02.29.24

The South Side Weekly is

Volume 11, Issue 4

Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato

Managing Editor Adam Przybyl

Investigations Editor Jim Daley

Senior Editors Martha Bayne

Christopher Good Olivia Stovicek

Sam Stecklow

Alma Campos

Politics Editor J. Patrick Patterson

Labor Editor Jocelyn Martínez-Rosales

Immigration Editor Wendy Wei

Community Builder Chima Ikoro

Public Meetings Editor Scott Pemberton

Visuals Editor Kayla Bickham

Deputy Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino

Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma

Shane Tolentino

Director of Fact Checking: Savannah Hugueley

Fact Checkers: Alani Oyola

Rubi Valentin

Isi Frank Ativie

Jim Daley

Mo Dunne

Bridget Killian

Patrick Edwards

Ellie Gilbert-Bair

Layout Editor Tony Zralka

Interim

Executive Director Malik Jackson

Office Manager Mary Leonard

Advertising Manager Susan Malone

Webmaster Pat Sier

The Weekly publishes online weekly and in print every other Thursday. We seek contributions from all over the city.

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

CHICAGO

Welcome to the 2024 Primary Election Issue

Early voting locations are open in all fifty wards and at two “supersites” in the Loop, and mail-in ballots are already being received at the Chicago Board of Elections (CBOE) ahead of the March 19 Democratic primary. The president, several South Side congressional and Illinois General Assembly districts, and Cook County offices, including the state’s attorney’s, are on the ballot. So are ballot questions, including the Bring Chicago Home referendum, despite its eligibility being the subject of an ongoing court battle.

The referendum, which would raise the transfer tax on real estate sales of more than $1 million while lowering it for sales below that amount, was challenged in a lawsuit brought by business groups. Last week, a Cook County judge ruled that the referendum was invalid because it combined multiple questions: raising the tax on some sales while lowering it for others. The CBOE has already filed an appeal, and the question remains on the ballot. Whether votes for it will count will likely be decided on appeal after the primary.

Cook County judges are also on the ballot (Kathleen Burke, the judge who ruled against Bring Chicago Home, isn’t), and we’ve included a guide to judicial races compiled by reporters at Injustice Watch.

Our cover story is an investigation of poor treatment alleged by workers at a warehouse run by CBOE. In that story, multiple workers described filthy conditions in the warehouse, rampant sexual harassment, and poor treatment by supervisors and said they were instructed to short their own hours. Our reporting has already prompted the Board to mount its own internal investigation.

To round out this issue, we spoke to activists who plan to abstain from voting for President Joe Biden due to his support of Israel in its invasion of Gaza. We also spent time at a liberatory dance party hosted by DJs who aim to create spaces for ebulliently grieving the occupation of Palestine and collectively healing from bearing witness to genocide. And we spoke to first-time voters about the promise and challenges of new enfranchisement. We included a guide on how to vote early, by mail, or in person on Primary Day. Early voting is open in all fifty wards, and the primary is on March 19. Vote—or don’t—but remember that, like everyone we’ve featured in this issue, your voice matters.

Chicago sues Big Oil

Last week, Chicago joined eight other states in suing oil and gas companies for allegedly deceiving the public about their role in the climate crisis. Brandon Johnson’s administration filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and the American Petroleum Institute on February 20. The nearly 200-page complaint details ten separate causes of action as well as related climate damages the city has faced.

“There is no justice without accountability,” said Mayor Johnson in a press release. “From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them.”

The floods Johsnon referenced impacted residents in the South and West Sides. According to a Block Club story, one in four homes in Austin reported damage from the city’s sewer system floods. The flooding occurred July 1-2, with the West Side receiving almost nine inches of rain. More than 63,000 residents have applied for federal flood assistance.

IN THIS ISSUE

how to vote

A guide to participating in the March 19 primary election.

michael liptrot

for first-time voters, a promise— and a duty

Youth, immigrants, and formerly incarcerated people discuss their reasons for voting.

sofia mcdowell

ray vs. chuy

City Council’s conservative firebrand

Raymond Lopez takes on influential progressive Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for the 4th district seat.

4

5

jacqueline serrato 6

ray lopez vs. chuy garcía

El concejal conservador se enfrenta al congresista en un distrito predominantemente latino.

por jacqueline serrato

traducido por alma campos ................. 7

(partial) guide to the 7th district race Read answers to our questionnaire from two of the five candidates.

adam przybyl 8

the race to replace kim foxx

The Cook County State’s Attorney is retiring after eight years in which she enacted sweeping reforms.

max blaisdell ...........................................

election warehouse workers allege low pay and poor conditions

10

In response to the Weekly’s reporting, a spokesperson said the Board of Election would retain a law firm to investigate the allegations.

michelle yang .......................................

13

dancing to heal

Pro-liberation collective Go Baba!

Worldwide organizes political dance nights amid the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

jocelyn martinez-rosales ........................ 18 public meetings report

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.

scott pemberton and documenters

19 the exchange

The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours.

josh gassman

no business as usual

Black, Jewish, and Arab American activists voice their opposition to Biden over the president’s support of Israel.

21

trey arline .............................................

21

Cover photo: Board of Elections warehouse in McKinley Park. Photo by Michael DiGioia

How to Vote

A guide to participating in the March 19 primary election.

BY MICHAEL LIPTROT

Tuesday, March 19 is primary election day for the state of Illinois.

Key offices including the President of the United States, state representatives, and senators will be on the ballot. Here we break everything you need to know on how to cast your ballot.

WHO CAN VOTE

To be eligible to vote in Chicago, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, an individual must:

• Be a U.S. citizen

• Be eighteen years old by November 5, 2024

• Be born on or before November 5, 2006

• Not be registered to vote elsewhere

• Not be in prison or jail serving time for a conviction

The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners notes that “Ex-convicts who have been released from prison/ jail and who meet all other requirements listed above are eligible to register and vote in Illinois. Ex-convicts who have been released and are on parole/probation ARE eligible to register and vote in Illinois.”

REGISTERING TO VOTE/ CHANGING NAME OR ADDRESS

There are several options for registering to vote or changing voter information. To first check if you’re already registered, visit the Board of Elections Voter Registration Lookup portal at bit.ly/IL-voter-lookup.

To register online a citizen must have an Illinois driver’s license or State ID and then go to the Illinois State Board of Elections Online Voter Application website,

ova.elections.il.gov. The registration period for the primaries closed on March 3 at 11:59pm and reopens afterwards for the general election on March 21.

To register at in person early voting locations an individual must present two forms of identification, with at least one listing a person’s current address. The city's fifty-one early voting sites are listed on the Chicago Board of Elections website (chicagoelections.gov) and the Supersite is listed below.

Acceptable forms of ID include:

• Passport or Military ID

• Driver’s license or state ID card

• College/university/school/work ID

• Vehicle registration card

• Lease, mortgage or deed to home

• Credit or debit card

• Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid card

• Insurance card

• Civic, union, or professional membership card

• LINK/Public Aid/Department of Human Services card

• Illinois FOID card

Also the following mailed items can be used as ID and to confirm one’s address:

• Bill, transcript, or report card from school

• Bank statement, pay stub, or pension statement

• Utility, medical, or insurance bill

• Official mail from any government agency

To register on Election Day an individual must present two forms of identification, with at least one listing a person’s current address. To find your precinct polling place go to the Board of Elections voter information portal (bit.ly/Chi-voter-info).

An individual may also register to vote at the Illinois Secretary of State's Office if also obtaining a new driver's license or state

ID during that visit.

To register to vote by mail, use complete the downloadable form available at chicagoelections.gov/voting and deliver or mail it in to 69 W. Washington St., 6th floor, Chicago, IL, 60602.

MAIL-IN BALLOT

Voting by mail is available for the primary election and is available from Wednesday, Dec. 20 2023 at 9:00 am to Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 5pm.

According to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, voters seeking to vote by mail must submit an online form available at bit.ly/Chi-mailvotes no later than five days before the election.

After completing the form, a printable ballot will be produced, including the address on where to mail the completed document. All mail-in ballots must be postmarked by election day to be counted.

EARLY VOTING

Early voting for the city is separated into two main types of locations: the downtown Chicago Supersite/Board Office and fifty local ward polling locations.

The Supersite and Board of Elections Office are open from February 15 through March 18. The Supersite is located at 191 N. Clark and Board Offices are located at 69 W. Washington, 6th floor. The downtown site operates during the following hours:

February 15 - March 10

Weekdays: 9am–6pm

Saturday: 9am–5pm

Sunday: 10am–4pm

March 11 - March 18

Weekdays: 9am–7pm

Saturday: 9am–5pm Sunday: 10am–4pm

Early voting in all fifty wards begins on Monday, March 4 at 9am and operates through Election Day, March 19. Any registered voter in Chicago can vote at an early voting site across the city, no matter what ward they reside in. A full list of sites is available at: bit.ly/Chi-early-vote.

A government ID is not required, but the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners states an “ID is helpful if there is a question about the voter's registration, address, signature, or if there are two voters at the same address with the same names or similar names.”

ELECTION DAY

All early voting sites and the Supersite will be open from 6am to 7pm on primary Election Day. A voter can vote here or at their assigned polling place on March 19. To find your assigned voting location, visit bit. ly/Chi-voter-info.

No government IDs are required for registered voters, though the Board of Elections site states that one form of ID would be required if an election judge challenges a voter’s status, and two forms of ID for filing a name change or address change, or registering to vote in person. ¬

Michael Liptrot is a staff writer at South Side Weekly and the Hyde Park Herald

For First-Time Voters, a Promise— and a Duty

Youth, immigrants, and formerly incarcerated people discuss their reasons for voting.

BY SOFIA MCDOWELL

In the upcoming 2024 elections, an estimated eight million youth and nearly one million newly naturalized citizens will be eligible to vote for the first time. This wave of new voters, particularly among youth and immigrants, has the potential to greatly influence the outcome of the upcoming elections. Another group that could create a significant impact in the upcoming primary elections is the formerly incarcerated people re-entering society and reinstating their right to vote.

For many, this election represents their first opportunity to participate in a national democratic process of this magnitude. For numerous young adults and recently naturalized citizens in Chicago, voting goes beyond mere participation: it symbolizes empowerment, representation, and the fulfillment of civic responsibility. It represents a chance to have their voices heard to influence policies that directly impact their lives, communities, and futures.

In 2020, amid the pandemic, the United States saw the highest turnout of young voters since 1971, when the voting age was lowered to eighteen. In Chicago’s 2023 mayoral election, voters aged eighteen to twenty-four helped get Brandon Johnson over the top, with 32 percent more people from that group voting in the April runoff than the February election.

Having grown up in an era marked by social and political activism, youth are concerned about issues such as climate change, racial justice, and economic inequality. Many have witnessed firsthand the power of collective action and advocacy in affecting change, fueling their desire to participate in the democratic process and leading young voters to choose issues over political parties.

“I think a lot of issues [have] always been present, but then I think especially during the election year they tend to rise even more,” said Annabelle Sanchez, who

recently turned eighteen.

According to a report by the Center for Information and Research on Civil Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), in the 2022 midterm elections approximately 39 percent of Gen Z ranked inflation and gas prices as one of their top three issues, with 30 percent prioritizing abortion, 26 percent focusing on jobs and 23 percent highlighting climate change.

Conversely, Gen Z, influenced by current events such as school shootings becoming more common and recent movements for racial justice, shows a slightly higher inclination towards addressing issues such as gun violence (21 percent) and racism (18 percent) compared to Millennials (16 and 13 percent, respectively).

For Annabelle, the decision to exercise her right to vote is driven by a desire to address pressing issues such as climate change. “I think overall, it is the land, and ultimately it affects everyone, even in things that you wouldn’t even expect them to, it will always play a factor,” she said, highlighting the interconnectedness of political decisions with individuals’ lives.

Recognizing the importance of being well-informed, Annabelle said she encourages her peers to stay updated on current events and political developments. “Current events, they change every day, [as do] the responses from administrations,” she said. “Their take is very important.”

In Illinois, a new initiative to preregister sixteen-year-olds to vote aims to instill a sense of civic duty and responsibility from an early age. Through this initiative, which began on January 1, 2024, Illinois residents who are sixteen can pre-register for voting on the Illinois State Board of Elections website. The registrations will be kept on hold until the individuals reach the legal voting age.

By introducing young people to the electoral process before they reach voting

age, the initiative seeks to foster a culture of active citizenship and political engagement.

For immigrant communities, obtaining citizenship and the right to vote signifies the culmination of a journey toward full integration into American society.

The journey toward citizenship is often fraught with challenges and obstacles. From navigating complex legal processes to overcoming language barriers and cultural adjustment, the path to citizenship is challenging. The opportunity to vote represents not only a right but a hard-won privilege that underscores their stake in shaping the future of their communities and the nation as a whole.

In the fiscal year 2023, according to the US Citizenship and immigration services (USCIS), over 878,500 people became new U.S. citizens.

The New Americans Democracy Project, initiated in 2004 by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, aims to foster civic engagement within immigrant communities across Chicago and its suburbs. Over the past twelve years, the project has emerged as a national blueprint for empowering immigrants through civic participation and has helped register close to 200,000 New American immigrant voters in Illinois. Initiatives like this help us continue to educate and encourage civic participation.

In the complex landscape of American democracy, the journey of formerly incarcerated individuals to reclaim their right to vote can be full of systemic barriers.

“Once you’re sent to an Illinois Department of Corrections facility, the facility will inform the Illinois Board of Elections, that will disqualify you [while] you are actually physically located in a facility,” said Mark McCombs, the executive director of Kolbe House Prison and Jail Ministry. “After you get out of a facility, even if you’re on parole, you’re still eligible

to vote. The key is you have to re-register [to vote]. As difficult as incarceration is, in many ways, reentry is even more difficult.”

For McCombs, the restoration of his voting rights after his own incarceration symbolized a legal formality and a profound act of reclaiming dignity and agency.

“So one of the very first things I did was to register to vote, and that first election I voted in [after being formerly incarcerated] It felt amazing,” he said. “It was like the first time I voted when I turned eighteen.”

Restoring the voting rights of individuals with felony convictions can enhance public safety. Voting and other prosocial activities, such as pursuing a college education, have been linked to decreased criminal behavior among those affected by the justice system.

McCombs said he believes that there needs to be more information to counter the vast misconception that formerly incarcerated people can’t vote and don’t have the right to vote. According to McCombs, voting after incarceration is as simple as voting for the first time. “Oh, it’s very simple. Just go back, and it’s as simple as when you got your voting rights initiated in the first place,” he said. “If you weren’t registered in the first place, you need to get registered. It’s as easy as that.”

Organizations like Kolbe House Prison and Jail Ministry provide support and resources to make the transition to reenter our society easier; however, a lot of work must be done.

“That means that those of us who have been incarcerated need to lead the charge ourselves,” McCombs said. “And the number one way we do that is to vote and vote for people who advocate on our behalf.” ¬

Ray vs. Chuy

City Council’s conservative firebrand Raymond Lopez takes on influential progressive Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for the 4th District seat.

BY JACQUELINE SERRATO

One of the loudest conservative voices in the City Council, Alderperson Raymond Lopez (15th Ward), is challenging one of Illinois’ most influential progressives, Representative Jesus “Chuy” García (4th District), for his congressional seat. Despite the common presumption that the officials are allies given their Southwest Side origins and Mexican surnames, their politics and approach have shown that they don’t typically align.

Their political trajectories have different roots. Lopez emerged from the political establishment with more conservative voting tendencies via exRepresentative Bill Lipinski, while García came from an organizing background and into the limelight after the death of Rudy Lozano, the Little Village labor activist who was an associate of former Mayor Harold Washington.

Lopez and García both threw their hats into the 2023 mayoral election, but Lopez dropped out and endorsed businessman Willie Wilson; García finished fourth and endorsed Brandon Johnson in the subsequent run-off.

The 4th District was the first of two congressional districts in Illinois that became majority Latinx and which García has represented since 2019. It comprises multiple Southwest Side neighborhoods including Pilsen, Little Village, and Back of the Yards, as well as western suburbs like Cicero and Berwyn. Lopez’s aldermanic ward includes parts of Back of the Yards.

Their platforms agree on a few but significant items, such as support for a federal minimum wage of $15 or more, a path to permanent residency for DACA recipients, and a call for more federal aid to cities that have experienced recent influxes of migrants.

But indicators in their voting records, public statements and endorsements show where they diverge.

Lopez made a Chicago Park District fieldhouse in his ward available as a

ballot that would put Chicago’s sanctuary city status, which the city has had since 1985, to a public vote.

During a tense meeting called by Lopez and alderpersons Anthony Beale, Silvana Tabares, Marty Quinn, and Anthony Napolitano on November 2 on the topic of a welcoming city, Lopez found himself in the middle of a divided Council over the migrant debate.

Lopez tweeted that Ramirez-Rosa was “harassing and manhandling” Alderperson Emma Mitts, and would go on to suggest that it was a racist and sexist action that Johnson should punish by expulsion.

Lopez told media sources that “he had to block” Ramirez-Rosa with his body, though a CBS2 video showed that RamirezRosa touched her arm and moments later moved out of her way. Mitts would later acknowledge that she wasn’t manhandled. Ramirez-Rosa resigned as floor leader, but blamed Lopez for having mischaracterized and escalated the situation.

In early 2019, Lopez left the City Council’s Latino Caucus, apparently over

supporting his opponent. He’s been at odds with fellow Latinx alderpersons since.

While García has a protégé in City Council, Michael Rodriguez, he has otherwise stopped short of endorsing candidates from the Latino Caucus. He endorsed FOP-backed Samie Martinez against Democratic Socialist and Latino Caucus member Rossana RodriguezSanchez in the 33rd Ward. But nationally, he supports and frequently votes with The Squad, who are among the most progressive and left-wing members of Congress.

García penned a letter last summer to President Joe Biden along with nearly forty congressional colleagues to call on the administration to expand parole and work permits to both new migrants and longterm contributing immigrant workers.

Lopez has said the administration should “secure the border,” demanding that the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services process asylum requests within sixty days and immediately deport those deemed not eligible. His immigration talking points and continuous critique of Johnson and former mayor Lori Lightfoot have made him a repeated Chicago representative at Fox News national TV network.

García voted against a Republicanled border bill, the Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, that had failed to include the input of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and included “the most severe restrictions to asylum and immigration in a generation, leaning into failed criminalization strategies and throwing immigrant communities under the bus in exchange for military assistance,” according to a statement the congressman released.

Joining other House members like Illinois representatives Delia Ramirez and Jonathan Jackson, García supported an October 16 resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in occupied Palestine. When the Chicago City Council had special meetings to pass a ceasefire resolution that required Johnson’s tie breaking vote, Lopez compared the Hamas attack to Osama bin Laden and 9/11, calling the resolution “a diversion of the worst, worst kind.”

At the beginning of the year, García had the upper hand in political fundraising by more than $170,000.

Some notable donations and endorsements of both candidates: Lopez’ ward organization received $5,000 from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) this year and $11,000 last year, and $6,600 from Mark Fishman, allegedly Logan Square’s biggest landlord. During his run for mayor, García received $107,000 from Purple PAC, which Howard Labkon of General Iron contributed to. García was recently endorsed by the Illinois AFL-CIO and Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Lopez is endorsed by the Tribune’s Editorial Board.

Candidates López and García did not respond to the Weekly’s requests for comment. ¬

Jacqueline Serrato is the Weekly’s editor-inchief.

Ald. Ray Lopez Photo provided Rep. Jesus Chuy Garcia Photo provided

Ray Lopez vs. Chuy García

El concejal conservador se enfrenta al congresista en un distrito predominantemente latino.

POR JACQUELINE SERRATO TRADUCIDO POR ALMA CAMPOS

Uno de los críticos más controversiales del Concejo Municipal de Chicago, el concejal Raymond Lopez, se enfrenta a uno de los progresistas más influyentes de Illinois, el representante Jesús “Chuy” García, por su puesto en el Congreso. A pesar de que muchos suponen que ambos funcionarios son aliados, dados sus orígenes en el lado suroeste de Chicago y sus apellidos mexicanos, sus políticas y maneras de liderar han demostrado que no suelen coincidir.

Sus trayectorias políticas tienen raíces diferentes. Lopez surgió del sector político con tendencias de voto más conservadoras a través del ex representante Bill Lipinski, mientras que García viene de un entorno de organización comunitaria y llegó a la escena pública tras la muerte de Rudy Lozano, un activista laboral de La Villita y socio del ex alcalde Harold Washington.

Lopez y García se postularon para las elecciones a la alcaldía de 2023, pero Lopez se dio de baja y respaldó al empresario Willie Wilson; García terminó en cuarto lugar y apoyó a Brandon Johnson en la segunda vuelta.

El Distrito 4 fue el primero de los dos distritos congresionales de Illinois con mayoría latina y que García ha representado desde 2019. Abarca múltiples vecindarios del lado suroeste, incluyendo Pilsen, La Villita y el barrio de las Empacadoras, así como varios suburbios del oeste como Cicero y Berwyn. El distrito político de Lopez incluye partes del barrio de las Empacadoras.

Sus plataformas comparten algunos puntos similares y significativos, como el apoyo por un salario mínimo federal de $15 o más, acceso a la residencia permanente para los beneficiarios de DACA, y ambos piden más ayuda al Congreso para las ciudades que han visto un aumento de migrantes.

Pero sus votaciones legislativas, declaraciones públicas y respaldos muestran cómo difieren.

Lopez puso a disposición la casa de campo de un parque en su distrito como refugio temporal para migrantes. Pero en diciembre le escribió una carta al alcalde Johnson en la que pedía el despido de los funcionarios del Ayuntamiento encargados de la respuesta municipal a los migrantes y votó repetidamente en contra de fondos municipales para los recién llegados. En particular, él y otros concejales intentaron sin éxito cuestionar el estatus de Chicago como ciudad santuario, cuyos orígenes se remontan a 1985, por medio de un referendo en la boleta.

Durante una tensa reunión sobre el estatus de Chicago como ciudad acogedora convocada por Lopez y los concejales Anthony Beale, Silvana Tabares, Marty Quinn y Anthony Napolitano en noviembre, Lopez se encontró en medio de un concejo dividido por el debate sobre los migrantes.

Lopez tuiteó que Ramírez-Rosa estaba “acosando y maltratando” a la concejal Emma Mitts antes de la reunión, sugiriendo que era una acción racista y machista que Johnson debería castigar con la expulsión. Lopez le comentó a los medios que “tuvo que bloquear”a RamírezRosa usando su cuerpo, aunque un vídeo de CBS2 mostró que Ramírez-Rosa la tocó en el brazo y momentos después se quitó de su camino. Mitts reconoció más tarde que no fue maltratada. RamírezRosa renunció como líder del pleno del Concejo Municipal, pero culpó a Lopez de haber caracterizado mal y escalado la situación.

A principios de 2019, Lopez abandonó el Caucus Latino del Concejo Municipal, aparentemente por diferencias ideológicas. Durante su segunda vuelta para la reelección ese año, el concejal

del distrito 15 culpó a los miembros del Caucus Latino por apoyar a su oponente y desde entonces ha estado en desacuerdo con los concejales latinxs.

Aunque García tiene un aliado cercano en el Concejo, Michael Rodríguez, no ha respaldado a los candidatos del Caucus Latino. Apoyó a Samie Martínez, de la Orden Fraternal de Policía (FOP, por sus siglas en inglés), contra la socialista demócrata y miembro del Caucus Latino, Rossana RodríguezSánchez, del distrito 33. Pero a nivel nacional, apoya y vota con ‘el squad’, el grupo de congresistas que se encuentran entre los más progresistas e izquierdistas.

El verano pasado, García le escribió una carta al Presidente Joe Biden, junto con treinta y cinco colegas del Congreso, en la que pedía a la administración que ampliara la libertad condicional y los permisos de trabajo tanto a los nuevos migrantes como a los trabajadores inmigrantes que llevan mucho tiempo contribuyendo.

Lopez ha dicho que la administración debería “reforzar la seguridad de la frontera”, exigiendo que el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS) y el Servicio de Ciudadanía e Inmigración (USCIS) tramiten las solicitudes de asilo en un plazo de sesenta días y deporten inmediatamente a quienes no sean considerados elegibles. Sus argumentos sobre inmigración y sus continuas críticas de Johnson y la ex alcaldesa Lori Lightfoot lo han llevado a ser un representante de Chicago regular en la cadena nacional de televisión de Fox News.

García votó en contra de un proyecto de ley fronteriza liderado por los republicanos, la Ley de Apropiaciones Suplementarias de Emergencia para la Seguridad Nacional, que no había incluido la aportación del Caucus Hispano del Congreso. En un comunicado, García afirmó que esa ley incluía “las restricciones

más severas al asilo y la inmigración en toda una generación, basándose en estrategias de criminalización fallidas y tirando a las comunidades inmigrantes [a los leones] a cambio de asistencia militar”.

Junto a otros miembros de la Cámara, entre ellos los congresistas de Illinois, Delia Ramírez y Jonathan Jackson, García apoyó el 16 de octubre una resolución que pedía un alto al fuego en la guerra entre Israel y Hamás en la Palestina ocupada. Cuando el Concejo Municipal de Chicago se reunió en sesiones para aprobar una resolución de cese al fuego que requería el voto de Johnson, Lopez comparó el ataque de Hamás con Osama bin Laden y el 11 de septiembre, llamando a la resolución “una maniobra de distracción de la peor, peor clase”.

A principios de año, García llevaba ventaja en la recaudación de fondos políticos por más de $170,000.

Estas son algunas donaciones y respaldos notables de ambos candidatos: La organización política del distrito de Lopez recibió $5,000 de la Orden Fraternal de Policía (FOP) este año y $11,000 el año pasado, y $6,600 de Mark Fishman, supuestamente el propietario más grande de Logan Square. Durante su campaña a la alcaldía, García recibió $107,000 de Purple PAC, un comité al que ha contribuido Howard Labkon de General Iron. Recientemente recibió el apoyo de la Federación Americana del Trabajo y Congreso de Organizaciones Industriales de Illinois (AFL-CIO, por sus siglas en inglés) y del fondo de acción de Planned Parenthood. Lopez es respaldado por la junta editorial del periódico Tribune

Los candidatos Lopez y García no respondieron a las solicitudes de comentario del Weekly ¬

Jacqueline Serrato es la editora en jefe del Weekly

(Partial) Guide to the 7th District Race

Read answers to our questionnaire from two of the five candidates.

BY ADAM PRZYBYL

The 7th Congressional District covers a wide and diverse area. It includes parts of the South Side such as West Englewood and Armour Square; the Loop; much of the West Side; and some western suburbs. The incumbent in the race, Danny Davis, has represented the district for twentyeight years, winning his first election in 1996 and every re-election since. In this year’s primary, Davis has four challengers: Kina Collins, who has run for the seat twice before; Melissa Conyears-Ervin, Chicago’s city treasurer; Nihkil Bhatia, an educator and former principal; and Kouri Marshall, a former deputy director in Governor J.B. Pritzker’s administration.

Collins, who won 46 percent of the primary vote in 2022, approaches the race politically to the left of Davis and has highlighted her experience as a gun violence activist and organizer. Entering the race for the first time, ConyearsErvin, who has been Chicago’s city treasurer since 2019, has more moderate views and has said her business experience is a key aspect of her candidacy. Her husband, Jason Ervin, is alderman of the 28th Ward, which overlaps with the 7th District. Conyears-Ervin is in the midst of an ethics scandal after it was revealed last year that she had fired two aides when they complained about ConyearsErvin using public funds for private purposes, such as planning her daughter’s birthday party and hiring an employee as a bodyguard. Conyears-Ervin has said the allegations misrepresent what happened.

The Weekly sent out a questionnaire to all the candidates. Only Nikhil Bhatia and Melissa Conyears-Ervin responded to the questionnaire by press time, and their answers are included below, with additional context about other candidates where possible.

These responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Describe yourself and why you’re running for this office.

Conyears-Ervin: I want to help people who need it most and heal our communities from generations of historical segregation. My journey, influenced by my resilient mother, drives me to empower young mothers for better futures and ensure access to quality education. I aspire to provide working individuals with opportunities for good-paying jobs, enabling them to secure homes and generational wealth. Moreover, I advocate for infrastructure reforms to combat climate change and foster new job creation—tasks uniquely suited for federal government action. All of these things are work that the federal government uniquely can accomplish.

Bhatia: I am running because our neighborhoods and kids are in crisis and Washington, D.C., isn’t doing enough to help them. As a South Side teacher, I see the ways gun violence, economic disinvestment, and the migrant crisis affect our communities every day. I can bring a fresh perspective, that of a teacher and father of young children, to the decision table in D.C. We need to change our policy approach; we need to change the people we send to Washington, and change can’t wait.

Who are you accountable to?

Conyears-Ervin: I am accountable to the voters and the communities I serve who rely on me to advocate for and protect them as an elected official. Maintaining this obligation is essential for building trust and achieving efficient governance. As a congresswoman, I will remain committed to listening and responding to my constituents’ concerns, resolving them in a timely manner that ensures the fulfillment of the office and the well-

being of the constituents.

Bhatia: As a teacher, I am accountable every day to the kids who come into my classroom and the parents that entrust me with teaching their children. As a father, I’m accountable to my children and my wife. As a congressman, I will be accountable to the constituents in my district. I have accepted no corporate money, and I am beholden to no special interests. My only concern is serving the people.

What do you see as the top issues faced by residents of the 7th district?

Conyears-Ervin: Investment in our neighborhood is the most pressing problem for the West Side and South Side residents of the 7th District. This district has some of the wealthiest and poorest residents in Illinois, and I believe strongly that both [groups] agree we do not have enough investment from the federal government in people’s lives. I would prioritize new schools, transportation infrastructure, clean energy transformation, and human infrastructure such as childcare and long-term health care. There has been some good progress on several of these measures in the past term of President Biden, but what the 7th District needs more than anything else is someone who is going to work hard every day to accomplish these difficult goals. That is a fundamental difference between me and my opponent.

Bhatia: I think the issues are—and not necessarily in this order—one, public safety: every person deserves to be safe and know their kids will be safe when they leave home in the morning. Two, economic opportunity: we need to revitalize under-resourced neighborhoods without pushing out

the residents. Three, migration: we need sensible solutions to the migrant crisis. Four, education: we need to provide better, more affordable pre-K-to-college educational [opportunities] for our young people. Five, government: we need to change the way we elect people so that they are responsive to the needs of the people and not themselves.

Editor’s Note: In an interview in 2022, Collins said the top issues facing the district were gun violence, public safety, and health care, noted the district’s large life expectancy gap, and called attention to gun violence as a public health issue.

How do you plan to address these issues?

Conyears-Ervin: People have been battling high costs coming out of the pandemic for the past few years and we have to address the strain that this is putting on families. I want to lower costs for groceries, gas, housing, and healthcare, but I also want to take advantage of the transformation we are undergoing to prepare our community for the future. With this said, I will also ensure that everyone has access to affordable, quality education. I was extremely fortunate to have gone to college, but not everyone is given that same opportunity. Education is not a luxury—it is a basic human right that should be equally accessible to all. During my time as city treasurer, I’ve divested Chicago’s funds from fossil fuel companies and I want to push hard into renewable energy to lower utility bills for working families. Finally, I want safe and secure neighborhoods with a strong presence of public safety officials who engage in thoughtful, constitutional policing.

Bhatia: Public Safety: We need comprehensive gun control legislation passed, from universal background checks

delivered for my constituents and earned a reputation as someone who reaches across the aisle to get things done for working families. Our current representative is not equipped to address the challenges ahead, and our residents believe Washington isn’t working on their behalf. We need someone to work as hard as they do every day to get things done, and I believe I’m the right person to get that work done on their behalf.

Bhatia: I am not a career politician. I am the only candidate who has had a recent

continued insistence on committing war crimes that place civilians in harm’s way. We have to make sure aid gets to the Palestinian people, and I would support further humanitarian pauses to do so. But there was a cease-fire before October 7, and Hamas broke it. They have to be removed so that we can get back on track to a two-state solution.

Bhatia: I absolutely support a ceasefire in exchange for the remaining hostages. I support Israel’s right to exist, but I do not support their campaign to

Congress has failed to fix our broken immigration system for decades because Republicans have repeatedly blocked all reforms. America is a country founded by immigrants and has succeeded because of the great strength of our diversity. We have to be a country that welcomes those who want to move, work, and raise their families here, and we must have a system to handle this. To deal with the immediate crisis, we need funding from the federal government to provide temporary shelter and allow those waiting for their cases the opportunity to earn a living legally.

city on the South Side! ¬

Adam Przybyl is the Weekly’s managing editor.

Nikhil Bhatia Photo provided

The Race to Replace Kim Foxx

The Cook County State’s Attorney is retiring after eight years in which she enacted sweeping reforms. Will her successor build upon that legacy—or roll it back?

BY MAX BLAISDELL

Last spring, Kim Foxx stepped to the lectern at the City Club of Chicago to announce that she would not seek reelection after eight tough years as Cook County State’s Attorney.

“I didn’t set out to be a career politician,” she told the audience. “I had a mission and agenda that I knew I wanted to achieve, which was fairness, justice, and equity. I feel that I have done that.”

Foxx is the first incumbent to not seek reelection for the county’s top prosecutor’s job in sixteen years, opening the field up for would-be successors. In the months since her announcement, several candidates have jumped into the race, including Democrats Clayton Harris III and Eileen O’Neill Burke, as well as Republican Robert Fioretti and Libertarian Andrew Charles Kopinski.

Although Election Day is not until November 5, the rapidly approaching Democratic primary on March 19 likely holds the keys to the office, as no Democrat has lost the race for Cook County State’s Attorney since Richard “Dick” Devine won his first election for the job in 1996.

While the two Democratic candidates have important differences in their experiences and campaign styles—O’Neill Burke has relied on tough-on-crime rhetoric, while Harris, like Foxx, stresses prosecutors’ longstanding obligation to champion the rights of both victims and defendants—the policy differences between them are slighter than their styles might suggest. Indeed, their positions are a reflection of how far Foxx was able to shift the terms of debate about public safety and the criminal legal system in the years since she took office.

Foxx’s 2016 election was momentous not just for Chicago and suburban Cook County, but also for the nation. She won

the race by a wide margin—becoming the first Black woman to hold the position— after activists and voters chose to oust incumbent Anita Alvarez after two terms. Alvarez was heavily criticized in the run-up to the campaign for taking more than a year to charge Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke for the killing of seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014.

Her election also helped catalyze a movement that has since swept up other major prosecutors’ offices in the country, including Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, George Gascon in Los Angeles, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, and Kim Gardner in St. Louis. That movement’s core aim was to use the considerable amount of discretion afforded to prosecutors in the criminal legal system to turn the tide against mass incarceration after five decades of war-ondrugs policies that did little to curb drug use or significantly deter violent crime.

and other non-carceral programs. She was also a vocal proponent of ending cash bail, which was eliminated in 2023 after the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that provision of the SAFE-T Act constitutional, and of legalizing cannabis, which began in 2020 after a state law was passed in 2019.

Foxx also took seriously her role in holding police accountable for their misdeeds. Since she took office, her reorganized conviction and post-conviction integrity units have exonerated more than 200 people, the most out of any county in the country, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. Many of those convictions were tied to disgraced Chicago

police officers, such as Commander Jon Burge, Sergeant Ronald Watts, and Detective Reynaldo Guevara. In July, her office released a “Do Not Call” list of police officers who will never be called to testify in criminal trials. Since its release, that list has expanded to more than 320 names. And although her office declined to prosecute the officers who shot thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo and twenty-two-yearold Anthony Alvarez, Foxx has pursued criminal cases against other cops involved in shootings.

For this—as well as her handling of the high-profile Jussie Smollett case— Foxx has drawn intense criticism from the right, especially from the Fraternal Order of the Police Lodge #7, the largest police union in Chicago. Myriad conservative commentators have said that her policies coddle criminals. But despite a postpandemic bump in violent crime, shootings

Kim Foxx

Photo provided Eileen O’Neill Burke

Photo provided Clayton Harris III

Photo provided

have fallen by more than 30 percent from the time she took office in 2016 to her last full year in office in 2023, according to city data.

Currently, O’Neill Burke has a significant fundraising edge.

According to Illinois Sunshine, she has some $376,000 more cash on hand than Harris with less than a month to go before the primary deadline. (Early voting started February 15.) Her major donors include medical malpractice law firms Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard and Cooney & Conway, as well as several executives from Citadel Capital, the hedge fund run by conservative billionaire Ken Griffin. Harris’s major backers include unions like SEIU, CTU, and the Teamsters and the civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy.

With just weeks to go until the primary, Foxx has not endorsed either Democratic candidate. Harris has said he would accept Foxx’s endorsement if offered, whereas O’Neill Burke categorically rejected seeking the state’s attorney’s support at a forum earlier this month.

O’Neill Burke has received endorsements from the Tribune’s Editorial Board, several retired judges, and current mayors, aldermen, state senators and representatives. Harris has the backing of Cook County Board of Commissioners president Toni Preckwinkle, who was a political mentor to Foxx, and the Cook County Democratic Party, as well as numerous state and local politicians, advocacy groups, and faith leaders.

Harris, who is a lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, where he teaches a course on policing and race, among others, started his career at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) in 1999, fresh out of Howard University Law School.

During his time as an assistant state’s attorney (ASA) under Dick Devine, Harris handled traffic and narcotics cases and criminal appeals. Harris said he and other prosecutors in his office strongly believed in the mission of what they were doing.

“The folks that I worked with had a true desire to adhere to the mission of the office, which was to be the victims’ advocate and to truly do justice,” Harris told the Weekly. But he said he felt compelled to

leave the SAO after four years because of the racial disparities in prosecutions. “I remember being in court and just looking behind me and seeing men who look like me in there,” he told the Hyde Park Herald

As a Black man and a resident of Washington Park, Harris said he brings a different understanding of the racial dynamics in prosecutions and gun violence.

“My experience with the justice system is one of being a Black man in America,” Harris said at the candidate forum earlier this month. “I have been pulled over before, for no reason, on pretextual stops.…What you have to understand if you've never been pulled over before, for no reason, is the humiliation that comes with that.”

We have to “make sure that there's

to confess to a crime they did not commit. DNA evidence pointed to a thirty-sixyear-old man who was eventually convicted of the murder.

At the forum, Harris seized on O’Neill Burke’s role in the case. “She wrongfully convicted a ten-year-old child,” he said. “This is the whole reason why we have a conviction review unit. We have to change the culture.”

O’Neill Burke defended her role, saying, “No court has ever questioned my conduct in that case, or in any case. The only allegation about my conduct in that case emerged thirty years later from Mr. Harris and his allies.”

Both she and Harris support a new piece of state legislation introduced by

Although Election Day is not until November 5, the rapidly approaching Democratic primary on March 19 likely holds the keys to the office, as no Democrat has lost the race for Cook County State’s Attorney since Richard “Dick” Devine won his first election for the job in 1996.

not only equality, but equity in the way that the laws are being adhered to and are administered,” he added.

Unlike Harris, who later worked for Governors Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn downstate in Springfield and also in the private sector for the Illinois International Port District and Lyft, O’Neill Burke has spent her entire three-decades-long career enmeshed in Cook County’s legal system, where she worked every side of the bar— prosecutor, defense attorney, and judge— before stepping down in 2023 to run for the state’s attorney position.

In 1994, three years into her career as an ASA, O’Neill Burke prosecuted and won a conviction of an eleven-year-old Black boy for the murder of his elderly white neighbor. The conviction was overturned on appeal when it emerged that the detective in the case had coerced two other children

State Sen. Robert Peters that would require lawyers to be present whenever children are interrogated by police. (Currently, the law only mandates a lawyer for children under fourteen when they are being questioned about murder or sexual offenses.)

After ten years at the SAO, she became a criminal defense attorney in 2001. She then was elected as a circuit court judge in 2008 before winning election to the appellate level in 2016.

At the forum, Harris questioned O'Neill Burke's competence as a judge, saying that during one six-year period, seven of her rulings were later overturned. “Your judgment is in question, and it needs to be addressed,” he said.

In a statement to the Weekly, Don Black, O’Neill Burke’s campaign manager, disputed this charge.

“As a judge, she made nearly 5,000

decisions and was rated as fair and recommended by every bar association in the state,” he wrote. “This is nothing more than a desperate attempt by Clayton Harris to manufacture statistics to smear a woman’s public service and distract from his own record as an anti-union corporate lobbyist.”

Neither candidate promises to completely jettison the major reforms ushered in under Foxx—mostly they propose to tinker around the edges while solving managerial issues like hiring and retention and boosting low staff morale.

In conversations with the Weekly, both candidates promised to build upon Foxx’s use of diversionary programs like the restorative justice community courts, of which there are currently only three operating in the city, with less than 100 firsttime nonviolent offenders participating in the programs per year.

Harris told the Weekly that as a public policy professor, he looks for data on what works and what doesn’t and that, empirically speaking, the restorative justice courts do. “The recidivism rate of future crimes committed by individuals [is] minimal, at best,” he said.

A report by the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts released this week found that participants who complete the restorative justice program have a much lower rate of committing another crime (13 percent) than similar individuals who went through the traditional court process (65 percent).

O’Neill Burke also commended Foxx’s use of restorative practices and called for expanding upon them, writing in the statement to the Weekly: “I want to create an entire bureau of restorative justice where we pull veterans courts, mental health courts and drug courts all under one roof so they can collaborate and improve each other.”

However, Foxx came in for the sharpest criticism from the candidates over staffing shortages.

“Right now, the state's attorney's office is woefully understaffed,” O’Neill Burke wrote in the statement. Last year, a CBS News investigation revealed that more ASAs walked off the job in 2022—136— which was more than at any time in the previous decade.

O’Neill Burke said that there are currently 160 vacancies in the felony trial division alone.

“What means is that basic things are not getting done,” she said. “Women can’t get orders of protection because there's no state’s attorney to process the paperwork. Defendants are sitting in custody for years, waiting to go to trial. So the system is just not working for people, and some of that is caused by mismanagement.”

To lessen the burden of casework on already overstretched ASAs, both candidates called for the office to hire more paralegals.

To fill vacancies, Harris told the Weekly that the SAO could be doing more to recruit law students from the nine law schools in Illinois, seven of which are located in Cook County. Harris called these schools “low-hanging fruit.” And to retain talented lawyers once in the office, Harris said he would allow them to stick to their areas of passion rather than transferring them to a different assignment. “If I have an attorney

who's passionate about the environment, then let's get them over in [the] civil [division] working on toxic torts,” he said.

O’Neill Burke said the way to lure young lawyers to the office is by giving them better training. She said she will establish an education unit composed of retired judges who will develop curricula for every division in the SAO, in which ASAs will brush up on the Constitution and case law relevant to their practice area.

“This will be like getting a master’s degree in trial work that will serve as a model for training prosecutors for the entire nation,” she wrote in the statement.

On police accountability, Harris vowed to continue using the “Do Not Call” list of law enforcement officers who can’t testify, and to disclose any and all exculpatory evidence and impeachment information as required by the Supreme Court cases Brady v. Maryland and U.S. v. Giglio. Previous state’s attorneys haven’t always followed these requirements, leading to numerous wrongful convictions and exonerations.

“We don't need to hide the ball to advocate for the state. We don't need to double talk to advocate for the state,” Harris told the Weekly. “What we need to do is to put the evidence up front and forward and to move forward in prosecuting people.”

O’Neill Burke agreed entirely that prosecutors must disclose all relevant evidence, but she contended that mistakes would inevitably occur if the office remained severely understaffed. She said that once she solves the staffing issue, she will ensure all attorneys regularly go through training in courtroom procedures and the handling of evidence.

“By emphasizing the importance of the systems in place, we can guarantee all evidence is tendered to the defense in a timely fashion,” she wrote to the Weekly.

One significant policy disagreement between the candidates is on retail theft, which has risen across the country since the pandemic, according to the National Retail Federation.

Harris said he would continue with

Foxx’s policy of setting a $1,000 threshold for felony theft, which O’Neill Burke blames for the spate of smash-and-grab robberies in the Loop. Everything under that, Harris would prosecute as a misdemeanor.

“People don't understand that a misdemeanor has [a maximum penalty of] 364 days [in jail],” he explained. “We can still hold people accountable appropriately.”

O’Neill Burke says Illinois law requires that she bring felony charges if the value of the stolen item is $300 or more.

“I took an oath as a judge, and I will take the same oath as the state’s attorney that I will uphold the law,” she wrote. “If there is public sentiment to change the law, the appropriate avenue to do so is to go to the [state] legislature and change it.” ¬

Max Blaisdell is a fellow with the Invisible Institute and a staff writer for the Hyde Park Herald.

Election Warehouse Workers Allege

Low Pay and Poor Conditions

to investigate the allegations.

BY MICHELLE YANG

It’s Tuesday, March 14, 2023, about two weeks before the mayoral run-off.

At the Chicago Board of Elections (CBOE) warehouse in McKinley Park, Maria and Christine’s supervisor has called their team over for a meeting. Word travels fast in the warehouse, and many of them have already heard the news. Just yesterday, about fifty members of the transport department handed a petition to management and walked off the job.

As Maria tells it, the transportation department had been promised extended hours and overtime for weeks. Instead, management hired a new team of people to

work night shifts, paying them the base rate of $17 per hour and avoiding giving dayshift employees their promised overtime.

When the day-shift employees found out, they were outraged.

Christine recalled her supervisor’s message that day: Yes, she has heard about the petition going around—but if any of them ever want to come back and work in the warehouse again, don’t sign it. And don’t try walking out either, she recalled her supervisor warning, because they won’t be hired back.

On April 4, Chicagoans lined up at 1,291 voting precincts across fifty wards for the runoff, casting hundreds of thousands

of ballots and delivering a decisive win to Brandon Johnson before the end of the night.

For elections to go so smoothly, workers at the CBOE warehouse labor for weeks or months to assemble hundreds of thousands of forms and ballots, test ballot scanners, check e-poll books, and transport the equipment to polling sites across the city. They also pull long shifts on election day in a variety of roles and troubleshoot any issues that come up.

By materially ensuring elections can happen, warehouse workers play a crucial role in upholding a cornerstone of our democracy.

But in interviews with the Weekly, workers described working long hours in a moldy, dusty warehouse where they say CBOE-employed supervisors harassed and berated them with impunity, made lastminute schedule changes to prevent them from accruing overtime, and made them feel they had to accept these conditions or risk being fired and replaced.

While the warehouse workers are hired to implement city elections, they are not actually city employees—they’re temporary workers. When the elections are over, so are these workers’ jobs.

Chicago election warehouse workers are hired through Robert Half, a $7.18

The Chicago Board of Elections warehouse at 1819 W. Pershing in McKinley Park.

Photo by Michael DiGioia

billion company that connects businesses and governments with employees in permanent or contractual positions.

Starting in 2020, the CBOE began contracting with Robert Half Government, the staffing division of Robert Half’s consulting firm Proviti Government Services. The contract between Robert Half and CBOE that the Weekly reviewed shows the lowest pay rate for temporary employees is $25.75 per hour. But according to pay stubs, some temporary workers were being paid $17 per hour by Robert Half.

In response to the Weekly’s questions, CBOE director of communications Max Bever wrote that the CBOE was retaining a law firm to complete a thorough investigation of allegations raised by our story. A spokesperson for Robert Half declined to comment.

Because the workers who spoke to the Weekly expressed fear of retaliation for doing so, we’re referring to them with pseudonyms in this story.

Election warehouse workers range in age from eighteen to sixty.

Many are Black people from the South or West Sides, but there are also Latinx and white employees. Some have worked there for over ten years, while others have only been there for a few months.

Christine was hired in October 2022 as an inventory clerk through Robert Half. After a five-minute interview with her recruiter, she was offered the position. “I didn’t have any details about what the job responsibilities actually were,” said Christine. “I didn’t realize it was going to be so physical.”

When she arrived at the warehouse, Christine said she was provided no formal training for the work she was tasked with—a sentiment repeated by other workers the Weekly interviewed. She mainly relied on friendly coworkers to show her the ropes. “It took me three to four days to realize [who] was my boss,” she said.

Still, the job came at an opportune time. Without it, she would have been homeless and on the street. As an inventory clerk, Christine was on her feet for the majority of the day. “The work was exhausting,” she recalled. “The first couple of weeks I worked there in October, I

couldn't walk on the weekends because my feet were killing me so much. I just laid on the couch all day.”

Other election warehouse workers described taking the job because of desperate financial situations. “I couldn’t really say no to [the job]. It was my best option,” said Alex, who was hired as an inventory clerk in October 2022. Having previously worked at a warehouse that required intense manual labor, the election warehouse work was relatively less strenuous.

“What really made the environment stressful was the fact that we worked inside the building and it was a very old building,” he said. “There was absolutely dust everywhere. And I mean, [we were] practically breathing in dust particles every single time we walked in.”

1819 W. Pershing is one of four

city-owned buildings on that block, part of Chicago’s old Central Manufacturing District. Built in 1917, it was initially used by the Army as a military recruitment site. From the 1970s to 1990s, it was used by the Board of Education, which did major renovations. The Board of Elections moved its operations to the warehouse in 2005.

The buildings have faced serious deterioration and neglect since the 1990s. A 2021 facility evaluation report noted substantial leaks throughout the ceiling of the six-story building’s top floor, with extensive water damage and black mold covering the floor and walls. Cracks in the building structure had allowed leaks to permeate to the third through fifth floors, causing further water damage, mold, and rusted rebar. The report noted that the water damage posed a risk to the reinforcing and concrete of the building.

In 2022 and 2023, election warehouse work mainly took place on the first three floors of the building. Workers were not required to go up to the top floors, where the damage was most extensive. Still, workers described bathrooms with peeling paint and liquid dripping down the walls, pieces of the walls falling off, and facilities and equipment covered in an ever-present layer of dirt and dust. Management stopped providing masks in the beginning of 2023.

“The cafeteria was disgusting half the time,” said Maria. “We were always cleaning the tables ourselves.”

Her father had worked in the building when it was owned by the Board of Education. “I remember showing photos to my dad and he couldn’t even believe what he saw. He was absolutely speechless that that was the same building he worked at.”

Matthew, an inventory clerk, said:

Illustration of the work that election warehouse workers do.

Illustration by Meg Studer

“Even when you’re walking around the remnants of the warehouse, you can smell the filth that comes from the walls of the building.”

In an email, Bever wrote that the Department of Assets, Information and Services (AIS), which owns and manages the building, has over the past three years installed a temporary roof, fixed heating, and improved sprinkler systems.

Afew weeks after the November 2022 elections, Christine was laid off alongside the majority of temporary warehouse workers. A month later, she got a call from her recruiter at Robert Half asking if she would be interested in returning to the elections warehouse.

When Christine accepted the offer, she saw several of her coworkers (like Maria and Alex) had been rehired too. Much to their surprise, their hours were capped at thirty per week. “I was not informed of the change from forty hours per week to thirty hours per week when I agreed to come back,” Christine said. “I found out I was working less hours only when I started the job. I remember being very pissed about it.”

Management kept saying the same thing, according to Alex. The mantra was: “‘It’s not in Robert Half’s budget. It’s not in Robert Half’s budget. We can’t have you here for the full time and risk our budget running out when the election time comes around, because that’s when we’ll need you the most,’” he said.

Managers also invoked the budget to justify cutting off workers from overtime hours during election week. Workers work up to twenty hours on election day and are expected to show up the next day for a full shift, according to Matthew. He recalled his manager asking him at the end of his shift at 12:30 a.m. if he’d be showing up for the morning shift at 8:00 a.m.

Maria said that despite their exhaustion, “a lot of us were like, ‘Okay well, at least we’ll push through because then by Friday, we’ll be at [overtime] hours.”

But on that Thursday, by which time many workers had already logged nearly forty hours, Maria said she and other workers were told by their division manager that they would not be permitted to return to work the next day. Management said: “‘If

you guys are even close to forty, you can’t come in tomorrow,’” Maria said. “So a lot of people were confused, because like, ‘wait, what?’” The reason? “‘It’s not in the budget.’”

Warehouse workers told the Weekly they sometimes worked more hours than they were allowed to log. They logged their daily hours on a paper timesheet for CBOE and on a mobile app for Robert Half. According to Christine, managers would instruct them what hours and breaks to put down on the physical timesheet and told them to log the same hours on the app.

Matthew recalled being instructed by a manager, at the end of his election day shift, to write down 11:50 p.m. as his sign off time, despite working until close to 12:30 a.m. Christine, who had worked close to midnight, was told to put down 11:00 p.m. “[Management] told me that I [would] only be able to clock in and clock out based on what [Robert Half] would allow,” Matthew said.

CBOE receives funding from both Chicago and Cook County. In the last few years, its annual budget has varied between $25 and $55 million, depending on the year and number of elections to run. Part of the budget is dedicated for temporary staffing needs.

Sometimes the agency blows past its temporary staffing budget. In fiscal year 2022, CBOE’s budget for temporary workers was initially just under $2.8 million, but $3.1 million was eventually

spent. Of that, Robert Half invoiced over $2.7 million, or about 87 percent. In fiscal year 2023, CBOE budgeted $2.8 million for temporary work and Robert Half invoiced for nearly $1.8 million, or about 65 percent.

Robert Half’s contract with CBOE was extended through 2025 and describes the three categories of roles that Robert Half would hire for: data entry clerks for warehouse work at $25.75 per hour, data entry clerks for call center and administrative support work at $30 per hour, and computer specialists, also called “shift leads,” at $45 per hour.

In an email, Bever wrote, “Per the 2022 Statement of Work, Robert Half is to pay these temporary employees the rate of $25.75 per hour,” apparently referring to the warehouse data clerk position. In another email, Bever wrote, “The pay rate for these temporary employees at minimum for invoicing is $25.75 per hour.”

Yet the four workers interviewed on the record, who worked at the warehouse and were hired by Robert Half, were paid $17 per hour. A Robert Half hiring email to one of the workers confirmed they would be starting as a “Warehouse Specialist” at $17 per hour.

Robert Half’s invoices to CBOE, which the Weekly reviewed, show the company invoiced the city at the contract rates of $25.75 per hour for data entry clerks. The invoices did not contain any

positions labeled “Warehouse Specialist” at $17 per hour.

Asked about these findings, Bever wrote: “The Board is unaware of any payment discrepancy by Robert Half,” and reiterated that CBOE’s investigation is pending.

It’s unclear how much autonomy CBOE-employed managers had over workers’ schedules. Bever wrote “the Board determines the needed number of employees for a given day or project at the warehouse and communicates that number to Robert Half,” but didn’t specify if warehouse managers make these decisions themselves or act on directives from superiors.

Multiple workers said that management frequently reminded them they were replaceable which made them feel compelled to accept last-minute schedule changes, and discouraged them from speaking out about managers’ unprofessional conduct, asking for breaks, and reporting alleged instances of sexual harassment.

“In Robert Half’s eyes, as well as our management team’s eyes, we’re disposable,” said Alex. “[Management] would not allude to it. When you’re used to seeing a lot of the same people [and] you notice a lot of people are gone and you start to ask questions, [management] will say, ‘Oh, this person was fired and they got replaced.’”

Questions around management’s decisions “never got answered or they got answered with a smart comment,” said Alex. “[They would say] ‘if you don’t like it, then you can just leave, and we’ll find somebody else,’” said Alex. While Robert Half was responsible for finding and hiring temporary workers, CBOE-employed managers were responsible for managing workers and had the power to fire them.

As their hours fluctuated from January to March, workers said they were often given only a few days notice of changes to work schedules. On some days, they were told mid-shift that their work day was being cut short. “We often vent about how sudden [the changes] were and speculated as to when hours would change,” said Christine.

According to the 2020 Fair Workweek

Visible damage on the upper floors of the Chicago Board of Elections warehouse. Workers kept to the first three floors where there was less damage. Photos taken in 2023.

Photos by Michael DiGioia

Ordinance, when changes to the work schedule are made “less than twenty-four hours from a shift, or workers are cut, sent home or hours are canceled, workers are entitled to fifty percent pay for those hours.” Moreover, workers are eligible for “one hour of Predictability Pay for any shift change within fourteen days.”

The warehouse workers the Weekly spoke with were not aware of this ordinance and said they did not receive compensation for schedule changes. The ordinance applies to workers in several industries, including warehouse services, and applies to permanent and temporary workers, though the Weekly was unable to confirm whether it applies specifically to the workers hired by Robert Half on behalf of CBOE.

Workers who spoke to the Weekly said that in March 2022, two weeks before the April run-offs, a warehouse supervisor announced that beginning the following day, they would need workers to either start working twelve-hour shifts or work on Saturdays. “They told us at about 4 p.m.,”

an hour before the day ended, “blindsiding everyone, even those who had heard the rumors,” Christine said. “[Our supervisor] played it up like we would be ‘making money!’ since they weren't taking away our overtime this time.”

The warehouse was divided when it came to the new hours. Some workers were eager to receive overtime pay. Others bemoaned the sudden change, especially parents who needed to figure out new childcare arrangements.

“Everything, every issue that happened is all brought back to the lack of communication. And when there’s a lack of communication, it feels like a lack of respect,” Maria said. “Because with the overtime, no one knows. We never knew what was happening until maybe an hour before, or a day before these new changes happened. And that’s what left such a sour taste overall, even for the people who are rooting for being able to work as much as possible.”

The next day, workers began working

8 a.m. to 8 p.m. shifts and the pace of work intensified. “They’ve vastly accelerated the work, and it is intensely draining and stressful,” Christine said.

It was unclear to workers whether the extended shifts were mandatory. Christine said that one of her co-workers asked their supervisor, who said they were mandatory. But the next day, the supervisor passed around consent forms for workers to sign up for the overtime. While Christine signed up, she recalled feeling like she didn't have a choice, “given the fact we were told it was mandatory the other day.”

Workers described managers making sudden changes to their working conditions and yelling at staff for situations outside of workers’ control. While testing the e-poll books and ballot boxes, workers were initially allowed to sit in chairs. That changed when managers claimed “people weren’t working fast enough,” Christine said. Alex recalled management telling them: “‘I don’t want you to be lazy if we gave you chairs.’” Even though there were

a lot of older workers, some with arthritis, management “didn’t want anyone to sit down,” he said.

Despite the pressure, Alex said that there were also moments where they would be idle while waiting for their supervisor to give them their next assignment. He described the workflow at the warehouse as “clockwork.” For instance, his team could not test the ballot scanners until the other team finished configuring the voting touchscreens and their supervisor assembled the printed sample ballots. “We are not in control of the workflow that we have. [Our managers] are,” said Alex.

Management “would tell us to just hang by our team lead [once we finished a task], who would just say ‘Hang on.’ And we will be ‘hanging on’ for like forty-five minutes to an hour to an hour and thirty minutes,” said Alex. “We couldn’t do anything, so we just sat down. And [our manager] would get berated for it. And then...she would come in here and berate us.” Alex said. “It was madness like that.”

Eventually, “anytime when we were idle and we didn’t have anything to do, our team lead would tell us to just go upstairs on the third floor and hide away from the cameras” that lined the walls of the second floor.

Several workers also said they were told to hide upstairs during the five percent test, an election integrity test during which CBOE officials, election judges, and journalists come to the warehouse to check five percent of the ballots.

When Christine first started work in November 2022, management provided cases of free water bottles. There was also a minifridge by her supervisor’s desk that held water. In an email, Bever wrote, “Since the warehouse does not contain working drinking fountains or bottle refill stations, bottled water is provided by the Board to full-time, part-time, and temporary employees at three stations on three floors in the warehouse.”

But shortly after Christine started, management called a meeting about empty water bottles they’d found around the warehouse. “The bosses…started talking to us, kind of more like yelling at us,” Christine said. A manager was angry that he had to gather up empty water bottles in the work area. “[But it’s] because there’s no trash cans,” she said.

According to Christine, after that incident, the cases of water disappeared and a lock was placed on the door of the minifridge. The only way to get water was to purchase it from a rarely stocked vending machine or a pizzeria across the street.

On Election Day, workers said the pace of work was so exhausting that there was no time to take meal breaks or vote. Still, they later discovered that a lunch hour was still deducted from their paychecks. According to Bever, temporary employees are provided breakfast, lunch, and dinner breaks. For voting on election day, employees “should make that request directly to their employer Robert Half to be given two hours to vote per the requirements of the Illinois Election Code.” A twenty-minute meal break is required for every 7.5 hours, according to state labor law.

“We were provided breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but there was no accompanying break,” said Christine, who was working on a tech support hotline during the November

2022 elections. “I distinctly recall not being able to take bites of my sandwich between phone calls because the phone was ringing off the line. Nor were we allowed to leave the workstation unless we were using the bathroom.”

For workers like Alex who were tasked with delivering extra materials to poll sites, the election day is mostly spent in a car. “We’re just driving around left and right, and we don’t get our lunch break. We just have to find some time to stop at a restaurant or stop at a gas station to get some food and drink,” Alex said.

“I'd say the pressure was such that I felt scared to take a break, and I didn't know if it was even an option during the [November] election,” Christine said.

Sexual harassment was common

me.”

Robert Half provided workers with sexual harassment training and recommended that workers report through the temp agency. “But I don’t think people felt really confident in the temp agency,” Maria said. While Robert Half was the temp agency that employed them, their supervisors were employed through the Board of Elections. “Who do you go to if you don’t really feel confident in your temp agency…how are you even going to go to [supervisors] when you see them doing the same shit?” said Maria.

Workers said that the working conditions at the warehouse, and how they were treated by managers, made them less likely to speak up. “A lot of people who do run through Robert Half or even the Board

“They’ve vastly accelerated the work, and it is intensely draining and stressful.”

at the warehouse, according to the four workers who spoke with the Weekly on the record. Maria and other workers said they experienced or witnessed male coworkers make sexual advances, grope, and catcall women in the warehouse.

Maria said management warned her on her first day to “watch out” for one specific coworker who had garnered a reputation “of being a creep.” Later that afternoon, that coworker asked her if she wanted to come home with him after work. Many of her female coworkers she spoke with also had the same experience. “It was common knowledge,” Maria said.

Maria said this behavior came from management too. One division manager was described by several workers as “very flirtatious.” Several workers described seeing him regularly “make comments” and flirt with women as they signed in and out of work, calling them “baby,” “sweetheart,” and “beautiful.” Maria described one instance where he said to her, “You wouldn’t even know what to do with me if you had

of Elections, they come to the warehouse with a blasé, ‘I don’t care,’ type of attitude. As long as I get paid, I don’t care,” Alex said. Maria agreed, describing working at the election warehouse as one of those “I gotta do what I gotta do” kind of jobs.

As temporary hires working short-term positions, election warehouse workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitative conditions. Their situation is not unique and part of a larger structural trend.

According to a report released by Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ), the number of temp jobs has increased more than eight-fold in the U.S since the 1970s, replacing well-compensated, stable union jobs that were once prevalent in warehouses. Using temp labor is beneficial to companies because they are able to get the same work done for less money. Temp agencies often win contracts with companies by offering the lowest price. In contrast to union jobs, temp jobs often pay

less and lack benefits.

According to the report, temp workers also “face an absurd lack of legal clarity as to who is their employer and accountable for the abuse,” making workers more susceptible to wage theft and dangerous work conditions by companies. Temp workers “caught in a permanent cycle of temporary work and forced to always be on the search for enough work to make ends meet,” lack leverage to negotiate better terms at work. “The temp arrangement exacerbates this vulnerability shared by many workers throughout today’s precarious economy,” WWJ reports.

While the labor that election warehouse workers do is different from that of larger distribution hubs, their conditions are not too different, said Tommy Carden, associate director of WWJ. “Workers being taken advantage of to work longer and longer hours, even if there's not a specific legal violation; the lack of control that workers have over their own lives,” he said. ”The instability that workers feel when the employer has all the power over whether to keep them or whether to kick them out and fire them is something we see very, very often.”

“The only way [workers] can really make real change in the workplace is by coming together and asserting their economic power together,” Carden said. “We encourage workers to look at who has the power to meet the demands they have.”

The workers who spoke to the Weekly said they do not plan on returning to the elections warehouse. Some were seeking employment elsewhere, hoping for better compensation and labor conditions. But while they may be gone, another election cycle looms ahead in March, with hundreds of new temp workers currently working at the warehouse.

“I think we deserve consistent work,” said Christine. “Being directly hired would be a big step, because even with the harassment, having just one system and feeling like you’re truly a part of the workplace [...] would help things on a broad scale.” ¬

Michelle Yang has been involved in various student and community organizing efforts over the years.

Dancing to Heal

Pro-liberation collective Go Baba! Worldwide organizes political dance nights amid the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

BY JOCELYN MARTINEZ-ROSALES

Last month, as Chicago became the largest city in the U.S. to call for a ceasefire, the death toll in Gaza reached more than 29,000—the vast majority of whom were women and children. The entire world has their eyes on Gaza. Social media feeds have made us bear witness to the atrocities of an ongoing genocide even as the U.S. continues to veto United Nations resolutions that call for a ceasefire. A blanket of grief and pain covers many. But for the Arab community in Chicago, one form of resistance has become joy and dance.

Go Baba! Worldwide is a pro-liberation collective curated and founded by DJs Nanoos and QuJo in July 2023. The duo hosts monthly events that combine Afro, Arab, and Caribbean sounds at venues like the California Clipper, Podlasie Club, and Blind Barber. Go Baba! has also graced venues in Detroit and Los Angeles.

“Bringing our music to the table is absolutely political because it’s an intervention to what the standards are for music and nightlife in the city,” said twenty-six-year-old Nanoos.

The Chicagoland area has the largest Palestinian population in the country, with 18,000 people living in Cook County. Since the start of the war, many Chicagoans have taken to the streets to host rallies, vigils and demonstrations for a free Palestine.

“This is part of the revolution,” Nanoos said. “It’s a cultural critique of what’s happening around us.”

Nanoos, who’s originally from Detroit, describes herself as a Palestinian living in exile and had to make the choice to continue Go Baba! during the genocide.

“This is an area where folks who have had a long week of organizing can then come and feel a sense of community, gratitude, safety, affirmation of their identity,” she said. “So that when Monday hits, and it’s time to organize again, we’re

able to take the streets again because we had a great weekend—we enjoyed each other’s movement and rhythm.”

Nanoos and QuJo invite people to be uncomfortable because they say this is an uncomfortable time, one that’s filled with contradictions. The fight for liberation continues through their collective that brings Brown and Black people together.

“When I look into a crowd now, a Go Baba! crowd, it is so diverse that I’m able to see myself in the crowd, finally,” said QuJo, who has been DJing for fifteen years.

QuJo’s affinity for blending crosscultural sounds drew Nanoos in. It was this connection that led QuJo to not only teach Nanoos but also manage her DJ career. Go Baba! most recently was named “Best proliberation DJ collective and dance party” by the Reader.

“Usually around like ten, eleven o’clock people are in it and we’re just looking at their faces and we feed off of them, they feed off of us,” QuJo said.

Go Baba!’s most recent collaboration was with Gyrate, a monthly party collective centered around the Caribbean and Black diaspora, and hosted at Bourbon on

Division. Gyrate’s creator Mamicana and DJ Rae Chardonnay joined Nanoos and Qujo with sets of their own.

“You see the keffiyehs in the air, you see people dancing together,” Nanoos said. “It’s eclectic. It’s just, it’s everything.”

Pilsen DJ Mo Mami, who has previously guest DJed at Go Baba!, came out to support the night.

“The dynamic is not like anything that I have experienced before,” Mo Mami said. “It’s a great example of how joy must also exist among tragedy. As humans that’s the only way we can survive, with each other.”

Mo Mami said that collaboration between Go Baba! and Gyrate unites a community with the common goal of global liberation. She applauded Nanoos, QuJo and Mamicana for bringing the world to Chicago.

“To be at an event where I’m hearing ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘Free Sudan,’ ‘Free Congo’ rhythmically over a juke beat is so wonderful and unique,” she said.

Bringing communities together and offering a respite is the core of Go Baba! The event has been groundbreaking in its fusion of Arab and Afro sounds in Chicago

and they have plans to live up to the “worldwide” in their title. The two teased upcoming projects and collaborations. In the meantime, they said they hope to keep inspiring and bringing people together.

“Artists have always played a big role in social revolutions,” Nanoos said. “We’ve become like the nucleus of the city.”

As Go Baba!’s reach grows, their mission will remain the same: to “stand by the resistance because [they] believe oppressed people have the right to resist colonialism, apartheid and occupation.” Their revolution is all-encompassing as they not only fight against colonialism but also capitalism.

“I believe that Go Baba! stands on anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist norms that we see in club culture and nightlife in Chicago,” Nanoos said. Go Baba! has ignited a cultural shift in the nightlight industry, something that the two view as a new form of grassroots organizing.

“If I can change this very racist dance culture and change it into something that is culture for us, that’s my contribution to society,” QuJo said.

Eventually, as the collective continues to grow, the pair intend to continuously pour back into the community. Behind the DJ decks, Nanoos can’t help but be proud as she looks at her crowd, who are healing by dancing.

“Sometimes we dance with tears in our eyes,” Nanoos said. “But when we move, it’s cathartic. And it helps us reset. The struggle for our liberation, the revolution is happening daily, everyday, by the minute.” ¬

Jocelyn Martinez-Rosales is a MexicanAmerican journalist from Belmont Cragin, Chicago. As an independent journalist she’s passionate about covering communities of color with a social justice lens. She’s also the labor editor at the Weekly.

Photo by Jesus J Montero

Public Meetings Report

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.

BY SCOTT PEMBERTON AND DOCUMENTERS

February 5

At its meeting, the City Council Committee on Police and Fire reviewed Chicago Police Department (CPD) staffing and the most recent progress report on the status of reforms called for in the 2019 federal consent decree. The decree mandates “reforms that govern police training and policies,” notes an Illinois Attorney General website, “and provide officers the support they need to implement safe and constitutional policing practices.” The committee recommended passage of an ordinance that, if approved by the City Council, would commission a workforce allocation study of CPD. The goal would be to make staffing decisions more data-driven and strategic. Discussion on increasing the retirement age for police officers and firefighters—from sixty-three to sixty-five—was heated with clearly separate positions: fire department representatives were against it, police department and Fraternal Order of Police representatives were for it, and Council members were split. There was no vote at the meeting.

February 6

The Complete Streets Ordinance requires road improvements to include standardized bike and pedestrian infrastructure. Alderpersons and constituents reviewed the ordinance’s importance at a meeting of the City Council Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety. The program was implemented in order to “require streets to be planned, designed, operated, and maintained to enable safe, convenient, and comfortable travel and access for all anticipated roadway users, regardless of their age, abilities, or mode of travel,” according to the Complete Streets Toolkit from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Public commenters provided examples of how lack of pedestrian-and-cycling-friendly infrastructure has been dangerous for family members, especially children. Chicago’s 0.30 bicycling fatalities per 100,000 population puts it in a tie with three other large cities, according to the National Highway Transportation Administration. Tom Carney, acting director of the Chicago Department of Transportation, presented the elements of a “complete street,” such as ADA ramps, pedestrian islands, and protected bike lanes as well as plans to increase construction in 2024. Council members were positive about the report but questioned how equitable implementation could be ensured throughout the city.

February 8

At the Chicago Public Schools Bronzeville/South Lakefront 2023-2024 Educational Facilities Master Plan Community Roundtable meeting, CPS officials shared information and planning for facilities updates over the next five years. The plan is legally mandated to assess schools’ building needs and plan five years of maintenance, spending, and construction. As they have in past meetings, CPS officials assured attendees that the roundtables are not about closing schools. This meeting was one of sixteen such roundtables. CPS reported that, on average, schools in this planning area are at least eighty years old. Of the 15,443 students living in the Bronzeville/South Lakefront area, 10,071 attend school there. Of the $14.4 billion of estimated facilities updating needs, approximately $1.2 billion is needed for repairs alone for this area’s forty-four schools.

February 14

Members of the City Council Committee on Finance at their meeting heard about a multi-phase, mixed-income housing development from Deputy Commissioner Tamra Collins of the Housing Development Bureau. The project is in the 27th Ward, comprising the West Loop, which is represented by Alderperson Walter Burnett Jr. The project has received approval for 270 condominium units, fifty-one Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing units, and sixteen affordable housing units. Fifty-six townhomes have been completed, including twenty-one CHA public housing units and four affordable housing units. Rental properties will provide 431 units with 138 CHA units, 159 affordable housing units, and 134 market-rate units. The Committee also approved four settlements related to police activity ranging from $195,000 to $3.25 million.

February 15

For the second time, the City Council at its meeting rejected the police union’s proposed contract clause that would allow some serious disciplinary cases to be decided behind closed doors. Such cases are now decided publicly by the Chicago Police Board, whose members are appointed by the mayor. Under the new contract proposal, officers facing termination or suspension of a year or more could choose to have their cases decided by a third-party arbitrator out of public view. Mayor Brandon Johnson said he’s prepared for an expected legal battle with the police union. In voting against the measure, alderperson Jesse Fuentes (26th Ward) objected because it allowed “a very small percentage of individuals [to] make decisions that are expensive at best and fatal at worst on the dime of the City of Chicago.”

February 16

At its meeting, the City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate approved Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointment of Lissette Castañeda as commissioner of the Department of Housing (DOH). “Everyone deserves a safe, decent, affordable home and should have the right to make the best housing choice for themselves and their families,” she said. Castañeda has extensive experience in affordable housing work, including as executive director of LUCHA. Headquartered in Humboldt Park, LUCHA is an affordable housing advocacy and housing counseling group founded in 1982. The previous DOH commissioner, Marisa Novara, resigned last summer after four years as a Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointee. Displaced from Lincoln Park to Logan Square with her family as a child, Castañeda shared her experiences with gentrification and displacement. She believes that the city needs a holistic view of housing, saying, “I want to be part of the work of making that a reality for all Chicagoans.”

This information was collected and curated by the Weekly in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.

ILLUSTRATION BY HOLLEY APPOLD/SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

TOur thoughts in exchange for yours.

he Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

The Garden

by josh gassman

Within the hallowed halls of wispy willow falls

Beside the stream, beneath the sun, whisking the downs Of peach fuzz sprouts, barely turned to brown, he cries

The tree sap streams, engorged and gushing Drip, drip, down the leaves, the tears keep rushing

Cheeks full, tail erect, a squirrel climbs home

While he sits slouched, arms flaccid, with cheeks blushing

A sweet honey crisp, fresh from the drop

Falls again, between his feet, he can’t start to stop Kings rise, children die, but the woods stay silent

But alas man, born to die, cannot live in private What to do

A traveler passes, a shock throughout, life again

For he who has lived without, a smile or pain

Or something else, “Please join me here, I’ve no one else,” but she passes by without a word

Climbs the trees, watches birds, without the sense to hear “You and I we’re just the same,” he lies without a care “The woods are good, but show me what’s it like out there!”

Hours pass, maybe months, he sleeps without an end Is this any way to live, in the woods who loved a man

Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.

No Business As Usual

Black, Jewish, and Arab American activists voice their opposition to Biden over the president’s support of Israel.

BY TREY ARLINE

The Gaza war hangs over the 2024 Democratic primary, with many Black and Arab American activists planning to make a statement of disapproval regarding President Biden’s support of Israel in its war on Gaza.

Since the October 7 attack by Hamas, in which approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed according to the Israeli Defense Forces, Israel launched a bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza, killing more than 28,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Protests have occurred throughout the country, including in Chicago, regarding Israel’s response to the attack and its ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands.

Palestinians and other activists across the city have fiercely opposed the President Joe Biden’s administration’s handling of the Gaza war, and Illinois could become a focal point of dissent. Last month, Chicago became the largest city in the country to pass a resolution in favor of a ceasefire. Alderperson Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward), who voted for the resolution, said Biden’s inaction on the war, as well as his immigration policy, could spell doom for his general election rematch with former President Donald Trump in November. He said Biden should expect a very tense DNC when it arrives in August.

Sigcho-Lopez pointed to the campaign in Michigan where voters are writing in “uncommitted” rather than vote for Biden. He said he will similarly choose to abstain from participating in the primary on these principles as well.

“This could lead to a bigger tragedy that could affect the world if we don’t take

immediate action. We see the escalation of hostilities of suffering and human life,” he said.

other activists to protest the party at various platforms in the coming months, including a coalition to march at the DNC in August.

Chapman worked alongside the African National Congress in the 1970s and ‘80s against the apartheid government of South Africa, which segregated the majority-Black population from the minority white population in deplorable living conditions. He said the way Israel treats the Palestinian populace is similar to those apartheid policies.

NAARPR has been organizing for Palestinian rights for a decade and Chapman said the United States is far too willing to unconditionally support Israel. “Our government is involved in genocide. The entire world sees this for what it is and our government is funding it,” he said.

Sigcho-Lopez said presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump— who currently faces multiple indictments on charges of election interference stemming from his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election— is a fierce threat to democracy. But he stopped short of committing to vote for Biden in the general.

Sigcho-Lopez said. “We’re arming a farright government that is committing a genocide. This is an attack on human decency.”

As the March 19 primary approaches, activists throughout Chicago plan on protesting during the spring and summer, until the Democratic National Convention in August, to demand a ceasefire and hold Israel accountable

“It’s important that people speak up sooner about what they see is wrong. This is a matter of human decency and freedom.” –Cydney Williams

for what they consider to be Israeli war crimes.

A January ruling by the International Court of Justice found that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide. Biden, despite saying he abhorred Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions during the war privately, has yet to signify any large shift in how the government responds. The U.S. recently vetoed a UN resolution for a ceasefire.

A recent Associated Press-NORC poll shows half of Americans believe Israel has gone too far in its military response, up from 40 percent when measured last October. Democrats’ approval of Biden’s handling of the war also dropped significantly, down from 59 percent November to 46 percent in January.

“I will fight to stop a criminal like Trump from coming back to office. But I don’t want to commit my vote to a party that is enabling this slaughter,”

Frank Chapman, the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, (NAARPR) said he is organizing with

The divide is split by age as well, with younger Americans more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis in the conflict compared to older groups. In January,

A ShotSpotter sensor attached to a gas station’s chimney faces a JCDecaux billboard near the Kennedy Expressway.

Photo by Jim Daley

hundreds of CPS students staged a walkout to protest the U.S.’s financial and military support of Israel.

Lesley Williams, the chair of the Chicago chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, says that while the terror Jewish people live with regarding antisemitic violence is real, it should not come at the cost of Palestinian lives. She said it’s often hard to get the message out there in fear of retaliation from academia to people’s jobs being threatened.

“When people feel like they take support for granted such as they’ve done with Black communities, the way marginalized groups express their power is not voting,” she said. “[The Democratic Party] will need those votes in those swing states.”

Chapman said he is also protesting out of dissatisfaction with Biden’s administration in regards to campaign promises such as voting rights and police reform.

“They are not building back better like they said they would. He’s giving the election to Trump, not us. The Democratic Party has been taking Black communities for granted and we are beyond fed up with it,” Chapman said.

Hatem Abuddayeh, chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, said he is also working with other organizations in the city to protest the convention and the primary throughout the city.

He said write-in campaigns such as one championed by Congressperson Rashida Tlaib in Michigan are an important rebuke to the party, though believes it will make a bigger difference in a general election if enough Arab and Black people refuse to vote for Biden.

To Abuddayeh, who still has family members living in Gaza, Biden is enabling the war to continue and is unsure if the Palestinian and Muslim community at large will ever forgive Biden even if a ceasefire is called.

“There’s going to be no business as usual [for the Democrats] as long as Israel is allowed to continue this genocide,” he said. “If he loses to Trump, there’s no way he is going to blame Palestinians, Arabs, or Black people for it.”

Abuddayeh said his organization and others plan to protest at the DNC

regardless of a ceasefire resolution.

Communities of color have been instrumental in support for Palestinian liberation, he said. He was encouraged when the City Council voted in favor of the ceasefire resolution, citing that nearly all of the alderpersons who supported it were nonwhite.

Cydney Wallace, a Black Jewish community activist, said the war has heightened her anxiety as she has had hard conversations with members of both the Jewish and Black communities.

Wallace, who is supportive of Palestinian rights and has previously criticized the Israeli government’s treatment of Ethiopian women, has had to call friends and organizers who may say antisemitic things without knowing it while also talking to other Jews about Israel’s treatment of Palestine.

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League claimed it found 2,031 antisemitic incidents nationwide between October 7 and December 7, a 337 percent increase in reports compared with 2022. It is also the highest number of any two-month period since the ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.

“Jews are not a monolith, some [people] couldn’t comprehend that Jews are not on the same page about everything,” Wallace said. “I’m a mother of four and I could not imagine the violence they are seeing dealing with happening to my own.”

Wallace hesitated to speak out at first, but said that it was necessary for her mental health and friends around her to show support.

“I only wish I had done so sooner,” she said. “In the silence, people assume what they want about you, so it’s important that people speak up sooner about what they see is wrong. This is a matter of human decency and freedom.” ¬

Trey Arline is a freelance journalist based in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter at @TreyArline.

On Saturday, October 15, 2022, around 4:15 P.M. this couple was driving westbound on Archer Avenue There was a driver going eastbound at a reckless speed, well above the speed limit, in a Jeep Cherokee that T-boned this couple’s Nissan Murano at the intersection of Poplar Street & Archer Avenue The wife was in the passenger seat and died instantly at impact. The husband died in the ambulance en route to the hospital. It took the fire department over 45 minutes to pull the wife’s body out of their vehicle. They were married 65 years. Their family and friends are seeking justice through the court system with the help of a witness or video

If you witnessed the crash on that day please call this number:

708-522-7332

If you know of anyone who witnessed the crash, please encourage them to call the number above.