Here is the Tribune Editorial Board’s final installment of endorsements in contested races for aldermanic seats in Chicago’s Feb. 28 municipal election.
45th Ward
When an alderman is castigated by his own party for exhibiting “abhorrent and despicable” behavior, along with directing “misogynistic, homophobic and obscene language” toward others, that should serve as a red flag to voters about that council member’s fitness for office.
That’s the language that the Cook County Democratic Party used in 2021 to describe incumbent 45th Ward Ald. Jim Gardiner’s actions, as the party stripped him of his party committee seats and formally rebuked him. Leaked texts revealed how Gardiner used profane and offensive language to describe a gay colleague, a female city employee and a female political consultant.
The Tribune also reported in 2021 that federal investigators were looking into Gardiner’s behavior in office, including whether he tried to withhold ward services from some residents who opposed his agenda. Regardless of their political leanings, voters should not return to office anyone acting in such a manner.
Gardiner faces five challengers: Susanna Ernst, a consultant; lawyer Megan Mathias; community organizer Ana Santoyo; small business owner James Suh, and Marija Tomic, a finance and accounting manager at the University of Chicago.
Ernst is right when she says City Hall needs to rethink how it stokes small business growth along commercial corridors hit hard by the pandemic, like the 45th’s Milwaukee Avenue corridor. “A lot of people aren’t shopping at brick-and-mortar stores anymore, so we need to think about zoning differently,” she tells us. “How do we entice new businesses, how do we make it a place where people want to come in.”
But the candidate that impressed us the most was Mathias, who proposes the creation of a small business incubator that can mentor small business owners while doubling as a community center. To help solve the Chicago Police Department’s staffing shortages, Mathias suggests hiring “community service officers” who could handle non-emergency functions such as dealing with illegally parked vehicles. In this Far Northwest Side ward that includes the Jefferson Park and Edgebrook neighborhoods, Mathias is endorsed.
46th Ward
This North Side ward includes parts of the Uptown and Lakeview neighborhoods and is home to the Uptown Theatre, an extraordinary architectural gem and a beloved one-time entertainment venue that has been shuttered for more than four decades. The building could become an economic anchor for the Uptown neighborhood if restored and revived, as was the announced plan under the administration of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. So it’s a major issue for whoever succeeds incumbent Ald. James Cappelman, who chose not to run again.
Marianne Lalonde is a scientist and community activist who believes that if the privately owned Uptown is restored, it must become a multipurpose event venue. “We just can’t reopen it as a concert venue and expect everything to fall into place,” Lalonde told us. She says she’s different from other candidates because she takes the “pragmatic approach of a scientist to problem-solving, putting data and shared values over politics.”
We like that way of thinking, but the candidate who impressed us the most was Kim Walz, a regional director for state and local government relations at Walgreens. Walz spent a decade working with Mike Quigley, first as a policy analysis director when he was a Cook County board commissioner, and then as a district director when Quigley was elected to Congress. Walz is well-connected and says she would use those ties to track down the funding needed to get the Uptown restoration on the right trajectory.
Walz also recognizes that small businesses in her ward are still reeling from the economic hit delivered by the pandemic and suggests easing the property tax burden on small business owners, as well as making the permitting process for businesses less onerous and time-consuming.
Also on the ballot are: community organizer Angela Clay; real estate agent Michael Cortez; Patrick Nagle, chief administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration; and Roushaunda Williams, a bartender. Our endorsement goes to Walz.
48th Ward
Ten candidates are vying to replace Ald. Harry Osterman, who is stepping down after representing this ward since 2011. The lakefront ward includes parts of Edgewater, Uptown and Andersonville.
The field featuring several candidates with strong ideas and impressive backgrounds, but two stood out.
Roxanne Volkmann is a regional deputy director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development who also worked as a constituent services director for Carol Moseley-Braun when she was a U.S. senator. Like other far North Side communities, the 48th Ward is gentrifying, forcing higher rents and property taxes that make it tougher for longtime residents to stay. She says she would scour the city budget for waste and duplication that can be trimmed so that City Hall can generate property tax relief for longtime residents, particularly older citizens, who are getting priced out of the ward.
Isaac Freilich Jones works for Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul as an assistant attorney general. He says there’s too much red tape that makes it tougher for small businesses in the ward to thrive. “Let’s make permitting as simple as possible,” he tells us. To make streets safer, he says he wants to see the Police Department deploy more officers on foot patrols to strengthen the connection between police and the neighborhoods they serve. A Harvard law graduate, Freilich Jones also has a strong record of community service, and his pro bono work has included helping asylum seekers and protecting the rights of disabled people in prison.
Also on the ballot are: affordable housing developer Joe Dunne; Nassir Faulkner, a digital communications manager at the Illinois comptroller’s office; businessman Brian Haag; small business owner Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth; Andre Peloquin, a real estate broker; restaurateur Andy Peters, Larry Svabek, a teaching fellow at the University of Chicago; and Nick Ward, who previously worked as a booking manager at Young Chicago Authors.
Both Volkmann and Freilich Jones are highly qualified, but our endorsement goes to Freilich Jones.
49th Ward
Maria Hadden, the incumbent in this ward that includes the Far North Side’s Rogers Park neighborhood, is a strong proponent of community policing as a path to rebuilding trust between officers and the neighborhoods they serve.
“I feel that strategy has been abandoned,” she tells us. We agree. Hadden has a smart viewpoint on public safety that includes community policing, robust violence prevention programs and strengthening police accountability.
Hadden also says that, while gentrification isn’t as acute of a problem as it is in other nearby North Side wards, she still needs to ensure that the ward maintains enough affordable housing to minimize the displacement of longtime residents. It’s why she’s helping guide plans for a 110-unit affordable housing development in the ward geared for families, with two- and three-bedroom apartments. “Focusing on development without displacement has been important,” she tells us.
One of Hadden’s opponents is Belia Rodriguez, a self-employed information technology consultant. We like Rodriguez’s embrace of violence prevention programs as a crucial element in the city’s strategy to reduce gun violence. And as the former president of the Rogers Park Business Alliance, she has a keen understanding of the needs of the neighborhood’s small business community, especially as it works to recover from the pandemic’s impact. Hadden’s other opponent is small business owner William Morton.
Hadden deserves another term, and gets our endorsement.
50th Ward
No one in this Far North Side ward, which includes West Rogers Park and West Ridge, can reasonably complain that incumbent Ald. Debra Silverstein hasn’t delivered for her constituents. Since joining the City Council in 2011, she has helped secure $68 million for renovations and other projects at Chicago Public Schools buildings in her ward, and oversaw the spruce-up of the Devon Avenue streetscape.
Her opponent is Mueze Bawany, a CPS teacher who found himself having to explain comments he made on Twitter in 2019 in which he wrote, “F— Israel and f— all you Zionist scum.” In another Twitter exchange that year, he called a white woman a “Cracker,” and told her to “F— off honky.”
Bawany confirmed the tweets to the Tribune and expressed his regret, saying he acknowledged “the harm this has created and the harm people will feel looking at this.” Silverstein, who is Jewish and represents a ward with a sizable Jewish population, called the tweets “hateful and obscene.” We agree, and though Bawany has expressed remorse, we cannot endorse him.
In this race, the last of our aldermanic endorsements for the Feb. 28 election, Silverstein is endorsed.
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