Tuesday was the first full day for the new mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot. She arrived at the LaSalle Street entrance of City Hall at around 9 a.m. for her first full day of administration. She said she was feeling ‘pretty good’ when asked 24 hours later after being sworn in as the City’s 56th mayor.
She had made a powerful inaugural speech on Monday in which she had put forward several initiatives. Those initiatives included public, education and more things. The most notable step was her aim against corruption in city government as the entire City Council had sat behind her. She said in her speech that the city was not ready for reforms for years but that is about to change. She was given a raucous applause on that note.
She said that no one will profit from her office whether elected or appointed. She had brought audience and aldermen onstage. One of those aldermen were Ald. Ed Burke who was criminally charged with corruption in January. Many city council members felt that the speech was too much aggressive. One of those people were Ald. Antony Beale. He said that it was a huge attack on City council,
Lori Lightfoot had taken her first executive order just two hours after her inauguration. She had laid out a process which will end aldermanic privilege which allowed individual aldermen to block city ordinances within their own wards. She said that this executive order had fulfilled a campaign promise and was part of the reforms package that are necessary for the city.
That reform package also includes a newly created ethics committee, headed by Ald. Michele Smith. Lightfoot had put her priorities on public health, mitigating gun violence, distributing funding equitably across Chicago and tackling the city’s debt.
