Never mind the sweep of setbacks Warren has endured since that wowzer April pep rally in which he first unveiled the Bears’ stadium plan. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson served as cheerleader in chief, but the state’s three other most powerful elected officials — Gov. J.B. Pritzker, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon — have responded with varying versions of “Hell, no.”

Unbowed and unbroken, Warren sought to bounce back Tuesday before the city’s leading civic booster group, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. The crowd was custom-fit for Warren’s dreams of a Final Four, a Super Bowl, an Olympics opening ceremony and perhaps even a Taylor Swift residency.

The chamber is backing the Bears’ plan. The group and World Business Chicago, an economic development group controlled by the mayor, are the only major civic organizations to do so.

The Bears and their lonely gaggle of supporters, which also include unions representing the construction trades, are playing a long game. They have no choice after Warren started with a couple of mistakes.

First, he understated the need for public investment, which includes $1.5 billion in infrastructure investment plus borrowing costs that would total $4.8 billion over 40 years. Next, he pushed for legislative action this spring, even though the Bears had no political support in sight.

There are plentiful good reasons to oppose the project. But don’t take my word for it. Instead, listen to Johnson, who laid out a string of objections during the mayoral campaign in response to a questionnaire from WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times.

“Let me be clear: I want the Bears to stay,” said Johnson as a candidate. “But Chicago could also use $2 billion to remove lead pipes, house thousands of unhoused Chicagoans, fully fund public schools, generate neighborhood and business development in communities across the city, pay down our pension and general obligations, or meet dozens of other urgent needs — all of which would also generate much-needed economic and quality-of-life returns.”

Johnson has yet to explain his change of heart.

The mayor’s appearance Tuesday at the chamber luncheon would have marked a good occasion for doing so — a chance to explain to his progressive backers why he now is supporting a project far afield from their needs. But Johnson said not a word about the Bears’ project.

The chamber’s president, Jack Lavin, positioned the push for public funds as best as he could in remarks to reporters after the luncheon. He played up the need for infrastructure investment, which would improve access to the lakefront, and said economic activity from the new stadium would generate a return on public investment.

It’s evident that if there is to be any public investment at all, it likely will come as part of a package that also includes new housing for the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Red Stars women’s soccer team. But the teams so far have shown no willingness to work together on a proposal that might earn public and political support.

The Bears, for their part, will need to produce more persuasive data on the measurable economic impact of their plan — especially their claim about the equitable benefits a new stadium could create. The team likely also would need to abandon plans to grab cash from non-football activities such as concerts and parking fees.

Warren missed a chance to begin changing the public debate in his remarks Tuesday.

Instead, he peeled off platitudes about Chicago’s civic pride, yet with an odd rhetorical mix that also cast shade on the city: Chicago has only eight active construction cranes right now, he noted, whereas Toronto has more than 200. The city’s name is overlooked in “cities to watch” in surveys of economic development experts.

Warren dangled the publicity benefits of big events; boasted of how the NFL dominates television ratings and tipped his hat toward the city’s abiding love for larger-than-life construction projects, from reversing the flow of the Chicago River to building Millennium Park.

“If you believe in Chicago, if you believe in the state of Illinois, if you want to build a better future for your family, for your businesses, for your neighbors; if you want to close that economic wealth gap, if you want to make this the greatest city on the planet, only if you believe this, I would ask that you please stand.”

Of course, everyone stood. This was a chamber of commerce luncheon, after all.

“Let’s stop letting people define who we are. Let’s come together. The Chicago Bears bring fans and families together,” he said. “It’s time for us to stand up for Chicago, for the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.”

In standing against the Bears’ proposal so far, that’s precisely what the state leaders and the public are doing: They’re standing up for the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois, holding tight to public funds and deflecting a Bears proposal that does not yet offer enough public benefit.

Business leaders and economic development experts I talked to at the luncheon said they’re convinced there’s a case to be made for this project. The Bears just haven’t made it yet.

The Bears and the project’s backers need to do so soon, before the opposition gets set in stone.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Summer is when the Chicago Police Department is put to the test, and ShotSpotter has been a key tool since 2018, when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel signed the contract.

The 34-14 council majority who voted to take authority to cancel ShotSpotter out of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hands paid little mind to the steady stream of research — focused on ShotSpotter’s performance in Chicago, Boston, Kansas City and elsewhere — that exposes ShotSpotter’s unreliable performance.

Never mind that three U.S. senators this month called for a Department of Homeland Security investigation into alleged racial bias in how ShotSpotter is deployed nationwide. Never mind reports from the city of Chicago’s inspector general and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx that raise serious questions about the reliability of ShotSpotter’s technology and its usefulness in prosecuting crimes.

Never mind all that, because police officers on the streets, people in the neighborhoods and a majority of the aldermen in City Council have their minds made up. They know what they know and see what they see. ShotSpotter — a system of sound sensors and computers designed to send alerts about gunshots it detects to data centers that then deploy police to the scene — has its staunch backers, no matter what the data and critics might say.

The backers see a $9 million-a-year tool that, however problematic it may be, still is better than doing without it altogether. They hear Johnson’s concerns that ShotSpotter leads to overpolicing and that it reinforces biases on the police force. Yet they respond that underpolicing worries them more. After all, the Chicago Police Department has about 2,000 vacant positions, a gap sure to be felt in the heat of summer, and ShotSpotter can help support the depleted ranks of officers.

In the City Council debate on Wednesday, support for ShotSpotter brought about an unusual harmony between aldermen from wards on the Northwest and Southwest sides, where many police live, and aldermen from the South and West sides, where violent crime is most deeply felt.

Ald. Monique Scott, 24th, noted four mass shootings in her North Lawndale ward in her two years as alderman. In the latest gunfight, six shooters fired 90 shots — and not one person called 911, Scott said.

There is particular disdain over Johnson’s flip-flop on the ShotSpotter contract. First, he canceled the contract in February, fulfilling a campaign promise. Then he quickly renewed it for nine more months, in order to get through the Democratic National Convention in August with ShotSpotter still in place.

South Side Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, saw disparity in that decision. “If it was good enough to extend through the convention to protect the conventioneers, it’s good enough to protect the residents of this city every single day,” Beale said.

Johnson still wants to part ways with ShotSpotter and its parent company, SoundThinking. But the City Council with its vote Wednesday ventured boldly into a contracting authority that lies squarely in the mayor’s domain. The vote would require council approval to cancel ShotSpotter in any ward, and it ordered up new data collection, designed to inform decisions about the fate of the ShotSpotter contract.

The council’s vote mandates CPD to report data on police response times to ShotSpotter alerts not accompanied by 911 calls, to ShotSpotter alerts backed up by 911 calls and to 911 calls without any ShotSpotter alerts. Data on bullet casings and weapons collected, as well as arrests, also is required.

Earlier this month, CPD disclosed similar data sets that gave a mixed picture of ShotSpotter’s performance over the prior six years. Whether another six months of data tells a different story remains to be seen.

Whatever the data shows, it likely won’t sway opinions much. Response time metrics are just part of the ShotSpotter story, and aldermen this week embraced the company’s new emphasis on the way ShotSpotter alerts police to help shooting victims who might otherwise not receive aid. 

With summer bearing down on us, it’s important to note ShotSpotter itself is just one slice of a broader discussion about the state of policing in Chicago. In that broader picture, issues of race, income, privilege, bias, police tactics and many other factors come into play and also inform how residents and their elected representative view ShotSpotter.

Police Superintendent Larry Snelling has made his position clear: He wants the technology, no matter what the mayor, his boss, might say. Snelling’s stance clearly is part of the superintendent’s effort to win support from the CPD rank and file. It also fits into his view that CPD needs to embrace the latest technology and tactics in order to combat violent crime.

In this sense, the extension of the ShotSpotter contract, paired with the City Council’s demand for data collection, could produce a little-discussed benefit for the city. With ShotSpotter still in place for Snelling’s first summer as police chief, we will be able make meaningful, apples-to-apples comparisons of CPD effectiveness under Snelling compared with other top cops in other years.

This all puts Mayor Johnson in a tricky position: He is still hoping to rid himself of ShotSpotter, yet he needs his police chief to succeed, with help from the costly, high-tech tool he would rather do without.

If the Snelling-led police force is effective this summer, ShotSpotter might yet extend its stay on the watch, whether Johnson likes it or not.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

The initially stated $3.2 billion stadium budget turns out to be less than half the cost of the complete project. The promise that Chicago taxpayers wouldn’t pay a penny was far from true. And giddy cheerleading by Mayor Brandon Johnson did more harm than good.

The whole matter unraveled soon after the Bears concluded their hourlong dog-and-pony show filled with more razzmatazz than a Blue Man Group performance. Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said he couldn’t get votes for their stadium project even if he tried. Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared the plan a nonstarter.

A cardinal rule in any negotiation is to avoid getting to “no.” Once that word slips out, getting to yes gets much harder. Pritzker hasn’t entirely written off the possibility of a stadium deal, perhaps somewhere down the road, so the question now is what it might take to resuscitate an idea that nearly died on arrival.

The Bears won’t just let this one go. They hired team President Kevin Warren for the express purpose of getting a deal like this done. And Johnson — who traveled to Springfield this week to inform lawmakers that they “owed” the city $1 billion for Chicago Public Schools — can’t turn back now, not after his over-the-top embrace a few days ago.

The Bears and Johnson are convinced they have this one right. That Chicago needs an indoor lakefront stadium in order to hold its place as an urban entertainment center. That Final Fours, Super Bowls and, say, a Taylor Swift residency might all be possible. That their project really can create billions in revenues for construction workers, locally owned suppliers, restaurants, hotels, merchants and others.

That, say, bonds sold to rehab Soldier Field just two decades ago can be rolled into a new $1.2 billion debt issue — with an almost unheard-of 40-year amortization — without trashing the state’s credit rating.

Such are the visions Warren will conjure as he sets out on what will be an arduous effort to  breathe new life into the lakefront stadium plan. A delay to the end of this year could add $150 million to the project’s cost, Warren has warned. He should count on that much cost and more. A likely Friends of the Parks lawsuit alone could block progress, even if Warren can line up the political support and financing the Bears need.

In order to take even a first step toward yes, Warren will need to refocus the financial discussion.

Consider the Bears’ proposal to refinance $400 million in bonds sold by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority in order to refurbish Soldier Field just 22 years ago. The idea has received almost unanimous scorn — and the proposed 40-year term for the proposed new IFSA bonds is an obvious warning that the Bears are stretching hard to make the finances work.

But let’s be real: Even if the lakeside stadium does not get built, the Bears likely will still move still out of Soldier Field before those IFSA bonds expire in 2032.  If they do break their lease and move to Arlington Heights, revenues from Soldier Field would mostly dry up.

That could put Illinois taxpayers on the hook for annual bond payments that will reach $91 million by the time those bonds expire in 2032. IFSA sold the bonds, but the state guaranteed them, and the state and city of Chicago could wind up covering the cost if IFSA’s coffers fall short.

Add up the city’s exposure, and the Bears could make a case that their proposed scoop-and-toss of the Soldier Field debt is better for taxpayers than if they move to Arlington Heights and leave Soldier Field holding the bag. 

Recapitalizing the Bears might also be needed. The McCaskeys, who control the team, are pikers compared to the billionaire class that makes up most of the NFL’s ownership groups. Yes, the Bears are committing roughly $2.3 billion toward the new stadium — but much of that is expected to come from other people’s money.

Instead of borrowing, the McCaskeys could sell shares in the team. Just one example: Billionaire Pat Ryan already owns a chunk of the Chicago Bears Football Club Inc. Invite Ryan to buy more shares, and his equity investment would strengthen the team’s balance sheet, reducing the borrowing needed for the McCaskeys to make the deal work.

The Bears would benefit from Ryan’s savvy, besides. Look at what he accomplished in Evanston, overcoming strong local opposition to get approval for a new Northwestern University football stadium he is funding.

A third leg of the Bears’ lakeside-stadium resuscitation plan could be to turn the lip service about a “progressive” approach to their plan into an objective reality.

The Bears are promising that locally owned vendors will get contracts once the stadium gets built. At a manageable cost, they could jump-start business development by funding programs that could help would-be entrepreneurs launch companies that grow big enough, by the time the stadium opens, to serve the crowds that flock to the venue.

One such program — the Neighborhood Entrepreneurship Lab, sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust — has helped first-time business owners build successful companies. The Bears could use that program as a model and fund an independently run program to help jump-start a cohort of vendors that might grow up between now and when the stadium opens for business.

These are just a few ideas that could get the Bears past the initial public revulsion to the proposal presented late last month.

To get all the way to “yes” — with public officials, with taxpayers, with the community at large — the Bears likely will need to do much more. The state has higher spending priorities — such as schools, roads and public safety. Johnson likely lacks the political savvy to push a deal through. The Bears’ claims of economic impact from the stadium project likely won’t stand up to public scrutiny or outright opposition.

The Bears’ vision for a lakeside stadium, as first proposed, is not a live option. It would take bold, resourceful and persistent work on a second draft — by the team and the mayor — to bring it back to life.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Given the state’s $142 billion in unfunded pension liability, a large enough share of our state’s economic output to rank us last among all states, we urge the legislature to follow the governor’s lead rather than advancing a more expensive alternative for fixing Tier 2.

A little background is in order. Most state employees who qualify for pensions are not eligible to collect Social Security, but by law, their pension plans must provide a benefit deemed equivalent to Social Security. Under the IRS’ “safe harbor” test, Illinois’ pension plans eventually will fail to meet the federal standard.

In 2010, the state passed the Tier 2 law that reduced benefits for state employees hired after Jan. 1, 2011, as a means of reining in mounting pension costs. The problem is that the way benefits are calculated under Tier 2 puts pension plans at risk of eventually failing the safe harbor test.

In the rollout of the proposed fiscal 2025 budget in February, Pritzker proposed a review and “if necessary” an adjustment to fix the Tier 2 safe-harbor problem. He was right to do so because a fix would ensure the state’s pension plans remain compliant with federal regulations.

The Civic Committee and the Civic Federation called for a similar, simple fix as recently as last summer when Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle successfully advocated for one for Cook County pensions. The Better Government Association is joining now in a joint call for similar restraint with the state pension plans.

We have data that helps support Pritzker’s prudent stand. Actuarial research commissioned by our three organizations found that changing the Tier 2 pay cap to match the Social Security wage base for the three largest state pension plans would add about $12 billion to the state’s 2045 pension liability and require about $7 billion in additional state pension contributions through 2045.

That may sound like a lot for a state already facing $142 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. It is. But it is considerably less than alternative proposals under consideration by the legislature. Some Springfield lawmakers would go so far as to bring Tier 2 benefits entirely up to the level of Tier 1 — at a cost to taxpayers that we estimate at $82 billion through 2045.

The pressure grew last week for Pritzker and the legislature to take the more costly route. Public employee unions organized a weeklong pressure campaign under the slogan “Undo Tier 2.”

Pritzker wisely is standing his ground. In remarks Thursday night, he warned that the costs of even the simplest Tier 2 repair are not yet known. And he parried growing pressure for a fix and some sort of “sweetener,” or expanded benefits.

We commend Pritzker for protecting the taxpayers while also acknowledging the state’s obligation to do right by retirees. We encourage him to hold this high ground, buttressed by the fiscally responsible track record he has fashioned throughout his tenure in office.

The fiscal blow from extending Tier 1 benefits to all current Tier 2 employees would be enormous and immediate. For fiscal year 2026, the pension contribution would be about $700 million higher than under current law. And it would grow substantially year by year. By fiscal 2045, the required annual contribution would be roughly $4 billion higher than under current plans. It also would require higher local pension contributions, triggering higher local property taxes in communities across the state.

In short, any “sweetener” beyond the minimum could reverse years of effort in Illinois to get our public pension plans on a sound financial footing that is fair to taxpayers and assures state workers of a secure retirement.

Since taking office in 2019, Pritzker has acted responsibly to begin stabilizing state finances. True, he has signed off on a few regrettable pension sweeteners in that time. But overall, Pritzker and the General Assembly have boosted pension contributions above legally required minimums while also replenishing a rainy day fund that had declined to nearly zero under Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration.

All three rating agencies have taken notice, awarding Illinois credit rating increases to the A-minus or equivalent level. An Illinois credit rating that teetered just one step above “junk” status has risen to a more respectable level, albeit still last among all states.

It’s conceivable that, with a comprehensive approach to pension and fiscal reform, Illinois could achieve the same AA ratings or higher that around 40 other states currently enjoy. An AA credit rating should be a key goal of any fiscal plan for Illinois. Lower borrowing costs alone would save taxpayers billions of dollars over time.

In addition, fully addressing pensions by funding them faster than current law requires could save Illinois taxpayers tens of billions more. The savings could go toward education, health and public safety. And reduced uncertainty about Illinois’ finances would spur economic growth and allow our state’s myriad assets to shine through.

It can be tempting to write off Illinois’ pension challenges as mind-numbing fiscal issues. But history shows that vigilance is necessary when Springfield lawmakers start talking about pension reforms. If lawmakers make matters worse — as an exorbitant Tier 2 “fix” certainly would do — it would be an expensive step backward that our state cannot afford.

Pritzker’s proposed limited approach to the safe harbor issue is spot-on. Before passing Tier 2 legislation, let’s determine precisely what it will take to comply with the safe harbor law — and stop there. Anything beyond that would represent a reversal of recent, responsible pension policies and a return to the irresponsible behavior that has created such a costly mess for the taxpayers of Illinois.

Derek Douglas is president of the Civic Committee and the Commercial Club of Chicago, Joe Ferguson is president of the Civic Federation and David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association. 

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

The law is on their side: Pensions are a contract, the benefits of which “shall not be diminished or impaired,” the Illinois Constitution says. Some go a step further. Protecting pensions as promised, they say, is a moral imperative, too.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has staked out that argument.

But lest we forget: A contract is an agreement between two parties, and both parties are entitled to the rights granted under the terms of their compact.

We’re all familiar with the rights of the contract from the perspective of the state’s workers and retirees. They can count on the pension benefits they’re promised the day they start work, to the penny, in their retirement years.

But state government and the taxpayers who fund it are party to the pensions contract, too. When we hire teachers, public safety and health workers, office workers and other public employees, we promise them pensions. But that contract obligates us to not a penny more. We have a right to rely on that benefit, just as retirees have a right to their pension checks, too.

This understanding is vitally important now, because there is an effort underway to convince our Springfield lawmakers that the pensions contract agreed to by state employees hired since 2011 should be sweetened, with taxpayers covering the additional costs.

The post-2010 retirement packages are known as “Tier 2” benefits. The move to reverse taxpayers’ savings on pension costs goes by the slogan “Undo Tier 2.”

The topic is on the table because a narrow section of the Tier 2 pension promise must indeed be fixed. Tier 2 benefits are not growing as fast as Social Security checks, and this violates a safe-harbor provision in federal law.

The actual problem is narrow, and the legislature is considering ways to fix it. But the little-known codicil is being used as a wedge to do much more.

The Undo Tier 2 slogan evidently was penned by the Illinois Education Association, a leader in the union pressure campaign that delivered tens of thousands of emails and in-person demonstrators  to the statehouse last week. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the state’s largest public employees union — joined in pressuring lawmakers to vacate the contract many AFSCME members agreed to when they first went to work for the state.

The stakes are high. Even the narrowest Tier 2 fix would cost taxpayers $5.6 billion by 2045, according to a state consultant’s report. Proponents of Undo Tier 2 have offered no estimates for what their more ambitious plans would cost because, well, they would break the state’s bank.

Tier 2 has saved Illinois taxpayers billions of dollars already. It raised the retirement age, reduced the rate of growth in retirees’ pension checks and capped the pensionable salary for public employees. The creation of Tier 2 was the state’s best hope for reining in pension costs that were spiraling out of control, due to the 3% compounded annual growth in pension checks that contributed toward today’s $142 billion in state pension debt.

The state’s savings from Tier 2 are projected to grow over time — especially now that about half of active state employees and retirees today are eligible for Tier 2 benefits.

With a Tier 2 fix under active discussion in Springfield this year, the risk of a runaway cost to state budgets is real. Even some fiscally responsible lawmakers are saying that some sort of “sweetener” will be required. Creating more generous cost-of-living allowances, reducing the retirement age to as low as 60 or boosting the way a pensionable salary is calculated is among the options being discussed.

Pritzker has seen this problem coming. And so far, he is handling it just right.

In the midst of last week’s union pressure campaign, Pritzker told reporters that the costs of even the simplest Tier 2 repair are not yet known. And he parried growing pressure for some sort of sweetener to go along with a must-do fix.

Even the simplest adjustment to Tier 2 — the move to bring pension checks in line with Social Security benefits — would be a sweetener, Pritzker explained, because it would go beyond the state’s existing commitment. “That, in a way, is a sweetener in the sense that it’s going to cost taxpayers something,” he said.

Coming from Pritzker, that’s a powerful statement. After all, he backed Amendment 1 to the state constitution that broadly expands workers’ rights. He signed a generous four-year contract with AFSCME last summer, which includes a nearly 18% pay raise over four years, at a cost of $625 million to taxpayers.

And Pritzker has refused even to consider an amendment that would weaken the state constitution’s pension clause. The idea is “a fantasy,” he said in his 2020 budget address, that would lead only to a legal dead end.

“The idea that all of this can be fixed with a single silver bullet ignores the protracted legal battle that will ultimately run headlong into the contracts clause of the U.S. Constitution,” he said.

Contracts do have consequences. And the same Illinois pensions clause that protects workers’ pension checks likely protects taxpayers’ pocketbooks, too.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

The words in question come from the Chicago Police Department’s use-of-force policy. Officers may use deadly force to protect themselves, fellow cops or bystanders. They can use it to stop an attack, secure an arrest, control a subject or stop an escape.

That may sound completely rational, completely clear. But in the heat of the moment, all too often, those words just don’t work. A cop overreacts. Or a cop responds too late. Either way, lives can be lost as a result — police or public; bullets don’t care.

One such life belonged to Dexter Reed. The unnamed officer Reed shot could easily have died, too.

A report by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, backed by horrifying video, shows how fast such incidents can move.

Five cops, working undercover in an unmarked SUV, approached Reed’s parked SUV, according to the COPA report and the videotapes the agency released. Reed rolled down his window, then rolled it back up. The cops ordered Reed to unlock his car doors. He did not comply. Reed shot his gun; cops returned fire.

Ninety-six rounds they shot, according to COPA, as Reed apparently dropped his weapon, exited his car, moved toward the rear bumper and crumpled to the ground. Three of the officers reloaded during the encounter.

The city is just beginning to reckon with what we’ve witnessed courtesy of the videos COPA released. And part of that must be a search for reasons why such senseless violence continues when the full force of government — not to mention the unanswered prayers of the community — is seeking to stop the bloodshed.

A court-mandated police consent decree was designed to prevent disasters such as this. Put into effect in 2019, a response to the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald by police Officer Jason Van Dyke, the decree seeks to impose training, apply de-escalation techniques and secure other reforms within the CPD.

But the court-appointed monitor, Maggie Hickey, in a report last November found that the CPD had complied with only 6% of its requirements in the 236-page decree — five years after implementation began. The department is so far behind that the deadline for full compliance has been extended.

Chicago’s police superintendent, Larry Snelling, seemed suited to bring the CPD into compliance when Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed him last summer. Snelling had worked at the police training academy, was an advocate for de-escalation and had an up-from-the-CPD-ranks resume that on paper could win rank-and-file support for the cultural changes needed to effectively implement the decree.

Yet CPD is proving stubbornly resistant to reform. And it’s no wonder, with leaders like John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, obstructing progress wherever they can.

In a video posted to YouTube after COPA released its report, Catanzara said the officers who initiated contact with Reed “responded heroically” once one of them was shot. He attacked the head of COPA, Andrea Kersten, calling her corrupt because she released police-cam videos without COPA yet interviewing the officers involved.

Johnson had a simple answer for such criticism. Attempts at delaying release of such videos “are mistakes of the past,” he said at a press conference following release of COPA’s report. This was a clear reference to Rahm Emanuel, who delayed release of the McDonald murder until after Emanuel’s 2015 mayoral reelection was safely won.

Mayor Johnson, in this delicate moment, responded in a measured way. He expressed compassion for Reed’s family, concern for the cop who was shot and conviction to make the city safer.

What Johnson did not say, and what the city needs to hear, is that the failure to urgently adopt the changes required under the consent decree can no longer be tolerated. This means Superintendent Snelling, who was not present at the press conference — the reason not yet fully explained — needs to begin showing results, and fast.

It may be Snelling’s job to make reform happen, but it’s Johnson’s responsibility to make sure this job gets done. They can both start by holding the cops in the Reed traffic stop responsible if their actions were not by the book, a determination COPA’s continuing investigation ultimately will make.

Mayor now for nearly a year, Johnson owns this incident and any breakdown in police discipline it may represent. Surely the mayor must know voters will hold him accountable, just as they rejected Mayor Lori Lightfoot in part for the failures of her police superintendent, David Brown; just as the public repudiated Emanuel for his gamesmanship with the Laquan McDonald video.

Johnson selected Snelling, in part, because of Snelling’s background in training and reputation as a cop’s cop. Now is the time for the chief to show he’s the kind of cop’s cop who can get other cops to do what’s right.

The consent decree lays out the work ahead. Paraphrasing the use-of-force policy here: Now is the time for Johnson and Snelling to show leadership that is objective, reasonable, necessary and proportionate to the continuing crisis in Chicago policing.

There may be nothing more important to our city, and to Johnson’s term as mayor, than securing urgent, measurable progress on police reform.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Going back and rewatching that postelection news conference a week later, what stands out is Johnson’s unshaken commitment to his progressive agenda and his determination to get his way in addressing the city’s homelessness challenge.

Johnson warned opponents to “buckle up” because he’s not defeated yet. “There’s not a fight that we have taken on that we won’t have the ability to win,” he said.

The question now is how that ability will be demonstrated. What will it take for Johnson to make significant progress on homelessness — and might it possibly involve giving the Bring Chicago Home plan a renewed push, too?

The answers won’t come easily. To arrive at them, it would be helpful to consider the Bring Chicago Home referendum as part of a matched pair, along with the $1.25 billion bond issue that Johnson has put before the City Council. Bring Chicago Home would address human needs first and foremost, and the big bond issue would go toward the city’s bricks-and-mortar responses. The bond vote in the City Council is one that Johnson likely can win. On the overarching issue — the fight against homelessness — Johnson will need to adjust his tactics and governing style if he really does hope to succeed.

Patience is running short with platitudes and sloganeering from the Johnson administration. Even the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, a key base of Johnson’s political support, has chimed in. Johnson can learn from the defeat of Bring Chicago Home that detailed plans and a purposeful agenda can help him advance his plans, with voters as well as an increasingly skeptical City Council.

A statement from the council’s 19-member Progressive Caucus this week acknowledged the rejection of Bring Chicago Home demonstrated that voters had “real questions about whether or not they could trust the government to spend the money the right way.”

Caucus members acknowledged a responsibility to listen to the voters and to explain what they are doing to address the city’s problems. It would be wise for Johnson to lend an ear, too. After all, City Council opponents of the proposed bond issue have offered a similar critique. The issue of trust has two main thrusts to it. The critics want more detailed information about Johnson’s plans for the money he seeks. They also want to hear how Johnson will work with people from outside the progressive movement to do what’s best for the city overall.

As a candidate for mayor, Johnson touted his progressive bona fides while also pledging to govern in ways that serve the people who disagree with him too. The homelessness issue can’t be addressed by tax increases and bond sales alone. To find lasting solutions, Johnson will need property owners, developers, civil society groups and others to work alongside his progressive supporters to make the most of the city’s agenda as all seek to address the homelessness challenge.

There is broad support for the notion that Chicago needs to do more to meet the needs of more than 65,000 people experiencing homelessness, some 80% of them people of color. The intensity of the problem is manifested in Chicago Public Schools, where 13% of students experience homelessness at some point before they leave school, according to a 2021 University of Chicago study.

A shared commitment to address the problem can be translated into a unified and organized effort to pay for and begin the work if Johnson starts, first, with laying out some of the math behind his thinking: detailed plans to take funds from that huge bond sale, or even new taxes from something like Bring Chicago Home and achieve compounded returns on whatever investment the taxpayers make.

One key litmus test will center on Johnson’s plan to wean the city away from tax increment financing districts as an economic development tool. Johnson correctly argues that TIFs have contributed to inequality in the city, and he is selling the bond issue as an equalizer. Proceeds from the sale will allow Johnson’s administration to invest where needed; whereas TIFs have geographic restrictions that contribute toward inequitable distribution of city investment.

Eliminating TIFs will give his administration latitude to spur investment in communities neglected by the TIF regimes of Mayors Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel and even Lori Lightfoot, Johnson argues. And resources gained from shutting down TIFs will help cover the cost of issuing the bonds, a planning document states.

Economic development experts I talked to urged the mayor to describe how he plans to generate a multiplier effect from the bond sales. The $1.25 billion in bond proceeds over five years should lead to $3 billion or even $4 billion worth of private investment, in addition to an incremental $3 billion in city spending that Johnson forecasts over that time, they said.

In the effort to phase out 45 TIF districts before 2028, the city should not lose sight of the positive aspects of TIFs, either. For example, TIFs often spur infrastructure investments. But materials provided by the Johnson administration forecast two main areas of investment: $625 million of the bond proceeds going toward economic development projects and $625 million toward housing.

None of the bond proceeds would go toward infrastructure spending — a gaping hole that needs to be filled.

If Johnson does renew his effort to pass a Bring Chicago Home program, or some modified version of it, he’ll need to make a persuasive case about the multiplier effect of that additional revenue too.

All of this adds up to a significant challenge for a mayor still struggling to find his footing as the first year of his term in office draws to a close. On the heels of his loss on Bring Chicago Home, Johnson needs a win on the bond issue he’s now proposing.

It’s said that good policy makes good politics. On the homelessness issue so far, Johnson’s political problems are rooted in an inability to effectively explain his plans and earn support not just from his base, but also with all sectors of a city that recognizes the need to help meet the needs of some our most vulnerable neighbors.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Mayor Brandon Johnson intended to allow the city’s contract with the gunshot-tracking system to expire last month, but then remembered — whoops — the Democratic National Convention was coming to town. Maybe ShotSpotter wasn’t so bad after all. He renewed the contract through November, paying a premium $8.6 million price for nine months of additional use.

The flipping and flopping on ShotSpotter, over a period of weeks, was hardly Johnson’s finest episode as mayor, to put it mildly. But just as good intentions sometimes go awry, bungled missteps can turn to the city’s advantage. Perhaps that could still happen with ShotSpotter.

ShotSpotter is designed to use microphones in city neighborhoods and computer algorithms sourced from strategic response centers to “hear” gunfire in the streets and dispatch police to the scene. Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling continues to back it — bravely so, given that his boss campaigned on a promise to kill the contract.

Johnson has reason for skepticism, based on the Chicago Police Department’s troubled relationship with technology over the years, and the ways in which technology has contributed toward distrust of police in communities that are Johnson’s political base.

Before ShotSpotter, there was the gang database — a tool designed to help identify gang members so police officers could intercede after shootings to prevent more violence. But two city inspector general reports found bias in the use of the database: 95% of names examined for a 2021 IG report were Black or Latino residents, for example.

The city’s new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability last year scrapped plans for a new database, in effect concluding CPD’s experiment with the tool.

Chicago also has close to 50,000 closed-circuit surveillance cameras — or just under 2 for every 100 residents, the sixth-highest concentration in the country, according to Comparitech, a technology research firm. Information about the effectiveness of this densely concentrated web remains shrouded in mystery.

A new Illinois law allows police departments to use drones for surveillance at large public events, and CPD a few years ago reportedly experimented with drones for counterterrorism efforts. Snelling has said he plans to use helicopters for police chases; presumably, drones won’t be far behind.

The digital policing tools offer the promise of speedier, more effective responses to crime. Cops-in-a-box and eyes and ears in the sky are considered unblinking, unbiased projections of police capability.

ShotSpotter so far stands as yet another example of how tools can be adopted and entrenched, despite results that fall far short of what’s needed: Even when Johnson tried to quit the system, he couldn’t quite commit.

Chicago’s ShotSpotter contract dates to 2018, when Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration signed on without a competitive bid. Emanuel’s administration used a loophole in the city’s procurement requirements, citing ShotSpotter’s contract with the city of Louisville, Kentucky, to set Chicago’s pricing rather than negotiating a volume discount — on behalf of Chicago taxpayers — for the far bigger Chicago installation.

ShotSpotter’s parent company renamed itself SoundThinking last year after a run of bad publicity and lawsuits alleging misuse or unreliability of the technology. Still, SoundThinking stands behind its big profit producer. It claims that the technology accurately reports gunshots in 97% of all alerts, speedily gets police officers to the scene of crimes and leads police to find shooting victims even in cases where no public calls for help have been made.

The sales pitch has earned ShotSpotter contracts in about 150 cities nationwide. But a steady stream of government oversight and investigative reports has raised legitimate doubts.

Chicago’s IG in 2021 found that police developed evidence of a gun-related crime in only about 9% of more than 50,000 ShotSpotter alerts over a 17-month period. The IG also found that frequent ShotSpotter alerts in some neighborhoods made police officers suspicious of people living there. Oversight reports from Kansas City, Missouri, and other municipalities have raised similar concerns.

Just last month, a study leaked by the office of outgoing Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx found that ShotSpotter led to arrests in only about 1.5% of cases examined over a five-year period ending last August, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report. More than a third of arrests arising from ShotSpotter alerts did not include a gun charge.

Nongovernmental studies have been negative on ShotSpotter, too. The MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law found that in 89% of ShotSpotter alerts in Chicago, police found no evidence of a gun-related crime, and 86% of alerts led to no charges at all. That’s better than Foxx’s reported findings but still woefully short of expectations.

And The Associated Press last year uncovered an internal company document from 2021 — produced in response to a Chicago lawsuit against ShotSpotter — revealing that technicians working in ShotSpotter’s review centers intervene and overrule ShotSpotter’s algorithm in 10% of all alerts. The finding was at odds with the image ShotSpotter has promoted of a relatively automated and nearly fail-safe technology.

SoundThinking contests such findings, usually without offering specific data to disprove the research. And coming on top of concern that ShotSpotter installations have been concentrated in South and West Side communities victimized by racially biased policing, it’s no surprise the technology has been targeted by progressives.

There are plenty of public safety advocates who argue that ShotSpotter, whatever its flaws, is better than no high-tech, gun-crime detection at all. Last month, as Johnson was moving to cancel the contract, an argument emerged that ShotSpotter had saved lives by calling police and medical help to the aid of shooting victims who might have died but for the ShotSpotter alert.

Well, if that does happen in any meaningful way, ShotSpotter and its supporters have an opportunity now to build their case that this is an essential contribution to the city’s safety and welfare. Surely, if the claims are true, there are plenty of police and other records available to back them up.

Mayor Johnson delivered for his progressive base when he decided to end the ShotSpotter contract. He prudently if clumsily decided to shift his stance ahead of the Democratic convention.

Between now and September, there is plenty of time to make a decision that serves Chicago best.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

For far too long, Illinois has held a shameful worst-in-the-nation status for protecting retirement income for thousands upon thousands of state workers and retirees. The $142 billion in pension debt — unfunded liabilities — means the state has only 45% of the resources needed to cover its obligations.

Pritzker does have a plan, and that makes him the first Illinois governor in 30 years to propose a way out of this seemingly insurmountable pension problem. Nationally prominent pension experts I talked to over the last week expressed pleasant dismay that an Illinois governor at long last is taking on a problem that for decades has ravaged state budgets, driven away investment — and damaged Illinois’ credit ratings, too.

The idea does not come in a vacuum, it’s worth noting. Alternative options are out there, highlighted by one put forward by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago a year ago.

There likely will be time to debate the alternative options. Chances are, Pritzker’s idea won’t be taken up during the current legislative session. But let’s embrace a breakthrough while we can — before the messy work of lawmaking gets underway and compromises and accommodations come into play.

For the first time in memory, an Illinois governor is proposing to fully fund Illinois’ five statewide pension plans. The last one to try, Jim Edgar, aimed only for 90% funding, making Illinois the only state with a stated goal that has set its aim lower than 100%.

Pritzker plans to do this without raising taxes or cutting pension benefits. And he does so with no additional cost to budgets until 2030.

At that point, the state’s contributions toward pensions would jump by as much as $750 million per year through fiscal 2040, but the source is a form of found money: As a series of general obligation bonds retire — followed by final payments on the detestable $10 billion of pension bonds passed by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2018 — half of the sums previously earmarked for interest payments would instead go toward pensions.

The other half, incidentally, would go toward the state’s rainy day fund, which has grown to $2 billion due to shared effort by Pritzker and Comptroller Susana Mendoza. That’s up from $3 million left behind by Gov. Bruce Rauner — enough to run state government for, well, about 15 minutes.

How high a priority pensions will play in the spring legislative session remains an open question. One tell is pride of place: Pritzker’s silence on the matter in his budget address was notable. Instead, the plan was consigned to the state’s “budget book” — the 632-page compendium of every fiscal fancy on the administration’s mind as it heads into the legislative session.

There are complicating factors that could block full pension paydown, too. The biggest potential hurdle: a need to address a problem with Tier 2 pensions, a program of decreased pension benefits that the state imposed on employees hired from 2011 forward.

For many retirees, Tier 2 benefits have not grown as fast as Social Security payments, and because most Illinois government pensioners are not eligible for Social Security, federal law requires the state to catch up. A state consultant’s report last year estimated the cost of the Tier 2 makeup payments at $5.6 billion through 2045 — nearly enough to wipe out the $5.1 billion in savings Pritzker projects from his pension fix.

About those projected Pritzker savings: They’re not as sizable as the savings estimated in the main alternative pension proposal, the one put forward by the Civic Committee, a group of prominent Chicago business leaders, last year. That plan calls for an incremental tax surcharge of 0.5% a year over 10 years on individuals and 0.7% on corporations — $28.5 billion in new taxes over a decade, all of it set aside for pension payments.

The Civic Committee estimates its approach would save the state $35 billion over 22 years, more than seven times as much as Pritzker’s plan. And by front-loading pension payments for that first decade, the plan also would reduce the steep annual increases required under current state pension law. Those payments currently are slated to reach $18 billion a year by 2045, or about 25% of the state’s projected budget.

Pritzker’s plan also calls for pension payments to remain above $16 billion for fiscal years 2046 to 2048. By that point, under the Civic Committee plan, state payments would be about half that amount. But under the Civic Committee plan, it takes nearly a decade longer to reach full funding than under Pritzker’s plan.

Still, a tax increase is a tax increase, and it’s no wonder Pritzker prefers to avoid the ones proposed by the Civic Committee, especially in an election year.

All of which brings us to the question of timing. If Pritzker could get the votes for his pension plan in the spring legislative session, the state would be better for it. No plan is perfect, and the realistic objective of achieving 100% funding by 2048, without reducing pension benefits, is the most serious proposal yet put forward by any elected official in Illinois.

If there’s a legislative opening, the governor should take it. Yet, if the matter does not come to a vote this spring session, there is a chance the state could wind up even better off.

More time would allow for careful study of the relative merits of the two leading plans, Pritzker’s and the Civic Committee’s. It would allow time to factor the full cost of the Tier 2 fix into the equation. More time would give all stakeholders — taxpayers, state workers, retirees, investors and others — a chance to assess the relative merits and weigh in with their concerns.

Not quite a year ago, Pritzker appeared at a private luncheon before the Civic Committee’s parent organization and expressed interest in the group’s plan. Now he has come up with one of his own.

Imagine that: Here in Illinois, the worst-in-the-nation state as measured by pension debt, and there are two worthy options in play. Before us lies an opening that our elected representatives, and our state, cannot afford to miss.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Lo and behold, we don’t trust government much. Not just here in Illinois — which gives us good cause for distrust seemingly sometimes by the day — but globally too.

Government is regarded both as the least ethical and the least competent among four major categories. The media is next in line as the least trusted. On the other end of the barometer, business and nongovernmental organizations enjoy substantial respect for ethics and competence.

Coming over the horizon is artificial intelligence, a disruptive technology of great potential that nevertheless is shaking the foundations of trust around the globe. Edelman told a packed room at the Executives’ Club of Chicago last week that AI could be at an inflection point.

If AI’s coders, business strategists and proponents aren’t careful, an underlying skepticism or even fear could set in that might be difficult to undo, Edelman warned.

“By 2 to 1, people don’t trust the pace of innovation,” Edelman said. “They’re nervous that it’s been poorly managed. They see the lack of transparency. They feel there is no consideration of impacts, and they don’t see that there’s enough government regulation.”

He drew comparisons between AI in its infancy and what happened to genetically modified organisms in the 1990s. GMOs never came close to achieving their potential: Skeptics branded them as “Frankenfoods,” and the category never recovered trust from consumers.

A surprising side note to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, an internet survey of more than 32,000 people around the globe, is that the Midwest is the least trusting region in the U.S. Edelman cites the devastating impact of globalization on job security as a key factor.

Drill down even further into our state, and there’s one particular aspect of life here that spikes a lack of trust: the unethical and outright illegal behavior of government officials.

A few days after Edelman spoke, Tim Mapes was sentenced to 2.5 years in federal prison for lying to federal investigators. Mapes was a longtime key aide to then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, and he lied to the G-men rather than tell the truth about his political boss.

Madigan awaits trial on public corruption charges, after four associates were found guilty in an influence-peddling scheme involving ComEd and other companies with business before the state.

Former Ald. Ed Burke, once the preening, powerful dean of Chicago’s City Council, now awaits sentencing for corruptly shaking down companies with business before the council in order to sign them up as clients of his real estate law practice.

Those are just the marquee names. There are dozens more: In Chicago alone, more than 30 alderman since 1972 have been convicted of crimes related to their official duties. The sprawling federal investigation targeting Madigan has also taken down other elected officials.

Not all the trust-breaking behavior in Illinois is illegal, by the way. Sometimes, as the saying goes, the real scandal involves what’s altogether unethical but still legal.

One such case is taking shape in one of the least-known offices in northern Illinois: the Cook County Board of Review. The obscure agency has remarkable power. It can reverse property valuations by the Cook County assessor. The board has reversed numerous assessment increases by Fritz Kaegi, the reform-minded technocrat first elected assessor to succeed Joe Berrios in 2018.

On the board, and running for reelection, sits Larry Rogers Jr. And Rogers is willing to accept campaign payments — to the tune of $135,000 in the last year — from people who have business before the board. The Tribune detailed Rogers’ conflicts of interest, as well as Rogers’ explanations for why he sees no problem doing business this way, in a story this week.

One Rogers donor was Matthew Tully, a lawyer who made contributions before and after he represented the Chicago Bears before the Board of Review. Tully argued that Kaegi overreached when he assessed the former Arlington Park racetrack property for $197 million — essentially what the Bears paid for it.

The Cook County inspector general recommended in 2015 a ban on soliciting or accepting campaign contributions from people with business before the Board of Review. For nearly a decade now, commissioners have ignored that advice and kept their palms open for gratuities, in the form of campaign contributions that might flow their way.

In 2018, when the county’s Ethics Board found commissioners had failed to comply with legal restrictions on the size of campaign contributions from people appearing before the board, Rogers returned $48,750, the Tribune’s A.D. Quig reported. Not to worry about Rogers, though: The Tribune found that many of the donors gave the returned fund to a political action committee of which Rogers is a member.

Midwesterners have plenty of reason to distrust government. Here in Illinois, with former public officials facing jail time and lax ethics rules allowing Rogers and others to flaunt their indiscretions, we come by our distrust the hard way — from bitter experience that seems to come at us, sometimes almost without end.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.