To inform voters and to help the baiduhai Editorial Board make endorsements, the board posed a series of questions to the candidates running for alderman. See their answers below. See how other candidates answered here.
Name: Sam Royko
Ward: 1st
Current job: I am a licensed attorney and primarily practice in commercial litigation, employment, entertainment, and class action matters. I just recently left my firm, L&G Law Group, to focus on the campaign.
Previous political experience: I have not been elected to public office before, but my experience working with stakeholders, business leaders, and community organizations within the new 1st Ward shows my dedication to representing the priorities of my neighbors.
Education: I attended DePaul University, where I earned a degree in Political Science, and then earned my J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center while also spending my final year as a visiting law student at Northwestern University.
Spouse’s occupation: Planned Giving Officer at Rotary International
Sources of outside income: None
The rise in violent crime remains a top priority for City Hall. Homicides, shootings and carjackings are all unacceptably high. Tell us how city government can be innovative in combating crime, and explain what measures you would propose if elected.
I know firsthand the impact of the rising violent crime in Chicago. It is the catalyst of my campaign. On January 16th, 2021, my girlfriend Erin was carjacked at roughly 2:00 PM on a Saturday in Wicker Park, at one of the busiest intersections in the 1st Ward. Immediately after the carjacking I went to Alderman La Spata and asked him how this could happen, what we could do, and how I could help. His response was lacking in substance or compassion, but we found great support from the community. We spearheaded an initiative with ten neighborhood community groups to demand that we address the short-term public safety needs while also looking to address the long-term and systemic root causes of violence.
Working together, we have raised awareness regarding the increase in violent crime and worked tirelessly to bring the community together to improve our ward and our city. We’ve hosted meetings with the State’s Attorney’s Office, Chief Judge’s Office, Chicago Police Department, and local leaders to determine how we can work together more effectively. We’ve championed the need for better rehabilitation programs for youth and have worked to heal divisions in our community. We’ve also focused on helping the victims of crime by providing better mental health services and counseling.
There is still much to be done. As Alderman, I will advocate for more city resources to address public safety, including additional officers, mental health professionals, and resources for crime prevention. I will seek to provide the Chicago Police Department with the resources they need while also understanding the need for effective training and accountability of our officers. I will address the long-term and systemic causes that create a cycle of crime in our city and disinvestment in our communities that have been disenfranchised for far too long. As part of these efforts, I will focus keenly on what we can do to help our young people get the support and opportunities they need. I will also seek to hold our criminal justice system accountable for letting too many of our children fall through the gaps, and work to find a better way forward.
Within the ward, I will encourage more smart policing and look to technology to help fill our current gap in staffing. This will include investigative camera grids (360 degrees POD’s with LPR’s) that will aid in maintaining active pursuits remotely while providing much-needed evidence for prosecution. If we are to maintain a no-pursuit policy and a limited chase policy, we need to also focus on our residents’ concerns and provide real solutions for community safety. I will also include this in my annual ward menu, in collaboration with District Commanders and their Strategic Decision Support Centers.
The CTA, one of the nation’s largest transit systems, remains a troubled agency grappling with issues ranging from violent crime and ghost buses and trains, to flagging ridership. Give us your thoughts on what specific measures CTA should take to make train and bus service safer, more reliable and more equitable for Chicagoans.
After hearing a series of promises regarding transit safety, and improvements on the notification systems, ?it is clear the current state of the CTA is unacceptable. There needs to be reform from the top down. The system of planning these routes needs to be updated to best reflect real-time service. I will advocate for CTA leadership to work with the unions to ensure we have more effective technology and up-to-date route information that is coordinated and agreed upon. I will lend my experience as an attorney, negotiator, and mediator to these efforts.
I will do everything in my power to develop more accessible, modernized, and stable public transportation for our residents. This also includes smart pedestrian and bike lane upgrades in collaboration with CDOT.
I will also work with my city council peers to ensure that there are regular hearings and that CTA is held accountable to the needs of those using our public transit. I will also encourage the CTA to work through my office to best update the neighborhoods of the 1st Ward on upgrades and improvements, and I expect the CTA president and his staff to meet with me regularly to hear the concerns of residents in the 1st Ward.
Ten years ago, enrollment at Chicago Public Schools was 403,000 students. In September, enrollment stood at 322,000 students. Enrollment at CPS has dropped for 11 consecutive years. What specific measures should CPS undertake to reverse the trend of ever-dwindling enrollment?
When I speak with parents, I hear concerns about large classroom sizes, overworked teachers and school staff, rigorous standardized testing, and an overall lack of resources for our students. We need to fix these issues, because it is clear that there is currently not enough being done. Inaction, inefficiency, and under-funding often just leads to families leaving CPS. Once gone, they likely don’t come back for generations. We must create a new path and work together to make sure Chicago schools can provide the great education that our residents and our children deserve.
Encouragingly, some 1st Ward schools are well known for strong and supportive parent communities, such as Brentano, Goethe, and Columbus. Those schools, and their administration, get the direct credit for the personal approach they take to recruit and maintain families in those communities. When I discuss these issues with those parents, they often express frustration with CPS but love their individual schools. These communities devote their time and energy to support their schools, often hosting block parties, craft fairs, tournaments, and other fun events to help support the schools and to bring together the community. We’ve seen when the community and the schools work hand-in-hand, recruitment goes up, the school’s reputation grows, and the school finds itself with more of the resources it needs to provide a better education for our children.
As 1st Ward Alderman, I will work hard to support and unite our communities, I will work with the organizations that already exist to support their schools and I will offer my aid in the creation of new school-based community organizations to build support for many of our under-funded schools in the ward.
Disinvestment on the South and West sides is a decades-long problem with myriad causes. Give us at least one innovative idea that you believe could play a role in reversing South and West side disinvestment, and explain why the idea is realistic and feasible.
I would work with the administration and other elected officials to make sure this remains a priority. Prior to starting law school, I interned for a year with the Chicago Innocence Project. As part of my regular duties, we investigated potential wrongful convictions in the Chicagoland area. Much of my work took me to Lawndale, an area on the West side of Chicago. I’ve seen firsthand the impact of disinvestment in the South and West sides.
Understanding the issues is a first step, but we need long-term investment and opportunities. In addition to my interest in reforming the criminal justice system, especially for at-risk youth, I believe affordable housing will be an important part of the solution to help these communities. This is why I will support partnerships with private investment involved with modular/manufactured housing solutions to create new communities in partnership with the City of Chicago. Large areas of land have been cleared and neglected for far too long. Many solutions regarding affordable housing have been tried, but I am most interested in a private/public partnership on modular/manufactured home communities. The last one to be created was in the 1960s in the easternmost Hegewisch community. City Council can change this and help create a long-term solution to affordable family housing.
Do you support giving Chicagoans property tax relief? If yes, please explain how you would accomplish it. If no, please explain why not.
Yes, the dramatic increase in property taxes is a burden on 1st Ward families. We used to agree that keeping taxes lower would keep hard-working families inside of Chicago, but the shift in raising property taxes has bewildered many residents into leaving. We need a balance. We need to make sure our government is efficient and that our spending is in the best interest of the residents. So for that reason, I will vote no on any residential or small business property tax increase as part of the annual city budget process.
As Alderman, I will also focus on empowering home owners. I consider it part of my work to help expand the amount of homeowners in the 1st Ward, and protect them from the pressures of rising demand.
Give us your take on the city’s use of tax increment financing districts. Do you feel they have been useful, or do you feel that the problems associated with them outweigh their usefulness? What if any reforms would you want to apply to the city’s usage of TIFs?
Tax Increment Financing, or similar programs over Chicago’s history, has a long and checkered past. On paper they are meant to fund significant public infrastructure projects in blighted communities, so I would pledge to be careful and make any decisions accountable to the program guidelines.
Unfortunately, the practice has sometimes been misused and has diverted resources for projects that benefit private companies more than the community. I have seen these loopholes erode faith in TIF management, and this needs to be addressed for there to be faith in this process. To manage TIF accountability, I will be transparent and ensure that taxpayer dollars are focused on affordable housing, public infrastructure, green space, and public schools.
The new 1st Ward has no shortage of parks and play lots, and my priority with TIF funds would also be to examine the need for repairs and to help maintain family investment in our community.
Lead in drinking water is a major health concern for the city. It is estimated that in Chicago there are roughly 400,000 homes and small apartment buildings with lead service lines. So far, the city has replaced less than 300 lead service lines. Do you feel the pace of lead service line replacement should be expedited, and if yes, what is the best, most feasible way to accomplish that?
The current leadership promised a plan on this four years ago and has come up woefully short. Adequate funding was not set aside from the Department of Water Management, nor was a plan to invest in long term solutions created by the Mayor or council leadership through partnership funding. This needs to be part of every budget discussion, and private partnerships should be secured. This is an urgent matter and I will advocate for this program to be expedited and better defined.
If you are an incumbent, please explain what is it about your service on the City Council that makes you most qualified for the job. If you have never served on the council, please explain what is it about your background that makes you most qualified.
A few Chicago journalists have called me a “son of Chicago,” and I am. Inside and out. A love for this city is part of my heritage. My father, Mike Royko, served as a voice for Chicagoans through his newspaper column for more than 30 years. We lost his voice 25 years ago. I still feel the need for that voice for Chicagoans—someone to speak out and speak up for all of us.
While I can’t write like my father, I have built my career as an attorney, litigator, mediator, and most importantly, an advocate. As Alderman, I will do my best to advocate for my community, constituents, and Chicago residents. But as I stated above, the catalyst for this journey was when my girlfriend Erin experienced a carjacking in Wicker Park. After that trauma and a disappointing response from the City and Alderman’s office, we decided we would try to channel our frustration into making a difference for our community.
My work in the community has focused on collaborating with local police districts, partnering with 1st Ward neighborhood groups and associations, and working towards creating a safe neighborhood for everyone. I looked at short-term and long-term solutions to address the need to make sure people feel safe in the community while also addressing systemic issues.
We then tackled an issue people said we had no hope of changing. When the city-wide ward remapping began, it would have gerrymandered our communities into what looked like the center of a pizza. We could have seen upwards of seven different Aldermen across our neighborhoods. We got out there as a coalition and worked together to demand that the process work better for our community. We had some success, and now see our community mapped into primarily only two wards.
These successes have encouraged me to act as a conduit for our community. I seek to be a representative for our over 50,000 constituents. I also seek to put on that figurative geek squad tie I retired after working at Best Buy decades ago, and start offering the customer service that our ward needs. By working together, we can start paving a better path, and I believe I am uniquely qualified not only from my previous employment, but my experience uniting diverse and opinionated communities to fight for a better Chicago.
What is the most pressing issue facing the people of your ward, and how would you address it?
We must address public safety. We are facing a crisis not only in the 1st Ward, but in the city of Chicago.
First, we must first look to the short-term. We need more officers assigned to our police districts. We need to make the hiring and training of new officers a priority while also recognizing there is a retention problem with officers retiring and transferring out of the city. We need to do a better job of making sure those experienced officers are welcome back if they so choose. Retiree’s can assist based on the needs of all police districts, such as managing property reports and front desk support. This would allow us to have more jobs staffed and a more educated and well-trained staff in the districts.
We must also look to knowledge and technology to help fill the gap. We need more smart policing to assist in investigations and with tracking crimes in real-time. One of my priorities will be supporting investments in new POD and LPR cameras while working to create a trusted relationship between businesses and residents to opt-in to the private partnership of sharing video footage of incidents and assisting in prosecutions.
Second, the fact is, for far too long we’ve not provided the investment we need into our West and South side communities. This lack of opportunity is creating a terrible cycle that needs to be addressed, and lately, the impact of this disinvestment has been felt much more dramatically. We should work with organizations and local officials that are already seeking to understand effective investment and how to have the largest impact. We need to evaluate and work with the community to determine what areas are in most dire need of investment, and determine if specific issues like housing, mental health services, education, food deserts, or after-school programs can have the most significant impact with immediate investment. We also need to build a plan to fund continued investment in these areas of opportunity, and make sure we are prioritizing investments where they can be most effective.
Mentorship programs and intervention programs will play a key role in stemming the tide of violence in our communities and helping our children get on the right path. But to do so, we need to analyze the effectiveness of our criminal justice system and our intervention programs, and we need to make sure we are supporting and expanding the most effective of these programs. If we do this, we will make a difference in reducing violence and we will have the opportunity to provide many children with a better opportunity for a bright future.
Sum up why should voters elect you and not your opponent(s)? (Please limit this to policy and approach, not a biography recitation.)
A ward office is accountable to the residents, businesses, and the community. Too often, candidates run on an extreme and divisible platform driven by rhetoric and scoring political points rather than getting things done. That is what we’ve seen with the current Alderman.
I have witnessed how creating division, animosity, and hostility within the 1st Ward hurts the people. It erodes public trust. As in the days of my father, it showcases those in power who ignore the needs of the people while pushing their personal agendas. Those officials deserve to be held accountable, and elections provide that opportunity.
When my girlfriend was carjacked the current Alderman threw up his hands rather than show compassion or offer support. He has also failed to address the root causes of crime in our city, choosing instead to promote obfuscating agendas rather than make real connections with the residents, businesses, and families of the 1st Ward. When the issues of the day become so challenging you need to adjust your priorities, and La Spata has not done that. In his absence, I’ve worked hard to unite our community and have started to build a better path forward.
I know that expectations are high and the challenges are numerous. But I am a fighter who puts in the work. Together, I believe we can tackle many of these challenges, including public safety, fighting Chicago corruption, solving basic and universal mental health care, and providing more affordable housing with new and creative ideas. But what truly makes me the right person for these times, is that I know that this approach has to happen with education, empathy, and accessibility – and it has to happen by working together.