I'm not affiliated with Ed Burke, Joe Berrios or anyone else who represents the old, corrupt Chicago way. I am offering voters a complete break from that past and pushing us forward in a way that brings people together and makes government more inclusive.
Taxes and fees in Chicago and Cook County are forcing low-income families like the one I grew up in out of this city. It's clear we can't keep treating low-income and middle-class families like an ATM machine with no limit.
When I came out, it wasn't a big formal conversation like in the movies. I just started living as my true and authentic self and opened up my life to my parents - sharing who I was, and bringing a girlfriend when I came home for a visit. To my great surprise, my parents accepted me for who I was and have supported me since.
I gotta be me. I'm going to go to ball games, because that's what I do. I'm going to go to live music shows, because I love live music.
What I hear from folks all the time is 'us against them.' It is a core part of what they feel is happening with our government. Investing here, but not there. Listening to some, but not nearly enough. Going into certain neighborhoods, but not others. That divide is something we have to categorically reject.
And I would like to have a good, productive relationship with members of the City Council, but I'm not going to allow them to undermine what the people's choice was and what the people want, which is change.
I have a wealth of experience, not only as a senior executive in different departments in the city, but I've also, in my private practice life, helped small businesses, middle-market businesses really try to navigate the sometimes difficult world of city government.
People feel like city government is corrupt. They feel like it doesn't work unless you have clout.
Chicago is the largest city in the country without mayoral term limits. This has led to entrenched leaders, a lack of new ideas and creative thinking and a city government that works for the few, not the many.
I can't look into the crystal ball. All I can do is the here and now.
Let's stand together, stick together, and work together for justice of every description. Racial justice. Gender justice. Immigrant justice. Economic justice. Environmental justice.
We have been embarked on what I would call a proactive strategy that looks at our gun violence as a public health crisis, which is what it is. That means we look at the root causes of the violence.
I do not support the city's red light camera system. This system was sold to Chicagoans as a public safety solution, but it's always really been about revenue, and we've seen that fines fall disproportionately on people of color.
I'm not a person who puts things out in writing and policy prescriptions and is not intending to follow through.
You know, when you get the White House operator and they say, 'Just a moment for the president of the United States,' that's a pretty heady moment.
For more than two decades Chicagoans have routinely traveled to neighboring cities like Rosemont, Elgin, Joliet, Gary and Hammond to gamble. If people in Chicago want to gamble, then they should be able to gamble in Chicago at a city-owned, land-based casino.
We have a lot of taxpayers in this city who deserve to get every nickel of their tax dollars that they're entitled to from Washington, and I intend to make that happen.
I learned early on about the real meaning of equity and inclusion, and that when those guiding principles are not met, they can have devastating effects on individuals, families, and communities.
Both my brothers played football. My mother had season tickets as a school board member. I was in the band, my sister was in the band. The thing was, the unifying civic activity was obsession over high school football.
We have to have a school board that's actually gonna be able to function and that has true parent representatives on it.
