Aldermanic candidates to support in runoff
On April 2, voters in 15 city wards will choose an alderman in a runoff election. Early voting begins Monday. No candidate in these 15 wards won more than 50 percent of the vote on Feb. 26. In five of those 15 races, the Sun-Times endorsed a candidate who did not make the runoff. Today, we make the following endorsements in those races. To read all of the Sun-Times’ endorsements, please go to bit.ly/2HuobUJ.
5th Ward 16th Ward
In this heavily gerrymandered ward on the Southwest Side, we endorse Stephanie D. Coleman with every hope she will be her own boss and not just carry water for her mother, pastor and former alderman Shirley Coleman. Stephanie Coleman has been the ward’s Democratic committeeman since 2016, a job in which she claims to have provided an array of constituent services, such as organizing “trunk parties” — supply-gathering efforts — for young people going off to college.
We don’t see Coleman, 31, blazing new ground in the City Council. But, then again, the incumbent she’s challenging, Toni L. Foulkes, has done nothing much along those lines, or along any lines.
In the meantime, Coleman shows real energy and a sincere interest in delivering those constituent services.
20th Ward
fighting for working people, most recently as an organizer for the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization. Taylor’s been a strong advocate for public schools. She served on a local school council for many years and helped lead the hunger strike that forced City Hall to keep Dyett High School open.
Taylor has been a leader in a campaign to get a community benefits agreement for the Obama Presidential Center, to be built in the neighboring 5th Ward. But Taylor made clear that she nevertheless supports the OPC. Development doesn’t have to lead to gentrification and displacement.
25th Ward
With incumbent Ald. Danny Solis leaving office amid a corruption scandal, voters in the 25th Ward have a choice between two young and likable — and philosophically fairly different — candidates.
Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a social democrat, is executive director of Pilsen Alliance, a community organization that advocates for affordable housing, schools and other social justice causes. Alexander “Alex” Acevedo, the son of a former state representative, is a nurse who founded a mobile health clinic and neighborhood watch program.
Our endorsement goes to Sigcho-Lopez, who is more likely to be a strong voice for ordinary people as developers with money and clout continue to rush in to this ward, which includes Pilsen and Chinatown. Acevedo’s campaign is funded in part by builders and a Realtor PAC, and that’s not comforting.
We also believe Sigcho-Lopez would be a voice for reform in the City Council. When it comes to affordable housing, he is opposed to the custom of aldermanic prerogative, by which an alderman essentially can veto any project in his ward.
Our major reservation with respect to Sigcho-Lopez is that he, too, takes money from interest groups looking for a pal. Most notably, that would be the Chicago Teachers Union, which last month gave his campaign $27,500.
We write all the time that the Chicago City Council must be more independent. It must do its own thinking and be less of a rubber stamp. Sigcho-Lopez could be such an alderman.
31st Ward
Milagros “Milly” Santiago has made good use of TIF money by funding improvements at the Portage-Cragin Library, Foreman College and Career Prep and Kosciuszko Park in Logan Square. The park’s field house, pool, baseball fields and soccer fields will get major improvements.
The first-term alderman also can claim some success in bringing stores and a health clinic to her Northwest Side ward. We endorse Santiago for a second term over Felix Cardona Jr., who worked in the Cook County assessor’s office under Joe Berrios.
We’ve been tough on Santiago for whining in 2016 when the city’s Board of Ethics prohibited her and other aldermen from buying World Series tickets at face value — a bargain at the time — from the Cubs. She apologized, for what it’s worth.