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: Kim Walz
Ward: 46th
Current job: Regional Director, State and Local Government Relations, Walgreens
Previous political experience: Director of Policy Analysis/Chief of Staff – Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley (2000-2009) District Director/Deputy Chief of Staff – Congressman Mike Quigley (2009-2010) Gubernatorial appointee, Bi-National Great Lakes Commission (2009-2010)
Education: Master’s Degree in Public Policy, Georgetown University (2000); Bachelor’s Degree, Beloit College (1997); Associate’s Degree, Highland Community College (1995)
Spouse’s occupation: N/A
Sources of outside income: I have a graphic design LLC
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.
We all want to feel safe in our community. As a new mom, I want to feel safe walking my daughter in her stroller, I want our seniors to feel safe walking to the grocery store, for our LGBTQ+ neighbors to feel safe walking down the street.
Addressing crime and deepening a feeling of safety in our community requires a multi-pronged approach, dealing not only with policing, but also addressing the historic disinvestment in communities across our city that are the root causes of crime and violence. This affects not just the 46th Ward, but communities across our city.
As Alderwoman, I will be a champion for an expansion of the pilot programs that reroute nonviolent mental health 911 calls to mental health crisis providers who can provide the compassionate care and medical assistance needed to provide not only short-term, but also long-term care options for those in crisis.
I have experienced, first-hand, the challenges, and related trauma, of solely relying on law enforcement to respond to non-violent, mental health related calls to 911. As a family member of someone with severe mental health issues, I know what it is like to make these calls and to hope that the response is one of assistance and compassion. Police officers often do not have the training needed to respond to these calls. As a city, state, and nation we spend billions to incarcerate those with mental health issues, and not nearly enough on the treatment they so desperately need. I will be a part of changing that system.
Improving public safety also includes ensuring that everyone feels safe in their interactions with the police. As Alderwoman, I will fight to make sure our city is in full compliance with the federal consent decree and that policy changes are enacted to protect marginalized and minority communities, including the LGBTQ community and our Black and Brown neighbors. I will also create a 46th Ward Public Safety Committee that includes stakeholders from across the ward to meet regularly with District 19 and 20 leadership. I also plan to engage with the newly elected police district council representatives who will help serve as the eyes and ears of civilian police oversight.
We must also be creative in developing new strategies for recruitment to fill vacant positions, and I would urge new incentives to ensure CPD is able to hire the best and brightest to serve and protect.
Lastly, community policing is an essential part of rebuilding trust between neighborhoods and their police district – but it has not been made a priority. There are too many layers of community policy strategies that do not seem to be built on a coherent plan. CAPS used to be a model program nationwide for community engagement – but now it is underfunded and understaffed, a box to be checked by the City. We need to make community engagement a priority and restore staffing levels and fully fund CAPS programs.
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.
The CTA is not simply trains and buses – it is how people get to work, travel to be with their families, how they live and grow their lives. The ghost buses and trains are dramatically impacting people’s lives and violent crime on the system is forcing people to take expensive alternatives such as rideshare vehicles and cabs or driving their private vehicles and paying for parking. The inequitable service coverage also puts a burden on black and brown communities who have to take multiple buses and trains to access the same level of coverage as other neighborhoods.
The City has taken an important first step in making service more equitable by approving a funding plan to expand the Red Line service south to 130th Street. But there is much more that needs to be done to improve services.
First, we need to hold the CTA accountable for scheduling delays and running ghost buses that impede residents’ ability to travel to work or other obligations in a timely fashion. We need to address staffing shortfalls and add hiring incentives or pay increases when necessary to fill vacant positions and retain staff. As Alderwoman I will work with my staff to understand any delays or service disruptions in the ward and work with CTA leadership to immediately rectify the situation.
The CTA must also address unsanitary and unsafe conditions on its trains and buses. We need additional security on CTA trains not only to deter crime, but also to discourage antisocial behavior such as public urination and intoxication that creates inhospitable conditions and dissuades residents from using transit.
We also need to improve accessibility of our transit system. In the 46th Ward the Sheridan L station is not accessible to people with mobility issues and is in desperate need of rehabilitation.
Finally, to paraphrase Enrique Penalosa, the former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, a great city is not a place where the poor drive cars–it’s where the rich use public transportation. Transit in Chicago needs to be convenient and fast, so it appeals to and serves everyone, and encourages more households to go car-free. To that end, the CTA should prioritize bus rapid transit projects and designated bus lanes (including on Lake Shore Drive) that promise frequent and dependable service.
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?
I want to work with our community to build a neighborhood where our children can walk to school – where children such as my little girl can have a community of classmates on her block, where schools are safe, and where classrooms have the resources our students need – regardless of their zip code.
But this currently isn’t the case. Our schools are inadequately funded and have inequitable distribution of resources while our city is becoming more expensive to raise a family. First, our schools are inadequately, and inequitably, funded. The increasing cost of living in Chicago is driving families out of the city with detrimental, unintended consequences. The way the current school funding formula in Chicago is set up, decreased enrollment means decreased revenues for our schools. This perpetuates the cycle of underfunded schools that don’t have enough resources and more students leaving CPS or the city. The state’s evidence-based funding (EBF) requires money to go to the most underfunded schools first. However, CPS doesn’t follow this funding formula and continues to create school inequities.
CPS has many wonderful schools within the City, especially those offering language immersion, STEAM focus, college prep, and other specialty programs. Students should not have to travel long distances outside their home neighborhoods to access such enrichment. CPS could consider expanding “school-within-a-school” programs that allow several specialty educational formats to reside within a single facility, allowing families more choices within a reasonable distance from home.
Tackling enrollment decline at CPS also requires a multi-pronged approach tackling issues of housing affordability in the city, economic opportunity, and job creation to address the flight of families from Chicago.
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.
Communities on the south and west sides have been forgotten by the City – decades long disinvestment, neglect and perceived ‘solutions’ such as razing vacant buildings to solve problems only serve to create more barriers to resources and opportunity – the tale of two cities in Chicago. INVEST South/West is an important first step in not only acknowledging this inequity, but creating a new path forward.
One area not yet addressed is taking action on undeveloped and vacant parcels in these areas. The ChiBlockBuilder program is an important first step, but too much land remains undeveloped and more plots of land should be added to the program. In addition there should be more qualifying factors to purchase the city-owned vacant parcels – such as vacant parcels of land owned by the city should not be sold to individuals or developers that currently have vacant parcels that have remained undeveloped for over 5 years. These communities are in need of housing and commercial space – not empty plots of land for speculation.
Do you support giving Chicagoans property tax relief? If yes, please explain how you would accomplish it. If no, please explain why not.
Yes. Our homes are supposed to be where we build our families and our dreams. Our small businesses are supposed to be where immigrant communities can flourish, where families can create generational wealth, and our neighborhoods can grow with a diverse landscape of entrepreneurs. However, the ever-increasing tax burden put on Chicago residents through high property taxes, and subsequently higher rents, is making those dreams unobtainable and black and brown communities are disproportionately impacted.
First, as Alderwoman, I will not support raising taxes for working and middle income families in Chicago. Second, solutions must be comprehensive to avoid simply transferring the property tax burden from one area or class of properties to another. There should be rigorous oversight of what is being financed through property taxes. Additionally, every opportunity to maximize efficiencies in government service delivery should be considered in order to control the amount of money that must ultimately be raised through property taxes. As the author or contributor to numerous government reform and finance reports during my career, I know how to do this.
Third, the City’s TIF program must be further reined in. It is simply unacceptable to effectively siphon off large portions of the property taxes in growing areas of the city for decades at a time. Lastly, with so much of the property tax bill going to education, significant property tax relief will not be possible until the state assumes a greater share of education funding.
This will require cost control (e.g., reducing the number of school districts in the state and their associated administrative costs), but also revenue. The state should consider additional reforms to create a fairer, more stable tax system.
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?
They can be useful – but they are overused and have become a foregone conclusion for development in Chicago, rather than targeted tools to address true blight. A reform package would begin by ensuring that TIF districts truly meet the definition of “blight” in order to be approved. The TIF review boards of affected government agencies have traditionally been a rubber stamp, but state law should be changed to include members representing taxpayer and business community interests, to bring greater sunshine into the approval process. Furthermore, state legislators should consider tightening the rules around TIF designation and acceptable kinds of TIF spending. The City Council should consider legislation limiting the collective impact of TIF in the city to certain levels–for example, no more than X percent of the city’s property value may be within TIF districts in any given year–to ensure that TIF is used judiciously. And finally, Chicagoans should have better access to information about TIF expenditures, not just through complicated annual reports. There needs to be a comprehensive information portal, delivering planning, and spending data in real time.
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?
Chicago has more lead water service pipes than anywhere else in America. One out of every 20 tests found lead at or above acceptable levels. Lead is an irreversible neurotoxin and the fact that our city has replaced so few lines over the last four years is unconscionable. This is a public health emergency – and the city has failed.
The City should consider any and all financing models to accelerate and complete lead service line replacement, including federal aid (especially the designated funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), bonds, cost-sharing programs, and low-interest loans to property owners. These replacements should be done en masse in neighborhoods to achieve economies of scale. In addition, we need to expedite the permitting process for line replacements and increase funding for the equity replacement program.
Finally, the City should convene a planning process involving city agencies, private utilities, telecommunications companies, and anyone else who might need to replace infrastructure that runs beneath or along streets. Coordinating projects will not only reduce unnecessary spending on repeatedly ripping up and replacing pavement and sidewalks, it will also reduce inconvenience to neighborhood residents and businesses.
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.
The values of public service were instilled in me from a young age. My mother was a nurse, and my father a high school teacher.
I was raised that if something was broken, you fix it. When I moved to Chicago in 2000, I knew I wanted to work in the public sector to effect change. I had learned first hand what it was like to put yourself through school, to experience wage theft, and witnessed first hand what it was like to have a social safety net full of holes. Watching my sibling and my family try to navigate a broken mental health system for decades forever changed me and guided my passion to change the system and make government more efficient and accountable.
For ten years, I worked for Congressman Mike Quigley, first in his role as Cook County Commissioner, where I helped launch the reform movement for Cook County government. I authored or co-authored 7 reports on how to restructure and reinvent county government. I oversaw our constituent service operations and drafted proposals to balance the $3 billion budget without tax increases. After Quigley’s election to Congress, I ran our district office and focused on improving access to government services. Then I served as a Senior Vice President for a nonprofit health insurance co-op providing health insurance for the uninsured and underinsured. In my current role at Walgreens, I serve as a liaison between states, local communities, and the company, and fought to pass legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs and combat organized retail crime. During the pandemic, I opened some of the first testing locations in the country, and was instrumental in vaccination efforts, including in long-term care facilities and improved vaccine equity for people of color, non-English speakers, and the undocumented population.
This experience is important. It is not enough to be the one to yell the loudest in City Council. I have over 22+ years of experience in the public, non-profit and private sectors and know how to build coalitions of diverse stakeholders and get things done. I also have extensive experience in building public/private partnerships, such as during COVID vaccination efforts. I know that the Alderman’s office can dramatically impact the quality of life in a neighborhood. Whether it be rats, garbage pick up, crime or sidewalks – the local issues matter. I have run a constituent services office on the county and federal level and know how to assist residents and find solutions to their problems.
I’m also an active volunteer in the community, including at the House of Good Shepherd to support mothers and children living at the shelter. I serve on the board of Kids Above All, a non-profit helping children and families, and on the leadership council of the Haymarket Center, which helps individuals suffering from substance abuse and mental health issues and their families. I have deep, personal connections to these issues, having experienced firsthand the challenges families face when loved ones struggle with schizophrenia and homelessness.
What is the most pressing issue facing the people of your ward, and how would you address it?
First, we need to address crime in our community not only for the physical safety of residents, workers, and visitors, but also because crime is leading to disinvestment in our communities and preventing us from working on other important quality-of-life improvements. We need to adequately staff the 19th and 20th Districts and reinvest in community policing strategies so officers can be out of the cars and interacting with their community. This is an important part of building trust between neighborhoods and the department. As a city we need to start not just budgeting funding for violence prevention – but actually spending it. We need to acknowledge how communities across the city and in our ward have been neglected and forced to forfeit generations of opportunity; We need to fully invest in the prosperity of our neighbors.
We also need to strengthen our social safety net – from housing to mental health treatment. The diversity of the 46th Ward is what makes it special. We need to ensure that as we keep moving the ward forward and growing that we don’t leave anyone behind. I will work to not only increase the development of affordable housing in the ward, but pursue and support policies that preserve naturally occurring affordable housing.
As a nation we have failed individuals living with a mental illness – and Chicago is no different. We need to overhaul how we treat individuals in mental crisis – from expanding the pilot programs to require mental health professionals to respond to 911 calls for those in crisis to changing the 311 process for intake for the unhoused. We need a system that better understands the unique needs of these individuals. The city also needs to expand long-term housing and treatment options. We always seem to have enough money for more jail cells to incarcerate those with a mental illness – but never enough money to expand treatment beds.
Sum up why should voters elect you and not your opponent(s)? (Please limit this to policy and approach, not a biography recitation.)
I have been talking to our neighbors from every corner of the ward. I have heard from people they want to feel safer, they want to feel like they are not going to be priced out of their homes, they want to see our unhoused neighbors find permanent shelter, they want to see their small business grow, they want those living with mental illness to get the help they need. They want to protect the rich diversity of our neighborhood while allowing our community to grow.
I will build that neighborhood with our residents. I will keep the ward moving forward, attracting growing families and new local businesses to our vacant storefronts. I will improve our school funding so your child doesn’t have to take multiple buses to start their day at school. I will fight to improve our property tax system that is pricing people out of our communities and bring more affordable housing and treatment options to the ward.
Experience matters. I know how to get things done. There is too much divisive rhetoric in politics and not enough solutions and the last four years of city government have shown this is not productive.
I have run constituent service offices for Mike Quigley (at both the county and congressional level), I have built public/private partnerships, and I have worked across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Competing interests often thwart change in government, but I understand how to harness the diverse perspectives of different actors and bring them together to advance positive change. I have the experience to work with our neighbors to build and grow our community, combat rising crime, invest in communities, fund social services, and make our city the best place to live, work, and play and to raise a family in the United States.