CHICAGO (AP) — Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel pointed Wednesday to the city council election results as a clear message that Chicago residents want change — although his only use of the word "mandate" was in noting that he hadn't used the term.
In Tuesday's city council runoff, seven of the 10
candidates that Emanuel had endorsed won. By next month when the winners take
office, more than a third of the city's 50 districts will have new aldermen,
with 13 elected this year and another five appointed recently by outgoing Mayor
Richard Daley.
"I don't think about it as a mandate,"
Emanuel said Wednesday after telling a reporter that he hadn't used the word.
"I think about it as a clarity of purpose: One city. One vision. Single-minded
in achieving the change that voters have voted for."
Emanuel, who avoided a runoff when he won with 55
percent of the vote in February, said he was phoning all of last night's
winners and had met with most of the aldermen who won outright in February's
election, asking them for their collaboration.
"Come to the table, roll up your sleeves and
offer solutions to problems," Emanuel said.
The council shakeup shows voters crave a new
cooperative spirit in addressing issues from public safety to education,
Emanuel said. The mayor-elect said that's the same message voters sent when
they elected him in February.
Emanuel spoke during a tour of Microsoft's
Technology Center in Chicago, where he saw a demonstration of an interactive
website designed for government. He said Microsoft's HeyGov! software is an
example of how Chicago could use technology to allow citizens to post photos of
potholes and fallen trees online and then track the city's response.
The former White House chief of staff poured
$295,000 into the campaigns of some of the candidates he endorsed and rang
doorbells with some, including Debra Silverstein, the wife of a Democratic
state senator. She won handily with 62 percent of the vote against 38-year
council veteran Bernie Stone.
Stone told reporters Tuesday night that he was up
against "the machine."
Emanuel was asked about Stone's "machine"
remark Wednesday and if he were embracing the title of emperor. The mayor-elect
joked that he doesn't look good in a toga.
"I'm not an emperor. And here's the thing: I
want a spirit of cooperation," Emanuel said. "I want people to come
to their job as aldermen, as I will as mayor, in a spirit of finding solutions
on a collaborative basis."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
