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Emanuel Says He'd Seek To Hire More Cops

CHICAGO (WBBM) -- Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel is criticizing a plan to redeploy police officers throughout Chicago.

As WBBM Newsradio 780 Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports, police Supt. Jody Weis is encountering some resistance from some aldermen, and the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, as he tries to draw up a plan to move officers from lower-crime areas into higher-crime neighborhoods.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780 Political Editor Craig Dellimore Reports

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Emanuel says he doesn't like the idea either. He says the city should use Tax Increment Financing development money to hire more officers.

"There's 900-plus million dollars in TIF funds that are unused. A slight reform will find, immediately, savings of $25 million that could put 250 more police on the streets, rather than take from one part of a neighborhood to another, which is pitting one part of the city against the other," Emanuel said.

He calls it a "false choice."

But the use of tax increment financing is controversial in itself.

The creation of a TIF district freezes property tax dollars for schools, parks, and other taxing districts for at least 23 years, and all property tax increases afterward to go into a fund to improve struggling neighborhoods.

TIF districts are intended to spur development in "blighted" communities. But critics, most notably Chicago Reader columnist Ben Joravsky, say TIFs amount to a slush fund for the mayor's administration.

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