Connected to Chicago (03-10-2019) Special Guest-Toni Preckwinkle

Joining the show this week is Toni Preckwinkle. Bill and Toni discuss the upcoming runoff Mayoral election, and who has better experience for the job. Toni discusses with Bill ways she would try to solve certain issues with the City, such as fixing the pension problem, TIF Reform, and if there would be changes to the City Council after the election.

In this week’s round table segment, Bill is joined by Ray Long and Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Tribune, Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Heather Cherone editor of The Daily Line. The Round Table opens up with this week’s news of Lori Lightfoot getting the endorsement of Willie Wilson, and what that means for the runoff election. Also, discussed is the NBC mayoral debate. How did Lightfoot and Preckwinkle do? Lynn provides an update from Washington D.C, Governor Pritzker has unveiled his graduated income tax, and the round table gives their analysis.

This week’s community spotlight segment is with Nick Gale. Nick explains a new report by the Illinois Technology Association that looks at 300 tech companies in Chicago to illustrate where gender gaps exist. ITA CEO Julia Kanouse says Chicago companies are doing well, but can do better in terms of putting women in VP/SVP levels and C-Suite positions. Just 26% of women hold one of the 1100 vice president or senior vice president positions at the 300 companies evaluated. Of the current 922 C-suite positions, women held 13.6 % of them.

ITA also sponsored a”Shadow Day” Friday, International Women’s Day, giving a group of female Chicago public school students exposure to what it’s really like to work in the tech-sector. Kanouse says that 100 students were hosted by 20 companies.