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: Cameron Barnes
Ward: 9th
Current job: Unemployed
Previous political experience: Former National Youth Director of Rainbow PUSH
Education: Central State University, C/o 2020 – BS in Business Administration with concentration in Marketing
Spouse’s occupation: N/A
Sources of outside income: N/A
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.
City Government can begin investing in the young people of Chicago. When elected, I will make sure there are not only after school facilities and tutors available to ensure homework, projects and assignments can be done, but also incentivized mentorships, increased access to internships and apprenticeships along with a more robust approach to introducing trades to students at an early age for those who are not interested in traditional college. Increased recreational investment coupled with incentivized mentorships and team-building will detour gang activity.
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.
CTA should ensure that all stops are complete with heated coverings/awnings/encasements, while also ensuring that drivers are trained to handle situations of violence, health crises, and the like.
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?
CPS MUST innovate their curriculum! Chicagoans should leave CPS knowing how to compete on the world’s stage, which means a true and ROBUST approach to implementing STEAM, coding and robotics into the daily curriculum, not as an elective or AP class, but at the base of all curriculum. This will increase student success across the board and set students up to compete.
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.
Most counties can give land on the delinquent tax list back to people through Black non-profit developers with a CDFI. We can then implement a program that allows those developers to then rebuild the community and allow people to move into those buildings and when they pay “rent” they are really paying the mortgage and opening a path to owning property within black households and crate generation wealth through property while also ridding the city of the eye-sores that is dilapidated and run-down properties that increase crime and drug infestations.
Do you support giving Chicagoans property tax relief? If yes, please explain how you would accomplish it. If no, please explain why not.
I do support giving property tax relief, in a sense that we have to have a lock-in rate or a cap on property taxes. Too often we see homeowners or business owners who could once afford their property taxes lose their homes or businesses because taxes continue to skyrocket with no cap in sight.
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?
I think the usage of TIF districts in Chicago, at least in the 9th ward, have mainly been used to fatten the pockets of the already-rich. They have been useful in erecting new developments in the ward, but at what cost? Black people being displaced? that is not a good usage of funds then. That problem alone can outweigh its usefulness, because who then does the TIF district serve, if not the constituents who were in place before it was? I think that we must put new stipulations around the creation of TIF districts, including community-based voting on them and consultation, if a community votes in the majority of it not being created, it should not be created. Constituents need more participation in TIF districts.
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?
Hell yes it should! We have to stop wasting time and juggling people’s health! Lead poisoning is real and should be held as a high priority in this city. I think the easiest way of doing that is quite simple–our elected officials should be speaking up to put money in the budget to get that done immediately. If we can lobby the State of Illinois for nearly $200 million for migrants, surely we could have lobbied for that money to be used on repairing lead service lines. It’s not rocket science, we have the money, we have the manpower, but we don’t have the correct voices at the table speaking up for the constituents best interests.
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.
At 24 years old, I have traveled the country as a national youth civil rights advocate, leading protests and marches, promoting voting rights and speaking to young people on every corner of this country. I have worked to ensure our projects are taken to a logical end, and not dropped by the wayside when the publicity and popularity disappears. I have worked extensively with the 5 largest civil rights organizations in the country and have not only done this work across the country, but also have continued this work within the borders of the 9th ward as well. I have spoken up for the voiceless time and time gain and even hosted members of the federal government in the 9th ward, when the current alderman refused to do so, from the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to the U.S. representatives. It is imperative that the leadership on the city council is also in sync with the leadership on the state and federal levels as well to ensure that investment, resources and relief all fall down from the top to its rightful intended place.
What is the most pressing issue facing the people of your ward, and how would you address it?
The most pressing issue is the lack of resources that come to revitalize our ward without gentrifying it. When development comes, it comes with the price of gentrification and higher taxes that push homeowners and business owners out of their own neighborhoods because of lack of funding to keep up with increased taxes. I propose to meet with developers of color in my first 100 days on the council to work out a plan to address the hundreds of vacant lots in the ward, pick them up from the delinquent tax list, revitalize them, implement a rent-to-own program that gives ward residents first pick at that program and begin creating passive income for constituents, thus creating generational wealth within their families, revitalizing the ward and creating black ownership that won’t push black residents out.
Sum up why should voters elect you and not your opponent(s)? (Please limit this to policy and approach, not a biography recitation.)
I actually have a plan, not just a plight of problems; a plan that is uniquely crafted for the 9th ward and its constituents. We want, no, we need, no, we DESERVE a leader that plans for the best interests of all of the constituents of the 9th ward, and not just those that voted for him. Other candidates will point out the flaws of our ward with no plan or no idea to transform that flaw. I will hit the ground running my first day in office for the constituents of the 9th ward, not to glorify myself as a position-holder or a winner, but as a public servant to those who has been served the least for nearly 3 decades.