Portraying Chicago as a crime-ridden “city in decline” and Mayor Brandon Johnson as the teachers union’s “tool,” mayoral challenger John Kelly vowed Thursday to use the insider relationships he has built as a career lobbyist to deliver the resources the city needs.
If elected, Kelly promised to work toward adding 20 more ambulances, replacing “beat up” fire engines and trucks and hiring 1,000 more police officers to bolster a Chicago Police Department that Johnson has used his first three budgets to shrink by attrition.
Kelly is not saying precisely how he would pay for all of that when Chicago is facing a $90 million mid-year shortfall, a $1 billion gap in next year’s budget and a $36 billion pension crisis that has police and fire pension funds dangerously close to bankruptcy.
He would only talk in the broadest of strokes about reducing police overtime, cutting the mayor’s 154-member bodyguard detail and approaching private businesses, maybe even some of his own lobbying clients, for help.
“You need to find a way to spend money on equipment rather than all of the personnel that the mayor has paid for. If you have some of these unfunded positions that the mayor has in his office, you can cut 20 of those and buy five ambulances,” said Kelly, whose videotaped visits to Chicago firehouses for campaign videos has prompted an investigation by the Chicago Board of Ethics. The city’s ethics ordinance bars candidates for city office from intentionally using city property for political purposes.
“How about we talk to business people in Chicago and ask them, `Would you like to sponsor any ambulance? Can businesses in Chicago pony up and maybe buy an ambulance?’ Those are the kinds of things we need to discuss.”
Kelly, 53, is a consummate political insider.
For nearly three decades, he has lobbied on behalf of clout-heavy clients that do business with City Hall — the same people and companies he would have to deal with and say no to if he’s elected mayor.
“The number one guiding principle I will have is, `Is this a good deal for the taxpayers?’ because they’re gonna be my client the day I get elected,” Kelly told the Sun-Times.
“If [White Sox Chair] Jerry Reinsdorf walks in my office … or Soo Kim, the owner of Bally’s, and asks me to do something … that’s not in the best interest of Chicago, I’m happy to tell them `no’ and I will tell them ‘no.’ … I can be conflict-free because I have an inner-core guiding principle: Is this right for the city of Chicago.’“
Kelly’s client list includes Bally’s, the debt-laden gambling giant that has stopped construction on all non-gambling elements of the $1.7 billion casino and entertainment complex in River West amid a heated dispute over a City Council majority’s decision to legalize video gambling terminals.
“They won’t be lining my pockets [as mayor] because I’ll have divested myself from my firm upon winning,” Kelly said. “As mayor, I need to look at, is the money we’re gonna make from the VGTs — the net terminal income that’s gonna go to the city — worth what Bally’s is gonna make?”
Noting that the tax on slot machine revenue is now nearly four times higher than it is on video gambling terminals, Kelly said he’s prepared to use his Springfield connections to lobby for a bigger cut for Chicago akin to the one-third share the state receives.
“A mayor … has to go to Springfield to do that, and this group’s incapable of doing it,” Kelly said of Johnson and his lobbying team.
Kelly describes himself as a moderate Democrat. But his wife, Julie Kelly, is an outspoken conservative who is a fixture on social media and right-wing podcasts.
She has made clear her support for President Donald Trump, the Jan. 6 protesters he pardoned, and the deportation campaign known as “Operation Midway Blitz” that swept through Chicago area neighborhoods.
“Opposites attract. … My wife and I disagree on a lot of things — not just about politics,” Kelly said. “This keeps being brought up by my opponents and I’m kind of thrilled that they’re doing that. It shows me and the taxpayers… that I’m a threat to them.”
The Kellys are currently named as co-defendants in a Will County lawsuit filed by a contractor who claims the company is owed nearly $650,000 on construction of their $4.4 million compound in Homer Glen.
“If we want to get out of the city for a weekend, it’s someplace we can go to. I can’t afford a mansion on Lake Geneva like a lot of my political opponents,” Kelly said. “I don’t know of anyone that’s ever built a home that has not had a problem with their contractor.”