Garcia Versus Emanuel

    
     As we prepare ourselves to decide who will be the next Mayor for City of Chicago in the next few hours, I found myself strongly motivated to add my voice to this critically important conversation. The main issues appear to be the City's financial health, the Chicago Public Schools, and Crime.
     On current City finances, Chicago faces a projected budget deficit of $297 million dollars in 2015, so I did some research on the subject and found that the current administration has spent something to the tune of $38 million dollars in Direct Voucher Payments to donors and lobbying clients of the current Mayor. The current administration refuses to tell us who received this money. Our money. The current administration has announced a plan to provide DePaul University with $100 million dollars for their Basketball Program, out of Our money. According to the International Business Times, the CPS Teachers' pension funds are being handled by a company that has donated a sum that I was unable to nail down, to the current Mayor's campaign. The man who is in charge of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, and who ultimately decides the results of extremely close elections, was found to have a lobbying contract with the current administration. As soon as that was made public knowledge, I see that he then decided to resign from that position, after today's election. Ask yourself why, and you'll know the answer. While Chicago Police Department overtime has been shown to have cost us $103 million dollars in 2013, and the current administration will not tell us how it's being spent, I found an authoritative published article which stated that three, (3), Police Department employees, one Sargent, one 911 Center employee, and one communications type individual, made a combined total of $316,000 in overtime, in one year. The Sargent earned less in overtime than the other two employees, and probably did us the most good, if his or her heart was in the effort, and this person wasn't just trying to cash in on the opportunity. As you may or may not have heard, the published drop in Chicago's murder rate was manipulated by calling it a crime, but not a murder, if the victim wasn't deceased when the Police initially arrived on the scene.
     As to the Chicago Public Schools, I found a youtube video of  Public School Principal Troy La Raviere, in which he stated that the Mayors' full day kindergarten proposal would have to be paid for by increasing class size for students in later grades, which of course leads to less effective teaching, and to ultimately wasting the gains that were made in kindergarten. He stated that the increased high school graduation rate was achieved by manipulating the statistics. I believe that, because I also came to the same conclusion. He also stated that the current administration failed to properly fund Teacher pensions for the last four years. Mr. La Raviere has closely associated himself with Mr. Garcia's campaign, and unless he's a really good actor, as an administrator of CPS under Mr. Garcia, Mr. La Raviere would rather die and go to Hell for all Eternity, than see a CPS student graduate from High School unprepared for college.
     Crime. Take a moment and think back to when desperate individuals began to drive vehicles through store windows to steal merchandise. I had the feeling that this phenomenon started within the last 4 years, but I wasn't able to confirm or refute it with online research. Can a Mayor be faulted for the desperate actions of a few dozen individuals? No, I don't think it's the Mayor's fault. It's our fault, because we keep wasting our votes on candidates that don't actually give a damn whether we live in desperate poverty or struggle to make ends meet. We waste our votes on candidates who stage academy award winning acting performances, and afterwards, they shovel our resources to a privileged few, to the detriment of everyone else. Or, we just don't vote at all, and that's the mindset they're really cultivating.
 
         Mr. Garcia has been criticized in the media recently for not having all of his details planned, as to how he will get Chicago out of its' current financial difficulties. I get the feeling that  Mr. Garcia isn't in a position to tip his hand prematurely, because he surely knows that when a person is struggling against a determined foe with substantial resources, you don't divulge your game plan to the opposing forces. Mr. Garcia was supported by, and in turn provided support, to Mayor Harold Washington. I have a very strong feeling that Mayor Garcia will use the lessons he learned from Mayor Washington, and during his time in the City Council, to lend a much greater voice to our Aldermen than is currently provided by Mayor Emanuel. When Harold Washington took office, the City faced a budget deficit of similarly huge proportions, and he dealt with it by laying off 700 city employees, and cutting his own salary by 20%. It worked. No one is known to have unduly suffered, and the City as a whole prospered. In discussions with everyday people, I'm hearing that Mayor Garcia would "give everything to the Mexicans", and ignore the rest of the population's needs. I find that line of reasoning utterly absurd. We're seeing more and more Mexican Americans in the American workforce because many of them are effectively making an effort to attain the American dream of self-sufficiency, by hard work and perseverance. Sound familiar? I do not see Mr. Garcia as the type of person who would ever promote the prosperity of one segment of the population over everyone else. To do so would be foolish, and Mr. Garcia has never been described as that kind of person. If Mayor Garcia proves himself to be unwilling or unable to turn things around in Chicago, then we can elect someone else four years from now.
     In closing: Viva Garcia! Viva Chicago!