Susana Mendoza says Chicago businesses would ‘stop feeling like piggy banks’ if she’s mayor

CHICAGO — Susana Mendoza vowed Wednesday to make fixing the city's credit ratings one of her top priorities if she becomes mayor , in a City Club of Chicago speech filled with overtures to the business community.

"On day one of the Mayor Mendoza administration, at the end of a full day at our new City Hall, I'm going to head to the airport that night," Mendoza, the Illinois comptroller, began. "I'm going to catch a flight to New York City, and in the morning I'm going to meet with every single credit rating agency, and I'm going to deliver one message: Chicago is back."

The downtown lunch crowd greeted the pledge with a standing ovation for Mendoza, who is hoping to stand out among several moderate candidates in the 2027 race to unseat Mayor Brandon Johnson. She repeatedly extended olive branches during her speech and question-and-answer session to the city's business community and wealthiest residents, both of whom she said have been shunned under the current administration.

"Chicago businesses deserve to stop feeling like piggy banks and start feeling like partners," Mendoza said.

Declaring that Chicago was facing a trifecta of crises in finances, public safety and confidence, Mendoza promised to cut in half the construction approval and permitting timeline for new buildings. She said that she would make the construction crane the new official bird of Chicago and that under her watch, the city will see more cranes than pigeons.

That's an impossibly grand campaign promise given Chicago's prominence as an urban aviary mecca, but impossible promises are par for the course during election season. And Mendoza was sure to attack her opponents for a campaign agenda she described as "political theater": taxing the rich.

Mendoza in her speech said the city must stop driving out "high-end earners" and afterward told reporters she believes the millionaire's tax proposal supported by Johnson and Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias would unintentionally hurt working-class Chicagoans.

"Especially if you don't like them, especially if you think that all people who are successful and make money in this city are bad, when they leave, those of us who are left behind have to pick up the difference in the revenue that is lost by these high-net earners," Mendoza said.

On property taxes, she was less committal. Her speech called for lowering property taxes but she would not say whether she would hold the line when it comes to the actual levy in the city budget that the mayor controls.

"Well, I'm not mayor yet, and when I'm mayor, I'll take a look at, line by line, every line in the budget and make sure that we're cutting waste where it exists and that we're putting forth a balanced, sensible budget," Mendoza said. "So I can't tell you what that looks like yet because I'm not the mayor."

Multiple candidates, including Giannoulias, have already vowed to not raise property taxes, a campaign promise that is popular with Chicago voters who feel tax-burdened.

But that same vow has come to bite Johnson as mayor. He faced a round of grief for walking back his own 2023 promise not to raise property taxes by proposing a whopping $300 million hike in his second budget. Aldermen unanimously voted that down.

This time around, Johnson has been more circumspect. Asked Wednesday if he'd commit to not raising property taxes under a second term, the mayor only said, "If we pass a millionaire's tax and challenge big corporations to pay their fair share in taxes, we can alleviate that burden."

Mendoza in her "Growth Plan" also vowed to support new industries in Chicago, naming tech companies such as robotics, logistics and "digital health," developing the city's workforce, particularly in the Black community, and partnering with the private sector to grow the economy rather than tax it. She also said autonomous vehicle driving was inevitable in Chicago, and that "with safeguards," Chicago should "lean into innovation."

As one of many candidates hoping to occupy the tough-on-crime lane, Mendoza also shouted out Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke. Mendoza endorsed Burke in the primary against Clayton Harris, a more left-leaning opponent who had the Cook County Democratic Party's support.

"Where others were scared to take a position in that race, I was scared about people continuing to be victimized in our city," Mendoza said.

Mendoza also scattered sporks across the tables at the City Club, a reference to her slogan that she was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth and would be doing more with less.

"If I need a utensil, and I need to buy a spoon and I also need to buy a fork but I can't afford them, then I'm going to buy this spork, and it's going to get the job done," Mendoza said. "Because this next mayoralty is not going to be fun and pretty and flowery."

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