>> Chicagoans have less than a year before they cast their ballots for the city's next mayor.

And the competition is heating up as 7 candidates so far have announced their bids entrepreneur Joe Holbert was the first to enter the race back in October.

The Michigan born businessman says he's ready to fight for safer neighborhoods, affordable housing and economic growth.

Joe Holder joins us now to discuss this campaign.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you for having So you say that you're you're not a politician.

Much like the last 2 folks elected as well.

limited experience in public office.

What do you see your qualifications to go all the way to the top and leave the city?

great question.

First and foremost, you I was a teacher on the West Side and got 3 years of academic growth for my students.

>> Many of whom want to some of the best high schools across the city.

I've worked and nonprofit.

I've worked at large companies and I even started a company and created jobs in Chicago.

And I think that fresh perspective and that diversity of experiences will lend itself very well to being the next mayor.

>> You know, the field of a moderate candidates has already up somewhat crowded one, including several with name recognition.

How do you hope to distinguish yourself in the field?

Yeah, I I think one of the big things we focus on is solving real problems for hardworking people.

One of those big problems in the city is are desperate.

Need to create more affordability through building housing.

My plan is to build 100,000 new units of housing so we can drop the cost for renters and homeowners alike so that we can continue to be an affordable, amazing city for people to grow for people who live and for them to raise their families.

What's the path forward for getting those 100,000 new units online?

It's in all of the above approach.

We need private investment, which is currently choked off because of the current administration's hostility towards growth and development.

We need subsidized housing.

We need to use our 10,000 vacant lots as a starting place.

Why we don't do anything with those baffles me.

And it's actually really exciting as an opportunity because it allows you to grow and neighborhood create jobs and bring affordability into every person's life.

Across the 77 neighborhoods.

So you were able to lend your campaign $350,000 blowing the contribution caps.

>> For folks who aren't familiar with you, can you tell us about the business career you had that puts you in that financial position?

Absolutely.

For starters, I grew up in rural Michigan in a low-income household.

We are on food stamps.

I was a first generation college student and I actually ran out of money and almost had to drop out of school and I was homeless and I slept in my car.

I came to Chicago for a job and an opportunity to make a life.

And by serving in putting other people first, I was able to start a business grow.

It create jobs across the city and serve tens of thousands of people and eventually that company was acquired, which was a life changing opportunity.

And to me, the best thing I can do with the opportunities and the resources that I've worked really hard for is to continue to put other people first, serve them and make sure they have opportunities to grow in their lives.

Just like I have in Chicago, the city's most financial forecast 1.1, 6 billion dollar budget cap next year.

Chicago, of course, has a longstanding structural deficit, underfunded pensions.

What are your specific proposals to improve the city's financial health?

Well, first and foremost, I think we should buy the parking meters back.

That represents an opportunity for us not only to control our streets and our infrastructure, but it represents an opportunity for us to rethink how we could actually generate money for the city rather than seeing that flow out of the city.

Additionally, we've been given reports by various financial firms and experts highlighting over 100 ways where we could save 500 million dollars to a billion dollars.

And lastly, by building homes, if every one of those had $3,000 and new property taxes, we could generate 300 million dollars in additional property tax revenue.

And that's not including all of the cascading effects from the jobs and the economic activity of building the houses themselves.

So it's multiple things that's going to lead us to a solution.

But I think we have the knowledge, the skills we have that experience and expertise in the city and we need to bring everyone to the table to do just that.

Want to come back to the the issue of parking meters because that could come with, you know, 3 billion dollar.

So price tag.

Is that something Chicago taxpayers can afford?

I think it's a great opportunity for us to partner with the state to think innovative Lee and differently than we have in the past.

And I've actually outlined a plan where we could add new features and value to the parking meter system to make it more affordable and more usable for everyone while still focusing on turning it into a revenue-generating assets.

Again for the rather than having that money flow out into Stone peak or whoever else that may be, what would be the right structure for financing, a buyback like that?

Are we looking at a bond issue?

What do you think?

Yeah, I think you know, there are opportunities.

Bond Issuances, one of them.

You know, there been other ideas floated about public, private trusts.

There are other financial mechanisms and tools that could be considered.

And this is one of the beautiful things about collaborating rather than close.

Closing your door and throwing away the key is if you go out and you seek to learn and partner, you can come up with new and innovative ideas that I don't think we've explored fully yet because of the secrecy, the deception and the lack of transparency from the current administration as it relates to the park commuters.

One of the elements of your schools platform is to have open in support of conversations about the future of each of our schools with communities and stakeholders.

Would you consider that, you know, supporting the idea, perhaps closing some Chicago public schools?

Yeah, I think this is a wonderful opportunity to figure out what communities are asking for.

I've spent my entire life listening to and responding to people to try to serve them.

We need to go into communities and say what do you need?

What do you want and what do you envision for your families and your community and through those conversations, we can have challenging conversations that ultimately lead to a path forward such as having a smaller building, but still having a school right?

aging infrastructure is costing us millions.

Tens of millions of dollars a year.

A school is a collection of people.

It's not always just a building.

And so those types of ideas could be solutions to helping communities navigate both through growth and when they're declining in terms of student population, you've also called for making the CTA system safer.

According to a recent Chicago Police Department data serious crime on the system is down sharply.

>> Do you think that the current efforts don't go far enough?

>> I think what we need to do is focus on making CTA safe, clean and reliable.

And in those 3 respects, we have a long way to go.

Data showing reductions in crime.

That's obviously a benefit.

But I ride the CTA every single day.

And I have for over a decade.

And when I get on the train and I see.

Things that we don't want to say on air and other people are saying the same things to us.

We can see reductions in data.

But if the system as a whole is not improving in terms of cleanliness safety and reliability.

There's a significant gap between the data and the lived experience of riders, the 1 million riders that use it every day, including myself.

We've got just about 30 seconds left.

But, you know, Mayor Johnson had has had a somewhat contentious relationship with City Council.

Should you be elected?

How would you work to improve the relationship with all the people?

>> I think one of the most exciting things about working with and collaborating with City Council is this idea that across the city no matter what neighborhood you're and we need more housing.

We need to fix the issues with our budget and we need to grow our city.

So it's more vibrant and healthy for everyone.

Those to me are the starting place and those can be the North star in collaborating in getting the job done, which is exactly why we need a different perspective on the 5th floor.

All right.

Joe Holbrooke, thank you very much.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you.

>> And additional candidates running for mayor have also been joining us Chicago tonight with more coming in