UPDATE: Mayor Amends Charlotte Trip
The Chicago Republican Party wants Mayor Rahm Emanuel to skip his trip to Charlotte this week and deal with issues back home.
Following another violent weekend and with a teachers strike tentatively scheduled for Sept. 10, Chicago's GOP called on Emanuel to "provide immediate, visible and specific leadership to address the twin crises facing our city."
The mayor was added to the Democratic National Convention list of speakers last month and is expected to address delegates Tuesday.
The GOP said Sunday in a statement that keeping the speech on his schedule means Emanuel is "more focused on criticizing Mitt Romney than focusing on his constituents."
"While violence rages in the streets of several Chicago neighborhoods and teachers threaten a walkout, our Mayor is paying attention to the wrong things," the statement reads.
Emanuel appeared Sunday on "Meet the Press" and insisted the city is not in a crisis.
"We're making efforts I think to reduce the gang conflict, because it's gang-on-gang issues," Emanuel said of a spike in Chicago shootings. "It doesn't affect the whole city, but anywhere it happens we're going to be dealing with it."
Meanwhile the Chicago Teachers Union came together Monday morning for a "solidarity rally" downtown. Chicago Public Schools and the union both said Friday they planned to negotiate through the holiday week.
Teachers said the rally is their latest push to get a new deal.
