Endorsements for 2011 municipal elections.

Bring this into your local polling place and give me a few more votes.

Chicago has become a kingdom or, more like one of those Caribbean kleptocracies maybe. Mayor Daley has privatized important institutions left and right that were meant for the public good. He did so with no explanation and with the consent of a city council under his political thumb. He just mumbled and stuttered to reporters as his associates one after another took the fall for him and landed themselves in prison. He learned it from his father. He proved the angry, impulsive, privileged brat Harold Washington said he would be and we pay for it in Chicago. We literally pay for it.

What an opportunity for democracy in Chicago since our benevolent dictator decided to bail out just before his numerous mistakes hit the fan. It clearly is time for change in Chicago. Chicago needs candidates with common sense, an ability to make wise decisions and lead, and someone willing to share the decision-making process with the people of Chicago and the City Council they elect. In the end, it is time to remove the bullies from city government and give government back to the people. The bullies are there with their money and muscle, and Chicago has to block them out and force run-offs to increase democracy in a town where democracy is our only solution.

For Mayor Miguel DelValle

Miguel DelValle is like Mayor Daley in only two ways. He is a veteran of city politics. He is a loyal Democrat. He is unlike Daley in every other way imaginable. He is even-tempered (unlike Braun), open (unlike Emanuel), democratic (unlike Chico), and from the people (unlike all of the above). When it all hits the fan, DelValle is the best candidate to be sitting in the driver's seat of City Hall, mostly because he will not do everything himself.

DelValle will work with the City Council instead of forcing it to do his will. He will put cops in charge of the police department, professional educators in charge of CPS, and so on. He is the only candidate running who will not sell the City of Chicago to big business and political cronies. Rahm Emanuel and Gery Chico, the front-runners are ready to do both.

Emanuel, not even legally allowed to run for the mayor's office according to a literal interpretation of state law, managed to bully the courts through the party. He is from the very banks that precipitated our current financial crisis. Most of his millions in campaign cash comes straight from those banks and from out of town. Where one's money is, one's heart is and Rahm's heart is on Wall Street.

When he is elected, in the name of balancing the budget, Rahm will sell Chicago to the highest bidder. Public schools will be closed and corporations will be invited to build new "charter schools" that foster failed corporate mentalities. Rahm has floated the idea of putting advertising on required city stickers and on garbage trucks. Daley's parking meter deal, sale of bus stops, and leasing on the Skyway will look tame compared to whatever Rahm has planned. (It is hard to know what Emanuel wants, since he avoids the press, which, for some reason fawns over him.)The idea of public trust is foreign to Emanuel and the other front-runner Gery Chico, but the public trust is a central theme of DelValle's campaign.

See http://www.delvalleformayor.com/ for DelValle's official message.

For 45th Ward Alderman John Garrido

The 45th Ward race has become a classic in local politics. Words and lawsuits, and even bullets now are flying. Ward politics is tough, gritty, and the 45th Ward has been represented by an imperially-minded bully made for such nasty games, Pat Levar, for almost two decades.

Levar barrels through his ward like a medieval baron, physically picking on his serfs and eating everything in sight. He has made a a habit of using TIF funds set aside for schools and police protection to see to it that shady massage parlors, tattoo shops, pawn shops, and abortion clinics can go up in his working class ward. He sent his kids to private schools while the neighborhood schools starved for help. He rubber stamped everything the mayor sent him in City Council. He was a failure at keeping the streets up, but a master at selling zoning ordinances.

Levar's support was waning and so he decided to get out of the race due to health reasons. This left an open seat in the City Council and sent his opponents into overdrive. Most of these opponents were active community organizers and many had an open ear to the community's needs. Two in particular, John Garrido and John Arena promised increased democracy for a ward starving for it. Fearing the loss of their gravy train, the Democratic Machine set up an obscure union worker Marina Faz-Huppert to run in the ward. Her signatures were gathered at the last minute and many were signatures that appeared on the petitions of other candidates.

Faz-Huppert, however, has voted as recently as 2009 from a residence in Riverside. Her campaign literature until the last days of the campaign were mailed from a downtown office. Her ties to Saint Cornelius Church, a cornerstone in the community, were recent and fleeting. People saw right through this and, despite her concerted efforts to "reach out", she is seen as the machine candidate. She has spent almost a quarter million dollars of party money to send vacuous mailings daily to the voters of the ward and has been an expert at plopping signs throughout the ward. She will probably be in a run-off with one of the other candidates simply because of her machine ties and machine endorsements, but she will sink fast in the final round of voting.

John Garrido, an active Chicago Policeman and lawyer, has come out ahead as the best choice for change. He was a big vote-getter in the race for Cook County president and is a steady voice for democracy and debate in the community. Garrido is no rubber stamp for the machine or mayor and has an open ear to the community.

He has lived and worked in the 45th Ward for many years and has run a grass roots campaign that managed to find great traction despite the ward's many many years of corrupt autocracy by Levar. Garrido has fought the resulting cynicism and delivered a message of hope for the future of the 45th. He would see TIF finds go where they were intended. He will make sure the community is not left to crime by reassessing the organization of the police. He has promised a transparent aldermanic office and I can personally attest that he has the integrity and humility to see this through.

If what the news says comes down and Rahm Emanuel wins in the first round, it will be even more crucial to send an independent voice like Garrido's to City Hall.

See http://johngarrido.com/ to read up on the issues and see him in action around Jefferson Park.