Miguel del Valle grabbed the microphone at a recent mayor’s race forum in Uptown and fired away.
“And then there’s the harassment of inspections!” del Valle fumed in response to a question about cultivating small businesses. “They come in, day in and day out, with citations that are issued. That has to end in the city of Chicago. Inspectors should be there to help you with your business. Not to harass you and ticket you every day.”
As the 59-year-old city clerk boomed back answer after answer, many among the 1,000 or so folks whooped and cheered. The typically reserved city clerk, with his sensible mustache, dark suit and retreating hairline, railed against the status quo in Chicago again and again.
The performance was partly calculated, he later acknowledged, an effort to erase the soft-spoken “nice guy” image that has accompanied him throughout his 24-year political career. But the passion was real, a reflection of his concern for working-class Chicagoans and the neighborhoods they live in, he said.
Lacking the campaign cash and political celebrity of his opponents, del Valle treks from one campaign event to the next, trying to win votes in bunches. The goal, he tells supporters, is to muster enough support to finish second next week and make it to an April 5 runoff. The hope, he says, is that time doesn’t run out before he can get there.
With only $210,000 raised so far, del Valle is casting his candidacy as a grass-roots effort to return good government to a City Hall that would focus more on the neighborhoods instead of downtown, moving the delivery of services away from what he calls “a tale of two cities.”
Del Valle cites an image familiar to many Chicagoans as they drive past neighborhoods suffering from crime, bad schools, foreclosures and food deserts on their way into the Loop.
“You can see the skyline coming in on the Eisenhower, and it’s like the Emerald City right in front of you,” del Valle said, describing his commute from Belmont Cragin. “But you know that around, west of that, there are many challenges facing the city. I want to connect them, for the purpose of building stronger neighborhoods.”
True to his professional roots as a director of social service organizations during the 1970s, del Valle hopes to make City Hall an agent for community organizing.
Among other things, that means reinventing the city’s CAPS community policing program so there is more collaboration between police officers and neighborhood residents and a heavier reliance on parent volunteers, he said.
Public school campuses would evolve into “community learning centers” with after-school programs and college-level classes at night, an idea shared by some of the other candidates. And nonprofit groups would play a larger role in decisions about new housing and other improvements, he said.
Such a vision, in which the mayor’s office cedes control to neighborhood groups and the City Council, offers a stark contrast to the 22 years under Mayor Richard Daley, when it was clear who ran the show.
Del Valle’s supporters play up that distinction. They say their candidate, who early on stressed he would not accept campaign contributions from anyone doing business with the city, is an independent voice in a field of well-funded inside players.
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“Obviously, Miguel is running a very grass-roots, people-oriented campaign,” said Eliud Medina, executive director of the Near Northwest Neighborhood Network, a social services agency in Humboldt Park, the neighborhood del Valle spent part of his childhood in after arriving from Puerto Rico when he was 4. “None of the other candidates are doing that.”
Del Valle got his start as an ally of the late Mayor Harold Washington, knocking off a Democratic establishment candidate in 1986 to become the first Latino elected to the Illinois Senate.
As a lawmaker, del Valle focused on education issues. He sought to rectify funding inequities among school districts across the state, supported expanding the number of charter schools in Chicago and voted for parents to get tuition tax credits for students in elementary and high school.
Del Valle also was an early advocate of banning state elected officials from accepting political contributions from businesses contracting with their government offices.
Bucking Democratic regulars, del Valle worked on redrawing judicial boundaries that allowed for more minority judges to have a shot at winning a seat on the bench.
Del Valle voted for higher liquor taxes and license plate fees to help pay for a major public works program, according to the Almanac of Illinois Politics. He opposed a form of gambling expansion called keno and favored the statewide smoking ban.
Politically, del Valle was part of a group of independent Latinos who feuded with the Hispanic Democratic Organization, the patronage army that supported candidates backed by Daley. The two factions spent money battling over aldermanic and state legislative seats. Del Valle lost his longtime ally, state Sen. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, in the 1998 election.
Eventually, the conflict subsided. After nearly 20 years in Springfield, del Valle got an offer he decided not to refuse. Daley asked him to fill a vacancy in the city clerk’s office and to run on his ticket in 2007. Some progressives questioned whether del Valle sold out. After all, in 1990, del Valle had sued Daley, contending the mayor funneled city services and money to pro-Daley wards.
“You don’t become city clerk on Daley’s ticket because you’re just a neighborhood guy,” said Maria de Los Angeles Torres, who worked with del Valle on a Latino advisory commission under Washington and now heads the Latin American and Latino studies program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It was a strategic move.”
Del Valle acknowledged that he had his eyes on the mayor’s seat when he became city clerk. But he contends that he has been an independent voice there, modernizing an office whose two previous leaders went to prison on corruption charges.
“I went in there as a good-government person, and I’ve demonstrated that,” he said. “Not once has the mayor talked to me about the office.”
Del Valle has received generally high marks for making the office more open, in part by streaming City Council meetings on the Web and making it possible to track legislation online — sometimes to the consternation of old-school City Hall denizens who liked it just fine the way it was.
In recent months, he’s also introduced some initiatives, including a measure that would have asked voters if the City Council should approve a “speculator’s tax” — a levy on sophisticated financial transactions. He also backs a languishing measure that would dedicate more city money to affordable housing.
Del Valle has cut staff. Still, a few City Hall insiders note the people he put in charge of the office’s day-to-day operations had ties to the mayor’s administration and to state Sen. John Cullerton, who is now Illinois Senate president.
Del Valle said he hired those people for their abilities, not their politics. They were tasked with modernizing the office — creating the very Internet access he is praised for — and “did a fantastic job,” he said.
While del Valle seeks to rally support across Chicago — marching in Chinatown one day, shaking hands with Polish leaders the next and, later, bemoaning the loss of African-American businesses on the South Side — he has had trouble getting endorsements from political power players in his Near Northwest Side base.
Backing opponent Gery Chico are U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, former 26th Ward Ald. Billy Ocasio and Wilfredo DeJesus, pastor of the New Life Covenant Church in Humboldt Park. However, several state legislators, aldermen and county commissioners in other parts of the city support del Valle, as do a list of progressive groups.
Hoping to further distinguish himself, del Valle has lately taken more aggressive stances.
In hopes of getting the city’s controversial $1.15 billion parking meter deal renegotiated, he recently asked Attorney General Lisa Madigan to review the contract’s legality, though other candidates argue that, with most of that money spent, it’s too late to void the contract.
Even so, the city clerk’s courage of conviction has moved voters who’ve seen him in action.
At the League Styles Barbershop on 75th Street, Yaki Hillary was impressed when del Valle showed up to shake hands with the roughly a dozen customers and barbers. “None of the other candidates have come around,” said Hillary, 36.
At the mayoral forum in Uptown, Choi Kyung Yup, a Korean immigrant in her 60s, could barely understand what any of the candidates were saying. Admiring del Valle’s passion, she knew who she’ll vote for.
“Mee-kel!” she half-shouted.
Del Valle smiles when he hears about such reactions. But he knows the clock is ticking.
“If I had more time,” he said, reflectively. “If I had more time.”
Tribune reporter Ray Long contributed from Springfield.
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