By: Ashmar Mandou

After participating in nightly forums, neighborhoods meet and greets, as well as clinching additional endorsements Mayoral candidates Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot are days away from their final showdown. With a plethora of issues facing the city of Chicago, both candidates have vocalized the direction in which they plan to take the city.

Toni Preckwinkle Priorities

Elected School Board
Feeling valued goes hand in hand with being heard. Currently, Chicago is the only school district in Illinois, and the Chicago Board of Education currently is filled with corporate executives. Toni’s support of an elected school board for Chicago Public Schools to make sure that every family in Chicago has a say in their child’s education.  Instead of reducing class sizes, providing support for students with needs, and improving our aging physical infrastructure, a huge portion of taxpayer funds is pulled from the classroom in order to pay back the debt incurred by the Mayor’s appointed board. It is essential that Chicago has an elected school board that lessens the influence of special interests and outside money and ensures that communities have an opportunity to elect a representative that can adequately represent their needs.

Gun Enforcement
The OCJ will also coordinate our battle against the flow of illegal firearms in Chicago. Every year the Chicago Police Department seizes thousands of illegal guns. Despite these efforts, lax gun laws in border states like Wisconsin, Indiana, and major gun hubs like Mississippi and Georgia, have led to a steady flow of illegally trafficked guns onto Chicago’s streets. Approximately 60 percent of the illegal guns found by CPD originated out of state. Through the OCJ Toni will advocate to strengthen gun laws at the state and federal level. First we will urge Illinois’ Governor to sign Senate Bill 337, which requires Illinois gun dealers to be licensed by the Illinois State Police and increases their responsibilities to restrict straw purchases.

Lori Lightfoot Priorities

Defending Immigrants
Chicago must be a city where every person from every background has security and opportunity. We’ve got to stand up to the Trump administration’s racist, anti-immigrant terror and make sure that every Chicagoan is safe, regardless of citizenship status. As mayor, Lightfoot will strengthen the Welcoming City Ordinance by eliminating carve-outs that jeopardize the safety of immigrants in the city and support abolishing ICE and make clear to ICE and the US Attorney’s Office that ICE cannot recklessly terrorize residents.

Investing in Neighborhoods
All over Chicago, people feel the effects of an “us versus them” style of governance. Investing here and not there; providing advantages to some but not others; listening to a few but ignoring far too many. We can and we must invest downtown while also providing resources to our neighborhoods. In addition to supporting public schools, addressing violence, and supporting small businesses, as mayor Lori will reinvigorate neighborhood commercial districts that have been left behind, partner with businesses and nonprofits to eliminate food, pharmacy, and healthcare deserts, and bring transparency to TIF financing to make sure funds go toward neighborhoods most in need of investment.