DMI Events

HON. RICHARD M. DALEY

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has earned a national reputation for his innovative, community-based programs to address education, public safety, neighborhood development and other challenges facing American cities. Time magazine, in its April 25, 2005 issue, said Daley "is widely viewed as the nation's top urban executive."

A former state senator and county prosecutor, Daley was elected Mayor on April 4, 1989, to complete the term of the late Harold Washington, and was re-elected in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007 by overwhelming margins.

Frustrated with the performance of Chicago's schools, Daley assumed responsibility for the Chicago Public Schools in 1995. His new management team closed a $1.8 billion deficit; made homework mandatory; ended social promotion of underperforming students; improved school safety; greatly expanded summer school, after-school and early childhood education programs; and invested more then $4 billion in capital improvements. Recently, Daley has pushed especially hard to improve the teaching of reading and to increase parental involvement in education. Student scores on standardized tests have risen consistently since 1995 and have surpassed national norms in some areas. In 2004, Daley announced Renaissance 2010, a plan to create 100 new schools, mainly in existing buildings, by 2010 to replace low-performing schools, provide new educational options to underserved communities and relieve overcrowding. So far, 37 new schools have been created under this plan. In 2006, he announced Modern Schools Across Chicago, a $1 billion plan to build 24 new schools, using tax increment financing.

Under Daley's leadership, Chicago's community policing program also became a national model, with beat officers working with City agencies and residents to solve problems that foster crime. The police department added 1,500 officers, launched an aggressive anti-gang program and seized and destroyed 10,000 to 15,000 illegal weapons each year, more than any other city. Chicago's crime rate has dropped every year since 1992.

Daley's focus on quality-of-life concerns has led to greater emphasis on the delivery of basic services, from removing graffiti and deteriorating buildings to creating more green space and a citywide recycling plan. Since he became mayor, the City has planted more than 500,000 trees, created 100 school campus parks, built 70 miles of landscaped street medians and spurred the construction of rooftop gardens on major buildings, including City Hall. Daley has organized U.S. and Canadian mayors to protect the Great Lakes.

In 2004, Daley opened Millennium Park, the most ambitious public-private undertaking in Chicago's history. Constructed over railroad tracks and parking lots in downtown Chicago, the widely acclaimed showplace of architecture and the arts features a spectacular band shell designed by Frank Gehry; a popular reflecting sculpture designed by Anish Kapoor; an interactive fountain designed by Jaume Plensa; a garden designed by Kathryn Gustafson; a theater for music and dance; restaurant and ice rink.

Under Daley's leadership, Navy Pier has been renovated and turned into Chicago's most popular tourist attraction. McCormick Place has been expanded and Soldier Field has been rehabilitated as part of a plan that added 17 acres of park land. A project to modernize O'Hare International Airport is underway.

The City and its sister agencies have invested more than $11 billion in capital improvements since Daley became mayor. This includes 45 new and replacement schools and 66 additions an annexes, adding capacity for 42,600 students; street, sidewalk, bridge, sewer and other infrastructure improvements; more than 120 new acres of parkland; new ice rinks, recreation centers and swimming pool upgrades; and 52 new or fully renovated branch libraries.

HON. CHRISTINE QUINN

In January 2006, the Members of the City Council overwhelmingly chose Christine C. Quinn to be Speaker. As the first woman, openly gay, and Irish Speaker, she brings a new perspective to the diverse challenges facing each of New York City’s distinct communities. Speaker Quinn has set a proactive agenda for the Council as an initiator of legislative and policy initiatives that improve people’s lives. In short, she is working to make government more accessible to New Yorkers in all five boroughs.

Speaker Quinn has made reform a top priority. From limiting lobbyists’ influence in City Hall to putting forth landmark campaign finance reform legislation to increasing transparency in government, she has made significant strides in improving the way the City does business.

In her first year and a half as Speaker, she has had numerous accomplishments including achieving laws and policies in such areas as public safety, early childhood education, relief for small businesses, hunger and nutrition and affordable housing.

Since 1999, Speaker Quinn has served as the representative for the 3rd Council District of Manhattan. She has been a long time pioneer for equal rights, comprehensive health care, improved schools, tenants’ rights and affordable housing. Prior to becoming Speaker, she was Chair of the Council’s Health Committee and worked vigilantly to pass the ban on smoking in all workplaces, expand access to emergency contraception for rape survivors and other women in need, increase the availability of mammograms citywide, preserve school nurses, and secure millions of dollars for HIV prevention services.

Before being elected to the City Council, Speaker Quinn served for five years as Chief of Staff to Council Member Thomas K. Duane. She then worked as Executive Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. During her time with the Anti-Violence Project, Mayor Guiliani appointed her to be a member of the New York City Police/Community Relations Task Force.

Speaker Quinn has been rated one of the fifty most powerful women in New York City by the New York Post, and one of the most influential New Yorkers by New York Magazine.

She and her partner, Kim Catullo, live in Chelsea.

MIQUELA CRAYTOR

Though she comes from the Pacific Northwest, the new executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, Miquela Craytor, is putting down roots in the Bronx.
Originally from Oregon, Craytor, 31, earned a master's with honors in city and regional planning from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and fell in love with New York in the process.

Born to the children of Mexican immigrants and Dust Bowl farmers, with Native American heritage on both sides of her family, Craytor immediately identified with the diversity she found in America's original melting pot.
"That is what truly made my New York experience so amazing," said Craytor, " . . . the vast diversity of people, history and landscape."

Craytor has already helped change the landscape in the South Bronx for the better as the deputy director of SSBx before her promotion to executive director last month when the group's founder, Majora Carter, stepped down from that position to start a green consulting firm.

Sustainable South Bronx has been one of the prime movers in the creation of a South Bronx Greenway slowly being pieced together from reclaimed riverbanks, new parks and waterfront promenades wrapping around the Hunts Point peninsula.

Opening the Bronx waterfront - one of SSBx's signature crusades - is a personal priority for Craytor.

"I love the water and yet find it so interesting that in a city like New York, surrounded by water, we often forget that it is here," she said.

Craytor said another priority she intends to push as executive director is expanding the borough's "green collar" sector - jobs based on sustainable architecture, alternative power and other eco-friendly enterprises.

Prior to becoming deputy director of the environmental nonprofit in 2006, Craytor was senior planner of Economic Development at the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp., the economic development agency of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión.

HON. DAVID YASSKY

Serving in his second term, Council Member David Yassky is among the Council's leading advocates for education reform, affordable housing, crime prevention, waterfront revitalization and the environment.

The Democratic Leadership Council named Yassky one of the "Top 100 New Democrats to Watch" in the nation and "Democrat of the Week". He was endorsed by The New York Times and has been called "the textbook definition of the sort of person who can change the council for the better" by Michael Tomasky of New York Magazine and "one of the Council's ablest members" by Tom Robbins of The Village Voice. The New York Post called his education platform "courageous," adding he?s "doing what?s right for kids."

Yassky has compiled an impressive record of legislative achievement in the City Council:

Jobs and economic growth: David authored the Film Industry Job Creation Act, credited with bringing thousands of jobs to New York's film and television studios. David also pushed through the Council a plan to make Downtown Brooklyn the City?s third major business district, he created an Industrial Jobs Retention program to fund dedicated, low-cost space for manufacturing firms, and he helped expand the cruise ship industry in New York.
Public Safety: He took on irresponsible gun companies with the Gun Industry Responsibility Act. This law will hold gun manufactures and dealers liable when their reckless sales practices result in the injury of a New Yorker.
Environmental Protection: In the last election cycle, David was the only City Council Member to receive an "early endorsement" from the League of Conservation Voters, which called David?s Waterfront Planning Act "the most important piece of waterfront legislation adopted by the City in recent years." David created an innovative pilot program for clean-fuel taxicabs that got hybrid cabs on the road in NYC, sued Exxon-Mobil to force a cleanup of the Greenpoint oil spill, and his report on illegal dumping in New York waterways led to prosecution of one of the City's worst polluters.
Affordable Housing: David?s Affordable Housing Zoning Initiative will create thousands of new moderately priced apartments. The plan creates zoning incentives for developers building luxury apartments in newly rezoned areas to finance companion affordable projects.

Before his election to the Council, Yassky had a distinguished career as a public servant, lawyer and educator. Working under Rep. Chuck Schumer, he helped enact the Brady Law, the Assault Weapons Ban, the Violence Against Women Act, and more than a dozen other significant anti-crime statutes. At the time, he was the youngest Committee or Subcommittee Chief Counsel in the House of Representatives. Yassky also taught at Brooklyn Law School. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Diana, and their daughters Susan and Margaret.

CARTER STRICKLAND

Carter Strickland is the Senior Policy Advisor for Air and Water with the New York City’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, the office responsible for implementing Mayor Bloomberg’s sustainability plan, PlaNYC 2030. Mr. Strickland’s portfolio covers air quality and water quality issues and his initiatives have included developing a heating oil conversion policy, a stormwater plan and a wetlands policy. Before joining the Bloomberg Administration, Mr. Strickland was active in water issues in New Jersey, where he helped design a stormwater utility for the Hackensack Meadowlands; won landmark decisions upholding public trust doctrine rights, floodplain restrictions, and stream buffer regulations; obtained watershed-based approaches to drinking water reservoir protection; and was involved in regulatory matters and litigation involving anti-degradation standards, wetlands protection, coastal permitting, and dredging of contaminated sediments. Mr. Strickland practiced environmental law at the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic and the New York Attorney General’s Office and taught environmental law at Rutgers Law School. Prior to that, Mr. Strickland was in private practice with a focus on antitrust, trade regulation, and intellectual property law, and represented environmental groups pro bono. He is a graduate of Columbia University School of Law and Dartmouth College.