Mayoral Candidates - Who Is Bike Savvy? Thoughts?

When asking around, I heard these three candidates are some potential good bike-friendly options:

Mendoza

Lightfoot

Eniya

Let's use this thread to discuss, bring in articles, quotations, and proof of bike-savviness. Cool?

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by curt(is) locke on March 14, 2019 at 7:19am

ALERT

Attempted thread-jacking.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on March 14, 2019 at 2:46am

Ugh. This is worrisome. Sharing something I saw on Twitter this morning:

Lori Lightfoot openly declared her ties & commitment to Chicago police dept. today. She will turn approximately 38 closed public schools into police training facilities. Nearly 40% city budget goes to CPD already . She will lead the CPD to further terrorize communities of color
— BaburBalos (@BaburRealer) March 14, 2019

https://twitter.com/BaburRealer/status/1106050526851018756

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on March 14, 2019 at 4:09am

The schools were closed because they were underutilized and had mostly empty classrooms.

The buildings are already built and no new buildings need to be built. Remodeling is a lot cheaper than building new.

It seems like good management to me.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by curt(is) locke on March 14, 2019 at 4:12am

Totally makes sense that this African-American woman -- whose father was a factory worker and janitor who died while his son (Lori's older brother) was incarcerated, and who had a family member murdered by the Ku Klux Klan back in the 1920s (which Lightfoot credits, in part, as her reason for entering public service to fight a sense of injustice) -- would intend to "lead the CPD to further terrorize communities of color!" Read that as sarcasm.

From Chalkbeat --

After the mayoral forum Wednesday, Lightfoot’s campaign sent a statement elaborating on her comments from earlier in the day, noting that she supported improved police training but opposed the training academy “because the Emanuel administration failed to appropriately engage and listen to the community in the public process ahead of the vote.”

The statement stressed that any police training facility — in a school or otherwise — “must only be created after an intensive community engagement and input process,” and insisted that Lightfoot’s idea to repurpose closed schools for training reflected “the broader need to ensure officers can receive urgently needed training in or close to the communities where they work.”

https://chalkbeat.org/posts/chicago/2019/03/13/204119/?fbclid=IwAR3...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on March 14, 2019 at 4:18am

Thank you Curtis for correcting me with background information as well as context to the discussion. I really appreciate it. Sorry for the knee-jerk initial reaction.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by curt(is) locke on March 14, 2019 at 7:29am

No sweats, Yas.

You're listening to Curt the Jerk, your host jerk here on Knee-Jerk, every Monday evening 5-7pm at WRUW 91.1 FM Cleveland.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on March 14, 2019 at 8:55am

hahaha. on a side note, in the DC area, the sun is shining and the temperature hit 70. Nothing is going to get me down. :-)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by V W on March 19, 2019 at 6:26pm

I think your concerns are well founded. I'm seeing a distinct lack of acknowledgment from Lori that crime is a symptom of poverty. Throwing more money at the CPD is not the optimum solution IMO.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Greenfield on March 20, 2019 at 3:57am

I talked with the campaigns about transportation issues, including bike infrastructure funding and the CPD's inequitable bike ticketing practices. There's also a quote from Preckwinkle about rule-breaking cyclists. https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/where-do-lori-and-toni-part-w...