2023 in review: Life in and around Chicago, as told through Tribune editorials

It was a year in which the city elected its 57th mayor, struggled to welcome thousands of migrants, opened its first (legal) gambling casino and hosted its first NASCAR race in a place few would have associated with auto racing — the heart of the downtown lakefront.

Here’s a look back at 2023, as seen through excerpts from the Tribune Editorial Board’s Chicagoland-focused editorials.

Jan. 23: Beloved local radio personality Lin Brehmer has died.

Radio personalities are supposed to be abrasive and controversial. Not so Lin Brehmer of WXRT-FM, whose death at 68 years old over this past weekend was the occasion for much sadness among his regular listeners, many of whom felt like they had lost the most simpatico of friends.

That sense of sudden loss, even though Brehmer had been public about his prostate cancer, was also true of many Chicagoans who did not regularly tune in. Brehmer’s intersecting spheres of interest and influence included the Chicago Cubs, City Hall and the Goodman Theatre, a combo that tells you a lot about his cultural centrality. In Chicago, media personalities become our celebrities, and this particular one, in this particular patch, was everyone’s pal. He was mourned at the Metro, by Wilco, at the Art Institute of Chicago and by the Candelite tavern on Western Avenue. He was at ease with all of them.

April 5: Brandon Johnson is elected mayor of Chicago after meeting with the Tribune Editorial Board for, to date, his only time.

We already had concerns about the growing scope of influence and radicalism of the Chicago Teachers Union before their preferred candidate landed in the runoff. And we also felt there were better progressive candidates who did not have the backing of so powerful a union, and who had done a better job at actually answering some of the harder questions rather than wriggling rhetorically away.

But Johnson was undaunted. “Yes, I want the Chicago Tribune’s endorsement,” he said, boldly, looking all of us in the eye, clearly convinced that this was an endorsement both deserved and absolutely to be had. In life, a lack of confidence and a reluctance to ask for something is often a barrier to personal success. Johnson does not have that problem and his sense of his own place in history is a significant part of why he will become mayor of a great American city atop what is likely to be the most progressive administration in its history.

As Rahm Emanuel, now the U.S. ambassador to Japan, noted late Tuesday, in a congratulatory tweet, the success or failure of a city’s mayor is, inevitably, also the success or failure of a city itself. The two cannot be separated. In that spirit, and at this juncture, we congratulate Mayor-elect Johnson and wish him well.

May 1: An adviser to the Chicago School Board has recommended a new “soft accountability” model.

Soft accountability? If your kid comes home saying that her class got canceled, the teacher could not keep order, that she feels either unsafe or like she is not learning the necessary skills she will need in her career, are you looking for “soft accountability” from the educational professionals in charge of her learning?

Thought not. Some nouns are better not being modified by an adjective designed to compromise their power. And accountability is one of them.

What parents and children need and deserve from the Chicago Public Schools is accountability, pure and simple. Those promoting “soft accountability,” which could easily morph into no accountability at all, would never use such words when applied, say, to the police. There, they rightly demand accountability, period.

May 31: Taylor Swift has come to town with three concerts at Soldier Field.

Much has been made of the arrival of NASCAR over the July Fourth weekend, but the Swift concert has just as much import and, frankly, commands more international attention.

The other aspect of the tour that has been making headlines around the country is the sense of community that Swift has created due to the intense emotional engagement enjoyed by her devoted fans. There are widespread reports of sobs turning into smiles, shared catharses, instantly blossoming friendships, kindnesses breaking out all over. In the annals of public gatherings, this one looks set to be everything a city like ours could want.

Aug. 26: Once again, the Chicago White Sox are considering leaving town.

Neither Chicago nor the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, the state entity that built and owns Guaranteed Rate Field, wants to have to find alternative uses for Soldier Field (not that difficult) and Guaranteed Rate Field (very difficult). In our view, the stadium does not need replacing, but it could be overhauled and integrated into an exciting fan and leisure zone in a neighborhood that could use that kind of investment. That should be done with private moneys, but the city can and should be the cheerleader, facilitator and incentivizer.

So, White Sox, pray don’t leave your fans behind. Chicago can and could support two MLB teams, and the Crosstown Classic should not become a thing of the past.

Aug. 31: Evanston is debating prohibiting residents from chopping down trees in their own backyards.

Evanston, which loves to regulate its citizenry like no place in Illinois, has been debating hiring a so-called “tree cop” to police homeowners who commit the soon-to-be-mortal sin of cutting down trees on their own private property. Note that we’re not talking about the parkway, that weird mix of public and private jurisdiction, but one’s actual backyard. Evanston environmentalists want to prohibit that act, and where you have prohibition, you have a need for enforcement.

Does the wish of a community to preserve its tree canopy, with all the environmental benefits that will accrue, trump the rights of homeowners to make their own decisions about how to landscape their own yards?

Evanstonians have noted the lack of data suggesting they were heading out to their yards en masse, chain saws at the ready, and suggested that their local government might be better off using the proposed tree cop salary to, ahem, plant more trees. Many said here was yet another Evanston solution in search of a meaningful Evanston problem.

Oct. 8: Ald. Ray Lopez proposes banning Little Free Libraries. The editorial board takes umbrage.

Oh, the horror! Unregulated bookcases! What next? Neighbors talking to each other without approval?

This nonsense passed through committee Tuesday and is headed for a full City Council vote. Down, let’s hope. Little Free Libraries shouldn’t need permits, unless someone is selling coffee out of one. They should be encouraged. They promote reading, education and community interaction. The city allows residents to plant and accessorize the city-owned parkways. People who choose to feature books should not be penalized.

Nor should one young man whose work we’ve noticed, a creative Chicagoan who offers a unique take on a Little Free Library.

At Spencer’s Garage, a kid can take a toy car or leave one behind for someone else. We smile every time we walk by. Leave Spencer’s Garage alone, Ald. Lopez.

Nov. 22: The famed Lakeview nightclub Berlin closes, following a boycott by unionizing staffers.

Tim Sullivan and Shirley Mooney, a gay man and a straight woman, opened Berlin in 1983 because they dreamed of a place where gay and straight Chicagoans could be together. At the time on Chicago’s North Side, there were bars for gay men, bars for gay women, drag bars, leather bars and, of course, hundreds of bars catering to heterosexual patrons. Patrons knew their lanes. The idea behind Berlin was that everyone could drink a beer together in this arty, bohemian place on Belmont Avenue and get to know each other a little better. It worked: Over the years, Elton John, John Waters, Bob Mackie, Donna Karan and Oliver Stone, to name but a few, all hit the artistically intimidating dance floor at one time or another.

The bar became an important refuge and escape for many as the AIDS crisis tore Lakeview and other Chicago neighborhoods asunder. And for fans of alternative music in that era, Berlin was the place to go. That’s all over now, say the current owners, Jo Webster and Jim Schuman. Why? Berlin has been the target of a devastating strike and aggressive boycott following the unionization of its staff and a series of what would be impossible demands for any small business, let alone one in a trade as fickle as that of a bar.

Dec. 4: Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plans for a new migrant camp in Brighton Park are upended by the choice of a contaminated site. The board calls on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to intervene.

Cities, as a matter of course, contend with how to return brownfields — idle tracts previously used for heavy industry — to productive use. Typically, restoring those sites for such uses takes months, if not longer. Extracting some soil and spreading aggregate around doesn’t qualify as restoration, it should go without saying.

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Pritzker’s Illinois Environmental Protection Agency still must sign off on the Brighton Park tent city now that it has this report in hand. If it doesn’t approve it, the work, already underway, will be halted, and the city and state will have to scramble to find an alternative for these hundreds of migrants, many of whom are lodged in police stations or at O’Hare International Airport.

If Pritzker doesn’t stand in Johnson’s way on this, he risks owning any consequences every bit as much as the mayor. We recognize everyone here has been dealing with a challenging emergency. But as inconvenient as it will be, a better, safer plan than this one is needed.

Dec. 13: The Chicago Board of Education clears the way to remove school choice in Chicago, threatening charter, magnet and selective-enrollment schools.

The resolution is fertilizing the soil for a five-year “transformational” strategic plan, apparently coming this summer from Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez. The resolution calls for “a transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.” That’s obfuscating language, of course, which is this administration’s preferred mode of communication, especially when it comes to launching trial balloons like this one.

“Transformation” is a Pravda-esque word for remaking something the way the people in power want it to be remade. “Transition away” minimizes change that many people, especially working-class Chicagoans of color, don’t want. And, yet worse, the resolution accepts the false binary that selective-enrollment schools hurt neighborhood schools, when a decent system would improve the latter even as it retains the former.

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