November 24, 2020

Today I voted no on Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed 2021 budget. After long days in council hearings, extensive research, and after reading your feedback to our ward budget survey I could not in good conscience add my name to a budget proposal that I know will only place the burden of our city’s recovery on the backs of those who have suffered the most. 

Nearly half of responders to our ward budget survey stated their household income has been negatively impacted since the COVID crisis. A quarter of responders expressed difficulty paying their mortgage or rent. The mayor’s budget proposal is an austerity budget that will only add to our residents’ mounting struggles. We can and must do better.  

Please read my full statement below on why I voted no on this heavily contested budget proposal: 

Rev. Beth Brown of Lincoln Park Presbyterian in her speech during our inauguration on May of 2019 shared these words: 

 “As a city we are better together. Being better together means that no one gets left behind. We are enough and we have enough.”

I remember hearing that speech and feeling so connected to the reasons why I was there that day, taking my seat as an elected representative of my community. 

This year’s budget process has made those reasons even more evident to me, and I’m choosing to remain connected to the words of Rev. Brown. We are enough and we have enough. 

I’m committed to continue to organize with communities and movements to push for the change we need. I’m committed to doing the collective work we need inside of our council to become an independent legislative body—with committees that allow for the open discussion of our bills and where there is ample space for community participation. 

I look forward to the vote to eliminate the Welcoming City Ordinance carve outs next month. I also look forward to creating the structures that allow for transparent and democratic decision making and policy making so we can at last govern this city better, together. 

However, after a summer of historic protests for justice and against police brutality and disinvestment in our communities we are here today to decide on a  budget that doesn’t live up to Rev. Brown’s words.

We are voting on a budget that continues to prioritize policing (with a 1.7 billion dollar budget) over all other services to support our communities. A budget that continues throwing money at an institution that has demonstrated itself to be resistant to reform and that has cost us more than a billion dollars in the last decade in misconduct lawsuits and servicing debt to pay for those lawsuits. 

We are voting on a budget that raises property taxes on working people and families for decades to come. People who were already on the verge of displacement before this pandemic and who are now worrying about how they will be able to recover from this moment. Property tax increases will inevitably result in rent increases that will impact people already behind on their rent payments. 

Our people are desperate. Every pantry in my community has long lines of people trying to get food for their families. Chicago has been devastated by the pandemic with Black and Latinx communities suffering the worse. Poverty, unemployment and food scarcity has increased in this city and this budget does nothing meaningful to stave off this economic disaster for the people of Chicago. In what may be one of the worst recessions ever, this budget does nothing to provide economic support. In fact it will make our communities economic conditions worse. 

We are also facing a wave of violence in our communities. The new investment in violence prevention, which is very welcome is 10M. But again, our police budget is 1.7B and pales in comparison.

With the pandemic raging through our communities and the economic situation worsening, we can expect more mental health issues and emergencies in our communities. We got 2 million dollars to split between two crisis response pilots. That’s not enough by any stretch of the imagination to even complete a planning phase for either pilot. This budget rejects a vision to create safe communities through mental health crisis response and support. 

This is a budget that relies on regressive revenue measures like parking meters and ticketing instead of looking at alternatives directed at making the wealthy pay their share. 

We are voting on a budget that includes promises without plans, plans without personnel or metrics, or ways to hold our agencies accountable in their execution. 

If a budget is a statement of values, this budget process reflects that we don’t regard mutual respect or collaboration as a value. And the budget itself reflects that we don’t regard transparency, a fundamental element of good governance and accountable government administration as values. It also has highlighted that the council, unless it transforms itself, is a hostage to the executive branch who treats the council as a temporary transactional inconvenience. 

We can talk about some wins, but in the old school transactional method of scoring political points. But these are not wins, especially in the context of this historical moment where we have an opportunity to create a new path in a new paradigm.

I’m grateful to chairwoman Dowell for all her work and patience through this budget process.  I’m also grateful to my colleagues who heard the urgency of creating a Non-Law enforcement crisis and care response model and agreed to make demands around this need. I am grateful for the possibility of standing together across caucuses, Black, Latino and Progressive to make the case for more resources for violence interruption and no layoffs. 

None of these things should take a big fight to get or an auction- like kind of process. The urgency for these actions is evident and it’s been clearly communicated to us by the neighbors we represent.

For all stated above, I am voting no on this budget.