For years the Tribune ridiculed the Chicago City Council as the mayor’s “rubber stamp.” Now that we are beginning to assert ourselves as equal policymaking partners with the mayor, the Tribune says we’re “meddlesome” and tells us to just focus on our own wards.
By prohibiting foie gras, 48 of my colleagues joined me in standing up for compassion and humanity by following 15 nations in banning a product of egregious animal cruelty.
Perhaps the Tribune’s real concern is the City Council’s growing independence on issues of far greater importance to big business, issues such as the popular Box Living Wage Ordinance, which I co-sponsored.
Unfortunately, in attacking City Council activism, the Tribune denigrated my neighborhood and completely ignored a long record of accomplishments in the 49th Ward.
You should know that your symbol of ward “problems,” a vacant storefront pictured in the Oct. 1 editorial, is the future site for an exciting new community arts center, which I secured for the Wisdom Bridge Arts Project. You should also be aware that we already have half the Howard Street vacancies in the process of retail and residential redevelopment.
Your editorial should have noted the construction under way for the new Howard elevated train station and the Gale Park Community Center, projects which I shepherded and which will secure jobs for community residents on those projects. You also failed to mention the $800,000 rehabilitation of the Morse “L” Station and the $3 million streetscape project on tap for Morse Avenue. You neglected to mention my 49th Ward zoning planning process, which resulted in extensive zoning changes that will prevent overdevelopment.
Finally, you failed to note the scores of slum buildings my office turned around and my efforts to bring community policing to the 49th Ward, actions which helped lead to a nearly 50 percent drop in crime since I took office 15 years ago.
Clearly the Tribune’s concern is not the welfare of the 49th Ward. Rather, you’re attacking the leadership many of us have taken on the living wage and other issues with which the Tribune and big business strongly disagree.
Good aldermen (like good newspapers) have a responsibility to meeting both the local needs of their wards and the policy needs of their city. The new activism of the City Council is one to be welcomed, not attacked. I take all of my responsibilities seriously; so should this newspaper.