Runoffs signal the changing City Council makeup for three North Side lakefront wards

Three key North Side lakefront wards stand on the precipice of change following last year’s exits of a trio of Chicago City Council members representing the Gold Coast north through the grittier and more diverse neighborhoods of Uptown and Edgewater to Andersonville.

Only one of the six candidates vying for the three seats in the April 4 runoff elections is an incumbent and he’s only been in the job for six months after being appointed by outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

As the often sharply divided candidates debate public safety, housing and development issues in their respective wards, outside money also has played a role as super political action committees have flooded the wards with nearly $240,000 in advertisements just in the past month.

43rd Ward

Among the most heated aldermanic races is the one in the 43rd Ward, where recently appointed Ald. Timmy Knudsen is facing a challenge from lifelong ward resident Brian Comer, who is the head of the Sheffield Neighborhood Association. The two were the last to survive the six-way race in February to represent the ward covering Lincoln Park and a portion of the Gold Coast after three-term incumbent Ald. Michele Smith decided last year to retire.

Knudsen found himself in the midst of an election battle almost immediately after Lightfoot appointed him to replace Smith and the race became one of the most expensive and divisive first rounds in recent aldermanic election history. Political insiders were split over their endorsements, one candidate spent $750,000 of her own money and accusations of bullying and sign stealing flew.

Knudsen ended up with 27% of the vote to Comer’s 24%. Knudsen was previously an attorney who worked on venture capital issues while Comer’s previous consulting work was in renewable energy development and tax services.

“He’s in this runoff because he was gifted” the seat, Comer said, noting that Lightfoot also tapped Knudsen to serve on the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals. “It’s been a jobs program between the two of them.”

While political allegiances were divided in the first round, Knudsen has since won endorsements from Smith and every alderman of the ward dating back to 1971, including well-known council independents Martin Oberman and Bill Singer. He also is being supported by two candidates who lost in the first round and mayoral contender Paul Vallas, who won 55% of the ward on Feb. 28.

Knudsen has raised nearly $115,000 since March 1, including $20,600 from local Democratic megadonor Fred Eychaner and his company, Newsweb; maxed-out contributions from the leaders of financial firms DRW and Linden Capital Partners; and $5,000 from Robert Melman, head of the restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You. In all, he’s raised nearly $445,000 since August.

Comer has raised roughly $91,000 since March 1, including a $6,900 loan from himself and $5,000 from investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners’ James Perry. Several of his recent donations, however, were reported late or exceeded contribution caps, which Comer said were filing errors that would be corrected. Altogether, he’s raised $129,000 since August.

Though Lincoln Park has historically had lower crime rates, both candidates say public safety is a top concern. The neighborhood has had one or no homicides in recent years but did see a spike in shootings, assaults and batteries in 2021, according to city data.

Both candidates support backfilling vacant positions at the Chicago Police Department. Knudsen has moved to install more security cameras in the ward while Comer said he’d push DePaul University to work with the city to help CPD with recruiting.

A police incident of a different type has become a focus of the race.

In early March, Chicago police said a man suspected of a robbery “battered and disarmed” an officer near Oz Park. The suspect shot the officer’s gun “during a struggle, but no one was struck,” and he was later arrested by other responding officers.

Comer went to the scene the same night. While wearing a campaign button, he stood in front of squad cars and recorded a video for social media claiming “an officer was shot” but “in stable condition.” Comer alluded to the recent funeral of officer Andrés Mauricio Vásquez Lasso, who was killed responding to a domestic violence call.

Knudsen accused Comer of sowing fear and spreading misinformation. The officer was taken to the hospital for observation but sustained no injuries, Knudsen said in an email the day after the incident. He also said Comer violated ethics rules barring the use of CPD personnel or logos in campaign materials. The video stayed up for several days before Comer posted an update.

Comer told the Tribune he simply repeated what he heard from officers on the scene. “Hindsight is 20/20, OK? But I’m not going to apologize for updating the neighborhood.”

His handling of that incident is one reason why former opponent Wendi Taylor Nations opted to endorse Knudsen. Former opponent Rebecca Janowitz is also backing Knudsen.

Others who previously accused Knudsen of a too-cozy relationship with the development community have since endorsed him, including Smith and Oberman. The Illinois Realtors super PAC has spent roughly $70,000 supporting Knudsen. Knudsen says he plans to stick to the ward tradition of independence, noting his vote to keep Lightfoot’s policy of linking property tax levies with the rate of inflation was “counter” to what the Realtors wanted.

46th Ward

In the 46th Ward race fueled by outside spending, the candidates have been painted by opponents as a corporate establishment pick versus a “radical” police defunder.

In a crowded six-way contest in February, Angela Clay finished with 36% to Kim Walz’s 26%. Elections in the diverse and divided ward encompassing Uptown and part of Lakeview have traditionally been nail-biters: outgoing Ald. James Cappleman was pushed into runoffs in 2015 and 2019, winning by narrow margins.

Clay is a lifelong ward resident and housing organizer with endorsements from progressive elected officials and organizations, including the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Walz, a former staffer for U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley who works in government relations for Walgreens, is backed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, and several state lawmakers.

Mailers from Clay describe Walz as a lobbyist who would “put corporate special interests first.” Walz said she’s not the corporate candidate, but a problem solver whose business experience is an asset.

Clay faced questions about her own business experience after Crain’s Chicago Business reported an omission in her city ethics filing. Candidates are required to list whether they served as an employee or leader at any business from which they had an interest of more than $1,000 in 2021. But Clay did not list a business she ran that received just under $42,000 federal Payroll Protection Program loans that year.

The omission was a mistake she quickly corrected, Clay told the Tribune. She started a products line, Pink Ribbon Hair, in 2014. It “did extremely well right before COVID,” making over $100,000 in 2019, but “at the height of COVID, we were struggling.” She received two PPP loans that were ultimately forgiven, records show, but Pink Ribbon “didn’t make it” through the pandemic.

Clay has not highlighted her business experience in this campaign or in her run in 2019, choosing instead to focus on work she did as a housing coordinator for Northside Action for Justice that put her on a path to running for alderman, rather than “a failing business,” she said.

Clay amended her ethics disclosure to include mention of Pink Ribbon, but despite repeated requests declined to turn over any documentation about the business or PPP loan to the Tribune.

The candidates’ fundraising has been neck and neck since March 1, with Walz collecting $162,000 to Clay’s $150,000, according to state records.

But outside super PACs, which are barred from coordinating with candidates, have spent another $151,000 on mailers and ads aiming to help Walz and oppose Clay. The business-backed Get Stuff Done PAC, which seeks to elect what they describe as pragmatists to the City Council, paid for mailers claiming that Clay is “just too radical” and supported defunding the police. Clay says it’s a fearmongering tactic that muddles her more nuanced position on policing.

Police are being put “under immense pressure” to respond to crisis calls without adequate training, Clay said, a reason she supports steering city funds toward violence prevention, city-run mental health facilities, youth programming and jobs.

“I don’t think it is off the cuff to say yes, we should reallocate some of these funds to get in front of crime so that we can support our police officers on the back end,” she said.

Walz said filling CPD vacancies and bolstering patrols are key.

“The response time to 911 is too long, officers can’t get out of their cars and engage with the community,” she said. Walz, whose brother has schizophrenia, said she would work to boost access to mental health services and that she agrees with Clay on long-term solutions to crime.

Their approaches to housing differ. It’s been an animating issue in the ward for decades, where multiple protests have broken out over large luxury developments.

Clay was supportive of the pushback to the new apartment building next to Weiss Memorial Hospital. Critics said that of the more than 300 planned units, only eight are slated to be affordable. The developers paid $3.1 million to help fund new housing being developed by Sarah’s Circle, an Uptown nonprofit that helps women experiencing homelessness.

Clay said she would require developers to build 30% of affordable units available on-site. That’s higher than the new citywide standard of 20% for many developments. Clay is also supportive of lifting the state ban on rent control as a first step to stabilizing rents for neighbors “feeling the pinch.”

Uptown has a higher concentration of renters — 68% — than the city at large, according to the DePaul Institute for Housing Studies. Roughly half of Uptown renters are cost-burdened. Walz worries that rent control requirements would hurt small landlords. She would focus instead on the loss of naturally occurring affordable two-, three- and six-flats, where she’s worried “the most displacement is going to occur.”

Rising property taxes and costly repairs could force owners to sell or hike rents, Walz said. “In order to keep rents stable, you have to continue to build more housing” to meet demand.

48th Ward

Just north of the 46th Ward is the 48th Ward, where small business owner Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth and affordable housing developer Joe Dunne emerged victorious in February from a 10-person field to succeed retiring Ald. Harry Osterman and represent parts of Andersonville, Edgewater and Uptown. Dunne finished with 26% of the vote to Manaa-Hoppenworth’s 23%.

Manaa-Hoppenworth, owner of a dance supply and photography business, said she is the true progressive in the race, earning the endorsement of mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson and former opponents Nassir Faulkner and CTU and DSA-backed Nick Ward.

She has raised just $44,000 since March 1. Several of those donations are from Asian American elected officials who hope Manaa-Hoppenworth, who is Filipina, could expand Asian representation on the City Council. The new ward is 14% Asian, home to “Little Asia on Argyle” and several immigrant communities.

“The stakes are high,” said state Rep. Theresa Mah, who has supported Manaa-Hoppenworth. “I don’t want to sit back … and be in a situation where we have zero representation on the City Council and I could have done something.”

Dunne is backed by Osterman and many of the city’s major labor organizations, former Gov. Pat Quinn and outgoing state Rep. Greg Harris. Since the runoff, Dunne has raised $132,000. The Illinois Realtors and Get Stuff Done super PACs have also spent $53,000 since the runoff supporting Dunne, with Get Stuff Done suggesting in digital ads that Manaa-Hoppenworth “founded a group that wants to abolish police.”

Those ads and images mirror language Dunne put on the media page of his campaign website. The practice, known as “redboxing,” allows candidates to broadcast the message they’d like outside groups to push without coordinating directly. Campaign finance watchdogs say the practice effectively erodes the firewall that’s supposed to exist between super PACs and the candidates they support.

Manaa-Hoppenworth is a founder of the group Indivisible IL-9, which hosts a weekly anti-racist working group. One of the group’s November events discussed an abolition study guide and another reading about defunding the police. Indivisible has said the content of the email does not call for abolition, but “a thoughtful discussion about how we can reimagine policing through an anti-racist lens.”

Asked whether she was supportive of police abolition or defunding the police, Manaa-Hoppenworth told the Tribune, “I don’t use those words.”

“We should try to imagine” a world where “there isn’t a lot of policing or surveillance or, you know, locking people up,” she continued, adding the city does not spend enough on social services. “We’re spending a lot of our budget on policing, and not everybody feels safe. So we have to look at not only the dollars that we’re spending, and not only the number of officers that we have on the force, but how we’re actually using them, where they’re being deployed.”

Dunne’s platform calls for coordinating with local CPD commanders “to have regular beat officers assigned to our ward, including foot patrols” around business corridors and transit hubs. Dunne also backs increased funding for mental health and social services and the “Treatment Not Trauma” ordinance.

Like the 46th, housing affordability is a key concern. Manaa-Hoppenworth backs lifting the ban on rent control to address rising prices and increase income diversity.

Dunne, a vice president with the nonprofit Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp., said he is for “development without displacement,” including maintaining naturally occurring affordable housing and advocating for property tax reform to reduce costs for homeowners and renters. He supports raising the real estate transfer tax to fund homeless services.

His experience building affordable and mixed income housing would be an asset on council, Dunne argued. In January, he took a leave from his job and he said he would resignif elected. Bickerdike is working on an 11-story affordable housing project in the ward at 5853 N. Broadway, the site of a Streets and Sanitation depot. Dunne is supportive of the project, but hasn’t touched it “in six months.”