Progressive aldermen’s 100-day agenda: higher minimum wage, more affordable housing

They’re pushing seven long-stalled ordinances intended to create a more livable, affordable and equitable Chicago.

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The agenda includes raising Chicago’s minimum wage to $15-an-hour by 2021, raising the tax on high-end real estate transactions to combat homelessness and strengthening Chicago’s Welcoming City and Affordable Requirements ordinances.

Ald.-elect Andre Vasquez (40th) outlines an ambitious 100-day agenda during a City Hall news conference Thursday.

Fran Spielman

Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot isn’t the only one who has an ambitious agenda for the first 100 days of her administration.

So do progressive aldermen and the labor and community organizations that helped put them in office.

They’re pushing seven long-stalled and, therefore “shovel-ready” ordinances tailor-made to create a more livable, affordable and equitable Chicago.

The measures include:

  • Raising Chicago’s minimum wage in 50-cent increments until it reaches $15-an-hour, and no later than July, 2021. Chicago’s minimum wage is $12-an-hour, increasing to $13 on July 1.
  • Strengthening the city’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance by mandating construction of three-bedroom units suitable for families; eliminating “loopholes” that allow developers to buy their way out of a requirement to build on-site units in gentrifying neighborhoods and requiring developers seeking “up-zoning” authority to make at least 30 percent of newly-built units affordable.
  • Putting a binding referendum on the ballot asking Chicago voters to authorize a 1.2-percentage point-increase in the tax on high-end real estate transactions of $1 million or more. That could generate up to $150 million to combat homelessness that currently impacts an estimated 80,000 Chicagoans.
  • Approving an ordinance repeatedly blocked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council allies that would require the city to send all surplus dollars generated annually by Chicago’s tax-increment-financing (TIF) districts to the Chicago Public Schools for as long as CPS remains in “financial distress.
  • Passing an ordinance mandating a community benefits agreement long opposed by former President Barack Obama to protect residents living around the proposed Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park. The ordinance would establish a community trust fund to assist long-term residents with property tax relief and rental assistance and require developers to set aside 30% of new units for households earning less than half the median income.
  • Strengthening Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance by eliminating “carve-outs.” Currently, Chicago Police officers are permitted to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement if targeted individuals are: in the city’s controversial gang database; have pending felony prosecutions or prior felony convictions or if they are the subject of an outstanding criminal warrant.

Ten members of a Progressive Caucus that may well swell to 16 in the new City Council have signed an open letter to Lightfoot asking the mayor-elect to join them in re-imagining Chicago “as a city where working families and communities of color can thrive.”

They argued it’s time to shake up a “status quo” under retiring Mayor Rahm Emanuel that “enriched tech investors Wall Street financiers and real estate moguls” while black and Hispanic Chicagoans lost their jobs, their homes and their lives.”

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), who will now be part of a six-member socialist caucus, supported County Board President Toni Preckwinkle over Lightfoot. But he noted that Lightfoot supported much of the 100-day agenda, including the real estate transaction tax, the $15 minimum wage and strengthening the Welcoming City Ordinance.

That gives Ramirez-Rosa hope that a legislative agenda stuck in neutral during the Emanuel administration may finally be ready to shift into overdrive.

Lightfoot’s press secretary, Anel Ruiz, had no immediate comment.

“This is the bold agenda that is informed by the grassroots. By regular Chicagoans impacted by a broken Welcoming City Ordinance that fails to protect them. By the 80,000 Chicagoans that are homeless in the streets. By the hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans waiting for a $15 minimum wage sooner, rather than later,” Ramirez-Rosa said.

“On Monday, we’re gonna make history. And thereafter, we’re gonna have an opportunity to continue making history.”

Ald.-elect Andre Vasquez (40th), who defeated 36-year-veteran Pat O’Connor, Emanuel’s City Council floor leader, said he’s “heartened” by the fact that many of the newly-elected aldermen are “organizers.”

“You’ve got members who are gonna be part of the Black Caucus, part of the Latino Caucus, part of the LGBTQ Caucus. So there’s potential when you have organizers in those different spaces to build a coalition to get 26” votes, Vasquez said.

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