Mayor Rahm Emanuel tweaked his plan to spend $15 million in the unclaimed property tax rebate money, causing some of the aldermen to accuse one of their colleagues of giving into the mayor.
At the odds yesterday, today freshman alderman Ray Lopez and also Mayor Emanuel were suddenly on the same page. The southwest side alderman led the charge against the mayor's plan to spend $15 million of the unclaimed property tax money.
But after Emanuel tweaked the plan Lopez was on the board, leading some of his colleagues to believe the rookie alderman caved.
The mayor's original proposal was to spend the small windfall on the police body cameras, rehab vacant homes, after school programs and new trees for the city parks. Lopez and others pushed to replace tree money with the violence intervention programs. The mayor agreed to lose the trees but replace it with
Chicago To Become Organ Transplant Hub?
Ald. Lopez agreed to the mayor's plan after the mayor promised to earmark future grant money to the intervention programs.
Emanuel said that, it is an initial down payment in our efforts and I'm not going to stop trying to find resources to enhance the public safety of our neighborhoods and communities.
The Emanuel administration said that it plans to apply for a grant which could be as much as $45 million for violence prevention. Lopez said that the mayor also promised to find another $1 million in the budget to pay for the violence interruption program. That money is needed in the city to replace the funds cut by state.
Aldermen also voted to approve an honorary street re-naming for the Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera.
The small sign above an inner street in the Humbodlt Park through the heart of Chicago's Puerto Rican community is just a few inches long, but the name which will soon be on it, bears a deep and also a painful history.
Lopez Rivera just walked out of the federal prison after former president Barack Obama commuted his sentence. He spent 35 years in the prison after convictions related to 29 bombings and weapons charges committed by the Puerto Rican nationalist group.
The little thing baffles some, but is being celebrated by people who call the Lopez Rivera a freedom fighter.
Mrudula Duddempudi.
