August 18, 2010
"HAVES" VS. "HAVE-NOTS" SQUARE OFF IN 2011 ALDERMAN RACES IN 46TH, 49TH WARDS

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

It is an axiom of American politics that liberals become ever more liberal and conservatives become ever less conservative. In short, the country is now and will forever be in the throes of creeping socialism.

Yet in two Chicago Lakefront wards -- the 49th (Rogers Park) and the 46th (Uptown) -- the obverse is occurring. There is creeping capitalism. The "haves" are increasingly intolerant of the "have nots." Both wards are overwhelmingly liberal: In 2008 Barack Obama got 89.1 percent of the vote in the 49th Ward and 84.1 percent in the 46th Ward.

Karl Marx predicted a revolution of the proletariat -- the working class. There is no proletariat in either ward. It's the property owners versus the underclass. The affluent liberals may be gung-ho for "diversity," but they don't want criminals, drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless people, flophouses, shelter residents, gang members panhandlers, storefront day labor agencies, taverns, resale shops, welfare recipients, ex-cons, halfway houses, recovering addicts or the certifiably dysfunctional in their neighborhoods. Nor do they want social workers. It's NIMBY -- not in my back yard.

Back in the early 1990s, both wards were filled with transients, with almost 90 percent of all housing units being rental. Everybody tolerated everybody else, and few respected their landlords' property. Two phenomena then occurred:  Condominium conversions were rampant in the late 1990s through 2006. More than 6,000 apartments became condos in the 49th ward, while the number was about 3,000 in the 46th Ward. Most of the buyers were white young adults, most were professional, and many were gay.

Then the housing market collapsed in 2006. All of the yuppies who intended to sell their "starter" condo and transition into Lincoln Park or Wicker Park were marooned. Their units were unsellable, and suddenly "quality of life" issues such as crime, education, garbage pick-up, parking, and recreational availability became a priority. Instead of bailing from the neighborhood, they had to accept their fate, and at that moment all the liberal non-transients had an epiphany: As property owners, they had no "solidarity" with the underclass. They were combatants, not allies. "Poor people" undermined their property values and their "zone of safety."

Here's an analysis of developing aldermanic contests:

46th Ward: Centered on Uptown, the ward has long had a Third World flavor and a leftist political ideology. Alderman Helen Shiller, age 62, was a protege of Slim Coleman, the local rabble rouser and the founder of the Heart of Uptown Coalition. Shiller was first elected in 1987, getting 51 percent of the vote and defeating incumbent Jerry Orbach by 498 votes.

At that time political polarization was between the "insiders" -- the Democratic "Machine," led by Orbach and former alderman Ralph Axelrod -- and the "revolutionaries," led by Coleman and Shiller. There were more of the latter than the former.

In the City Council Shiller was renowned for her crackpot ideas, such as a resolution making her ward a "nuclear free zone." In other words, when the Soviet Union launched their nuclear weapons, they should avoid incinerating Uptown. She was an opponent of South African apartheid and aid to anti-communist Nicaraguan rebels, and she was a vociferous advocate of funding for AIDS research. For two decades, Shiller has had one goal: Keep the poor people in and the unpoor people out. Ultimately, she failed. The unpoor have breached the dikes.

As a result, Shiller became less revolutionary and more realistic. By the mid-2000s, she was a reliable supporter of Mayor Rich Daley, even backing the parking meter sale. From 2001 to 2006 she supported Daley on 77 percent of key votes.

From a voter trajectory perspective, Shiller's base has progressively shriveled due to the influx of property owners. She had 9,751 votes in 1987, 8,613 in 1991, 5,988 in 1995, 6,272 in 1999, 6,240 in 2003 and 5,987 in 2007. Clearly, there is a "have not" Shiller base of 6,000 votes, which amounts to about 17.6 percent of the ward's 33,953 registered voters.

In 2007 Shiller beat social worker James Cappleman by 700 votes, carrying 25 of the ward's 47 precincts and spending $300,000 to Cappleman's $72,000. In 2003 she won 35 of 43 precincts. The "have" base vote is now at least 6,000, and growing.

Shiller, sensing that her time has passed, is retiring. The 2011 field includes Cappleman, 16-year ward sanitation superintendent Don Nowotny, community organizer Molly Phelan and police officer Mike Carroll.

 Nowotny and Cappleman are openly gay, with gays comprising 15 to 20 percent of the ward's electorate. Phelan and Cappleman are fierce Shiller critics; Phelan filed a lawsuit to block Shiller's Wilson Yards project. Carroll is running as the "anti-crime" candidate, whatever that means. Nowotny is backed by Shiller and ward Democratic Committeeman Tom Sharpe.

Demographically, the ward is about 15 percent each black and Asian and 5 percent Hispanic, most residing in Uptown. But the key is property ownership: Almost 30 percent of housing units are owner-occupied, and those white voters want an alderman who does not pander to the underclass.

The ward extends from Foster Avenue to Addison Street, east of Clark Street to the lake. It includes a strip of upscale condominium conversions stretching from Clarendon Park south to Stratford Place, containing 17 precincts, with a large Jewish population. Shiller ran surprisingly well in that area. It also includes a phalanx of two-flats, smaller apartment buildings and condos in Andersonville (Foster-Ashland), Sheridan Park (Wilson-Broadway) and Buena Park (east of Graceland Cemetery).

Shiller's signature project is Wilson Yards, a mixed-use development along Broadway between Wilson Avenue and Montrose Avenue, anchored by a Target store. Two buildings, containing 178 units, are earmarked for "affordable housing," with 98 for low-income senior tenants and 80 for families, of which 79 percent must be "extremely low" income.  Phelan and her allies wanted market-value condos.

The outlook: "I've worked with everybody in the ward," said the pony-tailed Nowotny, referring to block parties, clean-ups and other city services. "It's all about quality of life."  No, said Cappleman, "It's all about not having another Helen Shiller as alderman." The gay vote will be divided, but the pro-Shiller vote won't. With three anti-Shiller aspirants, Nowotny is guaranteed a runoff spot, against either Phelan or Cappleman, and that will presage a cataclysmic clash of the "haves" and "have nots" next April.

49th Ward:  Unlike Shiller, Alderman Joe Moore has re-invented himself. Chastised by his 247-vote squeaker win in 2007, Moore, age 52, has become a service-oriented alderman, eschewing such esoteric issues as banning foie gras, withdrawing U.S. troops from the Middle East and mandating a "big box" living wage. Moore remains an adamant advocate of gun control.

"There were a lot of new people (in the ward) who didn't know me," Moore said of his close scrape. According to a study by Lakeside Development Corporation, more than 10,000 people moved into the ward from 1996 to 2006, and 40 percent of housing units are now owner-occupied. Those 6,000-plus condo-conversion buyers, with nowhere else to go, are now focused on "quality of life" issues in their ward. "They know me now," Moore claimed.

Major crime is down by 50 percent, Moore said. He conducts an annual referendum on how to spend his $1.3 million discretionary funds on projects in the ward. "We had 1,652 participants," he said. And at least twice per week Moore's office e-mails information about ward activities to 8,500 households.

The Rogers Park ward extends from the Evanston border at Howard Street south to Pratt Avenue, from Ridge Boulevard to the lake, with a sliver around Touhy and Western and another south of Pratt and east of Sheridan. Although the ward's population is 66,000, there are only 24,053 registered voters.

A protege of David Orr, who was elected county clerk in 1990 after serving as the ward's alderman for 11 years, Moore has seen his base dwindle. He got 5,842 votes in 1991, his first victory; that declined to 4,368 in 1995, to 4,122 in 1999, to 3,693 in 2003 and to 4,027 in the 2007 runoff, in which he won 24 of 42 precincts. Moore amassed only 16.7 percent of the ward's registered vote -- a serious signal of vulnerability.

From 2005 to 2007, Moore raised and spent nearly $600,000, much from the ward's condominium developers. "It was a juggernaut," said Don Gordon, a retired bank executive who nearly upset Moore. "He sent out over 150,000 pieces of mail."  Since 2007 Moore has raised $975,973, and he had cash on hand of $59,150 on July 1. Over the past 4 years Moore has been generally supportive of Daley, and he was a major sponsor of the "clean power" ordinance, which is designed to reduce emissions from two coal-fired power plants on the South Side.

The outlook: In 2007 Gordon rode a wave is dissatisfaction. Residents were "dissatisfied with the quality of their condo construction, the quality of their life in Rogers Park and the quality of city services," he said. The fact that Gordon is vacillating about a rerun telegraphs a clear message: the dissatisfaction of 2007 has diminished appreciably. Joyce Shanahan, the executive director of the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago, may run.

There is an anti-Moore base of 35 to 40 percent in the ward, but Moore, once the mouthpiece of labor unions and the scourge of the Daley "Machine," has astutely evolved. He's now the champion of property owners. He won't be beaten in 2011.