Driving down the side streets in his North Side ward, Ald. Joe Moore (49th) gripped the steering wheel of his maroon 1994 Ford Taurus and felt the bumpiness on a stretch of Columbia Avenue. His assessment? Fixing it would have to wait.
“It’s just potholes,” he said. “We’ll let this block go for another year. I want to save my money to do more residential street lighting. That’s been very popular with my people.”
This is the season when Chicago’s 50 aldermen survey their fiefdoms and decide how they want to spend the $1.2 million annual grants that Mayor Richard Daley has bestowed upon each City Council member since 1994.
This year, the decisions about how to spend that money are much tougher because the Daley administration recently informed aldermen that they would deduct more from their ward allotments for each neighborhood upgrade. That effectively slashes the number of projects that can be done.
The move generated deep displeasure in the City Council, where aldermen had until recently trained themselves to keep quiet about gripes with the mayor. But now, like teenagers chafing against suddenly stingy parents, aldermen say they are being deprived of the full benefit of what they call their “allowances.”
Doling out pork to aldermen has long helped Daley keep them in line, and his decision to scale back only highlights how difficult the city’s fiscal problems have become.
For aldermen, the attraction of the neighborhood improvement program is that they can put a personal stamp on their wards through construction and repairs that voters can see from their front stoops.
“In a city where the council is widely perceived as a rubber stamp for the mayor, this is a program that aldermen can control and can use to please certain people,” said a former top Daley aide who askednot to be identified. “When you cut into it, you take away one of the most important prerogatives of being an alderman.”And that prospect has clearly upset City Council members.
“The administration should not underestimate how important this program has been to the long-term popularity of this mayor,” said Ald. Thomas Murphy (18th), who led more than 30 aldermen in calling for a City Council hearing into the program changes. “This isn’t a downtown project. This isn’t Millennium Park. Every community can see what this program does for them.”
That hearing had been scheduled for Thursday, and when it was postponed at the last minute, several alderman seized on the opportunity to air their gripes anyway.
Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) said the discretionary budget for each ward should increase since the costs for improvements has risen. “Why are we charged for every screw and bolt put in?” Stone said.
Administration officials said inflationary increases in theconstruction costs for the projects forced them to charge more against each alderman’s allotment. The prices for the so-called “menu” programs had not been increased in five years.
The charge for a new block of curbs and gutters went from $28,500 to $40,000, a 40 percent hike. Resurfacing an alley will cost 61 percent more, rising to $22,500 from $13,900.
And the administration now will begin charging aldermen for projects that previously did not count against their discretionary budgets. For instance, pouring fresh concrete on alleys had been “free.” It will now be a $100,000 charge against an alderman’s allocation.
The neighborhood improvement program is politics at its most intensely local.
Moore, an alderman since 1991, drives down every street in his ward each year and weighs input from block groups and other community members before deciding what projects to authorize.
Armed with a list of requests compiled by his aides, he set off from his ward office one recent afternoon on his annual tour of the Rogers Park neighborhood, the northern reaches of Edgewater and eastern edge of West Ridge.
“It’s kind of patched-up here,” he said as he drove down Claremont Avenue between Chase and Jarvis Avenues.
He parked his car and got out to take a closer look at the damage.
“Look at that,” Moore said, rubbing gravel between his fingers. “It’s worn all the way down.”
And just like that, Moore earmarked $25,000 to resurface a block near St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church.
Three hours and more than 30 miles later, Moore had decided to shell out $400,000 to resurface 16 blocks of side streets.
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“This is why I went to college and law school,” he said, laughing. “It’s really not rocket science. You just drive around, and when you see a bumpy street or a broken sidewalk, you write it down.”
He also deemed a quiet, dead-end block of Bell Avenue, just south of Howard Street, worthy of $85,000 in new residential streetlights.
And Moore plans new lights for two blocks of Lunt Avenue near the entrance to a CTA Red Line stop and the Heartland Cafe, which stays open until late at night. The lamps are closer to the ground than traditional city streetlights and will protect commuters and restaurant patrons who want to walk there after sundown, Moore said.
Last summer, this heavily shaded part of Rogers Park experienced a rash of widely publicized muggings. Known as “goonings,” the attacks involved young assailants who apparently did not seek money but just wantedto beat up pedestrians.
Moore said he favors putting in new streetlights on leafy blocks favored by gang members or drug dealers. The 1500 block of West Fargo Avenue, a block fromMoore’s home, was a hotbed of late-night loitering in the summer of 2003, he said. So new streetlights went up there last year.
“The activities diminished considerably,” the alderman said.
Moore said the city’s pork program has dramatically improved the city’s infrastructure compared to the early years of Daley’s tenure as mayor. Since 1994, in the 49th Ward alone, the program has meant 188 new blocks of sidewalks, 65 blocks of curbs and gutters, 171 resurfaced side streets, 129 repaved alleys, 86 alley speed humps and 132 streetlights, records show.
But streets that were repaved in the early years of the program are nowwearing down and soon will be need repair again.
“We will still have enough to take care of really ripped-up streets that absolutely have to be done this year,” he said. “We need more money to maintain the progress that we made in the 1990s.”
Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (4th) said larger, bungalow belt districts such asherSouth Side ward would suffer most from the program cuts. Wards cover greater geographic areas obviously have more streets and alleys than more densely populated districts such as Moore’s.
Lyle said she has received far more requests for new side streetlights than she could possibly satisfy.
“I won’t be able to do them because I have more streets and curbs to do,” she said. “We just started getting to sidewalks a couple years ago.
“My people will drive in these other wards and see the lights, and they won’t immediately understand. They will assume I’m not doing something.”
She said she would deflect any blame.
“This is going to hit me hard,” Lyle said. “At every community meeting where I hear about this, I’ll tell them, `Ask the budget director. Ask the mayor.'”
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Fewer improvements likely
Mayor Richard Daley gives Chicago’s 50 aldermen $1.2 million annually to make neighborhood improvements.
Higher project costs would mean fewer improvements will be made.
NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECTS WITH INCREASED CHARGES
%% PROJECTS NEW COST PERCENT INCREASE FROM 2004
Residential alley resurfacing * $22,500 61%
Ornamental light fixture ** $2,000 48%
Curb and gutter replacement * $40,000 40%
Left turn arrow installation *** $70,000 27%
Sidewalk replacement * $50,000 26%
Residential street resurfacing * $25,000 25%
Street light pole painting ** $300 20%
New residential street lighting * $85,000 6.25%
* Per block
** Per pole
*** Per installation
%%
PROJECTS WITH NEW CHARGES
The following projects were previously funded by the city but will now be charged against an alderman’s annual grant.
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%% PROJECTS NEW COST
Concrete alleys $100,000
Diagonal parking $65,000
Cul-de-sacs $35,000
Speed humps (per block) $5,000
Guardrail installation $500
Dead-end street barrier installation $500
Source: Chicago Department of Transportation
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