- Sun-Times Media
- Forty-seventh Ward alderman Ameya Pawar wants you to know that he’s going to vote to raise your taxes.
The morning after the city’s pension “reform” bill became a done deal, 47th Ward alderman Ameya Pawar walked into a North Center cafe wanting breakfast. Some strategic thinking was also in order, because Chicago is in a bit of a fix.
Pawar counts himself as a supporter of the mayor’s—as well as his alderman, since Emanuel lives in the 47th Ward—and he backs the pension plan. But Pawar wasn’t celebrating as he sat down at the Julius Meinl coffee shop on Montrose and Lincoln.
In the time since, Pawar has bucked Mayor Emanuel on occasion but says he’d rather work with him to get things done. The alderman also argues that Emanuel is helping the city through its hangover from generations of patronage politics.
Emanuel has said the same thing, which is how he’s explained closing dozens of neighborhood schools and pouring resources into charter and selective-enrollment schools that take the best or most motivated students.
