gainer deferred the item, saying there would be another discussion once commissioners had a chance to assess the 14 page presentation and return with questions.

The pension fund hasn’t yet released its full audited financial statements or actuarial valuations for FY2015, which were presented to pension fund board members on June 2. A broader picture of the county’s fiscal position, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), was released at about this time last year.

Pat Carey, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s Special Assistant for Government Affairs, is leaving his role for a new position at McGuireWoods LLP. His final day was June 1. Carey was Preckwinkle’s go-between with commissioners, and yesterday they took turns thanking him for his tireless work.

Commissioner Robert Steele joked he hoped Carey wasn’t getting poached by Airbnb, who recently hired 4th Ward Ald. Will Burns to head up midwest lobbying efforts. “They’re a client,” Carey responded, smiling.

His replacement wasn’t announced at Wednesday’s meeting, but is rumored to be Vasyl Markus, an experienced political hand who has worked on hospital organizing for SEIU, as legal counsel to House Speaker Mike Madigan, and more recently as a legislative liaison with the Illinois Department of Revenue and Director of Special Projects at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.

Brian Hamer, Preckwinkle’s current Chief of Staff, also hails from the Illinois Department of Revenue, where he served as director for 12 years. He joined Preckwinkle’s team at the end of March after another another high profile exit: Preckwinkle’s Chief of Staff, Tasha Green Cruzat. She announced in February she’d leave her county post to become president of the education advocacy group Voices for Illinois Children.

Carey started his public service career as an intern in Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, where he moved up to Assistant to the Mayor. He shifted to the county side in 2011 as Assistant to the Chief of the Bureau of Economic Development, and was promoted to Preckwinkle’s team in 2013, where he was responsible for carrying out the president’s legislative agenda with commissioners.

“He’s a major loss for them,” one Cook County staffer told Aldertrack. “This loss may be more difficult than they even realize.”



Another said, “Whether our offices agreed or disagreed, we always knew Pat Carey would be honest with us and would work toward a common solution. Everyone is going to miss him because he, more than anyone in the administration, demonstrated a willingness to hear out board members’ concerns and ideas and take them seriously. There's a concern that might change.”

The ongoing saga over regulating Airbnb rentals in Chicago may not be over, according to City Council Housing Chairman Joe Moore (49), who tells Aldertrack that there is a “50/50” chance there could be another committee hearing to consider yet another revision to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed regulations.

“I think there are some changes as we continue to make sure that people are comfortable with the ordinance and have an opportunity to have their concerns aired and addressed,” Ald. Moore said Wednesday of the ongoing talks.

Any additional changes won’t be favorable for Airbnb, aldermen tell Aldertrack. One pointed to Airbnb’s recent tv ad blitz against the Mayor, mayoral staff’s criticism over the ads, and concerns from neighborhood aldermen about rentals of single family homes to signal the majority of aldermen want more, not less regulations.

A joint meeting of the Council’s License and Housing Committees approved the Mayor’s proposed regulations minutes before the May 18 City Council meeting, after conducting a lengthy hearing the day before. Since introducing an outline of regulations in January, the Mayor has received stiff criticism from downtown and North Side aldermen who represent wards with the most bookings, and from Airbnb proponents who don’t want to see the service’s growth stifled.

The language has since gone through multiple revisions–it underwent three re-writes before a committee vote on the plan was called. Even then, the vote to consider the proposal passed committee in a tight 12-8 vote. The actual vote to approve the measure passed 17-9. At the time, Ald. Moore, citing ongoing concerns about the ordinance, chose not to report out the ordinance to the full Council for a vote that day.

Yesterday, Moore told Aldertrack that downtown and North Side aldermen who represent areas of the city with the highest concentration of Airbnb rentals still don’t think the regulations go far enough. He cited concerns over reporting requirements, whether the city has the ability to effectively regulate Airbnb, and whether owners of single family homes should be required to remain on the premises when they rent out a room.

A working group of aldermen have been meeting regularly since that May 18 committee meeting to discuss how the ordinance could be improved. They’ve already held two meetings and have another scheduled for this Friday, Aldertrack has learned. One alderman who has attended those meetings tells Aldertrack that while no new language has been drafted yet, Airbnb has “the most to lose” from the ongoing talks. That source said several aldermen who represent wards zoned mostly for single family homes want more local control, not less, an argument that seems to contradict Airbnb’s ad campaign against the Mayor.

As the law currently stands, it is illegal for anyone in a residentially zoned district to rent through Airbnb without first obtaining a special use permit from the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals. That allows the local alderman and neighbors to have a say in the matter. Those controls, which are rarely enforced, are done away with in the Mayor’s plan, the chief reason Ald. Marty Quinn (13) voted against it last May in committee. After the vote, Quinn told Aldertrack that 95% of his Southwest Side ward is made up of single-family homes. “I have some real concerns about turning single family home blocks in the 13th Ward into areas that have a lot of transition,” he said.

“In a perfect world, they’d like to have a hearing and a vote, but I don’t know yet,” said Ald. Moore. If any changes are made to the current ordinance, Ald. Moore and License Chairman Emma Mitts (37) would have to hold another joint committee hearing and vote.

Despite the recent flood of TV ads funded by the Internet Association criticizing the Mayor’s proposed regulations for being unduly burdensome for lower income homeowners–the ads argue the Mayor sided with the Gold Coast and the “1%” in drafting the measure–Ald. Moore said he hasn’t heard any concerns from aldermen saying the ordinance is too strict.

“I think Airbnb folks, who seem to be pretty tone deaf, need to realize that,” Ald. Moore said of the commercials, which he said he hasn’t seen personally.

“If the Mayor was looking for the easy, most politically expedient way out, he would listen to the concerns expressed by Ald. [Brendan] Reilly and Ald. [Michele] Smith,” Ald. Moore explained, suggesting they’re the ones who want to “kill all Airbnbs.”

Ald. Smith’s office confirmed with Aldertrack yesterday they are continuing to negotiate with the Mayor's office for stronger regulations and protections for their ward to be included in further revisions. The Mayor’s Office and the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection declined to comment.

Yesterday morning, a group of 13 advocates for policing reform, led by Police Board President Lori Lightfoot, announced an open letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and leading aldermen calling for increased transparency on efforts to reform city police policy and to invite the public into Mayor Emanuel’s plans to replace the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), and to create a citizen’s oversight board and a public safety inspector general.

In a follow up interview with Aldertrack, Lightfoot made pointed remarks about the need for increased transparency and possible plans for the Police Board to make its own reform policies.

“The bar has been raised for public engagement,” Lightfoot told Aldertrack. “The status quo and old way of doing things has failed and has to be abandoned. Let people in, show transparency, show people what’s going on and invite people into the conversation.”

“We’re talking about fundamentally reshaping the entire local law enforcement structure,” she continued. “That is not something that can be done with a few people in the Mayor’s office. People are really interested in this topic. They are willing to give their time and talent to this issue. But you know, this is Chicago, so nothing is simple.”

Asked if the Police Board will use its statutory powers “to adopt rules and regulations for the governance of the police department”, to further press police reform, Lightfoot said, “I think there’s some interest on the current Police Board to craft responses to that provision. That is a discussion we are having. I expect us to come out with some thoughts on that relatively soon.”

Police Board members are appointed by the mayor for five year terms, and may only be removed for “just cause” such as “incompetence, neglect of duty, gross misconduct or criminal conduct.” The Mayor also appoints the president of the board for a two year term from among members of the board.

Aldermen are expected to hold a confirmation hearing for a new appointee, Eva-Dina Delgado, at a Public Safety Committee meeting June 14. If approved, Delgado, a registered lobbyist for People’s Gas, would replace Claudia Valenzuela, who resigned.

Lightfoot strongly endorsed Chief Administrator Sharon Fairley’s management of IPRA, saying she, “has done a really good job by righting the ship there.” She also had strong words of approval for one-time police superintendent candidate Anne Kirkpatrick, who was recently announced as the head of a new, reformulated Bureau of Professional Standards in the police department. “Anne Kirkpatrick is the real deal, no question about it. I can’t imagine she would leave the comfort of her home in Seattle if there was not an opportunity to do some real good.”

Kirkpatrick has served as the Chief of Police in Spokane, Washington and as Chief Deputy in the King’s County Sheriff’s Department.