Let's just call him Mayor Flip-Flop
He only makes a decision so he can reverse himself
The consensus throughout Cook County is housing and feeding asylum-seekers who has come to Chicago is a crisis of epic proportions. No one in the private or public sector can honestly say they have ever seen anything like this. However, when leaders of either sector are faced with an unprecedented crisis, they take immediate action-unless you are Mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson.
We got a clear picture of this past week when the mayor touted the convening of a summit known as the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus. Supposedly it is comprised of mayors in the county and Cook County collar counties to take a holistic approach at the myriad issues surrounding migrants who have been bounced around and scattered throughout Chicago for months.
Many, if not most of us have lost track of how many times Johnson has described this situation as nothing less than a “humanitarian crisis.” More recently he has added the misnomer “international.” The notion it is a crisis in irrefutable. The city’s budget is being drain; police stations were serving as guest houses; and women, men, and children were forced to sleep outdoors in bone-chilling temperatures.
So, it was a smart move, albeit months too late, to reach out to other mayors to brainstorm solutions. Johnson even offered to host such a gathering at the United Center. But suddenly a couple of days before the mayors were to show up; the summit got postponed -and for the most feckless reason imaginable-the cold weather.
Cold weather? Yep, that is the excuse Johnson et al came up. Cold weather is something to be feared when you have to wait outdoors for your CTA bus or el; but when you have a brand new car, or better yet, a driver; and can drive right to the front door of the United Center; the weather is a nominal factor at best. To postpone what was supposed to be critical discussions about an admitted crisis is inexcusable. If the mayors thought they are being inconvenienced by the cold; did they give any consideration to the asylum-seekers? Obviously not!
As it has been pointed out here more than once, the mayor lacks political acumen that could make his job easier and his plans more effective. However, as we have seen previously, ego rules and politlical pragmatism is somewhere way off in the distance. It probably sounded like a good idea at the time time to wrangle the regional mayors into one place.
Johnson’s ego hijacked the possibility of success as he made the assumption that merely by announcing said summit and inviting the mayors they would show. Since being in office has the mayor made the rounds to all of the other mayors in the county to introduce himself? I am sure if that were the case, a ream of news releases would have been sent
.While Johnson may be a big deal in Chicago and in his mind; that rush doesn’t travel well. New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann publicly noted the day after the summit was cancelled he had no plans of attending that one, or its replacement. Apparently, other mayors share Baldermann’s sentiments,
Someone on Team Johnson should have tested the waters regarding whether it thought had much merit by polling the mayors beforehand. It would have meant avoiding any degree of public humiliation as the Baldermann anouncement brought on,
Do you remember when Mayor Brandon Johnson was going to travel to the Texas/Mexico border in November? However, he flip-flopped and didn’t go. More recently he implemented ceiling of 60 days on how long migrants could stay in city shelters, but reversed himself last week.
The mayor had to back off his decision to establish a base camp for migrants a couple of miles from the Cook County Jail after he ignored Gov. JB Pritizker’s acknowledgement that the state wasn’t going to kick in $150 million to make the base camp happen. The cost to taxpayers was more than $1 million to start construction and then be forced to deconstruct it.
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Johnson’s shaky decision-making is only going to get worse as Chicago will host political types from across the country when the Democratic National Convention is here in August, and near the end of the year when Chicagoans will elect its first school board in generations; and in three years, which is not long in political terms; he will have to defend his record during a re-election bid. That is, unless he flip-flops again and doesn’t run after he declared he would be the city’s longest -serving mayor.