Lori Lightfoot was sworn in today as Mayor of Chicago in a historic ceremony. Mayor Lightfoot has a lot of issues to tackle immediately, including managing the city’s continued budget and pension fund woes, the reform of police, education and housing/development systems and the new constellation of political power factions in the city driven by a crumbled political machine and terrible inequality.
Chicago also inaugurated a new class of aldermen today. Of the 50 aldermen on the city council, 12 are new members, having won their elections this year. Lightfoot has already mixed up the council’s leadership structure and signed an executive order that aims to limit the power of individual aldermen. The relationship between the mayor and the council will be very interesting.