BOOK REVIEW: Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot will forever be associated with managing the City of Chicago through a historic public health crisis as well as a consequential period of civil unrest. So, it’s with great interest that we read Tribune reporter Gregory Royal Pratt’s book about her administration, “The City is Up for Grabs: How Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Led and Lost a City in Crisis.” Pratt was notorious for poking at Lightfoot over the years, sometimes unnecessarily, on social media. We always wondered if it were to drum up drama for the book. He didn’t have to. Lightfoot’s administration faced plenty of ups and downs on its own. What’s in the book: Along with the pandemic and civil unrest, Pratt covers Lightfoot’s battles with the Chicago Teachers Union, her policy pivot on a fully elected school board, the firing of her police chief, the Anjanette Young turmoil and ongoing crime. We see Lightfoot as tough, smart and opinionated. Her prosecutorial skills shine through, even though those skills also made her too willing to pick a fight. Pratt gives readers a feeling of being in the room for many of these moments. His mix of anonymous and named sourcing and a treasure trove of Lightfoot’s emails and texts make for a rich tale. An Obama anecdote: Lightfoot once confronted former President Barack Obama about her concerns that longtime residents would be displaced by his presidential center. They met while he was in town for the 2020 NBA All-Star Weekend, writes Pratt. From the book: “This is my city. If we displace these people, it’s on me. You’re not here. You’re not the mayor of this city,” Lightfoot told Obama, according to Pratt. Eventually, an agreement was reached that would help fund affordable housing in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Lightfoot’s term was also symbolic for the problems that plagued big cities across the country: a rise in crime and racial tensions, and a shift to the political left. Pratt doesn't really weigh in on those issues. The f-bombs: While Pratt does a good job of documenting Lightfoot’s four years in office, he seems to take pleasure in pointing out the stumbles more vividly than the successes — as well as Lightfoot’s affection for f-bombs. Pratt gives Lightfoot props for some key efforts in handling the Covid crisis, such as getting vaccines to Black and brown communities, but those get brief mentions compared to criticisms of her not responding quickly enough in the early stages of the pandemic. He also gives Lightfoot little credit for her efforts to break up the machine-style politics that have been such a big part of City Hall. Pratt's main take is that she squandered the goodwill she built when she was elected, making her stumbles too frequent. The best parts of the book: Pratt shines in explaining how the Fifth Floor operates. Missing from the book: Lightfoot’s own voice. She didn’t grant him an interview, which means we don’t really get to hear her side of the story on how or why she made the decisions she did. We can only wonder what it was to have been a woman working in a corporate firm in the 1980s — and a Black lesbian at that — and how that shaped Lightfoot's view of the world and, eventually, City Hall. It's a story only she can tell. In her exit interview with your Playbook host (the only local print reporter to talk to her as she left office), Lightfoot said: “I don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on regret. When you are dealing with crisis after crisis — fiscal crises, public health crises, public safety crises — you have to make decisions in the moment, and you try to make the best decisions you can.” The irony: Lightfoot, who’s a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, talks to students today about the media titled: “The Media: Love 'Em, Hate 'Em, Can't Do Without 'Em.” The speech is closed to the press.
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