| Notes |
The city official who played a key role in rebuilding Chicago's finances and boosting its post-recession economy is leaving City Hall.
Departing after five often turbulent years as one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's top aides is Deputy Mayor Steve Koch, the mayor's office is announcing today. Koch is the latest in a string of high-level departures as Emanuel, by all accounts, prepares to seek a third term in the February 2019 election.
Coming in as Koch's successor is Robert Rivkin, a lawyer and longtime acquaintance of Emanuel's from Chicago and Washington, D.C., who was vice president of Aon and general counsel of the Chicago Transit Authority.
In an interview, Koch, 61, said he'd expected to leave a year ago but found that his "phenomenally fulfilling experience" as a sort of deputy mayor for all things financial got under his skin—even as much of his job lately was helping quarterback Emanuel's struggle for city funding with Gov. Bruce Rauner.
"The city's a really different place now" compared to when he took over five years ago and when Emanuel was first elected in 2011, Koch said, pointing to a stabilization of city finances after the huge deficits of the later Richard M. Daley years and a restructuring of city pension funds—both, admittedly, after hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax increases and other hikes.
Robert Rivkin
Beyond that, the city has had enormous success pulling in corporate headquarters and adding jobs, and has spent billions revitalizing its infrastructure, particularly the CTA. But much of that growth is in the central area, rather than neighborhoods. And though Emanuel and Koch have tried to spread the gains around via new programs, the subject, combined with reaction to the shooting of Laquan McDonald, has become a political problem for Emanuel.
Among things needed now, Koch said, are a continued focus on city finances—bond rating agencies say hundreds of millions of dollars a year in additional funding may be needed by early in the next decade to continue the turnaround of the pension funds—and completion of the rebuilding of much of O'Hare International Airport.
Those are real challenges, the former vice chairman and global head of mergers and acquisitions for Credit Suisse said. "Chicago has some incredible strengths, but it also faces some strong headwinds. The things that created big northern cities 70 or 80 years ago have changed."
One thing that definitely will change is Koch's life. After he leaves in mid-August, he'll head up to International Falls, Minn., and intends to bike the entire length of the Mississippi River to raise $1 million for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Emanuel, in a statement, thanked Koch for helping Chicago make "remarkable economic progress." Rivkin will join another deputy mayor, Andrea Zopp, who recently joined Emanuel's team.
Rivkin previously was a vice president of Delta Airlines. Among his immediate tasks: working on a fast-rail link between O'Hare and the Loop, a project that Koch recently explored with Tesla's Elon Musk, who reportedly is interested in investing in a new-generation rail line here.
In recent months, Emanuel has gotten a new chief of staff, budget director and water commissioner. |