Chicago mayoral candidates Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson reconvened for a Wednesday evening debate hosted by Fox 32 in which they each laid out their goals for their first 100 days in office.
Johnson, a Cook County commissioner, said he will double youth employment and vowed to pass “Treatment Not Trauma,” a City Council ordinance to repurpose vacant police salaries to send social workers and medical specialists to nonviolent mental health crises calls, and “Bring Chicago Home,” a plan to raise the real estate transfer tax on properties above $1 million to fund homelessness services.
“This is about prevention when it comes to violence,” Johnson said.
Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO, said he would place more Chicago police officers on local beats, “address this issue” of recently incarcerated citizens and open school campuses through the dinner hours, weekends and holidays for community programming and services.
“I’m not going to close the schools,” Vallas said. “I’m not. I’m going to keep the schools open.”
Those promises capped an hourlong debate that featured sharp exchanges over criminal justice, education and the relationship between the mayor’s office and City Council.
It started when they were each asked whether Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx had made Chicago safer, about which the candidates starkly differed.
Johnson praised Foxx’s record seeking justice for those wrongfully convicted under torturous conditions and false confessions.
“She’s been a part of the type of reform that’s needed,” Johnson said. “This is a very brave approach by our state’s attorney.”
Vallas, who has spent much of the last few years criticizing Foxx on social media, had a different take. He rattled off statistics from the outlet CWBChicago about crimes allegedly committed by defendants out on pretrial release and laid blame on the state’s attorney.
“I believe she has not been aggressive at keeping dangerous criminals off the street,” Vallas said.
The two also exchanged their usual disagreements over Johnson’s plan to train and promote 200 detectives and Vallas’ to persuade hundreds of retired cops to return.
Johnson invoked the name of missing postal worker Kierra Coles while saying more crimes need to be solved, but Vallas said filling more detective roles alone isn’t a working strategy because there won’t be enough beat cops to respond to emergency calls. Johnson then shot back that Vallas’ plan hinging on retirees coming back “is a strategy that, quite frankly, has not worked anywhere in the country.”
Tensions escalated soon after in a fiery exchange over each candidate’s respective educational bonafides.
After moderators asked the two mayoral contenders to address recent student-led protests decrying a lack of safety on campus, Johnson refuted the question’s premise that the Chicago Teachers Union called for removing police officers from schools.
However, the teachers’ union, which endorses and employs him as an organizer, signed onto a failed 2020 resolution to remove cops from CPS campuses in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police.
Johnson continued by saying unionized security guards at schools, rather than sworn cops, do plenty to keep campuses safe and that the best path toward less violence is “preventative measures.”
Vallas began his turn by noting the CTU has advocated for the removal of police officers from school campuses. Then Vallas argued that he has more teaching and educational experience than Johnson, who taught for four years at CPS before he began working full-time for the CTU.
“I have presided over districts that have seen extraordinary violence in the community,” Vallas said. “Police officers deter active shooters. There have been 240 school shootings in the last decade … And I, to my horror, when I was superintendent of the Bridgeport schools in Connecticut, got a call one day when Sandy Hook, my neighboring school district, had that shooting.”
Johnson balked.
“May I just respond?” Johnson said. “Because I actually find it absolutely ridiculous but all too familiar that someone like Paul Vallas speaks to other people and believes that they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s shameful, it’s ridiculous, but we’re familiar with that.”
The commissioner then dug into what he said was Vallas’ “horrendous” fiscal record while managing school districts in Chicago, New Orleans and Philadelphia.“But here’s the truth: We all know someone like Paul, who has failed over and over again and continues to be allowed to fail up. Because you make the loudest noise and you roll your eyes at everybody else, (it) doesn’t mean that you know what’s best.”
Vallas didn’t get a chance to respond as moderators tried to bring the conversation back to the question of school resource officers. Johnson responded that his solution would be to implement needs-based budgeting at CPS and invest in workforce development and child care.
“I will just say this last thing,” Johnson said. “I don’t think it’s right, because it’s not, for Paul Vallas to dismiss my time as a teacher. You can’t keep just dismissing people, Paul. It’s irresponsible.”
Vallas rejected that framing.
“First of all, you know, at the end of the day, Brandon, me asking you to answer the questions or provide facts is not dismissing you,” Vallas said, asserting he left a surplus or balanced budget in the school districts he managed. “You need to provide the facts.”
The candidates did agree on decrying Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s deal to bring a NASCAR race to Chicago next summer, however.
Johnson took the disapproval a step further by leaving open the possibility of undoing the deal.
“Absolutely I’m looking at everything to make sure that we are being responsive to the needs of people,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, politics in the city of Chicago has become so desperate to raise revenue versus actually making the tough smart decision. And that’s why I put forth a budget plan so that we’re not using tricks and schemes.”
Vallas said aldermen don’t have the capacity to provide checks and balances on the mayor and reiterated the need for independent financial analysis from an autonomous budget office.
“You really have to restore the balance because we really exist in a city where the mayor is imperial,” Vallas said.
On speed cameras, Johnson said he is “prepared and willing” to reexamine the city’s contract with the technology, while Vallas only broadly vowed to move away from an over-reliance on fines and fees before transitioning to attack Johnson’s proposed bundle of new taxes.
The runoff election is April 4, and early voting is now underway in all wards.
