Saturday, January 28, 2023

Weren't Able to Make Thursday's 46th Ward Debate? You Can Watch It Here

Earlier this week, Buena Park Neighbors sponsored a forum where five of the six candidates hoping to become the next 46th Ward alderman spoke and shared their ideas for the future of the ward.

If you couldn't make it, never fear. BPN taped the event to help residents become more informed about the issues before casting their votes.

The video can be found on BPN's website:

https://buenaparkneighbors.org/2023/01/27/buena-park-neighbors-46th-ward-aldermanic-forum-recording/

Election Day is February 28th, with early voting starting in the wards on February 13th.

7 comments:

  1. The opening statements were very revealing. It made my choice crystal clear. All five have merit. Two struck me as apparatchiks (like our congresswoman). Two others seemed more focused on ideology than on humanity. Only Roushaunda Williams stood out for me.

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    1. I watched it and agree. I'll probably vote for one of the apparatchiks, but Williams was clearly the most interesting as a person.

      Then again if I want anything done then policy wonks and apparatchiks aren't a bad way to go.

      If I want stalemate and watching nothing done, but many press releases and woke statements I'd vote for Clay or the Ginger Menace.

      Actually, with a gun to my head I wouldn't vote for Lalonde. I don't like election deniers.

      https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/05/07/ald-james-cappleman-officially-re-elected-after-marianne-lalonde-ends-recount/

      "We may never be able to know the true winner of this election," Lalonde said.







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    2. Only Lalonde warned against Pipeline's technique of bankruptcy restructuring, working with Greg Harris and Sara Feigenholtz to try to ensure that our community and our hospital was protected. But Ald. Cappleman knew what he wanted, and he did little to ensure that concerns of the 10,000 residents who live in the area around the hospital were addressed.

      If you are troubled by election deniers, Irish Pirate, take a long, honest look at the outgoing alder's record regarding the sale and development of Weiss Hospital's last expansion land by Pipeline Health, an out-of-state private equity firm that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars over its brief tenure in Illinois. The bankruptcy transcripts for Westlake Hospital show that Pipeline knowingly lied to state regulators.

      But Ald. Cappleman, Uptown United, and the city planning department went out of their way during the pandemic, when a lot of people in this community were suffering and distracted, to ensure that Pipeline could sell off prime lakefront land in our neighborhood without working with neighbors to do the best possible thing with that land.

      https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/06/22/plan-to-turn-weiss-hospital-parking-lot-into-apartments-is-alive-again-after-aldermans-committee-changes-vote/








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    3. You want to make Pipeline’s sale of an underutilized asphalt parking lot into a conspiracy that involved wasting tax dollars. It was a parking lot that was sold and 100% of the proceeds helped with the hospital’s current programming. Weiss was sold to Resilience Healthcare, and the proceeds from the sale of the asphalt parking lot ARE STILL BENEFITING the hospital’s programming.

      What you don’t mention is that the sale of this asphalt parking lot allowed for a $3.1M contribution to Sarah’s Circle’s 28 units of 100% affordable housing for women earning between 0 - 30% of the AMI. Lalonde continued to make the claim that the funds from the in-lieu fee weren’t needed because Sarah’s Circle’s funding gap could be filled using Affordable Housing Opportunity Funds (AHOF). And that’s correct…. AHOH could have been used to fill this gap, but that would mean another 100% affordable housing development somewhere else in the City that didn’t have TIF or in-lieu funds available could not get built. That’s because the funds from AHOF are not limitless like you and Lalonde would want others to believe. We must use these funds in a judicious manner.

      The lack of affordable housing is a crisis across this country and across Chicago, and the Dept. of Housing, the Dept. of Planning and Development, and I are committed to addressing it with the use of evidence-based, best practices so that we can provide affordable housing to as many people as possible across Chicago. The kicker is that if we don’t build more of any type of housing, developers will go after our naturally occurring affordable housing and upgrade those apartments without the need for an upzone, which means the ARO won’t kick in. Less than 2% of the City’s affordable housing comes from the ARO; the vast majority of the City’s affordable housing comes from our naturally occurring affordable housing (60%). We can’t afford to lose more of it.

      Like it or not, there really is a law of supply and demand when it comes to housing. Not building will end up making area rents go up; not down, and many research studies have documented this. You and others can make the claim that the new developments in the area have high vacancy rates, but that claim does not coincide with the facts. Simply put, developers must provide verifiable data to prove to their lender that the demand is there. After the 2008 mortgage lending crisis, banks are very cautious about giving out mortgage loans.

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    4. The loss of the parking lot is a loss for the Neighborhood. For the Republic. For humanity. For the known and unknown universe.

      I've been around Uptown since Christ was a corporal--that's a long time. EVERY time some vacant lot or building gets developed the whining begins.

      Often times it's from the homeless advocate lefties, but it can also come from the selfish NIMBYS who hide their narcissism behind pretty words about architectural integrity or yada yada yada.

      Now I'm sorry the Capplemaniac is retiring, but if his successor is 1/4 as good as he's been we'll have the best alderman in the city. Sadly, while that's good it's not saying much because most alderman are about as useful as a Trump family member on cocaine.

      28 units of housing for homeless woman is SOMETHING. It's a BIG SOMETHING. I only hope that the new alderman works with Thorek to sell of or develop some of their parking lots.

      I await the whining from some folks in Buena Park.

      As for Lalonde she could have publicly accepted the results of the election. She came damn close to winning and possibly stifling development in this ward for a generation. Thankfully the center held.

      It's going to hold this time too and I hope she moves on afterward to peddle her agenda somewhere else.

      I'll be pedaling my unicycle while dressed as a Leprechaun at the St. Pat's Parade. Watch for me.

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  2. I've been getting mailings non-stop from a candidate, Ms. K, and finally read her literature. "will do more to help those falling through the cracks, like sending social workers on 911 distress calls"...helping the unhoused fine permanent homes."
    It amazes me how candidates don't even talk anymore about jobs, economic development, lowering property taxes. It seems they're laser focused on those who don't vote (the homeless & mentally ill) instead of those who do work and want lower taxes, more businesses, more jobs. What happened to those goals?

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