Clare Lane: You’re listening to WBEZ. Candidates running for Chicago mayor today debated everything from how to reduce crime to how to safely get around the city. WBEZ’s Reset hosted a mayoral forum this morning with five of the nine candidates on the ballot. The other candidates will debate tomorrow. WBEZ’s City Politics Reporter Mariah Woelfel joins me now to break down what happened. Hi Mariah.

Mariah Woelfel: Hi Clare. 

Clare Lane: So the questions asked at today's forum came from Chicago residents who responded to WBEZ's Peoples Agenda. Many of those questions were about how the candidates would reduce crime. What did you hear that was new on that topic?

Mariah Woelfel: Well, today I heard a lot of the candidates go on the attack against former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas. Vallas has the endorsement of the Chicago police union, the FOP, and he spoke at the forum about needing a new forensic lab and creating a witness protection program and how clearance rates aren't strong. That then prompted incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot to respond, she specifically called Vallas out over how close Vallas is to the FOP. She has repeatedly criticized the FOP and its leader John Catanzara over the course of her term. And Lightfoot was on the defensive arguing that clearance rates are getting better and she's leaving schools open for longer, creating, you know, after school programs.

Clare Lane: What did the other candidates say about reducing crime?

Mariah Woelfel: Well, Alderman Sophia King also attacked Vallas and kind of trying to separate herself from the candidates like Vallas who are with the FOP, tough on crime, and the candidates who embrace the defund the police movement.

Sophia King: Paul and I are two totally different candidates. Um you know, he believes in law and order. There are candidates that believe in defund the police. I'm right where people stand: that we can uplift our police, hold them accountable, we can have safety and justice.

Mariah Woelfel: That was Alderwoman Sophia King. State Representative Kam Buckner derided the way the police district boundaries are set up. Congressmen Jesús "Chuy" García spoke a lot about leadership. He wants to get rid of the current head of the Police Department. But also clearly striking a tone where he would be a collaborator. He didn't attack Lightfoot by name, but it was clear he was referring to Lightfoot's style of management and criticisms that she can be combative in how he said he'd take on the city's challenges.

Clare Lane: Another topic a lot of people asked was about transit and as someone who took a two CTA buses and a train to get to the station today, I can empathize with this. What did the candidates say about protecting pedestrians and people who don't drive cars or drive them regularly.

Mariah Woelfel: Yeah, so as you indicated, you know, we've heard a lot about bad CTA service in the past couple of months. But what I heard today at this forum is that there are tons of questions about transit access outside of CTA and biking safety is a big one, for instance. Ideas range from very specific tweaks to the rules of the road, to broader plans, like collaborating with stakeholders. Alderwoman Sophia King suggested getting rid of turning right on red lights downtown. Lightfoot talked about concrete barriers for bike lanes. Buckner agreed the city needs concrete barriers, and he also criticized the lack of accessibility for CTA stations.

Clare Lane: Mariah, the timing of this forum was especially interesting. A new poll from WBEZ ,The Sun-Times, Telemundo and NBC 5 shows a very tight race between García, Lightfoot and Vallas. Where does this race go in the final three weeks?

Mariah Woelfel: Well, yeah, that poll shows those three as frontrunners and it's so close it's basically in the margin of error. Then businessmen Willie Wilson and Cook County Commissioner, Brandon Johnson are not far behind. Um, but I think perhaps the biggest news out of the poll is how far behind the Lightfoot would be in a runoff against either Vallas or García. She would face a double digit loss to either if voters were punching ballots right now.

Clare Lane: Thanks Mariah, you can hear an encore of today's mayoral forum tonight at 7 p.m. on 91.5 and on WBEZ.org. And listen to Reset tomorrow at 11 a.m. for the forum with the rest of the mayoral candidates. This is WBEZ.

WBEZ transcripts are generated by an automatic speech recognition service. We do our best to edit for misspellings and typos, but mistakes do come through.