Chicago City Wire

Almost two years after Lori Lightfoot won by a landslide to become the mayor of Chicago, David Greising reviewed her performance.

He asked some of the mayor’s earliest supporters for their feedback.

“Though they’re disappointed, most still have hope,” Greising wrote in a Chicago Tribune column. “They believe Lightfoot has a shot at rebooting in time for a reelection run. And they are eyeing that age-old calculation of Chicago mayors: Is there anyone who could beat her?”

Yet, “words run dry” when he asked the supporters to specify any accomplishments by Chicago’s first female black mayor.

COVID-19 is a given challenge to every leader which Lightfoot started to face a year after she was elected in her current office.

But aside from the objections her COVID-19 mitigation measures have received, there’s still a list of struggles Lightfoot has to overcome and promises to fulfill.  

“The resignation of her communications chief, loss of her City Council floor leader and dismissal of her corporation counsel — among others — have fed the notion that Lightfoot is an abrasive boss and, possibly, an ineffective leader,” Greising noted.

At present, Lightfoot, who said she will give Chicagoans a real voice in the government through an elected school board, has not yet convinced the Chicago Teachers Union to go back to their brick and mortar classrooms.

“No one said it would be easy. But candidate Lightfoot said she could do the job. And now it’s Mayor Lightfoot’s time to prove she was right — or she may not be mayor for long,” Greising concluded.