Emanuel Transition Report Big on Dreams. Will He Deliver?

By Chuck Sudo in News on May 11, 2011 2:15PM

Mayor-elect Emanuel released his 72-page "transition plan" yesterday. It reads largely like a business proposal where the goals have been set but no details have been provided as to how to achieve them. Big on rhetoric, vague on substance, much like Emanuel's mayoral campaign. Having read the report, we agree with Mick Dumke's assessment of it. Right now, Emanuel gets points just for sharing it. How he implements this plan is another matter.

Emanuel calls this transition report "the road map and a scorecard for the first hundred days, for the first year and for the first term" and said in a press conference that he plans on holding himself, his administration and even the team that put this report together accountable for its success. The plan immediately calls for cutting $75 million from the city budget through a spending freeze and city department heads making cuts. There's also talk of TIF reform; ethics reform; the creation of an easily searchable database to see how money is being spent; charter schools for dropouts; protected bike lanes; a commitment to urban agriculture to combat food deserts; putting more police on the street; a call for participatory government similar to the plan proposed in Cook County Government; and addressing the safety risks of abandoned buildings and tackling the foreclosure crisis.

If Emanuel and his administration are able to accomplish even a fraction of this plan, Chicago's going to be some sort of utopian paradise where the budget is balanced, there's transparency in government, all the school kids can read, the streets are safe and everyone has a bicycle and a Victory garden plot. But Emanuel didn't offer details as to how his administration would accomplish this.