Gery Chico On Balancing Budgets, More Cops & Better Education
CHICAGO (CBS) - Mayoral candidate Gery Chico is talking about more Chicago cops and better public education. Those are just two pledges he is making.
In an interview with CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine, Chico says he's good at balancing budgets, but won't commit to doing so without raising taxes.
"The taxpayers are punch-drunk with taxes and fees," said Chico. "We have to help them, and I intend to do that by doing everything I can to make that budget as efficient as possible, and squeezing out all the waste and any corruption that remains in that budget."
Chico went on to say that he intends to look for revenues in an entrepreneurial way that hasn't been looked at before.
Chico says his staff, housed in downtown campaign headquarters virtually empty just a week ago, is still refining those new revenue options.
One of which could be an idea he embraced nearly two decades ago, while Mayor Daley's chief of staff: a casino in the city of Chicago.
"In 1992, when the three major casinos out of Las Vegas came to Chicago and proposed a land-based casino, the mayor made me the point person to deal with that project," said Chico. "And I brought it to the point where, but for the legislature in Springfield, it might have already been the case in Chicago."
Another achievement he points to, during his term as Mayor Daley's chief of staff, was adding new police officers.
"I recommended to the mayor a thousand police officers in '93 and we did it," said Chico. "And that's the last time we saw a surge like that with the number of police. We need to see that again. We need to see police walking the beat."
Chico was Chicago's school board president back in the 90's, when he says he turned a billion dollar deficit into a hundred million dollar surplus.
Though to be fair, CEO Paul Vallas was the face of the schools back then, just like Arne Duncan and Ron Huberman who followed.
Now the dynamic has changed. It was Paul Vallas and Gery Chico. Now you don't hear anyone talk about the president of the board.
"I think it's teamwork. For me, it's always been about teamwork," said Chico. "Even as mayor, it would be about teamwork. No one person ever is responsible for great things, or for failures as the case may be."
Chico's wife, Sunny, said her husband is nothing but a round-the-clock hard-worker, often starting at 4:30 a.m. and not stopping until after midnight.
On a personal level, we asked Chico about the significance of becoming the first Latino mayor. See his response in the video below.
To see Jay Levine's complete on-on-one interview with Gery Chico, check out the video below.
