In nearly every current aldermanic race the incumbents and challengers are accusing each other of being soft on crime. James Cappleman, who’s running against Helen Shiller in the 46th Ward, wrote in a recent newsletter that Shiller “regards the persistent street crime, gang-related murders and international drug trafficking as facts of urban life that residents should simply get used to, or, in her words, ‘move to Lincoln Park.’”
The moderator asked both candidates how they would work to ease tensions among the ethnic and racial groups in the ward.
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Shiller looked annoyed. “I said that there are some people who want Uptown to be Lincoln Park,” she said. “But it’s different. It’s a diverse area, and it’s unique–and we want to keep that uniqueness.”
That same year Beale, a Salem member, was elected alderman and pledged to support Meeks’s efforts to get a supermarket for the site. That August Mayor Daley met with Meeks at the site’s bookstore. Meeks later testified that they didn’t talk about the shopping center, but Hammad maintained that they did. By September the sale to Salem had stalled.
Beale says Rayburn is just getting desperate for something to campaign on: “He’s looking for an opportunity–and he’s running because he’s unemployed and he’s looking for a job.”
A ward resident–whom Andrade believes is working for Burke–challenged some of the signatures on her petitions, and she had to go through a series of hearings before the board of elections. She says she spent around $2,500 on attorney’s fees in the process. “They want me to spend all my money,” she says. “This is money I’m supposed to spend on my signs. It’s out of my own pocket–who’s going to give me money?”
