🧵1 /Woke up this morning and couldn’t get over the fact that there were protesters outside of the Broadway Armory with signs that read “Don’t Displace Us”, protesting against the building being used to shelter asylum seekers. 2/I’ve had conversations with some of our neighbors who were protesting and completely understand the frustration with the loss of park programming for kids and seniors, the gaps in communication and process by the city, and the very difficult choice to use the Armory.

🧵/Alright, here we go - let’s talk about funding/defunding and the police, shall we? First a disclaimer - it’s not possible to get as nuanced as needed via tweets, and although we hope people engage in good faith, we know that some may not. First I don’t believe fund/defund framing is the best way to have this conversation.

Two things to point out - 1) the Chicago Police Department has only increased on funding year over year. 2) Currently we as a city spend $3 BILLION of your tax dollars on CPD per yr

🧵/After hearing Vallas mention it again, let’s talk budgets, shall we?

I say that as the Alder whose office drafted and introduced a complete and independent budget for the City of Chicago two years ago. It was the first time it had been done in 30 years. Let’s give credit where it’s due. Mayor Lightfoot’s Budget office team is solid and have always been on the ball and fair administrators to work with. We have had disagreements with the Mayor’s decision making, but her budget staff is solid.

In our Chicago Budget Review book, we have the picture on the left, showing an overview of it. I noticed that the amounts weren’t proportional to how the infographics present them so we had Ellyn from our team fix that. Check out investments and refinancing for reference. In looking at it, the investment box should actually be even smaller, but then we wouldn’t be able to fit the type in it.