>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight.

I'm Nick Blumberg.

Brandis Friedman is on assignment.

Here's what we're looking at.

>> And promise is no excuses.

It's time for Chicago to make real progress.

>> Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza launches her bid to be Chicago's next mayor.

She joins us tonight to discuss her campaign.

>> We don't or cost by government.

We do it like knowing our state.

And recapping the spring legislative session with Illinois House Republican leader Tony Macomb.

>> First off tonight, anti-violence advocates and community leaders are demanding answers from the city on a gunshot detection system.

It's been nearly 2 years since the city phased out.

The controversial spot shot or system at a city hall news conference today.

Residents say they're tired of waiting for answers on a replacement or on bringing the technology back.

Was it perfect?

No.

>> But for survivors, it represented one more that can help.

Police respond faster, gather evidence and potentially cases.

So when the city does make that decision 2 years ago, so a limb and makes a spot is my question was simple.

It was what you would.

What would replace it with?

What new investment do you have?

What notes do technology?

Do you have strategy?

We have staff on cases.

>> Today's news conference was held ahead of a scheduled meeting of the City Council's Public Safety committee.

But that gathering was canceled when not enough.

Other people attended Chicago analysis recently found that Chicago police actually responded faster to 9-1-1.

Calls on the south and West sides after ShotSpotter was removed.

A major development is breaking ground on Chicago's West side officials gathered today to kick off the 7 billion dollar plans that will redevelop more than 55 acres of parking.

Lots around the United Center.

The 19 0, 1, project's first phase will include a new 6,000 seat music Hall hotel, retail space and 2 parking garages once complete.

The project will also include restaurants, thousands of residential units, a new CTA station and green Space United Center officials say the development will generate 32,000 construction jobs, 7,000 permanent jobs and 104 million dollars in annual tax revenue last month, city council members approved a 55 million dollar property tax break for the development.

Free YMCA memberships are coming for Chicago teens as part of its new get summer program.

The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago is announcing that young people ages 12 through 18 can get a free membership to the why.

Starting Monday.

>> Summer can be a challenging time that when school lets out and structures and safe spaces the kids count on.

Don't always follow them into July.

And all of us.

That's the challenge we take personally here because these are kids and this is our community.

>> The 7 participating locations are the Irving Park.

Kelly Hall Lakeview.

Mccormick around her family, South side and West Garfield Park YMCA is teen 17 and younger must be accompanied by an adult to register.

The free membership runs through the end of August.

The Chicago Bears starting quarterback has a new starring role EA Sports and the Bears announced today that Caleb Williams will grace the cover of the 2027 version of the long-running video game.

Madden NFL, the company teased a full review of the cover tomorrow night at 7 Central.

The Deluxe edition of the Games cover features Williams showing off his signature nail art, including the Bears logo and a Chicago flag.

Williams is the first bear to make the cover of Madden told ESPN it's a childhood dream coming.

True up next is and O's on her bid to lead Chicago.

She joins us right after this.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part why the Alexandra and John Nichols family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation.

And the support of these donors.

>> The new contender for mayor of Chicago, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced her second run for mayor today.

Having made a first bid in 2019.

She served controller since 2016 before that she was Chicago City clerk and a member of the Illinois House Meadows has been a frequent critic critic of Mayor Brandon Johnson and her announcement today.

She called for responsible spending and accountability to everyday Chicagoans.

And joining us now Illinois comptroller and now candidate for mayor.

Thank you for joining the program.

We thanks for having So as we mentioned, several roles in prior shot at the mayor's office.

What got you interested in running this time?

>> It became clear to me, number one that we are experiencing a crisis of financial magnitude that the closest thing I can compare it to is what I took over the state of Illinois with that financial crisis.

But when there's really 3 major crises and I really discovered this because I can feel it is Chicago and the more importantly, I had a listening tour over the last almost year.

heard directly from Chicagoans and they made it clear that we have a financial crisis, a public safety crisis and a crisis of confidence in that the city is moving in the right direction and can ever come back.

And so it is absolutely imperative that we get it right this next time, right since 2019, we've now had 2 failed administration's back-to-back people tried something different and it has been a colossal failure.

We've seen credit downgrade after credit downgrade for the city of Chicago at the same time that under my fiscal stewardship we've seen upgrade after upgrade at the state level.

And so I do believe that property taxes are going to always keep squeezing people to death.

If we don't actually get a handle on the hemorrhaging of our state's finances, public safety, huge issue.

You started talking about ShotSpotter.

If you talk to people in the actual communities most impacted by gun violence, they want a system like ShotSpotter to be there.

And I would say that I just heard that story and they did talk about Halloween.

The response times have been better, but that was measured against response times in the winter night in the summer.

So if you're going measure the response times, it should be apples to apples summer.

summer winter winter at the end of the day, if we have a tool that can stop a human being from bleeding out, we should invest in that too and make sure that we can help save lives.

And at the same time assist in investigations.

So you're likely to face a crowded field of competitors here, including the potential of some other more moderate candidates such as yourself.

How does that complicate your path to victory?

Do you think?

>> Well, like every this is America, everybody has a chance to run.

I think that my game plan is going to be to do what I always do, which is go straight to the voters.

This is a time in which I've had a good 9.10, months to talk to the voters directly.

Voters know who I am in the last election that Iran and I was the top vote getter not only in the state of Illinois, but also here in the city of Chicago.

And I love going straight into the neighborhoods.

Why?

Because I'm a neighborhood's girl.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

I was born with more like a plastic spork.

And you know, it's it's versatile.

It sufficient just like me.

that's what most of Chicago's like.

They're people who who understand daily challenges.

I can connect with that.

I want to fight for them.

And I also want to do a good job of unifying our whole city.

You know, we need a mayor who's gonna bring us all together.

Instead of finding every area in which we can be divided.

I'm gonna represent the 2 million-plus Chicagoans, some of whom agree with everything you have to say.

And those who do not.

And that's OK because good mayor.

A great mayor is gonna listen to every voice.

Not just the yes people but the know people and try to being people together and find common ground that will lead to progress.

Alright, progress is so much more important and promises.

You know, when ICE raids were first beginning in the Chicago area in January of 2025.

>> You were in supported.

There was a post indeed tie national with a history of crimes for and they haven't been reported charges.

But are you still supportive of the immigration crackdown that's been targeted talk very vocally against targeting hard-working, law-abiding immigrants.

I've been very much, though, like any normal rational person would not be in favor of offenders who in that specific instance you're referring to a repeat offender is not someone who I would support, whether they born here or not said no problem with going after the worst criminals amongst But I absolutely will defend is I always have.

And I've been vocally in support hardworking immigrants who add to our fabric of our economy, both as a city and his state, you know, going after a father with no criminal record who's taking his child to school despicable, right?

I've never for that.

I've been vocally against types of things going after Ali women with no criminal record, his mother for kids, some with disabilities.

And that is just wrong.

That doesn't make our community any safer.

And I've said that many, many times to.

To be clear, I am not for criminals, protecting criminals where they were born here or not.

And I do believe that the vast majority of our community, our entire city, is made up of immigrants from all over the world who make Chicago a better place.

You also called for the alleged killer of Loyola student shared in Gorman to be deported to El Salvador.

>> There's prison there with a long history of accusations of human rights abuses.

Is call you stand by?

I will say this.

That person is an absolute scourge to society.

>> My heart breaks for the family of Sharon.

Gordon.

And my concern is on that families grieving of that loss.

I'm definitely not concerned with the comfort of the person who murdered her viciously.

And by the way, was just arrested again for having a shank in prison the other day.

So, look, I think we have to get our priorities straight as running a city that puts the victims at the front of the line for compassion, comfort versus the comfort of criminals who are murdering innocent people in our streets.

That shouldn't be controversial.

That's just common sense.

You know, in 2018, you ran for reelection as controller before launching a mayoral bid in 2019.

>> This time you didn't run for re-election.

Do you think that additional campaign time may give you an advantage over some possible competitors like and Alexi Giannoulias, Sir?

Mike quickly, who could do have re-election bid to November?

Well, what I think is that Chicago voters deserve a mayor who's all in?

>> Right.

I could very stepped up for office as a top vote getter in the entire state of Illinois.

And my last reelection.

So I have the full faith and confidence of the public would have continued to support me.

But I'm not really worried about hanging on to elected office for the rest of my life.

I want to be reckoned.

Have the biggest impact.

And for me, it's not about playing it safe for myself.

I'm not I'm not worried about my career prospects.

I'm worried about the future of this city.

And so if I want to go before voters like any candidate, that candidates should be willing you know, throw their ball over the fence in and go for put all their chips on the table and say I am all in for Chicago right now on the only one who's willing to walk away from an office because I do care about my personal career ambitions.

I care about this city and everybody should really ideally the all-in for Chicago if they want this job.

>> During your previous run, you were criticized for your ties to former Alderman Ed Burke.

Are you concerned that that relationship could post trouble for this campaign?

Absolutely not.

That's so absurd.

I mean, any elected official who has ever served for more than 10 minutes over the last 20 to 30 years would have to have had a working relationship with him and many other elected officials and the same way I've had.

Yeah, I've worked with Barack Obama and had photos with him.

So it's just really ridiculous to even bring that up.

I'll tell you why.

Because if you go talk to any Chicago in Houghton, the streets, they're going to tell you that anyone who that is for the most part, but they do care about the violence in their streets.

They care about the fact that we're hemorrhaging money and charging them more in property taxes and they care about the fact that people are leaving our city and losing confidence in it instead of choosing Chicago as a place to grow their family, grow their business, grow their wealth and opportunity.

So I will be the mayor who focuses on the real issues that people care about because really nobody cares about that.

Not Mayor Johnson and Mayor Lightfoot before him have had a somewhat contentious relationship with City Council.

>> What would you do to improve the relationship between, you Mendoza, administration and older people?

I forward to being able to actually lead the council because I've experienced doing that as a state legislator for 10 years.

I was a legislator known for my effective legislation, which was bipartisan.

I Democrats and Republicans work across the aisle to get things done.

I did the same thing when I was city Chicago, I was responsible for managing the council.

I was able to modernize the city sticker program, right?

Because I was able to put the votes together to institute the legislation that gave me that authority.

So I know how to get things legislatively at the state level which the last 2 mayors have failed miserably at certainly at the city council level.

I've been there done that and obviously managing finances.

Nobody can even begin to touch the successful financial record that I delivered for Chicagoans in the state of Illinois.

So I know how to bring people together.

5 a superpower?

It's building great teams and getting things done.

And the city council also, I'm sure is hungry for actual leadership.

That knows how to get things done and bring people together.

So mayor who is absolutely a collaborator, not because I say will be because already have it.

Alright, Illinois comptroller and mayoral candidates thank you very much.

Thank you for having me.

It's been a pleasure.

Up next, a conversation with Republican leader of the Illinois House.

Stay with us.

>> The Illinois General Assembly wrapped up its spring session in the wee hours of Monday morning with a 56 billion dollar budget and some key legislation passed.

But questions still remain about the Bears Stadium.

The fate of new taxes, the focus of state spending and much more.

Joining us tonight to look back on the session is Illinois House Republican leader Tony Macomb.

Be welcome back to the program.

Thanks for having me.

So Bear Stadium, as you know, even better than major topic this past session, House passed that mega projects bill in April, allowing payments in lieu of taxes 3.30, Monday morning Senate passes a different bill allowing municipalities of 70,000 or more to create these local stadium authorities.

What was your reaction to that last minute change?

>> Well, it was just bad, a last-minute change.

I think it certainly would have been out what the Bears were possibly looking for more so than maybe the mega project.

But back to the mega project, I think it's, you know, that was more of a statewide initiative which would be bring investment into the state, which is pretty important.

Bears were kind of secondary on that.

Probably why they didn't like it so much.

But I don't know that we have much time.

I think if we would have had the Republicans and Democrats or even just the Democrats from the House, the Senate and the governor's office with a bear sitting in a room, we might have had a deal, but they weren't able to get that down.

>> From what you hear from the folks in your caucus is keeping the Bears in Illinois a priority.

>> As long as it doesn't hurt the property tax payer.

We want some protections in place and we believe that the mega project bill that was passed out of the House would have had that picks in there.

Yeah.

>> So House Speaker Chris Welch joins us on the program last night.

And he talked about bipartisanship during the budget process.

Here's a little bit of what he had to say.

>> We've gotten better every year since I've been speaker.

You leader Macomb be said earlier on a radio show that, you know, she enjoyed the conversations with me her budget 2 years with my budget.

Here's there's a lot of coordination.

Are we going to agree?

We're going to disagree probably more than we agree because of the differences in the parties.

But, you know, we can do better.

We can always do better.

And I'm committed to that.

>> What do you make of the speaker's comments?

You think Republicans were meaningfully involved in budgeting this year?

I would say collaboration is a push, but certainly I did appreciate the conversation and we we have miss that.

We haven't had that on my first years later, which was this is my 4th year.

We did speak regularly this is the first year.

We've kind of got back to a conversation.

So I'm hopeful that that will continue and hopefully it'll grow the rank and file do it much better than he and I do so.

Hopefully they continue conversations.

But collaboration as much as a little bit of a push.

Yeah, but it does feel like it's better compared to previous years.

Yeah, quite honestly, it's helpful for our staff.

And, you know, the day of the budget on our Sunday, I guess I should say that's what's helpful to them.

Our staff on both the House in and then the Senate are there for, you know, today, sleeping 6 hours and to have a conversation with their staff, especially in the budget.

Here's to know what's coming really is helpful to them as well, which is the more important piece collegial, if not necessarily collaboratively.

Yeah, but we didn't even have hearings.

We had subject matter.

And that's certainly not transparent for the public.

And and we've had advocates and taxpayers down for 6 months fighting and then for them not even to have an option to, you know, way.

And that's not that's not right.

That's not good government.

Speaker Welsh also addressed criticism that the House and Senate weren't coordinating well, in particular on things like scheduling.

He called that a false narrative.

Here's a little bit of what he had to say.

>> Chambers are very different line is double the size of the Senate.

The second year of a GA involves election year.

There's a lot of needs of members to be back home in their districts.

Our our needs are different from the Senate needs.

And so one sitting down to the calendar that had to come into play.

What's your reaction to that comment?

>> Well, I'm I'm not the speaker for the president, but I feel that I was I certainly would have conversations.

Collaborate is again to have the advocates comedown.

Also when we're not in the same building together, how are we going to have conversations so if that was if that was the case, he says he's the listener of the house and that the speaker, he should listen to everybody.

>> This budget includes a number of new taxes.

Things like social media companies, digital ads.

Where would you have looked to to to balance the budget in terms of some of items in there?

>> Well, I'm may or may not be popular with some of your viewers, but certainly to have health insurance for illegal noncitizens is it is a cut where we certainly would have been interested in that real property tax reform.

When you're talking about a housing issue, lower our property taxes and more people are going to move into our area.

So if we have more higher tie tax base, not going continue to raise our tax rates.

But that would be the most obvious.

>> What do you make of the idea of a tax on high income earners?

The so-called millionaires tax that was floated but didn't go anywhere.

Yeah.

It would have been up to the voters.

It would have been interesting to see how it was worded, but >> millionaires have the ability more so than you and I to leave the state.

And you saw that with Ken Griffin with He took hundreds of millions of dollars that used to help our most vulnerable.

>> Do you expect some of these new taxes that have been enacted in this budget to produce the promised revenue?

>> No, and I don't think they do either.

And there was several of the tax is a social media one.

You know, I a brainiac idea from Mayor Johnson to it.

We can't even they can't even implement that.

So I think that's why they weren't really counting on that revenue this budget.

They want to go ahead and and wait to the next budget.

See if how it works and you know, that's going to cost taxpayers, you know, in the courts.

>> The Speaker Welton and others on the Democratic side said, you know, federal funding cuts as part of last year's one big beautiful bill.

Also complicated this year's budget.

Was that something that you saw?

>> I think it's something that they're certainly talking about.

You hear the word 8 billion dollars.

But we you know, the most apparent thing they talk about is people losing their snap benefits the best way for us to not have people lose their snap benefits is to fix our error rate.

So the governor has to take care of that.

That's an agency mismanagement issue.

It was about 6% when he came into office and now it's over 11%.

He gets back down to 6%.

We won't lose federal funding.

>> Now you Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson likely not in alignment on a lot of issues, but you are both part pretty big group of folks advocating against cuts to the local government distributive fund for people who aren't familiar with that funding.

It's a little bit of a clunky name, but it's an important source of revenue.

Why was that important for Absolutely once the mayor of a small town very different than Chicago.

But >> 1968 1969.

It was an agreement that portion of the income tax would be returned to municipalities and villages at 10%.

We have not been at that 10% for years.

The governor's proposed budget was to cut that by 60 million and he'd he decided not to do that.

So took it up to 6.4, 7%, which is not still that 10%.

You want to lower property taxes rather than blame the local officials and the local school boards bring that back up to 10%.

>> Funding for K 12 education through the evidence.

Base funding formula went up by 350 million dollars still far below the target for many districts.

It is the increase in this current budget enough.

>> That's the promise.

And I'm glad they're keeping it.

They didn't do that.

Last year.

They took away the 50 million for the property tax relief for schools.

So was glad to see that restore this year.

>> you know, when we're looking for the needed revenue to try and, you know, reach reach these targets for districts.

Where do you think that education funding should be coming from?

>> Well, one of the things I think's important that we've had the evidence base funding model in place now, I think since 2018 and we need to reevaluate to make sure that it's working the way it's supposed to.

So rather than just extending the sunset to see if we are funding properly, we should probably re-evaluate that.

That's one of the things government does.

Illinois certainly not alone start a program and doesn't check to see if it's still working efficiently.

So I'd like to see that first before I can give a a real good answer.

>> There are also some fairly high-profile items that the governor brought up early in the session.

Things like zoning reform, you know, regulations on data center expansion.

Those didn't end up going anywhere in the spring to expect we might see those come back up in the veto session in the fall or in the lame duck or early next year.

>> Yeah, and I think he could an paused the data-center incentives if you wanted to just by saying so.

So we'll have to see.

Can I actually agree that they should be bringing their own energy?

I think the technology is changing.

So it helps with protections of water.

So we'll have to see what he decides to do.

There.

But time will tell.

>> There was another area of a pretty wide bipartisan agreement this year, which is on AI regulation.

Why is that something that's important for lawmakers to tackle?

>> It's important, but we also have to be careful because is this something better to do on federal side and some, including myself would say yes, but this here was really brought by AI companies, you know, wanting a 3rd party to audit to make sure that it is safe.

So I think that's certainly important.

And I was glad to see that piece of legislation passed.

>> We're almost out of time, but I want to ask, what are the priorities for your caucus moving into the summer months?

>> Yeah, we really spent a lot of time with our constituents.

The best part of the job is when we're outside of the dome, quite honestly, but really to continue some conversations.

We've we had a lot of good conversations with rank and file on a lot of different topics.

So certainly to continue those those conversations and reach out across the state.

always nice to get out of the capital get some fresh air.

Yeah, there it is.

>> Alright, Illinois House Republican Leader Tony Mccombe.

Thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

>> And as we mentioned on last night's program, we were joined by Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch.

>> If you miss that conversation, you can watch it on our website or on our W T Tw YouTube Channel.

And that's our show for this Wednesday night.

Stay connected with our reporters and what they're working on by following us on Instagram at W T Tw Chicago.

Join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 CEO of comment joins us to discuss the state of the energy industry and its impact on customers in Illinois.

Now for all of us here at Chicago tonight, I'm Nick Blumberg.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe and have a good night.

>> Closed captioning is made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford law offices, a Chicago personal injury and wrongful death that supports