Even as they handed Mayor Richard M. Daley an overwhelming electoral mandate on Tuesday, voters flashed their independence in a few aldermanic contests as they dispatched a long-time mayoral loyalist on the Northwest Side and sent a handful of others into runoffs.
The outright defeat of Ald. Vilma Colom to Rey Colon on the Northwest Side’s 35th Ward proved to be not only an embarrassment to Daley, but also to her political mentor, Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), who has gained newfound power as the father-in-law of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Colon, a YMCA executive, saw his victory as well as the runoffs forced on Daley loyalists as a sign that a “healthier day in Chicago politics” had dawned. “People want a little adversity on the City Council. They don’t want a rubber stamp,” Colon said, acknowledging the historic difficulties that independents have had on the council. “I’m looking forward to it. I’m glad it’s me. Just as I’ve put myself on the line for this [election], I’ll put myself on the line for that [independence].”
That sentiment aside, Colon will have little company in challenging Daley on the council floor since the vast majority of Tuesday’s winners are firmly in the mayor’s camp.
Given the mayor’s support, Colom appeared stunned by her defeat.
“Sunday, when we were out there working the precincts, it seemed like we were fine,” she said. “I don’t know what happened.”
She attributed her loss to both her unyielding support for Daley in a ward where “a lot of the people … don’t like the mayor.” She also said she was hurt by controversy over a proposed Home Depot at Addison Street and Kimball Avenue, which opponents suspected her of supporting. Colom supporters also complained that she was unfairly portrayed by her opponent as a Mell puppet.
“I don’t do negative campaigning and maybe that was a mistake,” said Colom, who remains in the powerful 35th Ward Democratic committeeman’s post despite her loss.
For Colon, the victory was a vindication of sorts. In the 1999 aldermanic elections, Colom trounced Colon 61 percent to 39 percent.
Colom was the City Council’s first and only Latina, but her departure will not dilute the influence of the city’s growing Hispanic population which was clear from the results of the first election aldermanic election held since ward boundaries were redrawn.
On the Near Northwest Side’s 1st Ward, Ald. Jesse Granato was forced into a runoff with Manuel “Manny” Flores, an assistant Cook County state’s attorney and a former aide to U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Flores had been removed from the ballot by the city elections board, which contended he hadn’t lived in the ward long enough, but he won a court order to be reinstated.
With all the vote counted, Flores had 48.9 percent of the votes to Granato’s 48 percent, with a third candidate picking up the rest.
Candidates in the election Tuesday needed to exceed 50 percent of the vote to win outright. In races where no candidate received more than 50 percent, the top two finishers are matched in special runoff elections on April 1.
With all precincts counted on the Southwest Side’s 12th Ward, Ald. Ray Frias was pushed into a runoff when he fell behind business consultant George Cardenas by 52 votes. The totals showed Cardenas with 46 percent of the vote to Frias’ 45 percent. A third candidate, Jose “Chavelo” Rodriguez, had 9 percent.
In the South Side’s 6th Ward, Ald. Freddrenna Lyle was forced into a runoff. Facing three challengers, unofficial totals showed Lyle had 41 percent of the vote compared `to former five-time Olympian Willye White with 21 percent, Eugene Davis with 20 percent and Eli Washington with 19 percent.
Also on the South Side, in the 15th Ward, Ald. Ted Thomas was sent into a runoff with former Chicago Bulls basketball star Bob Love. Thomas, formerly an independent, was firmly in Daley’s camp while Love received financial help from his former basketball team and from its former superstar, Michael Jordan. With all but two precincts counted, Thomas had 38 percent of the vote to Love’s 28 percent. Four other candidates split the remaining vote.
In the 21st Ward on the South Side, Ald. Leonard DeVille, who was appointed by Daley to fill a vacancy on the council, appeared headed toward a possible runoff with Howard Brookins Jr., a former assistant state’s attorney. With one precinct left to be counted, DeVille had 48.7 percent of the vote and Brookins had 37.5 percent.
More than a dozen aldermanic contests had been considered to be hotly contested. But the chillingly low voter turnout still helped keep many Daley-backed incumbents firmly planted in the council as voters took their cue from the mayoral voting and saw little impetus for change or found little credibility among challengers.
Turnout was so low at one polling place in the North Side’s 44th Ward, where recently appointed Ald. Tom Tunney won his first election against a spirited group of opponents, that election judges at the Merlo Library (the name as published has been corrected in this text) on Belmont Avenue cheered when someone showed up and asked for a ballot.
In the South Side 3rd Ward, Ald. Dorothy Tillman escaped a runoff and won re-election to the seat she has held since former Mayor Harold Washington first appointed her in 1983. Tillman got 52 percent of the vote to challenger Pat Dowell’s 35 percent, with all but two precincts reporting.
More Top Picks Best Neck Wraps For Tension Headaches
“I want to thank you for truly you are the wind beneath my wings,” she said to supporters at a celebration at her ward office, complete with catered soul food. “I speak because of you, I work because of you, I do the things that I do because of you.”
Tillman had appeared ready for a challenge because the ward has undergone so many demographic changes, including the redistricting of Hispanics and whites into the ward. Tillman, 55, had been criticized for failing to complete development projects in the ward, including a long-planned 47th Street “blues district” and cultural center. She has continually postponed the cultural center’s opening date.
The anticipated battle in the 44th Ward never materialized at the ballot box. Tunney, the city’s first openly gay alderman, put to rest concerns about splitting the gay vote against challenger Rick Ingram, a lawyer who is also openly gay, by receiving a decisive 59 percent of the vote. Attorney Dean Maragos was a distant third. Tunney was appointed by Daley earlier this year after Ald. Bernie Hansen retired for health reasons.
The new Hispanic majority 30th Ward elected city worker Ariel Reboyras in a landslide over three challengers. Reboyras was supported by former 30th Ward Ald. Michael Wojcik who decided not to seek re-election after his ward was redistricted as majority Hispanic.
In another majority Hispanic ward, the Southwest Side 25th, Ald. Daniel Solis easily bested challenger Ambrosio Medrano, who was seeking his old job back. With one precinct left to count, Solis had 54 percent of the vote to 37 percent for Medrano, who pleaded guilty to taking a bribe from a city contractor, the first conviction in the federal Operation Silver Shovel corruption probe in early 1996.