CHICAGO — Before Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson heads to Springfield on Wednesday to lobby state lawmakers with just three weeks left in the legislative session, the city’s top leader and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker appeared together Monday at a groundbreaking inside the former Thompson Center.
The tension was evident.
As construction on the Thompson Center redevelopment for Google begins, both elected officials are on record supporting the tech company and the jobs it has brought to Chicago.
But on other various issues, the leaders are far apart.
“There are a host of things that I will be requesting on behalf of the people of Chicago,” Johnson said about his impending trip to Springfield.
The mayor will try to help the Bears, who are seeking public funding for a new lakefront stadium, but that’s not his focus. Team President Kevin Warren is leading the charge.
“I know that President Warren has been in conversations with the General Assembly along with Governor Pritzker,” Johnson said.
Johnson is also keeping a close eye on school funding.
“It’s been very clear that I’ve been pushing for that,” he said. “The families of Chicago are owed $1 billion from the state of Illinois in order to build a better, stronger, safer city but particularly investing in our public school system. Now that’s something we can all get behind.”
FULL VIDEO: Illinois leaders on hand for redevelopment launch press conference for Thompson Center
Also of note is legislation that would prevent the Chicago Board of Education from closing schools or making changes to selective-enrollment campuses until an elected Board is fully seated in 2027.
The legislation is a response to the Board’s declaration last December that it will shift its priority from selective-enrollment schools to neighborhood ones.
Mayor Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, has not proposed closing selective-enrollment schools, but the bill would protect charter schools that are up for renewal in the coming years.
That the bill even exists is a thumb in the eye to the CTU.
Union President Stacy Davis Gates slammed the legislation.
“This is insidious, this is ridiculous, this vapid,” she said.
Governor Pritzker, however, backs the plan.
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“It seems to me once there is a fully elected School Board, they ought to dictate what the future of the selective enrollment schools are and not before,” he said.
After a violent weekend that included the cancelation of a Cinco de Mayo celebration and mass arrests at the Art Institute, Pritzker and Johnson both insist Chicago will be ready for the DNC in August.
