Has He Got the Goods? West Town activist Peter Zelchenko has been gunning for Alderman Jesse Granato for eight years. He was a volunteer for Cynthia Soto when she ran against Granato in 1999, and he’s among those still bitter that she lost the runoff by only 347 votes. It was a nasty race, with […]
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Aldermania!
We’re Just . . . Visiting The fastest way to get an appointment with 25th Ward alderman Danny Solis may be to hang up one of his opponent’s campaign signs. Margarita Perez (not her real name) put a sign for Ambrosio Medrano in the window of her home and was promptly visited by two Solis […]
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Aldermania!
Unfinished Family Business The fight to succeed Harold Washington after he died in 1987 was bitter and ugly, and when the City Council, including most of the white aldermen, voted for Eugene Sawyer many saw him as a puppet of the anti-Harold forces. “It was unfair,” says Sawyer. “A lot of people didn’t know me. […]
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Aldermania!
Doing It by the Book In 1989 Robert Thomas, a sewer-department maintenance man in a Detroit suburb, built his campaign for mayor on going door-to-door. He toppled the incumbent by 200 votes, served three terms, and wrote How to Run for Local Office, in which he called door-to-door campaigning critical for new candidates. John Somerville, […]
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Aldermania!
Up to the Challenge Howard Brookins Jr., who’s running for 21st Ward alderman against incumbent Leonard DeVille, is no slouch. He’s a former public defender and assistant state’s attorney. His father served in the Illinois house and senate in the 1980s and ’90s, and his mother worked as a secretary for Jesse Jackson at Operation […]