Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says she’s taken the first step in ending a public feud with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, calling the mayor Thursday morning in the hopes of beginning a conversation about how the two could work together on gun violence.
But the mayor didn’t pick up — Preckwinkle was forced to leave a voicemail.
“As everyone knows there’s no single remedy to the complex challenges of ending violence,” Preckwinkle said. “I requested in my message that we have a private, face-to-face meeting to start the process of discussing strategies to combat gun violence, which plagues so many of our communities.”
The County Board president and unsuccessful mayoral candidate didn’t dispute that the two are feuding, side-stepping that question at an unrelated news conference, insisting that “this is about governance, not politics.”
“We all know that there’s no single remedy to stopping the violence, but there’s also no denying that Cook County and Chicago are stronger if we work together to address these issues. And I’ve said it all along, and I look forward to hearing back.”
Preckwinkle and Lightfoot shook hands and made nice the day after the April election that crowned Lightfoot the next mayor — and saw Preckwinkle lose big in every ward in the city.
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But in July, Preckwinkle sent Lightfoot a letter lambasting the rhetoric used by Lightfoot’s top cop, Police Supt. Eddie Johnson in which he seemed to blame the county’s bail reform efforts for the city’s shootings.
“Cook County’s bond system is not the reason behind gun violence in Chicago,” Preckwinkle wrote in her letter. “Gun violence was at its highest in 2016 but since then, as we instituted bail reform, the homicide rate and shootings have dropped substantially.”
Preckwinkle didn’t give Lightfoot a heads-up that that letter was coming even though the two met the week before. On Friday, Lightfoot said in a meeting with the Sun-Times Editorial Board that she’d tried to have a meeting with Preckwinkle but was swatted away.
“Let me be clear, I have said ‘Madame president, chief judge, sheriff, state’s attorney, let’s get together, let’s put our data out for the public to be able to see it and let’s work together towards solutions’ and what I got back was not a ‘yeah, that’s a great idea.’ I got back another nasty-gram from her,” Lightfoot said.
“So other people who are part of this ecosystem have reached out and said let’s have a conversation and I commend the chief judge and the presiding judge and Sheriff [Tom] Dart and State’s Attorney Kim Foxx because I think all of us can … make some progress. And we will make progress.”
In her Friday response, Preckwinkle placed the blame on Lightfoot for the failure to meet.
“Here are the facts: We’ve invited the Mayor and Superintendent Johnson to the table several times in hopes of having a productive conversation based on identifying solutions,” Preckwinkle said in part. “It is clear they are not willing to sit down as they have either been unavailable or declined those requests.”
On Thursday, a spokeswoman for Lightfoot was not immediately available for comment.
Preckwinkle said she hopes the two can work together. The County Board president also didn’t seem fazed about the city’s looming budget woes impacting her county budget, which should be unveiled next month and currently contains no new taxes, fines or fees.
Preckwinkle has made pensions one of her priorities in Springfield during the upcoming veto session, a concern that’s shared by Lightfoot, but whether or not the two will be able to work together remains to be seen.
“Concern about our pension liabilities is a common issue, but it’s always the details — the devil’s in the details, isn’t that the saying?” Preckwinkle said. “We’ll see — I hope to work together.”
