The infrastructure - e.g., the water supply, sewage, utilities, roadways, traffic control, etc. - should be our top priority because it represents the most essential of city services and has the greatest impact on the daily life of our residents.

For example, our inadequate storm sewer system has caused many residents to lose thousands, and even tens of thousands, of dollars of possessions, including such irreplaceable things as family photos and mementoes.  It also has increased the cost of their insurance and caused them a lot of time, effort and drudgery related to clean-up and repairs.  Meanwhile, potholes in streets cause damage to our vehicles; and lack of tree trimming around power lines has been blamed for countless power outages.

I will support accelerating the program for building relief sewers and modernizing and repairing our existing sewer lines in an effort to prevent potential catastrophic flooding problems in the future.  I will also ask the Public Works Department to investigate using a new type of porous asphalt which allows water to percolate through the pavement instead of pooling or creating run-off and contributing to flooding.  And I will take an aggressive approach with Commonwealth Edison to come up with actual solutions to the problem of chronic power outages.