February 9, 2023

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Volume 10, Issue 10

Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato

Managing Editor Adam Przybyl

Senior Editors Martha Bayne

Christopher Good

Olivia Stovicek

Sam Stecklow

Alma Campos

Community Builder Chima Ikoro

Contributing Editors Jocelyn Vega

Francisco Ramírez Pinedo

Scott Pemberton

Visuals Editor Bridget Killian

Deputy Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino

Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma

Shane Tolentino

IN CHICAGO

South Side resident removed from City Council meeting

On February 1, a resident of the 11th Ward was ejected from a City Council meeting by Chicago police after speaking against Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed agreement with utility giant Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), citing its failure to curb corruption and the climate crisis. “A fifteen-year franchise agreement, rather than a five- or ten-year agreement, is something that is out of step with the basic reality of climate science and the ways in which we will need to constantly adapt and readapt to the material conditions of what influence basic goods and services to keep the lights on and the heat running do to add to the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” said Sean Estelle, a member of Chicago Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratize ComEd campaign, during their remarks. Estelle said they believe they were politically targeted. Six alderpeople—Daniel La Spata (1st), Jeanette Taylor (20th), Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th), Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd), Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), and Andre Vasquez (40th)—signed a joint statement denouncing “the mayor’s naked act of retaliation.” According to WTTW, neither Estelle’s remarks or conduct violated any rules or ordinances, but they were forced to leave the chambers anyway. The mayor’s proposed franchise agreement was temporarily blocked after some alderpeople voted to delay a vote until March 15, after the election.

IN THIS ISSUE

progressive women run against incumbent in newly gerrymandered 15th ward annabelle dowd .....................................

the race for the 12th ward

A community organizer and social worker with progressive endorsements takes on the appointed incumbent. alma campos

a breakdown of key ward races

Learn about the candidates and see how the wards were redrawn.

reema saleh, ella beiser, hana urban, adam przybyl, ismael cuevas, max blaisdell, jacqueline serrato, savannah hugueley

2023 before the polls: q&as with black mayoral candidates

The seven candidates discuss their views on police, education, mental health, housing, and more.

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Director of

Fact Checking: Sky Patterson

Fact Checkers: Savannah Hugueley

Grace Del Vecchio

Kate Linderman

Zoe Pharo

Emily Soto

Eliza Billingham

Christopher Good

Layout Editor Tony Zralka

Special Projects Coordinator Malik Jackson

Managing Director Jason Schumer

Office Manager Mary Leonard

Advertising Manager Susan Malone

Webmaster Pat Sier

The Weekly is produced by a mostly all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We publish online weekly and in print every other Thursday.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to:

South Side Weekly

6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637

For advertising inquiries, please contact: Susan Malone (773) 358-3129 or email: malone@southsideweekly.com

For general inquiries, please call: (773) 643-8533

Stimulus checks for immigrants

Chicago immigrants who do not have permanent residency could finally be eligible for federal COVID-19 relief. The City of Chicago announced this week that it will distribute American Rescue Plan Act funds that were previously denied to undocumented people despite their status as essential workers during the pandemic. The Department of Family and Support Services has opened applications through the multilingual website www.chicash.org, where applicants will need to submit identifying and income documentation. Some 17,000 applicants will be selected on a rolling basis through the rest of the year if they meet the income requirements and will receive a single $500 check by mail or direct deposit. Please note that DACA recipients, who were eligible for the regular stimulus checks, and asylum seekers are not eligible for the funds, according to the City. Questions can be directed to the phone number (312) 585-5773.

Candace Parker leaving Sky

Chicagoans said goodbye to WNBA Candace Parker after she announced her decision to leave the Chicago Sky to join the Las Vegas Aces. In an Instagram post, Parker said, “While Chicago will always be my home, my family’s home is on the west coast. To play for a championship close to home is the perfect situation for us.”

In 2021, Parker led the Chicago Sky to win their first WNBA championship against the Phoenix Mercury. Prior to joining the Sky, Parker played thirteen seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks. She is a seven-time All Star, a two-time MVP, and a two-time WNBA champ. We wish her the best.

tonia hill, tiffany walden, the triibe

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Illustration by Mell Montezuma

Progressive Women Run Against Incumbent in Newly Gerrymandered 15th Ward

Two progressive challengers are campaigning on their values in the 15th Ward. How do they gain enough trust just to get residents to vote?

BY ANNABELLE DOWD

On a frigid Saturday under ashen sky, Victoria Alvarez, who goes by Vicko, knocked on doors from noon to six. She started on 60th Street and Hermitage Avenue, going up and down each side of 60th between Wolcott Avenue and Ashland Avenue, then north to 59th, and back down each block until she reached 66th Street, the West Englewood boundary of the 15th Ward. Alvarez, a Tejana-born Mexican American leftist, and Gloria Ann Williams, a Black progressive from Englewood, are both campaigning to be the ward’s next alderwoman.

Alvarez is dressed in blue jeans, a red puffer, and a tote bag to hold her campaign literature, which says “Make Mama Proud” in cursive. Her black mane is tucked under a beanie, but her gold hoops reflect the little light that’s out that day. She doesn’t mind waiting for neighbors as they assess her through their windows and door rings. I note that nearly every house on the block has the camera security system, and Alvarez explains that the City of Chicago offered a rebate for residents who purchased them.

When Bishop T. Gray answers his door, he interrupts Alvarez’s spiel to get his in first. “Whenever there’s an election, all of you come by, asking for our vote, telling us why we need you and then we never see you again,” Gray says. “So what’re you offering to us? What do you have?”

Gray posed a valid question. Greater Englewood, which encompasses the Englewood and West Englewood

neighborhoods, is split up into six different wards, making it the most gerrymandered community area in Chicago. A candidate appealing to this section of Englewood needs to find ways to ensure residents know their needs are just as important as the residents in the five other neighborhoods that make up the 15th Ward.

This apprehension towards politicians personally resonates with Alvarez and Williams.

Alvarez has been an activist in various forms—a teaching artist and union organizer—since she was an eighteen-yearold student at the University of Chicago, strategizing with dining hall workers for fair wages. Williams was raised in Englewood, graduated from Gage Park High School, raised children in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and is the founder and executive director of Voices of West Englewood.

Williams started the nonprofit organization to streamline communication about neighbors’ concerns and quickly address them, circumventing the tedious bureaucracy of local government. Last September, the Weekly named Voices of West Englewood, and Williams herself, the Best Outreach Organization for West Englewood in the Best of the South Side annual issue.

Campaigning in the 15th Ward poses many obstacles for a candidate who wants to get to know their constituency. It includes six neighborhoods that stretch like an

X-chromosome from Chicago Lawn, north to Gage Park and onto Brighton Park, west to the Back of the Yards and Canaryville, and then south to West Englewood. The resulting political pocket of crumbs and its shape have generated scrutiny and claims of gerrymandering.

In May of 2022, there was a chance for the ward to assume a more cohesive shape. Last spring, the ward map of Chicago was redrawn, a vote that occurs every ten years. City Council oversees the process, but these meetings go down in a clandestine fashion behind closed doors with mapmakers, attorneys, alderpeople, and other consultants. In the “map room,” the participants consider demographic changes, neighborhood and natural boundaries, retail areas and, of course, voters.

Ideally, a map is drawn with a nonpartisan outlook. But if a vote is on the line, that line can move to an alderperson’s benefit. Whereas the state redistricting process is based on the party you’re in, Chicago’s local government is overwhelmingly Democratic. Without party differences, remapping here is often concerned with racial ones.

The 2020 Census found that Latinx people were the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the city, from a population of around 779,000 in 2010 to about 820,000 in 2020. The number of Black Chicagoans is currently the lowest it’s been since 1960. This data invites speculation about why Black residents are deciding to leave Chicago: rising rents, police violence

and harassment, closing schools.

These outcomes from the census data, which is the foundational resource for redistricting at the state and city levels, set the stage for drawing the 2022 ward map.

According to the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, a collective of attorneys that work with community organizations and advocate to pursue goals relevant to racial justice and equity, the solution to this issue is an independent redistricting council led by citizens rather than elected officials. At the city-level, the CLC advised groups representing marginalized communities that sought increased representation in an arena that typically excludes them.

“If these communities are not taken into account at the front end of [redistricting], then those lines will not incorporate some of the most important feedback that’s necessary to draw fair boundaries around communities of color around other communities of interest,” said Cliff Helm, the Senior Counsel of Voting Rights and Civic Empowerment of the CLC.

The Coalition for Better Chinese American Community, which began organizing in 1998 to strengthen communication between the area’s residents and their non-Asian representatives, successfully negotiated for a majority-Asian ward, the 11th, which includes Greater Chinatown and parts of Bridgeport, Brighton Park, and McKinley Park.

The redrawing process of 2022 took place over the course of several months, and

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the lead up to the redistricting was heavily reported on as Chicagoans vocalized their desire for a bigger role in the process. Coalitions sprung up across Chicago with similar goals for equitable representation, working with an elected group of citizens from across Chicago, “diverse commissioners and alternates [who] were chosen by an independent committee,” according to The Chicago’s Advisory Redistricting Comission’s website.

The CLC evaluates whether a redistricting process abided by the Voting Rights Act and other legal frameworks that protect voters, and provides counsel to impacted communities on how to use these protections in court.

Internally, Chicago’s Black and Latinx alderpersons were polarized as both sought concentrated representation. The Black caucus proposed the United Map, which included sixteen majority-Black wards, fourteen majority-Latinx wards, and one majority-Asian ward. The Latino Caucus drew the Coalition Map, which, by comparison, created fifteen majorityLatino wards, sixteen majority-Black wards, and one majority-Asian ward. While these two-ward differences sound slight, sparring

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WARD 15

This is something Alvarez plans to address if she is to win alderwoman, and part of her strategy in supporting Brandon Johnson, a Black progressive, in his candidacy for mayor.

“You got a lot of people who feel like they’re fighting for scraps, and Brandon’s doing what he can to build bridges, you get often, you know, Latino-Black divide. And that’s a big reason why we’re trying to work together is because we don’t want to play that game,” Alvarez told a 15th Ward resident while out canvassing.

BY CARYL

gave the impression that it was Black versus brown in City Council.

“We have Black families that want to see more value in their homes. Let’s help them. We have Latino families that want to see bigger libraries in Back of the Yards, let’s help them. Make sure we can get along with the community,” Alvarez added. Advocacy groups like CHANGE Illinois and Chicago’s Advisory Redistricting Commission fought for the final redrawing vote to include the public by holding hearings where people could vocalize their opinions—but a majority of alderpeople agreed on the boundary lines one May afternoon, to the public’s surprise.

Photo of Genevieve VenJohnson, Elizabeth Laidlaw, and Cruz Gonzalez-Cadel by Joe Mazza.

CHURCHILL

DIRECTED BY VANESSA STALLING

FEMINIST PL AY WRIGH T CAR YL CHURCHILL AT HER BEST

The Marion M. Lloyd Cour t Theatre Fund

The United Map won; the compromise was attributed to a break in the Latino Caucus. While this may have been a triumph for other Black-majority neighborhoods, this rendering of this 15th Ward includes seventy-four percent Latinx residents, and sixteen percent Black, further diminishing the voting power of Englewood’s mostly Black residents. Seven alderpeople voted against it, including the 15th Ward’s Alderman Raymond Lopez.

Xena Bowers said she’s lived in the same house in Back of the Yards since 1989. During that time, she’s seen a lot of changes, many of them which she describes as negative. Last fall, Ms. Bowers’ son-in-law was shot on their street corner, an instance she said she witnesses often in her neighborhood. She said kids don’t have anything to occupy them after school.

Bowers said she doesn’t seek out her alderman, Raymond Lopez, to discuss these matters, because the aldermen she’s encountered don’t follow up on their promises to decrease violence or resort to goofy spectacles in reciprocation for votes.

“Only time I know them is when they want to run, tell somebody’s vote for them, other than that, they don’t do anything,” Bowers said. “They were having an election coming, and they gave everybody a turkey. Then you had to go all the way over to his office on Ashland or somewhere to find them.” The turkey giveaway was part of a raffle that Alderman George Cardenas held in the 12th Ward, which Bowers technically did not reside in.

Restoring faith between constituents and local government is a core goal of both Alvarez and Williams’ campaigns. The conversations this goal necessitates requires time, emotional labor, and the finesse to speak to people coming from a variety of backgrounds, who, while living within a mile of each other, have distinct priorities.

“You talk to every single neighborhood, you go block by block to try to figure out what brings us together, but also, what’s specific to those neighborhoods that they’re gonna need?” Alvarez said of her strategy to understand each neighborhood’s unique needs.

The majority of residents in Back of the Yards, Brighton Park and Gage Park are Latinx of Mexican descent. West Englewood residents are mostly Black,

Canaryville residents mostly white, and Chicago Lawn residents a mix of Black and Latinx. The median income across these areas varies, with West Englewood at $26,439 from 2016-2020, and Brighton Park at $45,782.

Whereas most residents Alvarez met in Englewood said their highest priority for an incoming alderperson is disinvestment—the vacant lots and lack of small businesses—residents in Back of the Yards said their neighborhoods need more programming in the parks and street maintenance. Residents in every neighborhood expressed fear about gun violence.

In its earliest iteration within Chicago’s ward maps, the 15th Ward was actually in what we now consider Lincoln Park on the North Side. It was a proper rectangle that extended across North Avenue to Belmont.

Wards move for inevitable reasons, like the growth of Chicago’s population and expansion of the City’s boundaries, and the median of these total changes in the history of Chicago’s wards is half a mile. The movement of wards like the 21st and 34th, the latter of which moved nearly fifteen miles in 1970, is evidence of what Dr. Robert Vargas and his team at the University of Chicago call “ward teleportation.”

Using a combination of ArcGIS, city maps from the last one-hundred-plus years, qualitative and quantitative data, Dr. Vargas and his team created a data visualization tool that depicts these changes, or “ward journeys,” in Chicago, St. Louis, and Milwaukee.

In the instance of the 15th, the ward didn’t move an excessive distance. But placing these changes in historical context, like the civil unrest of the sixties and political repression, a different conclusion about ward boundaries and shapes can be made. In Vargas’s research, each revelation begot another question: why did certain wards have farther journeys?

“City Council members who have radically opposed their mayor or governing coalition were punished for it by having their ward moved far away. This forced City Council members to build new relationships with constituents,” Dr. Vargas said over email. “City Council members with a record of advocating on issues of racial and economic justice were most often punished.”

During his twenty-one-year tenure, Mayor Richard J. Daley had a reputation for rewarding his allies with patronage. When democratic Congressman William Dawson asserted enough power to intimidate Daley through his allies across Chicago’s Black Belt, Dawson faced insidious political retribution. Between 1958-1970, the wards of white North Side aldermen were transported to the South Side, in order for Black candidates that were loyal to Daley’s agenda—and didn’t threaten his dominance—to get elected. This tactic weakened Dawnson’s overall political power and chance at reelection.

“It is worth emphasizing that Daley’s fear of Dawson stemmed not from acts of resistance or defiance… but from the sheer fact that Dawson was a powerful figure in his own right,” Dr. Vargas wrote in the paper summarizing this research. “This suggests that the mere presence or visibility of Black power can be perceived as threatening by the local racialized state and preemptively suppressed via redistricting.”

In the case of the 15th Ward, the concerns of residents like Bishop T. Gray and Xena Bowers are not just about the dedication and persistence of a single candidate, but these forces that dictate their options for political representation and ability to participate in the political landscape. When Bowers was voting in the November elections, she found her polling place moved, without prior notice given, from Immaculate Heart Church on Wood Street, to another location on Damen Avenue. Alvarez said she also encountered voters driving around in search of their polling place on last election day, an issue she attributes to Alderman Lopez’s malfeasance.

“It’s a trust factor,” Gloria Ann Williams said about encouraging people to vote, not just for her campaign but any voting opportunity.

“They’d say they love the fact that I’m out knocking on doors and talking to them one on one. But it’s not worth voting. Because everybody they get in the office, they don’t keep their promise. They’re doing this, they’re doing that, but not looking after them for jobs, not trying to do anything to make the community safe. It’s all about them,” she said.

Alvarez said her primary objective is to educate potential voters. When someone answers the door, she provides a bullet-point list of herself, before entering into a personalized discussion about what her audience needs and wants. Occasionally, this conviction surprises people.

“Everytime people show me that picture [from the canvassing flier] they’re like, ’You look bigger here!’ And I’m like, that’s the point. I am five-foot-nothing!”

Several residents invite Alvarez into their homes to discuss their lives and what role Alvarez may play in them. While standing at their front door, getting into Back of the Yards-specific topics, Rubi Rodriguez and her sister Yesenia invited Alvarez into their living room to talk shop and meet with their parents. The impromptu meeting went for nearly two hours, with Alvarez and the family making plans to meet again at a neighborhood party later.

When another resident said her family is from Pilsen and moved to Back of the Yards five years ago, Alvarez responded by explaining that private developers are purchasing properties around the neighborhood, not for immediate occupation, but to hold until they increase in value.

“I think some of them expected Back of the Yards to get gentrified in the way Pilsen did. That’s also something that’s within the power of the alderman. So if he doesn’t do something to stop that, it’s possible property taxes could go up, families can get dismissed,” she said.

A neighborly conversation about rising rents, increased crime, and lack of street maintenance ensues. The neighbor tells Vicko that the majority of her family moved into Back of the Yards when they could no longer afford Pilsen, and she feels that it’s important to have an elected official to discuss these issues with.

“I think stories like that are super important for the rest of our neighbors to know, especially the ones that have been here for a long time,” Alvarez says. “Everybody sort of sees what’s happening in Pilsen from the outside in. But when you hear it from somebody that had to move, it just… makes it real.”

There’s a pause for reflection, before Vicko offers her personal phone number and office address and directions if the family has any other questions. She moves

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to the next house, using the MiniVAN app to keep track of who she speaks with, if they’re registered to vote, and if they plan to support her in the upcoming election. The app is a major relief for Alvarez, who is used to the chaos of paper canvassing.

Alvarez was born in Texas to a workingclass immigrant family from Guanajuato, and she moved to the Midwest to attend the University of Chicago in 2006. After a year in the dorms, she decided to live in neighborhoods like Brighton Park and Back of the Yards with friends who were from the neighborhood. Alvarez said she liked the neighborhood because of the community, creating chosen families and in close proximity to other working class Latinx families like the one she grew up in. She’s moved from apartment to apartment, but has stayed in the area the last sixteen years.

Alvarez worked for several unions across the Midwest and later, in California. Most of these were for factory workers, like the United Steelworkers Organization, where Alvarez worked so that the mostly immigrant Spanish-speaking members knew their rights on the job.

After this, she returned to Chicago to pursue and teach art at Hernandez Middle School in Gage Park. During this time, Alvarez created ScholaR Comics and produced her second comic book, Rosita Se Asusta (Rosita Gets Scared), which depicts a young undocumented girl who fears deportation amid rising antiimmigrant policy and rhetoric. Alvarez intended for Rosita to emotionally support undocumented children facing similar adversities.

This coalescence of art, activism, and community led to Alvarez’s involvement in the election of Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez for the 33rd Ward. Alvarez was made chief of staff of the ward office in 2020 and left the position last summer to begin her campaign. While she sees her experience there as essential to her political sagacity, Alvarez is simultaneously self-conscious about why someone who worked for the North Side thinks they could adequately confront the conditions of the South Side.

“I’m not doing this if somebody else that’s really freaking good, and really principled and committed, is going to throw their hat in the ring,” Alvarez shared with the Rodriguez sisters, leaning forward from a large armchair in their living room.

“But if that doesn’t happen, Raymond can get another four years. We cannot guarantee this man another four years simply because nobody threw themselves in.”

Alderwoman Rodriguez-Sanchez, an unlikely victor in the mostly-white, middle-class North Side ward, is known for writing the Treatment Not Trauma ordinance, which would dispatch mental health care professionals, instead of armed police, to 911 calls where the situation is not explicitly violent. This passed as a ballot initiative specific to the 6th, 20th, and 33rd Wards last November, but is still being advocated as a citywide measure.

When Alvarez brings up safety issues, she is unflappable about her stance to allocate funding to nearly every department but the police. Alvarez sees the instigative, inconsistent, aggressive behavior of the police towards vulnerable communities

working people,” Johnson said over email. “I am confident that she will not only ensure that every resident of the 15th Ward is able to access neighborhood services, but that she will be a leader in the larger fight for equity and justice in our city.”

The Chicago neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence, several of which are in the 15th Ward, do not hold a monolithic view towards the police. Many residents the <i>Weekly</i> spoke with said safety was their main concern, and a problem that has gotten worse in recent years. And many of these residents recognize policing as the only, if not inexorable, solution.

“You never can defund the police. The ones that are protesting to ‘defund the police,’ they are the ones that call the police for them. So you need the police officers to be there. It’s just how you communicate,”

an imposing shadow that does more intimidation than relationship building. Cherli Montgomery, who is running for the Seventh District Police Council position, said she distrusts the rookie officers who accost young civilians in an effort to assert their own dominance.

“Yeah, this shouldn’t be a training ground for new hires. But it is,” Montgomery said. “They’re just practicing it on you. I don’t like to see that in my neighborhood. Yeah, I don’t like that. No.”

Quincy Johnson has been a resident of the 15th Ward since 1987. He recalls the 16th Ward being just across the street during this time, the threshold being the middle of the block. Johnson said that after a marble factory shuttered, racoons and other pests began to take over the neighborhood, some of which came in by railroad. Overgrown weeds contributed to the visual blight of the block. Johnson and his neighbors complained to their alderman for years about this.

“But they would just give us lines about what they were going to do about this building. They couldn’t find out who owns it or if it was in a trust… couldn’t find out. So it just went as it was. It was an eyesore.”

as a threat that outweighs their potential. She introduces this with examples of what areas need money—parks, mental health clinics, after school programs—rather than emphasizing defunding of the Chicago Police Department.

“So we still have the water department to talk about, we’re still talking about the department of transportation, we’re still talking about the department of family services, the department of health,” Alvarez goes on. “The most poorly funded department is the office of disabilities.”

In this formula, people are invited to imagine the opportunities, rather than a zero-sum game of police or a world without protective measures. Alvarez believes an informed public should be entitled to dream beyond just getting by. This is partly why Brandon Johnson decided to endorse her for 15th Ward alderwoman in early January.

“Vicko is a progressive leader whose lived experience has guided her to constantly stand up for the rights and dignity of

Williams said. She has confidence in reform, instilled in her after she attended CPD’s Citizen Academy, where participants are assigned tasks from an officer’s daily duties to learn more about their perspective.

But Williams isn’t myopic about the power dynamic between neighbors and the police around them. “Yeah, police officers need to get out and then walk their beat. I knew my beat officers. I knew the commander. I knew that I could call them and say, ‘’Hey, this is what’s going on in the neighborhood. Can you come over here? These kids are taking over the block,’ which they did and I kind of cleaned that up,” Williams shares.

“Some of these officers won’t even get out of the car. And they are rude. Even if they ask you a question. But you got to learn how to engage when you’re dealing with people, interacting, having a conversation, it ain’t always that you can come to the community because it’s a crime [happening].”

Other residents view the police as

This is the minutiae of the alderperson’s tasks: checking in on their constituents, and calling up different city departments with requests to tend to their constituent’s needs. Public funding for everything from community centers and libraries to pothole construction all fall under the alderperson’s province.

Residents of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E.), was founded in 2010 to mend the gap between Englewood’s needs and their fragmented political power. The organization is grassroots and didn’t obtain nonprofit status until 2019. All of their funding comes from private donors and foundations, none of which come from government entities.

“I felt like it was a need for us as a community to have one voice, regardless of the imaginary boundaries of our automatic officials,” said Aisha Butler, executive director of R.A.G.E. “We were one neighborhood, which was greater Englewood, that encompasses the same issues regardless of what ward you were in.”

Their goals are subject to change based on members’ feedback, and R.A.G.E. strives to incorporate input from all Englewood residents, including non-

“I’m not doing this if somebody else that’s really freaking good, and really principled and committed, is going to throw their hat in the ring. But if that doesn’t happen, Raymond can get another four years. We cannot guarantee this man another four years simply because nobody threw themselves in.”

– Vicko Alvarez

members. There are recurring themes, such as calls to adequately address the scars of institutionalized racism and discriminatory housing across the South Side with restorative public policy.

Butler said that many concerns are for basic quality-of-life issues like Quincy Johnson’s: making sure trees are trimmed and not falling on roofs, that streets are well paved and rat infestations are eradicated. She said a communicative alderperson is essential to getting these tasks done.

“I just think in general our members are very intuitive, very curious. They want to know what’s happening,” Butler said. “Residents love to be engaged and love to be able to know that their voices matter, so having their voices matter around the [ward] menu money or other potential projects, I think would be an ideal working relationship.”

Williams told the <i>Weekly</i> that she’s a compelling candidate because of her strong relationships with her neighbors in addition to the networking she’s accomplished with representatives at the local and state level. Williams includes Congressman Danny Davis and Illinois State Representative Sonia Harper in a list of politicians she’s previously worked with on projects that benefit West Englewood and other neighborhoods of the South Side, like producing a commercial encouraging seniors to get the COVID vaccine, and hosting back-to-school events and job fairs.

“I understand community, hands down community, now I’m gonna jump on the other side and I gotta learn the rules and regulations and the policy of how City Council works,” Williams said.

She believes her lived experiences give her an unquantifiable expertise in community-based work. “I’m so, so passionate. And sometimes people look at my passion being as negative because I have strong feelings on why I feel this way. And, and you ain’t gonna change my mind, no matter what. Because I know the reason why this should be this way. I’m in the trenches. I’m seeing things that nobody has ever seen.”

In December, Alvarez’s campaign office opened on 46th Street and Ashland. Just inside to the right of the entrance was an <i>ofrenda</i> for deceased loved ones of volunteers on the campaign, friends of Alvarez, and people from the neighborhood. Its white marbled floors

and 93.5 FM playing at a level suitable for a summer day created warmth like it wasn’t ten degrees outside. A children’s play and reading corner was to the left.

Most of the office is devoted to storing snacks, hygiene kits, baby supplies, Narcan, stacks of xeroxed papers with local resources listed on them, and given the season, foot and hand warmers. All of these items are kept at the offices so that they’re easily accessible to neighbors, a habit of Alvarez, who helped start the South Side Mutual Aid Solidarity.

She said some people do come by, and one woman stopped Alvarez on her way into the office to ask about the closing of the Food-4-Less grocery store on Damen Ave. Alvarez is still investigating this closure, since the reasons claimed by Lopez’s office are not currently public record.

On the office wall, Humberto Saldana is painting a mural that depicts a coyote with a thick mane of fur flowing in the wind, standing atop the Chicago stars. Alvarez explains that coyotes are endemic to Chicago, as they come into the city from the forest preserves via the train tracks.

Of the mural, Alvarez said: “It’s an animal that’s been in its home for thousands of years, but seen as a menace.”

Alvarez hopes that her office leads by example while showing neighbors what her tenure as alderwoman would look like. A month after this mural was completed, she received endorsements from the Chicago Teacher Union, United Working Families, and Johnson.

When the Weekly asked West Englewood resident, Quincy Johnson, about his feelings towards the gerrymandering of the 15th Ward, he joked, “Hey, take a look at it and tell me if I’m wrong. Does that not look like a guy standing holding a gun?”

He thinks that the biggest problem with the ward is that most residents don’t know who their alderman is.

Although he has doubts about any alderman’s ability to maintain awareness about the various needs of his ward, this doesn’t keep Johnson from having faith that things will improve.

“I’ve been here for a long time,” he said. “And I think we’re gonna get back to where we were when I first came over here, if not better.” ¬

Annabelle Dowd is a contributor to the Weekly. This is her first story for the Weekly

The Race for the 12th Ward

BY ALMA CAMPOS

In the race for the 12th Ward City Council seat are Mayor Lori Lightfootappointed alderperson Anabel Abarca—endorsed by former alderman George Cardenas, who in November 2022 stepped down after serving five terms to work as Commissioner of the Cook County Board of Review—and her challenger, Julia Ramirez, a community organizer and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) social worker born and raised in Brighton Park.

The 12th Ward encompasses most of McKinley Park and Brighton Park. Before redistricting, some parts of Little Village also belonged to the 12th Ward. These Southwest Side neighborhoods are working-class with a majority-Mexican Latinx population of over seventy-five percent, followed by an Asian population of fourteen percent and a white population of seven percent.

Historically, the area is known for being a part of Chicago’s Central Manufacturing District. The area drew immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s for work at factories including Wrigley, Goodyear Tire, and the Union Stock Yards and meatpacking factories in the neighboring communities. But while the ward and neighboring communities were dominated by these industries during the first half of the 20th century, it has since undergone largely residential and recreational uses.

Despite this, the zoning codes haven’t changed which allowed for MAT Asphalt to build near schools, a park, and homes.

This has been a hot button issue for years as residents have filed over a hundred pollution complaints with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) and the City. The plant has also been cited several times.

Many residents who are concerned about the environment say former alderman Cardenas didn’t engage with the residents before the plant came in. A 2020 email provided to the <i>Weekly</i> by Neighbors for Environmental Justice suggests that Cardenas and owner Michael Tadin Jr. had begun discussing the plant as early as February 2017. What is more, in 2015 Cardenas accepted campaign contributions from MAT Leasing, a waste transfer business owned by the father Tadin Jr. Abarca was raised on the North Side, attended Chicago Public Schools and has been living in McKinley park since 2005. Her current employer is Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath, where she works as a construction litigation attorney. Until recently, she was Cardenas’ chief of staff and strategic advisor.

Candidate Julia Ramirez has worked as a community organizer with Little Village nonprofits Latinos Progresando and Instituto del Progreso Latino. Most recently, Ramirez was a social worker and restorative justice practitioner with CPS. Most of Abarca’s work experience is in law, representing development and construction firms. She has also worked in city government with the Chicago Department of Public Health and

A community organizer and social worker with progressive endorsements takes on the appointed incumbent and former Ald. Cardenas’s chief of staff.

POLITICS

Chicago Board of Elections. When she was Cardenas’s chief of staff from 2013 to 2016, Abarca managed the annual budget of $1.3 million and “led all ward zoning” and “assisted real estate developers in moving developments through municipal processes,” according to her resume.

Some of Abarca’s donors are in the real estate and trucking and manufacturing industries. One of her donors is The Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance, a group of nine development associations across the city. Her top donor, REALTORS®, is a political action committee (PAC) which donated $10,000 to her campaign in early January. Notable donors and endorsers include George Cardenas himself, City Clerk Anna Valencia, and several labor unions such as Local 134 Chicago International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Chicago Plumbers Local 130.

Ramirez’s work experience has primarily been on the ground—as a community organizer and social worker, helping immigrant communities access resources and mitigate crime. Ramirez helped raise money for street vendors during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a volunteer for Increase the Peace. She previously worked with the organization BUILD, a gang intervention, violence prevention, and youth development organization based on Chicago’s West Side.

Her top campaign contributions are from SEIU PACs equaling over $40,000, as well as a donation form Mijente, an organization fighting for Latinx rights, and the Cook County College Teachers Union. The rest are donations from individuals. Ramirez’ endorsements include United Working Families—which also endorses Brandon Johnson for mayor—The Sunrise Movement, Urban Environmentalists, and the Illinois Nurses Association, among others.

Both candidates were invited to attend the February 9 12th Ward candidate forum at Kelly High School organized by community groups Neighbors 4 Environmental Justice (N4EJ), Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, and McKinley Park Development Council. This reporter and McKinley Park resident was invited to moderate the forum.

Ramirez confirmed her attendance, but Abarca declined to attend, alleging the

forum did not meet the requirements of “fairness and impartiality.” She added that some of the people in those organizations were backing Ramirez.

“We are disappointed that Alderwoman Abarca has declined to attend the 12th Ward Candidate Forum…,” said N4EJ in response to her public letter. “We have not endorsed

our organization.”

In a statement, Ramirez said, “As candidates, we must hear out all community stakeholders’ concerns, not only those who we align with. It’s disappointing to hear our opponent discredit the good work that community organizations have done in our neighborhoods for years and is further evidence that she is not ready to represent

if this is what you learned from your former boss.”

In the letter, Abarca said she was instead going to attend a separate forum moderated by a Block Club Chicago journalist, claiming the organization is “nonpartisan” and “objective.”

When the Weekly reached out to Abarca’s campaign office for comment, they sent the same statement, adding that the comment on the “fairness and impartiality” of the event was not directed at the Weekly

Both aldermanic candidates attended the January 26 BlockClub candidate forum where they addressed affordable housing, public safety, transportation infrastructure, the environment, and more.

There, Abarca said she wants to expand the Accessory Dwelling Units Ordinance, a pilot program, to include the 12th Ward. In 2020, the ordinance relegalized backyard house or interior ADUs (attics and basements for housing) as an affordable housing solution. Ramirez said she also wants to promote more of these types of units, but not just stop there— she also wants to work with the state to ensure rent regulation and pathways for residents to become homeowners.

Both said it’s in their plans to make Archer Avenue safer. Archer Avenue has many roadblocks to safe walking and biking. “I want to make sure we start prioritizing cyclists and pedestrians because for way too long we’ve been prioritizing cars,” Ramirez said. Abarca said she started working with the Department of Planning and Development as well as the Department of Transportation to have bike lanes on Archer, Western, Kedzie and 35th Streets and Pershing Rd.

anyone in the 12th Ward race, nor will we do so; in preparing for this event, we declined to partner with any group endorsing a candidate. Our members are, of course, free to support whomever they feel is best, when not acting on behalf of

the 12th ward.”

Cardenas also declined an invitation to a candidate forum in 2019.

A Twitter user responded with:

“Engagement with community members wherever they are is critical. Not surprising

Abarca wants to rezone 35th street in McKinley Park for new businesses as the corridor has been vacant for years. While Ramirez said “she’s happy about this,” she mentioned it’s important to get the input of the community before making those types of decisions. “We need people who have been deeply disenfranchised from their communities to be asked what they want,” said Ramirez.” She added it’s “beyond opening” a business, stating they also need help “to stay open.”

The Department of Planning has

“I am tired of the corruption we have had to live under Alderman Cardenas: he repeatedly prioritized his own self interest over constituents’ needs over the years. Anabel Abarca was his chief of staff, presumably learning from him.”

– Fiona Cook, McKinley Park resident

industrial corridor. One of the proposals is a $121 million plan from IBT Group for mixed-income housing, offices and retail space; a $95 million plan from LG Pershing Sound Studios for movie studio and retail and commercial space; and a $90 million plan from Quartermaster Outpost for a movie studio and commercial space

At the forum, Ramirez brought up concerns about MAT Asphalt and the Amazon distribution center emissions generated from trucks. She advocates for community engagement when it comes to developers going into the ward. “Why do they put them in our communities?” she asked rhetorically, referring to big developers and making it clear that she will support closing down MAT Asphalt.

“I am not going to tell you something that you want to hear, but tell you what is actually possible,” Abarca said. “I’m not going to take a stance and tell you that [MAT Asphalt] is going to be closed on day one… instead, I’m going to tell you that we are going to do everything humanly possible to enforce the actual regulation of the asphalt plant.”

Abarca said she wants to create a zoning council made up of community residents and organizations. Her opponent is interested in first educating people on how zoning works and that especially disenfranchised residents should be part of that process.

Ramirez said she wants to approach public safety by expanding opportunities for young people through the One Summer Chicago Program, as well as funding intervention programs. Money going to the Chicago Police Department (CPD) is something she also wants to keep her eye on and that “it’s working where we need it to.” Abarca said she wants to host events like CPD’s Catalytic Converter Deterrent Events to address thefts and thinks homeowners should be able to talk to police officers on the streets in order to “build trust.”

During the forum, attendees were not able to clap or cheer. They used green cards to express agreement or red for disagreement. But after both candidates gave their closing statements, the event concluded and the crowd overwhelmingly cheered and chanted for Ramirez. ¬

Alma Campos is a senior editor at the Weekly

Candidate Julia Ramirez

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE RAMIREZ CAMPAIGN

Alderwoman Anabel Abarca

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ABARCA CAMPAIGN

A Breakdown of Key Ward Races

Learn about candidates in wards 4, 5, 11, 14, 18, 20, 22, and 25, and see how the wards were redrawn.

BY REEMA SALEH, ELLA BEISER, HANA URBAN, ADAM PRZYBYL, ISMAEL CUEVAS, MAX BLAISDELL, JACQUELINE SERRATO, SAVANNAH HUGUELEY

4th Ward

On the edge of the lakefront, the 4th Ward includes parts of South Loop, Bronzeville, Kenwood, Oakland, and northern Hyde Park. After seven years in the position, the current alderperson, Sophia King, is running for mayor, leaving her seat open to the seven challengers hoping to represent the 4th Ward. As of publication, these challengers include Tracey Bey, Prentice Butler, Khari Humphries, Ebony Lucas, Lamont Robinson, and Helen West.

Since 2019, Lamont Robinson has served as the Illinois State Representative for the 5th District. This past November, Robinson was reelected to the Illinois legislature—where he will continue serving if he loses this race—but he has expressed his hopes to bring his statewide experience to more localized community needs as an alderperson. Robinson has the support of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, as well as endorsements from Governor J.B. Pritzker, SEIU Illinois State Council, and several alderpeople and state representatives. Robinson is the Illinois legislature’s first openly gay Black lawmaker and touts a list of accomplishments in Springfield— including securing $15 million in state funding for the construction of an LGBTQ+ South Side community center, sponsoring the Lead Service Line Replacement and Notification Act, and his advocacy to save Mercy Hospital (now Insight Hospital and Medical Center Chicago) on the near South Side. His campaign has raised about $282,000.

Prentice Butler is the chief of staff for Sophia King and has spent the past eleven years in local government working with King and her predecessor, former Alderperson

William Burns. In his campaign, Butler has focused on expanding equitable commercial development—zoning in on the $3.8 billion redevelopment of the Michael Reese hospital and expansion of the Cottage Grove retail corridor between 43rd and 47th Street—as well as strengthening neighborhood schools, increasing the participation of community advisory councils, and improving public transit and infrastructure. Butler has the endorsement of Alderperson King. His campaign has raised about $27,000.

Ebony Lucas is a real estate attorney based in Oakland. Lucas is making her third run for the 4th Ward seat, prioritizing affordable housing and commercial development. Her campaign has raised about $13,500.

Humphries served as Senior Director of Youth Policy for the City of Chicago until recently, previously leading The Community Builders and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago. With over twenty years of public service experience, Humphries has received endorsements from the Chicago Teachers Union and United Working Families. His campaign has raised about $5,000.

Entrepreneur Tracey Bey is an entrepreneur making her second run for the seat after losing to Will Burns in 2015. With a focus on economic development and neighborhood investment, her campaign has raised about $15,500.

Helen West is a retired business executive and educator. Running on public safety issues as her priority, she has highlighted requiring surveillance around homes and businesses to deter crime, economic development, and affordable housing. Her campaign has raised about $5,300. (Reema Saleh) ¬

5th Ward

After a twenty-four year career, incumbent Leslie Hairston is retiring as the alderperson for the 5th Ward. The open seat has been met with a flood of eleven candidates: Marlene Fisher, Wallace E. Goode Jr., Joshua Gray, Jocelyn Hare, Martina “Tina” Hone, Kris Levy, Robert Palmer, Dialika “Dee” Perkins, Gabriel Piemonte, Renita Q. Ward and Desmon Yancy.

The 5th Ward encompasses most of Hyde Park, including all of East Hyde Park and Indian Village, as well as parts of Woodlawn near Jackson Park and most of South Shore north of 71st Street.

At a January forum co-sponsored by community organizations Not Me We and the Obama Community Benefits Agreement Coalition, nine of the eleven candidates—Hare and Hone were not present—discussed key issues facing the ward: affordable housing development, displacement, public safety and park preservation.

With $127,269 available campaign funds, Desmon Yancy is by far the best funded candidate in the 5th Ward. A

long-time resident of South Shore, he is currently serving as the senior director of organizing and advocacy for the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. Prior to this, he co-founded and was spokesperson for the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability and Empowering Communities for Public Safety coalitions.

He is endorsed by Ald. Hairston, the Illinois Nurses Association, Citizen Action Illinois, JCUA Votes, United Working Families, Chicago Federation of Labor, Chicago Teachers Union, several SEIU locals, Center for Racial and Gender Equity and the Cook County College Teachers Union. Among his priorities are economic development, increasing police accountability, mental health access and community-based violence reduction programs such as Treatment Not Trauma. At the forum, Yancy voiced support for a $5 increase to the city’s minimum wage and more expansive universal basic income programs as one solution to rising housing costs.

Marlene Fisher is a University of Chicago information technology (IT) administrator and a Greater Grand

Crossing-based community organizer. She moved to South Shore in 1998 and has lived on the South Side ever since. In an interview with the Herald, Fisher said her top priorities are economic development and neighborhood beautification, public safety and housing affordability.

Jocelyn Hare is a University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy project director. Born on the West Side and raised in Oak Park, she is running for her second time after losing to Hairston in 2015. Her top issues are public safety, affordable housing and promoting equitable economic development across the ward. In addition to her support of the newly-created local Police District Councils, Hare said she would create additional councils with representatives from each precinct. She has $31,500 available in her campaign fund, $18,900 of which she contributed herself.

Tina Hone grew up in Hyde Park, Chatham and Roseland and was most recently the Chief Engagement Officer for the City of Chicago. She worked at law firms and taught middle school in San Francisco after college, later moving to Washington, D.C., where she spent more than 20 years working in the House Judiciary Committee, the Commerce Department and the American Legacy Foundation. Hone moved back to Hyde Park six years ago and served as the Chief Equity Officer at the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago for three years and then the Chief Engagement Officer for the City of Chicago for two. She told the Herald her biggest priority is public safety, which she believes can be solved with better—but not necessarily more—policing, economic development and addressing generational trauma with expanded mental health services. Regarding housing, Hone said she supports building affordable housing in the ward but also stressed improving home ownership rates. She has $15,207 available campaign funds.

Kris Levy is a South Shore wine and spirits distributor who lives in Jackson Park Highlands. In an interview with the Herald, he said his top three issues are public safety, economic development and public school funding. Among his public safety suggestions is increasing police presence in high traffic locations like gas stations, grocery stores and bus stops, as

well as better community engagement from officers. Regarding development and employment, he said he wants to bring large companies to the ward. His campaign has raised $3,583.

Wallace E. Goode Jr., a Woodlawn native who now lives in Hyde Park, is the former executive director of the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce. He was also the Associate Dean of Students at the University of Chicago and Director of the University Community Service Center. As alderman, Goode told the Herald his priorities would be creating programming for teens, reducing gun violence and education.

Joshua Gray is a South Shore political consultant and former aide to South Side Alderman David Moore in the 17th Ward. He has worked as an anti-violence community organizer and served as the Dean of charter school Chicago Bulls College Prep and Assistant Principal at CPS Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy. In 2019, he ran Moore’s successful reelection campaign and worked as mayoral candidate Amara Enyia's campaign manager. His top campaign issues are addressing public safety, youth engagement and economic development; the latter of which he said can be addressed by building more corporate partnerships.

Robert Palmer is a special education highschool teacher, Chicago Teachers Union member and a resident of Greater Grand Crossing. An Englewood native, Palmer’s top campaign priorities are increased community interaction with the alderperson, equitable distribution of discretionary funds and more economic investment in the ward. Investing in youth programming and creating an “Afrocentric” curriculum for schools in majorityBlack neighborhoods are important issues for Palmer as he believes it will promote public safety.

Dialika “Dee” Perkins, self described as “The People’s Champ”, is a business manager who has worked in corporate tax auditing; she is also a professional boxer. According to her campaign website, her top three focuses are increasing safety in the ward by creating a team of trained, paid volunteers to patrol the neighborhood, addressing housing concerns such as homeownership and affordable housing access and promoting local business development.

11th Ward

Eyes are on the 11th Ward, after a dramatic remapping of the area last year made it the first majorityAsian ward in Chicago’s history. The ward, which encompasses Chinatown and parts of Bridgeport, Armour Square, and McKinley Park, has six candidates vying to replace Lightfoot-appointed Nicole Lee. Lee, whose background is primarily in financial consulting, is Chicago’s first Chinese American alderperson and was appointed in March of last year to replace Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson after he was convicted for tax fraud. Her administration’s primary focus has been installing an open-enrollment high school on the South Side, though this has proved

Gabriel Piemonte, a community organizer, writer and former Hyde Park Herald editor is running for alderman for a second time after placing third in the 2019 runoff election. He said his major areas of focus are public safety, reparations for Black ward residents, affordable housing and community land ownership. Piemonte has lived in the 5th Ward for more than two decades, first in Hyde Park and then in Woodlawn, the latter of which where he co-founded a coalition to preserve the Shrine of Christ the King in 2015 after it was damaged by a fire and set to be demolished. During the forum, Piemonte voiced support for a citywide eviction moratorium, rent control and affordable housing development. He has advocated for preserving Promontory Point’s limestone revetment and said he would reject a proposed mega-golf course course (known as the Tiger Woods Golf Course) that would stretch from Jackson Park to the South Shore Nature Sanctuary. He has $10,770 in his campaign fund.

Renita Ward is a health care attorney at Northwestern Medicine and associate minister who moved to Hyde Park from Georgia in 2015. Her top issues are youth and public safety, which she said go hand in hand. Additionally, she is focused on government efficiency, economic development on 71st Street and access to health care. She currently has $8,519 in her campaign fund. (Ella Beiser) ¬

controversial with critics calling for more community engagement in the process. Lee has been endorsed by the Chicago Federation of Labor, SEIU Illinois State Council, and SEIU Local 73, and has raised just over $131,000, more than any competing candidate.

There’s little online presence for Elvira “Vida” Jimenez, former city service representative for the Chicago Police Department, and Steve Demitro, former Chicago Cardinals player and attorney. With vague platforms like “creating dog parks” and “better public schools,” it’s unlikely for either of them to be considered at the ballot box.

CPD instructor Anthony “Tony” Ciaravino’s platform leans heavily into public safety and increased police presence, along with expanding city services for

WARD 11

$500 a month in cash assistance to low-income residents for one year, claiming it would disincentivize recipients from finding jobs and could be “counterproductive to economic recovery.” He is in favor of building a new high school and expanding trade schools in the area, as well as ensuring proper time off for police and directing additional resources to the Chicago Department of Environment.

Donald “Don” Don is a former Chicago firefighter and co-founder of the Chinatown and Bridgeport Neighborhood Watch groups. While his family has called Chicago home since the 1960s, Don’s campaign website leaves much to be desired when it comes to an actual platform. He promotes the importance of teamwork to make a community stronger, but has no action plan or specific details on how exactly that teamwork might happen.

seniors and lowering property taxes. His campaign has raised over $57,000, an amount only beaten by Lee and Ambria Taylor. Ciaravino has received several awards as a police instructor throughout his career, along with two complaints (one sustained); according to his campaign website, he is an active member of Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS).

Froylan “Froy” Jimenez is a CTU member and history and civics teacher at John Hancock College Prep near Midway who pledges to “fight and squash extreme socialist ideas like defunding the police” as Alderman. Jimenez wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune last June criticizing Mayor Lightfoot and County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s guaranteed basic income pilot program, which provides

14th Ward

This year, the 14th Ward will undergo a change it has not seen in over half a century: a new alderperson. Ed Burke, who has represented the 14th Ward since 1969, declined to file for reelection late last year. Burke was indicted in 2019 on federal corruption and bribery charges; he allegedly approved permits for businesses on the condition they go to his private law firm for tax work and is scheduled to appear in court in November.

Rounding out the candidate pool is middle school teacher and CTU member Ambria Taylor, who cites the 2020 unrest as inspiring her move into politics after a working-poor upbringing. Her platform, according to her website, is being developed with community input, in part via town halls. Notably, Taylor is both the only candidate supporting the Bring Chicago Home ordinance, a grassroots coalition proposing to create low-income affordable housing and permanent housing for those experiencing homelessness, according to a CBCAC candidate questionnaire. A slew of endorsements, including from Chicago DSA and 11th Ward IPO, could up her chances. (Hana Urban) ¬

Running to replace him are Jeylú Gutiérrez and Raúl Reyes.

Gutiérrez is a Brighton Park resident and Mexican immigrant who works as the district director for Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya. She has also worked as a counselor and community liaison in Pilsen’s Benito Juarez High School and Hernandez Middle School in Gage Park.

Gutiérrez is backed by Jesús “Chuy” García, who has squared off with the Burke political dynasty for years. In 2019,

WARD 14

collaborating with police, and provide community centers for the youth.

Raúl Reyes is the other contender for the position.

García backed candidate Tanya Patiño, who lost to Burke without even making the runoff. More successfully, García backed Aaron Ortiz, Patiño’s partner, who replaced Dan Burke, brother of Ed Burke, as state representative of the 1st district. Gutiérrez is endorsed by Ortiz, Alma Anaya, and SEIU IL, which has donated some $20,000 to her campaign. Overall, Gutiérrez has raised more than $71,000.

In an interview with the Tribune, Gutiérrez said one of her top priorities is making sure each part of the ward gets the same level of service. A common complaint under Burke’s tenure was that to get any level of reliable service—potholes filled, streetlights installed, complaints listened to and addressed—residents needed to have voted for Burke. Gutiérrez also said she wants to address violence by

18th Ward

On the far southwest side of Chicago, first-time challenger and community organizer Heather Wills is running for Alderman Derrick G. Curtis’s seat. Finishing up his second term, the incumbent has received close to $65,000 in contributions, with some of the largest donations coming from LIUNA Chicagoland Laborers' District Council, Chicagoland Operators Joint LaborManagement PAC, J.B. Pritzker, Michael J. Madigan, and Rahm Emmanuel. Willshas an MBA as well as a Master of Arts in Religious Leadership from the Chicago Theological Seminary. An ordained minister, he has received a little more than $36,000, mostly from the Center for Racial and Gender Equity and family.

A longtime staff assistant in the City Clerk’s office, Reyes has ties to the Burkes. He helped gather some sixty signatures to put Burke on the ballot in 2019, and his campaign is almost entirely funded by a $50,000 donation from Dan Burke. Reyes ran for alderperson in the 15th Ward in 2015, when he got just seven percent of the vote.

Though he has been hard to reach by news organizations, in a 2015 Sun-Times questionnaire Reyes expressed support for hiring more police and putting money into after-school programs and summer jobs for teens and adults.

The previous iteration of the 14th Ward included a thin strip into Garfield Ridge, where much of Burke’s voting base lives. But in last year’s remapping, that strip was eliminated, so that the ward now encompasses Archer Heights, Gage Park, and parts of Brighton Park and Chicago Lawn. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the area is nearly ninety percent Latinx. (Adam Przybyl) ¬

She is “funded by the people,” she told a crowd at a recent candidate forum hosted by the Xi Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. She has also been endorsed by the IVI-IPO, SEIU-HCII, and the Cook County College Teachers Union. Although Curtis doesn’t count with the CTU’s endorsement “yet,” he is proud of his endorsements by the FOP, Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2, and many other labor unions.

The newly redrawn 18th Ward includes the neighborhoods of Scottsdale, Ashburn, Wrightwood, Parkview, Marycrest, Beverly View, and parts of Chicago Lawn and Auburn Gresham. At the forum, Wills said that, if elected, she believes that “aldermanic prerogative needs to be done away” and promises she will invert the “pyramid of power” by

implementing a participatory budgeting process for the ward’s infrastructure funding. She also said that “TIF districts are erroneous and basically a slush fund” and that she will “double down by hearing people at the doors” and provide “engagement sessions” in the ward.

Curtis did not attend the forum, but in a follow up interview touted his accomplishments in bringing the Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center to Daley College and preventing the sale of Ford City Mall in order for Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development to do

20th Ward

Incumbent Ald. Jeanette Taylor is running for reelection in the 20th Ward, which encompasses Woodlawn and parts of Washington Park, Back of the Yards, and Englewood. She’s facing two challengers, Jennifer Maddox and Andre Smith, both of whom ran for the seat in 2019.

Taylor won election for the 20th Ward’s alderperson’s seat in 2019 after Willie Cochran, a three-term alderman, was indicted by a federal grand jury on corruption charges. Prior to joining City Council, Taylor was a community organizer who championed a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) for the Obama Presidential Center and participated in the 34-day hunger strike to keep Washington Park’s Walter H. Dyett High School from being closed.

Taylor’s achievements during her first term include the passage of the

an analysis on the future of the site. He also said he called on his eleven years of experience as a superintendent for the previous 18th Ward alderwoman to improve the infrastructure of the ward. He has supported Mayor Lori Lightfoot in ninety-two percent of Council votes between 2019-2021. In the next term he said he will focus on public safety by increasing police patrols in the neighborhoods because “the more police the better” and will advocate to decrease the size of the 8th police district for strategic coverage. (Ismael Cuevas)

2020 Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance, which requires that 30 percent of units in any redeveloped vacant lots be made available to very low income households among other provisions, and pushing for jobs for South Siders. She is also well known for being a frequent critic of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. This campaign cycle Taylor has been endorsed by the Sierra Club Illinois, United Working Families and CTU Local 1. Her campaign has around $93,000 on hand, with substantial contributions from labor unions.

Jennifer Maddox is a recently retired Chicago Police Department officer who used to patrol Parkway Gardens and now runs a nonprofit that provides after and summer school support for youth. Her priorities include economic development, public safety, housing and education. Maddox has about $5,000 available in campaign funds.

Andre Smith is a pastor and entrepreneur who’s taking a fourth swing

WARD 20

at the 20th Ward seat. A Washington Park resident, he was part of last decade’s fight for the creation of the trauma center at University of Chicago Medicine and has also founded a violence interruption group. His priorities include instituting a property tax freeze, public safety and greater aldermanic presence in the community. Smith has received a $1,000 donation from the Fraternal Order of the Police among other small contributions.

At a candidate forum held on Jan. 19 at the AKArama Foundation Community Service Center in Woodlawn, the candidates addressed residents’ concerns unreliable public transportation, economic revitalization of the 63rd Street corridor; job creation to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Obama Center; and ways to keep youth occupied and out of harm’s way.

Whereas Taylor leaned on her past four years in office learning how to be an effective alderperson and talked with fluency about potential policy solutions, Maddox spoke of her long-standing commitment to serving the area as an officer, mother and nonprofit leader. Smith called upon his highly visible presence in

22nd Ward

Little Village’s 22nd Ward

Alderperson Mike Rodríguez is seeking reelection after a bumpy first term. Despite facing sustained backlash for his support of Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the sloppy implosion of the old Crawford coal plant chimney, he has a solid base of supporters who voted for him after former Ald. Ricardo Muñoz’s controversial twenty-six-year administration—and

Woodlawn, even giving his phone number to all those present to call him with any concerns or issues.

All called for greater transparency and community involvement in the process of performing aldermanic duties and made a point of soliciting resident input on new developments coming into and transforming the area.

A contentious issue in Woodlawn this year has been the city’s repurposing of the former Wadsworth Elementary School as a migrant shelter. On Thursday, Feb. 2,, the city opened the shelter amid resistance from some residents and vocal opposition from all three candidates. Smith, in fact, staged a protest by attempting to block 100 migrants from entering the shelter as they were disembarking from CTA buses, while Maddox led a rally in early January to delay the shelter’s opening.

Though Taylor has lambasted the city’s handling of the shelter and objected to its Woodalwn placement, she is working with community organizations in the ward to provide resources and Spanish language assistance to the new residents. (Max Blaisdell) ¬

they are likely to vote for him again. Rodríguez tends to vote moderate-toprogressive in City Council, believes in violence prevention programs that work in tandem with the police, and has the backing of his political mentor and mayoral candidate Jesús “Chuy” García, who wields significant influence in Southwest Side politics. Rodriguez supported the mixeduse development of the Saint Anthony Hospital expansion at 31st and Kedzie. Moreover, he has presided over the ward’s

independent political organization (IPO), a group that has received criticism for seldom challenging an incumbent.

Candidate Neftalie Gonzalez, a lifelong resident and former police officer, is running for the seat for the fourth time in a row. He has expressed frustration over the rising commercial rents on 26th Street— the neighborhood lifeline—having himself been a music shop owner who had to move repeatedly within the corridor. Gonzalez provides career mentoring to youth on the west side of the neighborhood by referring them and helping them to apply to wellpaying jobs. He takes pride in not accepting political donations from contributors who he says will be “owed favors.” The candidate told the Weekly that he supports more training for new police recruits and proposes “a mental health crisis team that works under EMS (Emergency Medical Services), not CPD” because mental health “is not a law enforcement issue.” He added

25th Ward

The 25th Ward race is down to incumbent Byron Sigcho-Lopez, seeking his second term, and educator Aida Flores, attempting her second run at a City Council seat. Daniel Montes, who announced his run last fall, dropped out of the race and endorsed Flores. After losing in 2015, Sigcho-Lopez won in a 2019 runoff election, while Flores came in fourth.

Both candidates have deep ties to the community, which covers most of Pilsen, as

that police accountability should apply to every member of the department, not just patrol officers, including those in positions of command.

Kristian Armendariz is the youngest challenger in the race at twenty-five years old. His name and energy surfaced during the 2020 protests over the police killing of thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo, during which Little Village alderpersons, including Rodriguez, were largely absent (the shooting happened in then-alderman George Cardenas’ 12th Ward). Almendariz works at a bar-andgrill and holds a side job in construction while he pursues his Bachelor’s degree in construction management. Asked about his motivation to run, he said the current alderman “failed us with the Hilco explosion during the pandemic, the [Little Village] Discount Mall [Plaza’s planned closure], the local street vendors, and our environment.” Armendariz has been knocking doors and planning meetand-greets to gain name recognition, and he recently hosted a town hall at the Little Village Community Council with the support of 25th Ward alderperson Byron Sigcho-López to address the recent armed robberies of street vendors in and outside the ward.

Little Village voters are observing who is responsive to their needs and, to win and maintain their vote, the next 22nd Ward alderperson should address issues like rising property taxes and rents, the negative effects of large-scale developments, the disregard for small business owners and vendors, aggressive policing, and a recurring issue: gun violence and public safety. (Jacqueline Serrato) ¬

well as slivers of McKinley Park, University Village, the West Loop, and the South Loop. Flores, born and raised in Pilsen, is a well-known community organizer and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) educator.

Sigcho-Lopez settled in Pilsen ten years ago and worked as an adult education teacher at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he founded its bilingual adult education program.

An educator and parent, Flores is deeply familiar with the Chicago Public School system. Currently the assistant principal at Darwin Elementary, she was

also previously the principal at Hernandez Middle School, an assistant principal at Kelvyn Park High School, and a history teacher at Benito Juarez High School. She was also a local school council student representative at Benito Juarez High School, according to her website. For these reasons, some of her main priorities are equitable school funding and expanding the Safe Passage program.

Flores, a Harvard and Georgetown grad, has also advocated for public safety, efforts against gentrification, and improved city services. She also plans to gather community input for permits for events and festivals, which is timely, given that community members from the neighboring 24th Ward voiced concerns about Riot Fest being held in Douglass Park last year.

Endorsed by Chuy García, 40th Ward Democrats, and Ironworkers Local 63, among others, Flores has raised over $45,161. Flores contributed at least $12,000 of her own money to her campaign, according to Reform for Illinois' Sunshine Database. Other supporters to her campaign include Leadership for Educational Equity, theInternational Union of Operating Engineers, and numerous individual donors.

Prior to being elected in 2019, SigchoLopez was the executive director of Pilsen Alliance, a prominent community organization committed to developing grassroots leadership in Pilsen and neighboring working-class, immigrant communities. As director, he co-founded the campaign to Lift the Ban on rent control

in Illinois, one of several accomplishments in the struggle against gentrification and displacement.

During his term, Sigcho-Lopez has focused on advocating for community interests in affordable housing, environmental justice, and public safety. With the recent string of Little Village street vendor robberies, he has been the main alderperson to speak with vendors and draw attention to their needs.

Sigcho-Lopez has also continually called for more accountability from the City on residents’ environmental concerns. When residents protested Sims Metal Management for pollution Pilsen, he spoke at rallies, pushed city and state agencies to test the facility, and sent requests to the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) to postpone the scrap metal processor’s operating permit until the tests were complete. Sims ended up being sued by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office for violating the state’s air pollution regulations and exposing community members to unchecked emissions from a metal scrapper. He also facilitated and ensured community input on plans for the 18th and Peoria affordable housing development.

Sigcho-Lopez is a Cumberland University and University of Illinois at Chicago grad. A Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member, Sigcho-Lopez has also been a key member of the Chicago Democratic Socialist Caucus. He was also one of the few alderpersons to show up to a City Council meeting about the Bring Chicago Home ordinance, a proposal to fund homelessness services that was kept off this month’s ballot when the meeting failed to meet quorum.

Since April 2021, Sigcho-Lopez has raised about $289,652 and currently has $115,115 on hand. He has received hefty support from unions through endorsements and contributions, including large donations from the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU. (Savannah Hugueley) ¬

2023 Before the Polls: Q&As with Black Mayoral Candidates

Kam Buckner, Ja’Mal Green, Brandon Johnson, Sophia King, Lori Lightfoot, Roderick Sawyer, and Willie Wilson discuss their views on police, education, mental health, housing, and more.

BY TONIA HILL, TIFFANY WALDEN, THE TRIIBE

The TRiiBE sat down with the 2023 Black mayoral candidates to learn more about their political views. The Weekly is printing an excerpt of each interview. To read the full Q&As and The Triibe’s other election content, visit thetriibe.com/chicagoelections-2023

As part of our 2023 Black mayoral candidate interview series, on Jan. 2 Buckner invited The TRiiBE to his campaign office inside the shopping center off 55th and Wentworth Avenue in Washington Park. He noted that the area was hit badly during the 2020 summer

During the interview, Buckner didn't linger on the fact that his father was a longtime Cook County Sheriff's Department officer, and that he has an uncle who was a sworn CPD officer and another uncle who was a CPD civilian employee. Instead, he highlighted his work as a state representative to bring the SAFE-T Act and Chicago’s first-ever elected school board to fruition. We also asked him about his plans for policing and public safety should he become mayor. Throughout our interview, he was adamant about not increasing CPD’s budget if elected. However, he did talk about filling existing vacancies within CPD and finding resources to put more detectives on the streets. (Tiffany Walden)

summer camp in Chicago parks and was an early and young utilizer of Chicago Public Library. Chicago really is in my DNA. It’s at the core of who I am.

You grew up with a very law enforcement-heavy family. You've said that you support both GoodKid MadCity's Peace Book proposal, and an increase in the size of the police force. What parts of the Peace Book do you support? And how does that work with your plan to increase the police force?

My dad was actually [in] Cook County Sheriff’s Department. My uncles were CPD, both sworn officers and civilian employees as well. And so not only do I support the Peace Book, but I actually worked with GoodKids MadCity to write the state counterpart to that: the Peace Act.

is a more affordable housing stock in the city.

Organizers have called for more mental health and preventative measures to counteract some of the violence that we see. But then when people get in office, we don't see that. We still see the police budget increase. Do you have any policies that you are thinking about crafting or have already crafted that really show what these two institutions could look like; this idea of preventative measures and policing? When you mentioned police responding to certain crimes, what crimes? How does that work?

Kam Buckner wants to remind everyone that he is a son of Chicago. His family has roots in Mississippi; they moved to Chicago during the second Great Migration after the brutal lynching of Emmett Till in nearby Money, Mississippi. Buckner, thirty-seven, is a graduate of Chicago Public Schools, and boasts being the only candidate in the 2023 Chicago mayoral race who can claim that honor—he went to Clissold Elementary School in Beverly and then Morgan Park High School.

The TRiiBE: How does your environment growing up shape your politics and who you are and your outlook on life today?

Kam Buckner: I talk a lot in this campaign about being a son of Chicago. And to me, that's a big deal, right? We could talk about where you go to college and went to law school and all that fun stuff. That's resume-based stuff. But literally being a person who grew up here, who is a Chicago Public School graduate, a person who played in Chicago parks and went to

When I talk about filling vacancies, I don’t talk about increasing the size of CPD. I talk about civilianization of many functions. I also talk about, not a callresponder model for mental health calls like currently exists, but a model where cops are not showing up at all—where it’s only a trained mental health professional.

Increasing the size of the police department is not the recipe for this. What I often talk about is two things. I see public security and I see public safety. I think public security is law enforcement. I think law enforcement has to exist for when untoward things happen, and we need a response to that. Law enforcement is responsive.

I think public safety is proactive. Public safety is more money in our schools. Public safety is more mental health operations in the city. Public safety

In my public safety plan, which is called Safer 77, being a nod to the 77 communities in Chicago, I talk a lot about making sure that CPD can not be laserfocused on petty crimes, I mean crimes that are smaller and nonviolent. We've got a 20% clearance rate on homicides. No matter where you fall on this conversation, there's nobody who tells me that they're okay with an 80% chance of killing somebody in Chicago and never having to pay for it.

So, in my plan, I talk a lot about providing resources to put more detectives in the streets. These are not somebody that's pulling you over for an expired tag and then busting you for having some weed in your car.

How do you feel about the SAFE-T Act? Is it something that you support?

I helped write it. I worked very hard to get it across the finish line. I've worked very hard over the last few months to defend it in public, especially from lies and outright

Kam Buckner

PHOTO BY ALEXANDER GOULETAS FOR THE TRIIBE

attacks on just the face of it. We took, I think, courageous steps to dismantle a system that treats you better if you are guilty and you have the means than it does if you are innocent and you don't have the means.

Is there a correlation between mental health and violence in Chicago? And if so, how are you thinking about this correlation as you draft ideas around policies regarding safety and mental health?

I think there are huge correlations. In my mental health plan, I call for reopening 20 mental health facilities in the city and making a number of those 24-hour facilities so people can come in throughout the day. Also, putting together mobile units so that folks can seek help no matter where they are on the street.

Do you support Treatment Not Trauma? And if so, how does that fit in with the ideas and policies you have around mental health and safety?

Yes, I do. And when I built my mental health plan, about three months ago, it’s very similar to the work that Treatment [Not] Trauma has tried to put forward.

How would you create policies to support Black residents who are being priced out by some of the new developments such as the Obama Presidential Center or the casino coming to Cabrini Green?

I've been a huge proponent of making sure that we have community benefits agreements that we have put in law, things that protect communities. When I worked for [the Chicago Cubs], I was blown away when I first realized that there is literally a city ordinance to protect the Lakeview community from the Cubs. It was called the Neighborhood Protection Ordinance. And it requires the ballclub to provide a certain amount of security and litter cleanup and charitable money to organizations in the area. There's a lot that can happen when a community stands up.

I've stood with the folks who called for the community benefits agreement for Woodlawn and Washington Park, around the Obama Presidential Center. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few years with the US Steel site down on the Southeast Side of Chicago, in a community that has been a sacrifice zone

for industrial harm and environmental failure. And so we've got to start thinking about how we protect those folks.

How do you enforce something like that? Even with the CBA that's out there in Woodlawn around the Obama Library right now, people are still being priced out.

So I think that the Department of Housing has to be more aggressive and make sure that we are not letting the market fluctuate away that we're pricing people out. When we talk about rent stability, when we talk about making sure that people are not being priced out, that people aren't spending more than thirty percent of their income on where they live, the city housing department, I think, has a lot that we can do. We’ve got to be smarter about the way zoning works specifically in communities that are ripe for gentrification.

Many of your campaign donors are from big businesses and reside outside of Chicago. How would you describe some of the people and groups who have endorsed you? And how are you accountable to them? Have you had to make any promises to them?

So I prided myself as a state representative, and now as a mayoral candidate, on being clear, transparent and accountable to the people who sent me to the seat. I gotta tell you, in this mayoral campaign, we have had more grassroots single donors than anyone else in this race, including the mayor.

I think that my track record in the General Assembly, and the folks who have supported me in this space, I have been very clear, right. So I've always gotten the endorsement and the support of folks like the Sierra Club, and folks like the Illinois Environmental Council, as well as grassroots groups on the ground, like the Worker Center for Racial Justice. And in those types of groups I've been able to do work with to actually get stuff done.

Ja’Mal Green

Ja’Mal Green is going to be seen and heard. A familiar face at protests seeking justice for Laquan McDonald and other victims of police violence,

former Mayor Rahm Emanuel does not care about Black people.

Today, he continues to confront politicians head-on; during recent candidate forums, he’s called out opponents for holding office for years but not acting urgently to heal community trauma and improve conditions for Black and brown youth.

On Jan. 3, Green invited The TRiiBE to his campaign headquarters off 87th and Halsted in Auburn Gresham. Covered with “Ja’Mal Green for Mayor” signs, with a coach campaign bus parked outside, his HQ, formerly a Chase Bank, stands out in an otherwise dilapidated strip mall. To get inside the HQ teeming with volunteers, Green’s children among them, we had to present photo IDs.

During our interview, Green did not back down from his longtime views about policing.

Ja’Mal Green: “We will not be investing more money into increasing police in this city. That is not how you solve violence,” he said. In his public safety plan, Green calls for police reform that makes “policing more attractive.”

He shared ideas about creating a city-owned public bank that would give residents the power to invest back into their communities. The bank’s priorities would be affordable housing, home ownership, new development and small business lending.

He also wants to cut violence in half, create 10,000 new homeowners and launch “universal 3K,” or preschool for children as young as three.

However, without any executive political experience, some Chicago voters wonder how Green, the youngest candidate in the race, will bring his lofty

Also, he’s been linked to some controversy in recent years. In 2021, he circulated rumors on social media about Lightfoot resigning. He tweeted: “Lori Lightfoot is resigning tomorrow in a stunning end to her mayorship.” He later issued an apology, and the tweet has since

When Black, queer, women-led liberation organizers in Chicago such as BYP 100, Assata’s Daughters and Let Us Breathe Collective were voicing their opposition to Lightfoot’s 2019 campaign because of her affiliation with the police board, Green endorsed her. He said he advised her on the Youth Commission and during the COVID-19 pandemic, but then the two began to clash. In 2021 he called Lightfoot out for blocking his effort to turn the Emanuel-shuttered Garrett Morgan Elementary School in AuburnGresham into a $15 million youth center.

And in December 2022, a yearslong feud between Green and opponent Willie Wilson’s camp boiled over when audio recording allegedly between Wilson political consultant Rickey Hendon and Green campaign volunteer Kevin Hobby leaked on social media, detailing a bribe for Green’s team to drop the petition challenge against Wilson. In 2019, Hendon challenged Green’s petition signatures and Green dropped out of the race. (Tonia Hill)

The TRiiBE: Chicago millennials defied expectations in the 2022 midterm elections as the second-largest voting bloc. In 2012, Black Chicago millennials, following the police murder of Rekia Boyd, also laid the groundwork for the emerging Black liberation movement. You were part of the organizing community that sought justice for Laquan McDonald. Why is Chicago ready for millennial leadership at the mayoral level?

Ja’Mal Green: Chicagoans have seen that

the city's politics have not worked and are not in the best interests of everyday working-class people. We are now in a pivotal time where the young generation is hopeless. Young people are dying, committing acts of violence or being caught doing carjackings. Some are trying to raise families in Chicago.

There's just no type of hope right now. Families all across the city, they're leaving. Businesses are leaving. Chicago is willing to take a chance on someone who has a plan, cares about everyday citizens, is younger and will bring forth innovative ideas.

You grew up on both the South and West sides. How did each side of town shape your politics and outlook on life?

I grew up in Gresham. It’s been my home for all my life. The first block that I lived on was 86th and Union. Those were homeowners who cared about the block and every young person on the block.

I had Mr. Riley, who just recently died, who would give me a dollar for every “A” I had, and we had a village. Looking back at all the other places I’ve lived, there’s no other block like that. So that gave me a foundation that showed me what a village looks like and how people can come together and love on each other and look after each other and look after each other's kids.

Young Black and brown children are sometimes forgotten when discussing gun violence. You're typically vocal about gun violence, especially when it impacts children. How will you invest in safety? And are there ways outside of policing that you will invest in safety? Can you describe what that will look like?

Today, we released a $5 billion plan. That is called EPIC: Economic Prosperity Prevention, Intervention, and CPD reform. Our program's basis is to ensure that we create thriving neighborhoods where we invest in young people and where CPD is a support system and not an oppressive force. We will not be investing more money into increasing police in this city. That is not how you solve violence.

As a millennial, you seem more connected to Black and brown youth

in Chicago in ways that the other campaigns aren't, primarily through your work and Majostee All Stars. Why is supporting and uplifting the voices of young people in Chicago important to you, and is that a commitment you'll maintain if elected mayor?

One of the things that I did get this mayor to do was pass my idea to have the first-ever Youth Commission in the city to advise the mayor's office. It’s super important for young voices to be heard. I was young once. I can remember people saying you're young, and you need to stay in your place or your voice doesn't matter.

So that's why it's important for me to make sure that we invest in young people and make sure that we remove the barriers.

Are you familiar with GoodKid MadCity’s Peace Book ordinance? If so, does supporting that ordinance align with your commitment to Chicago’s youth?

Yes, I mentored many young people involved in GoodKid MadCity’s Peace Book over the years. They put together a good plan.

I'm sure there are some tweaks that we'll be able to tweak and make better. The point is there is an organization of young people who come forward and say, “here's a plan,” especially those young people putting their lives on the line daily and being on the front lines. They need a voice, right? So bring them to the table, hear the plan, and see how we can strengthen that plan, work together and create something that will work.

On your website, you mentioned wanting to create healing houses where those suffering from mental health issues can find refuge. And you also just alluded to having a trained social worker be sent to homes to de-escalate in non-emergency situations. That sounds similar to Treatment Not Trauma. Do you support that?

We will pass Treatment Not Trauma. We need to reopen the mental health facilities that Rahm Emanuel shut down.

A lot of our readers are renters. What initiatives will you implement to protect

people from displacement and support people experiencing homelessness?

We’ve got to increase the affordable housing supply. It makes no sense that we can’t even build 2,500 affordable housing units a year. We will give tax subsidies to big box stores, churches, banks and folks who own big buildings to build affordable housing units. We will incentivize folks to build on top of any single-floor space or a single-floor building.

The Public Bank is another big piece that I talk about a lot. We will create our own economic engine by having a public bank that invests in home loans, affordable houses and small businesses. That profit from the bank goes right back to city services.

So we're going to build incomebased housing in the city of Chicago, and the public sector is going to have a lot of control over those rents. Then, as part of incentivizing those affordable housing units, we're also going to make sure that there are criteria in place and caps for those prices for those units they're building.

I'm a big supporter of community benefits agreements for those private developers who are building. We can't wait on a private developer to come into the neighborhood to build affordable housing units.

Do you support the Bring Chicago Home proposal?

Yes. I support Bring Chicago Home's proposal to have a dedicated funding stream for homelessness and affordable housing.

Brandon Johnson

Last fall, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson entered the 2023 Chicago mayoral race with a truly progressive platform and campaign centering coalition-building across racial lines.

Since then, Johnson has gotten endorsements from politicians such as U.S. Reps. Jonathan Jackson (IL-1) and Delia Ramirez (IL-4); the Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU Healthcare, Cook County College Teachers Union, and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. He’s got $1.8 million on hand.

The TRiiBE to principle barbers in North Lawndale. After getting a quick edge-up by his friend Bobby Price, he discussed his vision for Chicago.

Throughout our interview, Johnson repeatedly emphasized the need to invest in people first and foremost. He advocates for sustainable community schools, employment opportunities, affordable housing, and funding robust summer youth programs and a gun violence and prevention office.

He reiterated his commitment to redirecting funds from police and jails to public services, one he led as commissioner in 2020.

A former Chicago Public Schools teacher, Johnson started at Jenner Academy in Cabrini Green. As a CTU organizer, he was part of the 2012 strike and connected with community organizers who shared the union’s progressive social vision. Many, like him, are now elected officials: State Rep. Lakesia Collins (9th), and Alds. Jeanette Taylor (20th), Byron SigchoLopez (25th) and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th).

With Taylor, he joined parents and community members in a thirty-fourday hunger strike in 2015 demanding the city reopen Washington Park’s Walter H. Dyett High School. The hunger strikers saved the school. Revived as Dyett High School for the Arts, its first class graduated

in 2020.

Johnson’s district is anchored by Austin on the east side and suburban Bellwood on the west. He told The TRiiBE he wasn’t initially trying to be a politician but felt compelled to because elected leaders “we were pushing wouldn’t react, so we had to beat them.” (Tonia Hill)

The TRiiBE: Growing up, what shaped your politics and outlook on life?

Brandon Johnson: As leaders and pastors, my parents helped shape my worldview.

The simplest way I can articulate this is that we are not our own, we have a responsibility to one another, and are only as strong as we are collectively. So the type of selflessness is the act of service recognizing that we are ultimately accountable to something bigger than ourselves. That's what shaped my view of the world. It's how I've led as a husband, a father, teacher, organizer, and as county commissioner, and what my intentions will be as mayor of Chicago.

Gun violence is a significant issue in Chicago. On your website, you cited it as a city's biggest problem and pledged to take preventative measures to address it. How will your administration invest in safety?

Studies have indicated that youth employment reduces violence. It does. The most dramatic thing that we can do to reduce violence is to hire young people and give them opportunities that have been missing from our political space for too long.

This is why I'm calling for a very robust youth hiring program that will provide the type of opportunities and purpose that young people need. The second thing is the launch of an office of gun violence and violence prevention so that we are putting together all the tactical solutions that get guns off the street.

The third thing is that Chicago is under enormous trauma. And so reopening our health clinics, which many organizers, Black organizers, particularly around the city of Chicago, have been pushing for… the Treatment Not Trauma ordinance, I'm gonna respond to that positively.

You introduced a nonbinding resolution

that the Cook County Board passed in the summer of 2020 that supported redirecting “funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement that promote community health and safety equitably.” Do you still support reallocating dollars away from police?

The addiction that this city, and quite frankly this country has on jails and incarceration has proven to be problematic. Are we any safer? Are our communities walkable?

We're talking about a $3 billion budget and the clearance rate for solving crimes is abysmal. We spend more money on jails and incarceration than we do on housing and violence prevention.

Let's do what safe communities do. They fully fund their schools. Look at Oak Park, two fully funded school districts in one town. They have libraries that stay open to nine o'clock at night with programs. They have parks that are fully supported. They love their children so much that they will provide opportunities for children to be able to experience childhood. Why is that any different for those of us who live in Chicago? It shouldn't be.

The main question that people will want to know and have a clear answer to is about CPD’s budget. Is that something you would increase or decrease as mayor?

The police budget is almost $3 billion, and our communities aren’t safer. I don't know how we can continue to go down a path that has demonstrated that it doesn't work.

It's about where our priorities should be. I can say emphatically, and based upon the record that my priorities are going to be in education, housing, mental health, jobs, transportation and our parks. Look, we're going to have to examine every aspect of the city's budget, but this one, in particular, has demonstrated that the return that folks said we would get as a result of these investments that return hasn't manifested.

There’s no return on that socalled investment. I’m not going to commit to anything budgetarily that has demonstrated that it has failed our people and failed our communities. So you know, as I’ve committed to justice for Black lives, budget for Black lives, that doesn't change when I’m the mayor of Chicago.

What initiatives and policies will you enact for neighborhood elementary and high schools so that Black and brown children won't have to be in their communities to go to school? Many have to leave because their schools don't have the resources they need to thrive.

The first thing that I'm going to push for is something called Sustainable Community Schools. It's a policy we've been promoting through the work of community-based organizations and labor, where labor and the community are coming together to provide the type of enriched or fully supported school communities that are needed.

The second thing, of course, is making sure that we have a plan to help transform our high schools because, as you mentioned, it's important to note that the decline we are experiencing is by design.

What policies or initiatives will you enact to support renters and homeowners from displacement? And also, what will you do to support people experiencing homelessness?

No one should be too poor to live in the city of Chicago. No one. So part of what we have to do is make sure that the real estate transfer tax gets a real look and figure out how to appropriate dollars towards those unhoused families. The second thing that we have to do is that we have to have a real commitment to public housing. So that's why I'm supportive of not building anything on land that was once the home for public housing.

You mentioned the Real Estate Transfer Tax. Does that mean you support Bring Chicago Home?

Yes, I do support it.

You've received major financial endorsements from several national and local labor unions, including the American Federation of Teachers, the Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU Healthcare and United Working Families. In what ways are you accountable to those labor unions that are endorsing you? And what is your relationship with those groups?

My relationship to the labor movement is deeply tethered to a long history in this country where civil rights and labor rights have worked hand in hand to ultimately bring economic justice to Black folks. I was raised by someone who was part of the labor movement. My father was a public employee who was a part of the AFSCME Labor Union. So there's a long history of Black workers tethered to the labor movement who were also fighting for civil rights in Chicago, and I'm a part of that history.

We’ve witnessed mayoral candidates of the past co-opt progressive and abolitionist organizer language, and make big promises to Black Chicagoans while campaigning, only to go back on those promises when in office. If elected, how can Black Chicagoans hold you accountable for the policies you promised them while campaigning?

There’s no other candidate that put together an entire budget around Black people. I'm the only candidate in this race that specifically called for investing in the things that work and not in jails and incarceration. No one had to come in and pound on my door to do what I promised to do.

Sophia King

Ald. Sophia King (4th Ward) carries her roots with her each and every day. Her mother went from picking cotton in the Mississippi Delta to getting a scholarship to Northwestern University, earning a PhD over time while raising her family. Spending her childhood between Mississippi and Evanston deepened King’s love for her culture.

King has long been in community with other prominent Black Chicagoans. Barack Obama is a longtime friend and hoop-buddy of her husband, attorney and Chosen Few DJ Alan King, and the former president endorsed her 2017 aldermanic run. And before she got into politics, King helped establish the Ariel Community Academy, and founded Harriet’s Daughters, a group named for Harriet Tubman that brings Black professional women together to increase employment and wealth in the community.

“I’ve always been about uplifting our community,” she told the The TRiiBE,

Black luminaries such as Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, the first non-Indigenous Chicagoan, and journalists Ida B. Wells and Lerone Bennett Jr.

As part of our 2023 Black mayoral candidate interview series, King invited The TRiiBE on Jan. 10 to her Kenwood home, about a block away from Louis Farrakhan’s million-dollar manse.

“I’m very Afrocentric. Proud of who I am. My mother is a sociologist. I have two fathers. My biological father, who’s passed away, his focus was African American art,” King said. “I get a difference of opinion about who people think I am. They think they know me.”

Currently, King serves as chair of the City Council’s Progressive Reform Caucus, and a member of the Chicago Aldermanic Black Caucus. Since her appointment by Rahm Emanuel to City Council in 2016, King has been a cosponsor of multiple progressive initiatives, including the Anjanette Young Ordinance to ban no-knock police raids, the Community Commission of Public Safety and Accountability and the Bring Home Chicago ordinance, and she led the 2014 drive to raise Chicago’s minimum wage to $15.

During our interview, King said she doesn’t believe in decreasing the Chicago police budget. She believes that good policing works, and in her public safety plan, that means redirecting resources to community policing, alternative response and violence intervention programs, as well as putting more cops in neighborhoods

and “embracing” surveillance technology.

(Tiffany Walden)

Why did you enter the mayoral race this year? And what power does being in the mayor's office give you that you don't already have as alderwoman?

Ald. Sophia King: I represent [a ward that runs] from downtown to Hyde Park, and I have Bronzeville in the middle—we called it the Low End growing up—you know, it's very diverse. I got some of the poorest people. I have more CHA senior homes than probably any other ward in the city, but I also have part of downtown. I go up to Jackson Boulevard, Grant Park, Northerly Island, Soldier Field, Museum Campus, and I have Hyde Park, which is kind of the city’s epicenter of diversity and equity. And then I have some of the most segregated parts and poorest parts with plans for transformation sites. I've got Ida B. Wells, I've got the Washington Park Corridor, I've got Lake Park, North Kenwood, Oakland, Grand Boulevard, Douglas. I've got all of the CHA homes. I get to see everything.

I see the juxtaposition of A Tale of Two Cities, as people would say it. But I think that puts me in good stead to kind of understand the challenges that we face as well as what's working and what's not.

And more specifically about the power aspect. What power would you get as mayor compared to the power that you already have as alderwoman?

That's a great question. The difference is, as alderman, I spend all my time advocating for resources that the mayor’s office controls on behalf of my constituents. I have no control over it. And not that I want to have control, but I certainly want to be able to get those resources for my community.

In this diverse ward, crime has touched places where people with power can weigh in, and they're paying attention. I've been able to see the differences and disparity there. But what I can't do is control how officers are deployed in a more equitable fashion. That comes from the mayor's office. If the garbage isn't picked up, if the snow isn’t plowed, the mayor's office controls that. The power is too centralized now. We need to decentralize it so that the

community can feel that. In October, you said we can deploy drones as first responders, and they can chase offenders if need be, and that we can also use other technology better, such as ShotSpotter. Also, your ten-point safety plan includes immediately increasing police presence in the community. To be honest, much of this sounds similar to efforts by previous administrations who have increased policing and surveillance.

Is there any evidence that supports that the items that you highlight in your tenpoint safety plan will effectively reduce crime in Chicago?

For our campaign, the power of “and” is really important. And so in the tenpoint Plan, one of the biggest points of it is several hundred million dollars for violence intervention.

But I do actually think that good policing works. And that's why I said that we can uplift police and hold them accountable, that they're not mutually exclusive. I've seen the evidence of that in my own ward. And I've also seen the evidence of the false narrative that we don't need [police] in our community.

Do you support the SAFE-T Act?

Do I support the SAFE-T Act? Yeah, I think they've got some tweaks to [do to] it . . . but in general, I do.

Do you support the GoodKids MadCity Peace Book, or any other initiatives outside of policing to invest in safety for Black Chicago neighborhoods?

Yeah, I do. I've told them that they need to tweak some of the budget issues, but the ideas of what they're talking about, yeah. I was the first to work with GoodKids MadCity. We put on the 1919 Project around the race riots. I brought them as well as Dr. [Timuel] Black together around that initiative.

Besides policing, [on] the violence intervention, my recommendation is $300 million per year to put a dent, and kind of long-term systemic issues to really bring people and communities back together. And by the way, that should have an impact on housing, on jobs, on all kinds of things.

Does that mean increasing or decreasing the police budget in order to make that happen?

I don't believe the police budget needs to be decreased at this point. I will just tell you that. Because first of all, it's hard to tell whether we have enough police or not. But I do know that they're not in the places where they need to be at the right time.

For decades, the mayor has been at odds with the teachers union, and many rank and file teachers, staff and students who complain about the lack of resources and other important issues within the schools. What do you think the disconnect is there? And what will be your policy around improving CPS, especially in black and brown communities?

Some of the big things in terms of education would be a co-curricular model. And because I come out of education, I use that vernacular, but it's really the afterschool programming, to make a whole school. Because you've got these young babies who, you know, after school, why can't we still engage them? So disengaged students are one of the biggest hurdles that we face.

I definitely [would] make better use of the park district. There's no reason why high school students shouldn't have some engagement there.

I think it’s super important to make sure that not only are our kids introduced to STEM at a very early age, but that we continue that through the job market and bring all these companies and all these universities, like Northwestern, University of Illinois, DePaul, USC. We have some of the best schools in the country, we don't take advantage of that.

How would you create policies to support Black residents who are being priced out by new developments, such as the Obama Presidential Center?

I've already shown how I've done it. So there are four striking developments in this city, the Obama library, the 78 Lincoln yards, and the Michael Reese Hospital, and I'm over the Michael Reese development. It's being heralded by the New York Times as one of the most equitable developments in the country. But you never heard any protests. We never

heard about displacement or about any of that, because we formed a Michael Reese Advisory Committee. We brought people who care about housing, who cared about all of these things to the table, and we ended up with a $25 million commitment for education for schools. We ended up with twenty percent affordable housing on site, which is unheard of. We ended up with a sixty percent commitment to diversity, mostly African American because it's in Bronzeville, we've renamed it—from Michael Reese to Bronzeville Lakefront.

Lori Lightfoot

The 2019 version of Lori Lightfoot made a lot of promises on the campaign trail. She told TRiiBE she would stop the cop academy in its tracks, adding that her biggest problem with it was that then-mayor Rahm Emanuel didn’t engage with the surrounding community about it. She invoked the spirit of Harold Washington at her inauguration, promising “safe streets and strong schools for every child regardless of neighborhood or ZIP code.” She’d convinced many voters that she was the progressive mayor Chicago needed after eight years of Emanuel.

Black and brown organizers warned us, though.

Soon after her inauguration, Mayor Lori Lightfoot quickly changed her tune. In July 2019, she announced that the $95 million price tag for the unpopular new cop academy would increase to an unspecified number. A supporter of an elected school board on the campaign trail, she opposed the plan, which Governor Pritzker signed over her objections in 2021.

From the start, Lightfoot has fought with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) over everything from their contract to COVID-19 safety measures. Five months after she took office, the union went on strike for two weeks to demand better pay and more nurses and librarians.

In 2020, she stood in a West Garfield Park neighborhood and threatened to “treat you like a criminal” for gathering during the pandemic. That same year she shut down the CTA, raised bridges to seal off the Loop and publicly fought with State’s Attorney Kim Foxx for not

the Loop for our Black mayoral candidate series. The night before, news broke about her campaign soliciting volunteers through CPS emails.

During our interview, Lightfoot emphasized investing in street outreach for violence reduction, promoted Invest South/West and doubled down on her Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) pilot program, an alternative to Treatment Not Trauma.

\When it comes to policing, she said people in neighborhoods plagued by violence don’t want to defund CPD. Instead, she said, they want more police. She added that the City has to make sure that the officers are well trained and respect constitutional policing practices.

(Tiffany Walden)

The TRiiBE: I know you have a hard stop time and a lot of things to do today. I would be remiss if I didn't ask about the situation that's going on with CPS emails right now. I know you have a press conference happening at three o'clock today. But if you can answer our questions…

Mayor Lori Lightfoot: Sure. Let me just lay it out for you. Late yesterday afternoon, I learned that in an effort to recruit young people to campaign which we've been— there's a lot of enthusiasm and support among young people across the city—a campaign staffer accessed publicly

available email addresses for CPS teachers, sent them, in essence, a posting about the internship opportunities and asked them to forward it on to any students who might be interested. Obviously, that was a mistake. We have from day one erected not just a line, but a wall between the campaign, political side, any official side. This young woman understands the magnitude of the issue that’s now been created. I think she's horribly mortified that it happened. I explained to her personally why this could not happen, what the implications were. I think she gets it. We have reiterated our ethics standards and why that wall is important to the entire staff, again today, to her yesterday, obviously, but again to the entire staff today. And as I said, it was a mistake, it shouldn't have happened, and I'm confident it won't happen again.

Chicago has more cops per capita than New York and LA, but Chicago's per capita murder rate is higher than both New York and LA. Is there any evidence that supports that increasing the police budget, which you have done in your term, and increasing the police presence effectively prevents and reduces crime?

Well, I think you lose me when you try to do an apples to apples comparison between us and New York and LA. New York's circumstances are very, very different than ours are. And a big part of it is we have a lot more entrenched generational poverty than New York does. And that right away, I think, takes us into a different space, because a root cause of a lot of the issues related to violence are generational patterns.

What I know about LA, which is probably a closer comparative to Chicago, is they have been at police reform and accountability and building trusted relationships with the community, probably ten years ahead of us, because they wanted to have a consent decree way earlier than we did. And that's made, I think, a considerable difference. And frankly, what people in neighborhoods that have been historically plagued by violence, they don't want to cut back, there's no appetite for defunding. They tell us all the time, we want more police.

People are asking for you to reopen the mental health clinics, which is something

that you campaigned on in 2019. What do you think about Treatment Not Trauma? Is it something that you support? Were there some things in it that you didn’t support?

I won't say that I'm totally conversant in every aspect of that ordinance. But I think for the most part, we're doing what the objective is, which is providing alternative ways for us to respond to people that are in mental health crisis, or people that are suffering from substance abuse, addiction issues.

We set up a pilot program, now two years in, that it is. One part of it is a CIT, crisis intervention trained-police officer, accompanies the clinician. The clinician takes a lead on calls that come in through 9-1-1. The other pilot is no CIT officer, and no officer of any kind, but really focused on substance abuse and addiction issues. We’re still, I think, gathering a lot of useful learning from that. It took us some time, as you might imagine, to set up the protocols for the 9-1-1 call takers.

And then I’ll bring it to the Invest South/ West Initiative. Historically, we’ve watched big developments displace and erase black communities in Chicago. And right now in Austin, for example, your Invest South/West plan is renovating the former Laramie Bank, turning it into a mixed use building with adjacent land that will also be redeveloped into a mixed income multistory rental building. How would you implement that project in Austin, for example, while also ensuring that the new developments won't advance gentrification and push Black residents out?

I will say a couple things to that. Every single one of our vertical construction projects that’s a part of Invest South/ West has gone through a very rigorous community engagement process, where the community has identified what they wanted to see, the locations and the contours of what that development should look like. So the community is very much front and center at the table from the very beginning of any of the vertical construction in Invest South/West. I think fundamentally, that's a big part of what you do.

You mentioned the concerns about gentrification and displacement in light

of the Obama Center on the South Side. We've been very engaged in Woodlawn and South Shore from the very beginning of my administration. When the very first public meetings that I had, after being sworn in as mayor, was about the Obama Center, down in the South Shore Country Club with a group of probably thirty to forty stakeholders who had been at it for a time and were concerned about the very issue that you raised, which is gentrification and displacement. So we put some controls in place to make sure that long-term homeowners could stay in their home, that rents would still be affordable down in that area. We work with a lot of stakeholders in Woodlawn, in South Shore; we work with the local level elected officials. So I think we have a model that we are now transporting to other parts of the city. And the West Side clearly is one of them.

Now, the West Side started to see housing prices rise, frankly, before I took office, but Invest South/West is about frankly, bringing more affordable units to the West Side that currently do not exist.

During the 2020 uprisings, you raised the bridges and voiced opposition to Defund CPD. Those things are perceived as being the furthest away from being progressive. If you’re reelected, how can Black Chicagoans hold you accountable for the policies you promised them this time around?

They hold me accountable every single day. When you're the mayor, you're on the frontlines, and Chicagoans aren’t shy about expressing their opinions. And they're certainly not shy about expressing complaints.

Yeah, in an emergency I did what was necessary to make sure that we kept Chicagoans safe. And let's go back to the summer of 2022. When I watched on camera, massive crowds that came downtown that were lighting buildings on fire, that were overturning vehicles. There was a CTA bus that a crowd tried to flip with people in it. Ambulances, police cars, it was mayhem. And yeah, we did what was necessary at the behest of residents, businesses, to keep our community safe. I

chair of the Chicago Aldermanic Black Caucus and the co-chair of the Progressive Reform Caucus.

He said that his record in City Council and the fact that he has garnered the support and trust of his colleagues in the chamber prove that he’s equipped to be Chicago’s next mayor.

During his tenure in City Council, he has championed issues such as the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance that established an elected civilian board of Chicago residents to oversee the Chicago Police Department (CPD), the fight for a $15 minimum wage, the push for an elected representative school board and GoodKids MadCity’s Peace Book ordinance.

He’s also voted in favor of unpopular measures, including Emanuel’s 2011 budget, which passed unanimously and closed six of the city’s 12 mental health facilities, and a 2017 move to acquire property in West Garfield Park for a cop academy, which passed 48 to 1.

As an alderman, he voted in line with mayor Rahm Emanuel 100 percent of the time from April 2017 to November 2018.

(Tonia

Hill)

The TRiiBE: How did growing up in Park Manor shape your politics?

Ald. Roderick Sawyer: Growing up in Park Manor and still living here today is quite a testament to the neighborhood and the people there. When I was growing up, I saw it at its best. I've seen it struggling, and I've seen it in challenging times. It never eliminated my resolve to want to stay here and try to improve upon what's here.

I read that you feel that crime is our city's most pressing issue. Yet, if elected, you said you would first fire CPD Police Supt. David Brown. Is that still the case? Why or why not?

When I saw David Brown down in Dallas, I was encouraged. I thought he would be a good superintendent because he supported his police officers down in Dallas. I saw that he was hard on crime and a tough guy. Unfortunately, we're not getting that same guy here right now.

If elected, I would use that opportunity to use the platform that I worked on for seven years, the Empowering

Communities for Public Safety, or ECPS [ordinance].

I'm proud to say I was the lead sponsor of the ECPS ordinance, that I helped bring it to fruition. So we'll be electing community-based members to reestablish the trust between the community and the police and when we do that, people will feel more comfortable about talking to the police.

How will you be investing in safety? Does that mean that you would hire more police officers?

I would hire police officers where appropriate. I would make sure that we get past the level of retirements and defections. People are leaving. And ensure that it's not an either-or approach. I believe in getting the officers staffed to the appropriate level. Maybe it's retired officers or civilians that we need to hire to get those officers that we need to get on the street.

We may just need to reallocate some positions. But that doesn't mean we should not invest in mental health services, job opportunities, employment training, drug and substance abuse, or addiction. No, it's a both-and approach. We need to invest in all of those things.

You mentioned that you’ve worked with the Chicago Teachers Union. Is there a specific plan or proposal that you have to fund schools?

Funding comes from a variety of sources: some from property taxes, some from our state and federal government, some from the City of Chicago. We want to make sure that we look at all those funding sources and see how they're operating.

We keep increasing school funding, even though the number of enrollments keeps going down, something's not making sense. Once I can get there, take a look at it, and dive into it, we'll see what the problem is. Is it heavy on the front end? Does CPS hold too much real estate that's not performing? Is it budgetary issues? Do we have too many assistant directors and assistant commissioners in the front office and need more people on the frontline teaching our children?

I know that many schools have eliminated the APs [assistant principals]. But, for example, that should not happen.

We removed assistants in kindergarten and first grade, where now you have a teacher alone with thirty-five five-yearolds. Not a [sustainable] method, and it won't improve education.

So I would like to look into these things and ensure that we're doing what's right by our students, not necessarily by the union [CTU] or front office personnel.

As an alderperson, you voted to shut down half of the City's mental health clinics during then-mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration. Yet, on your campaign website, you said you support Treatment Not Trauma. If you support Treatment Not Trauma, why did you vote to close those mental health clinics?

When I was elected, I came in as chairman of the health and human relations committee, and the first thing I did was visit the remaining mental health centers. They were empty.

Back when I made that vote about the mental health centers, I did an article a couple of years later, and I said if I could take one vote back, the only vote I would take back was the closing of the mental health service [clinics]. We should have dived into that further.

You have said how challenging it is for you and your colleagues to represent parts of Englewood because it has so many vacant and abandoned properties. What are your plans to revitalize neighborhoods, like Englewood, with many vacant areas/properties?

What we don't do is give our Black developers and all minority developers, for that sake, resources and opportunities to develop in their backyards and their homes. We got African American builders that will build. We’d have to relax some of the union issues, and other issues to give them a leg up to do quality developments here on the South and the West sides.

They can build a block at a time. Maybe two or three developers, then build the entire block then we can do another block.

Speaking of investment in Black Chicago and keeping Black people here, should reparations be at the forefront in 2023?

I feel it should be. I’ve been trying to push reparations for years. After learning more about it, I introduced it to the City Council. The mayor told me: “I wasn't doing “s—” about reparations; that’s nothing but a Willie Wilson gimmick.”

The problems that we have currently go back to us being enslaved and going through the Jim Crow Era, and the redlining and all the things that we've gone through over decades and decades, and it makes us react a certain way.

So I'm not as interested in the 40 acres and mule money type of thing. That's more of a federal conversation. Mine is more the health disparities, educational disparities and things like that that are important.

How can Chicago voters be confident in you as a policymaker and hold you accountable for your campaign promises?

My history speaks for itself. I have the background. I have proven that I can work within different committees. I work with DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] members. I work with the conservative caucus. I work with the veteran's caucus, I work with everyone. I ensure that my ordinances get support from all levels of representation on the council. That's what you'll get from Mayor Sawyer.

Willie Wilson

Dr. Willie Wilson ain’t changing for nobody. As a product of the Great Migration myself, it’s that part of him many find most respectable. Born in Louisiana in 1948, he worked alongside his parents as sharecroppers. He landed on Chicago’s West Side in 1965. He worked odd jobs until getting hired at McDonald’s. He crossed picket lines to get promoted to manager and went on to become one of the first African Americans to own a McDonald’s franchise which set him on a path to become a self-made millionaire who today gives thousands of dollars to the community.

“Business, I’ve pretty much did that and I don’t want no more business. We can give away $10 million, $5 million to the community in a year, whatever we can afford to do,” Wilson told The TRiiBE “But if you in government as mayor of the

regular people,” Wilson said. “I decided to stay the same and not change. Chicago, I’m ‘gon stay Louisiana. That’s who I remain today. Louisiana.”

Wilson’s immutability is the part of him that voters should consider when choosing Chicago’s next mayor.

In the public safety section of our interview, Wilson said, if elected, he would call for more policing; he’s also specifically said “We need to take the handcuffs off the police” at his summer 2022 safety platform announcement and that police should “hunt them down like a rabbit,” referring to suspects, at a Jan. 19 mayoral debate. That comes as no surprise: the FOP endorsed his 2020 U.S. Senate run, and it’s been reported that Wilson sought the FOP endorsement this time around, but Paul Vallas got it.

Throughout our interview, when asked questions about public safety policies such as the SAFE-T Act and Treatment Not Trauma, Wilson indicated he either hasn't read up on it or was altogether unfamiliar with it. (Tiffany

Walden)

The TRiiBE: Your story is one that many older Black Chicagoans relate to. How did your environment growing up shape who you are today, your politics, and your outlook on life?

Willie Wilson: Being from down South set the foundation for the rest of my life. It taught me how to work, respect,

start eating. Everybody was welcomed. There was no lock on doors. There was a latch, but that was only for the wind. And there was no contracts to sign. We were sharecroppers. We just trusted everybody.

And nobody got killed in my community down South by a break-in or firearm. Nobody. Everybody died [of] natural causes. That was it.

In the streets, a lot of young guys respect you and the work you’re doing, especially the charitable events that you’ve hosted for the gas and food giveaways. What’s your connection to young folks in Chicago?

I’ve helped a lot of people get out of jail for misdemeanor and non-violent. They were sitting in there for two, three months. A year. They ain’t even have [a] trial. They ain’t even been to court. And I didn’t know not one person. We went in there and we took my attorney and we bailed them out. We felt that was wrong to keep somebody in jail for that long for misdemeanor, non-violent. Couldn’t even afford a lawyer. I think that had a lot to do with it.

And another [thing] is caring, in terms of the gas giveaway, the food giveaway. We been doing this since 35, 40 years. We been giving away, maybe not gas so much, but paying people’s property taxes and keeping people out of jail, helping churches, buying food. We’ve spent $60 million, $70 million, $80 million.

In 2019, you campaigned on reducing violence by putting jobs back in the community. And then in summer 2022, during a press conference where you announced your policy platforms, you said we must stop young people and gangbangers from polarizing our community by locking them up. You said, “and if the state’s attorney or anybody lets them out, we’ll just lock them up again.” Has your policy around safety changed over the last few years? If so, can you clarify what your policy is now, especially when it comes to Black neighborhoods

I don’t care what color you are. I’m thinking about the one who commits the crime. My policy have not changed. I’m ‘gon lock ‘em up. And they get out again, we’ll lock ‘em back up. Because crime has no color.

Do you feel that there’s a correlation between mental health and violence in Chicago? If so, how are you thinking about that correlation as you draft policies?

First of all, people say I have mental problems by giving away [the] money we give away. I think we need to open up some clinics. I don’t think our policemen should be locking up people that have mental illness problems. I think those got to be professional people. If you look at the police department, they arrest a lot of people who are mentally ill. They’re not trained for that. Open up 25, 50 or 30 mental illness [clinics].

Why don’t you use some of our churches and create economic empowerment within that? Some of our churches got all kinds of room.

My 14-year-old niece, I think she was 14 or 15, committed suicide four months ago. That’s a serious problem that should not be dealt with [by] our police officers. Let them use their time for working on what they need to be doing. But even with the police department, we got to find places for them too.

A lot of people go back in Cook County Jail because they can get three meals a day. Some of them want to stop using drugs. They got a good drug center. It’s a cycle.

You’ve been here since 1965. You’ve talked about how communities like North Lawndale still look the same today as they did after the riots in 1968. What policies will you create to uplift Black neighborhoods that are still in a state of despair, so that they have the same resources that downtown Chicago has?

The situation is making sure we get an infrastructure in place. Putting those trades into high schools, elementary schools. Use some of our existing churches and community centers. Put a trade school in those as well.

Ask the major corporations that we have in Chicago, and reach out to them too, and ask them [to] train some people within that major corporation and do some type of tax incentive break. We’ll get that done.

How do we build up our communities without displacing the Black people who live there and giving the community a new name? There are some people around the Obama Presidential Center who are being forced out by landlords and new developments pricing them out.

A lot of us leave out of Chicago because of the crime. A lot of us leave out of Chicago because of the taxes.

The rent is going higher. In something like that, the library, before they put anything in anybody’s community, they should check with the community and it should be at the community request. For example, like the casino that’s coming in up here in Chicago, the community don’t want it there. I wouldn’t have put it there. I would have put it at the McCormick Place. Infrastructure’s already in place there.

At the time of this interview, there isn’t a good list of your platforms and policies on your campaign website. If a Chicago voter wants to learn more about your platforms, about your policies, how can they do so?

Well, they go to my Willie Wilson Facebook. I think you’ll find a lot of stuff there. You do your research on me. Google my name. I’m there. I’m well known in the neighborhood. Everybody knows what we stand for. ¬