Just because you take things personally, Mayor Lightfoot, doesn’t make it all about you

The mayor may imply that there’s some nefarious motive to the opposition to her ideas. But that’s her fantasy.

SHARE Just because you take things personally, Mayor Lightfoot, doesn’t make it all about you
Mayor Lori Lightfoot presides over her first Chicago City Council meeting at City Hall, Wednesday morning, May 29, 2019.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot presides over her first Chicago City Council meeting, on May 29, 2019.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Whatever Mayor Lori Lightfoot thinks or says, when Ald. Ray Lopez suggests banning all e-cigarettes, when Ald. Brian Hopkins suggests selling marijuana downtown or when Ald. Roberto Maldonado opposes her housing plan, it’s not about her.

It’s about their communities. 

Nor was it about the mayor when I called for the delay of the appointment of James Rudyk Jr. to the Zoning Board of Appeals because he said that he considers an alderman’s opinion the same as any other citizen. 

These are not “acts of rebellion.”

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All of us are simply doing what we were elected and expected to do — represent the communities and aid the people that put us on the City Council. 

Mayor Lightfoot may think that she won because she wanted to diminish the power and voice of aldermen. In some quarters that may have been a burning issue, but I have never heard a constituent raise it. Most of us on the City Council know that what elects us is how well we represent the community’s will — sometimes in agreement with and sometimes in opposition to the current power on the 5th floor of City Hall.

Is this corruption or wrong? Absolutely not. People understand that their aldermen — who live in the community and whose address and phone numbers they know — are not ensconced behind guarded doors in City Hall. Rather, they are down the street — quite sensitive to community opinion. 

And people understand that they have recourse should their alderman not be responsive to them. Think not? Ask Pat O’Connor, Joe Moore, Millie Santiago and many more.

Each of these aldermen held a view of power as a matter of being close to “the man” in power. But as the saying goes, “all politics is local.” Their fealty and their playing to the 5th floor and not to their communities cost them their jobs.

The longest serving of the 50 aldermen know what the new ones should remember: That we are there because — and only as long as — we serve and represent the views of our constituents. 

It’s doubtful that there is a person in this city — North, West or South Side — who thinks that when they have an opinion on an issue or a problem that needs solving that their best recourse is to go to the mayor or some city department. They all know that the chances of their voice being heard by the alderman is a thousand times (being conservative) more likely. 

And that is as true now as when the 50-ward City Council was created in 1933.

It’s a plus if we get along with the person who occupies the mayor’s office. But having worked (and at times disagreed) with three mayors, I can tell you that only those aldermen whose north star is their community’s welfare deserve and win re-election.

If we had waited for things to be initiated by or to receive the blessing of Mayor Richard M. Daley or Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the neighborhoods of Pullman and Roseland never would have seen the investment of $400 million nor benefited from the services and hundreds of jobs represented in the Pullman Community Center, Walmart, Method, Gotham Greens, the Whole Foods Distribution Center or the newly established Pullman National Monument.  In fact, the former Ryerson Steel property would still be 180 abandoned acres.

Call it what you want — aldermanic prerogative. I call it aldermanic initiative and community representation.

Mayor Lightfoot may imply that there is some nefarious motive to the opposition to her ideas. But that’s her fantasy. 

The fact is, if she is looking for corruption, she might look elsewhere. While there have been 30 aldermen convicted of corruption, that is just over 5 % of the nearly 600 men and women who have served as aldermen since the 1930s. Contrast that to 1,400 municipal employees that have been convicted over the past 30 years and the four governors or former governors who have gone to jail since 1961.

Corruption may occur, but that is not the real issue for most of us.

Whether the president is Donald Trump or Barack Obama, I’ve always believed in and supported the importance of Congress as an independent legislative body. In the same vein, I believe in the separation of powers in the City of Chicago — and an independent legislative body.

It is the only way that people’s voices can be heard. It is the essence of democracy — and it’s needed in Chicago no less than in Washington or Springfield.

Anthony Beale, alderman of the 9th Ward, was first elected to the Chicago City Council in 1999.

Send letters to: letters@suntimes.com.

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