May 18--Mayor Rahm Emanuel took the oath of office to begin his second term Monday and used his inaugural address to focus on a single issue: Chicago's disadvantaged youth.
After thanking his family and former President Bill Clinton, who attended the ceremony at the Chicago Theatre, Emanuel said that during his first term, he had sought to improve the city's schools, make its streets safer, stabilize its finances and create more jobs.
While the mayor said progress had been made, he acknowledged there is more work to do to improve the city's future. But Emanuel chose not to wade into most of the major problems facing the city, including massive unfunded pension liabilities, billion-dollar budget holes and a federal investigation focused on Chicago Public Schools.
Instead, Emanuel turned his attention -- and the rest of his speech -- toward the topic of the city's troubled youth, describing them as a group of teens who live in poverty, fail to receive a proper education and often turn to a life of crime.
"Building that stronger future for Chicago requires us to focus on a difficult subject that is too often ignored in our civic conversation. It is ignored precisely because it is so hard to talk about," Emanuel said, according to prepared remarks. "So today, as we inaugurate the stewards of our city for the next four years, I want to use this moment to shine a spotlight on preventing another lost generation of our city's youth."
The mayor then talked about the hopeless circumstances many of Chicago's children live through, before pointing to programs he considers a success in helping address the problem, including After School Matters, the One Summer Chicago jobs program and Becoming a Man and Working on Womanhood high school mentoring programs.
Still, Emanuel said, more has to be done.
"The faces of these lost and unconnected young men and women are often invisible -- until we see them in a mug shot as the victim or the perpetrator of senseless violence," Emanuel said. "Their existence is avoided rather than confronted. They live in the shadows of our cities -- and in the recesses of our minds. But we must make them ever-present in our conversation."
By focusing on the lack of opportunities in many of the city's minority neighborhoods, and doing it through the lens of the city's youth, Emanuel took on one of the top criticisms lobbed at him during the campaign: He's a mayor who has perpetuated two Chicagos -- one for the wealthy and one for the rest.
While Emanuel raised the problems facing Chicago's disadvantaged youths, he did not offer much in the way of new proposals to address the multitude of societal problems many decades in the making that have driven the economic, crime and educational woes in the city's most downtrodden neighborhoods.
Instead, the mayor sought to use his speech to set the issue as a priority for the entire city.
"Now, I do not pretend to have all of the answers. The solution, though, does start with each of us," Emanuel said. "Over the next four years, I will do everything in my power to spark hope in the eyes of every Chicagoan.
"We will work harder than ever to restore trust where it is broken and opportunity where it is lost," the mayor said. "But today I challenge every citizen of this great city: You must do your part."
Emanuel then gave examples of Chicago students who had overcome long odds to enjoy success. He pointed to the Phillips Academy football team, which made it to the Class 4A state title game last year with a team the mayor said included seven players who were homeless. He also lauded Urban Prep High School for again graduating 100 percent of its students and sending them all to college.
Then Emanuel told the story of Marcus Norris, who the mayor said was sitting in his house as a 9-year-old when a "random gunshot came through the window and knocked out four of his teeth."
For the next nine years, the mayor said, Norris was too embarrassed to smile until he entered the Becoming a Man program, where his mentor, Timothy Jackson, instilled confidence in Norris and raised money for dental surgery for the student.
"Marcus was able to smile for his high school graduation photo. And he will be wearing a big smile at his upcoming graduation ceremony at Fulton High School this summer. His dream is to enter a college culinary program and one day become a chef," Emanuel said. "Marcus -- all of Chicago is smiling with you today."
Second inaugural speeches tend to be trickier for politicians than the first, where the formula often is to highlight an agenda heading into office. For many, the second time around features a mixture of touting accomplishments while ticking off priorities for a second term. Emanuel's decision to draw attention to a single issue is less conventional.
Heading into Monday's speech, much of the focus had been on Chicago's cratering finances.
Both the city and Chicago Public Schools face $1 billion deficits. The Illinois Supreme Court's ruling this month that public employee retirement benefits may not be diminished once they've been granted has jeopardized two pension deals Emanuel negotiated and makes striking new ones to cover police, firefighters and teachers more difficult.
The court ruling led major Wall Street agencies last week to downgrade Chicago and CPS debt ratings, with one terming the city and school district's credit rating "junk."
Emanuel also is faced with negotiating a new contract with the city's teachers to avoid a strike, while his CPS CEO, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, remains on leave because of a federal investigation into a contract she backed for a former employer.
The mayor didn't mention most of that Monday, touching on the city's financial issues only briefly at the beginning of his speech, saying he'd be "continuing to address our pressing pension and financial issues."
The speech allowed Emanuel to address a key criticism of the campaign from challenger Jesus "Chuy" Garcia. The Cook County commissioner repeatedly slammed Emanuel for presiding over spikes in homicides and shootings during his first term and focusing on downtown economic development at the expense of neighborhoods.
As he reached the end of his speech, Emanuel alluded to the notion that many of the city's neighborhoods had been neglected.
"The truth is that years of silence and inaction have walled off a portion of our city. It is time to stop turning our heads and turning the channel. It is time for each of us to start breaking down those walls," Emanuel said. "We cannot abandon our most vulnerable children to the gang and the gun. They have the potential and the desire to be so much more."
In addition to Emanuel, City Clerk Susana Mendoza, Treasurer Kurt Summers and the 50 aldermen were sworn in Monday.
bruthhart@tribpub.com
