Editorial: Our choices for City Council: Wards 21-25

Here is the Tribune Editorial Board’s fourth installment of endorsements in contested races for aldermanic seats in Chicago’s Feb. 28 municipal election.

21st Ward

Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. isn’t seeking reelection in this ward, which includes parts of Auburn Gresham, Washington Heights, Morgan Park, Roseland and West Pullman. Seven candidates are vying to replace him.

Chicago police Officer Daliah Goree, 50, put her finger on one of the biggest obstacles to small businesses trying to succeed in her ward and in the rest of the South and West sides — access to capital. If elected, she would require banks that wanted a role as a municipal depository to lay out their plan to expand lending to the South and West sides. We also like retired firefighter Cornell Dantzler’s advocacy of stronger mentoring services that engage youths before they succumb to gang involvement.

But the candidate who intrigues us the most is Ronnie Mosley. His resume is impressive for someone who’s 31 years old — he has worked as a community affairs specialist for Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, has an extensive background in community outreach, and in this campaign snagged endorsements from Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Chicago City Clerk Anna Valencia and Brookins, the outgoing incumbent.

Mosley, who is a member of the Rev. Michael Pfleger’s St. Sabina parish, tells us his plan to address violent crime includes enlisting churches in his ward to serve as venues for workforce development and violence prevention programs. “Faith leaders are asking what else can we do, and this is it,” Mosley says. “We have to talk directly to the shooters if we want it to stop.”

Also on the ballot are Ayana Clark, who worked in former U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush’s office as a community advocate, community psychologist Kweli Kwaza, and attorneys Preston Brown Jr., and Larry Lloyd. Our endorsement goes to Mosley.

22nd Ward

Ald. Michael Rodriguez is a firm believer in strengthening the relationship between Chicago police and the communities they serve through adherence to the consent decree, a federally mandated slate of reforms that overhaul training, supervision and accountability at the department.

Unfortunately, police leadership and City Hall have been “embarrassingly far behind in enacting all the required reforms and continue to have issues engaging the community as a result,” Rodriguez tells us. “Without better community relationships and increased accountability, we will not have better streets.”

We couldn’t agree more, and the death of Tyre Nichols, who was brutally beaten by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop Jan. 7, makes the urgent need for police reform and accountability all the more relevant.

Rodriguez has ably served this Little Village ward during his first term, paving the way for a $550 million mixed-use project that will include a grocery store, a child care and health care center, and 200 units of affordable housing during the development’s first phase. That’s an infusion of investment that will become a boon for the 22nd, and the kind of aldermanic leadership worthy of a second term.

Running to unseat Rodriguez are Kristian Armendariz, a construction laborer and community organizer, and Neftalie Gonzalez, an officer with the Transportation Security Administration who says she doesn’t solicit or accept campaign contributions. We strongly endorse Rodriguez.

23rd Ward

Eddie Guillen ruffled mayoral candidate Jesús “Chuy” García’s feathers when he sent out thousands of campaign flyers with photos of him and Garcia and the words, “Vote Chuy Garcia for Mayor & Eddie Guillen for Alderman. New Leadership That Works For You!” Garcia didn’t authorize the flyers, but there’s another reason Garcia may have been miffed. The congressman has had to deal with questions about his ties to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who faces trial on corruption charges. Guillen has linkage to Madigan, which explains why Garcia’s campaign was so rankled by the flyers.

Guillen’s ties to Madigan should also turn off voters. He worked for Madigan’s 13th Ward Democratic organization, even after Madigan was ousted as speaker and quit the Illinois House amid the federal corruption probe that eventually led to his indictment. Guillen also worked as chief of staff for state Rep. Angie Guerrero-Cuellar, who Madigan hand-picked to replace him in the House. Guillen also has accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Guerrero-Cuellar.

Guillen’s opponent, incumbent Silvana Tabares, was once a Madigan loyalist, but has rightly distanced herself from the former Illinois House speaker in recent years. Tabares supports the creation of a separate police unit that would focus solely on tackling crime on CTA buses and trains, “rather than relying on a patchwork of CPD officers working overtime shifts and private security who are not trained or equipped to handle the types of crimes and violence we are seeing.”

She also was right in voting against Mayor Lori Lighftoot’s automatic, inflation-linked property tax hikes. “We are relying on single-family homeowners to keep our city running and pricing them out of their homes as we’re doing it,” she told us. “It is unfair and needs to stop.” Tabares is endorsed.

24th Ward

Incumbent Ald. Monique Scott has seen firsthand the traction that violence prevention and street outreach programs have in her ward, which includes the North Lawndale neighborhood. Those programs have brought crime down by more than 44% on the West Side, she tells us. Not all of the money budgeted by City Hall for violence prevention has been spent on such programs, she says, and that needs to be fixed.

“These programs work. We see them working,” Scott told us. “That would be one of my focuses, to make sure I advocate for that money to go to those programs.” Lightfoot appointed Scott to lead the ward last year after Scott’s brother, Michael Scott Jr., left the City Council to take a job at Cinespace Studios, the home base of such TV shows as “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Fire.” Among her opponents is Creative Scott (no relation to the incumbent), a firearms instructor who tells us that North Lawndale residents, rather than outside developers, should have first dibs on buying and developing vacant lots in the ward.

Other candidates include Edward Ward, a Chicago Public Schools restorative justice counselor, beauty supply store owner Vetress Boyce, Drewone Goldsmith, a business owner and instructor at the Chicago Fire Department Training Academy, former small business owner Traci Treasure Johnson, Larry Nelson, and Luther Woodruff Jr., a Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation worker. Monique Scott is off to a good start as this ward’s alderman, and she is endorsed.

25th Ward

This ward includes one of Chicago’s prized neighborhoods, Pilsen, where gentrification threatens to displace a growing number of longtime residents and diminish the community’s rich, Mexican heritage. In his first term, incumbent Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez has understood the value of balancing new investment with the need to preserve Pilsen’s cultural fabric and prevent the displacement of families that have been in the neighborhood for generations. He’s a strong proponent of affordable housing to fend off displacement, and has enabled the creation and preservation of more than 800 affordable units, many of them family-sized. .

Lopez is also keenly aware of the massive, 46% increase in average property tax bills that Pilsen homeowners were hit with last year, and says there’s an urgent need to cap property tax increases. “A 46% increase overnight — that shouldn’t be allowed,” he told us. “That should be illegal, and we must have a cap.” Lopez also impressed us last year with his fight against the use of campaign funds by politicians for criminal defense purposes, a battle he focused on his predecessor, former Ald. Daniel Solis, who spent $220,000 from his campaign coffers on criminal defense lawyers helping him through an ongoing FBI probe at City Hall.

Lopez’s opponent is another strong progressive candidate, Aida Flores, a Chicago Public Schools assistant principal who says the ward needs more youth engagement programs to keep teens from succumbing to gang involvement. “For me, it’s about making sure we bring the community together,” she tells us. We think Flores has a future in Chicago politics, but Lopez has admirably represented his ward in his first term.

Lopez is endorsed.

An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that Ald. Marty Quinn had contributed to aldermanic candidate Eddie Guillen’s campaign.

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