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2nd Ward Candidates Forum

Sponsored by Carl Sandburg Village Homeowners Association

Thursday, January 15, 2015, 7:30 to 9:00 p.m.

Latin School Auditorium

Moderator: Greg Hinz, Crain’s Chicago Business

2nd Ward Aldermanic Candidates: Bita Buenrostro

Brian Hopkins

Steve Niketopoulos

Alyx Pattison

Stacey Pfingston

Cornell Wilson

GREG HINZ: OK, everybody, let’s get settled. We’re going to get started in just a second here.

My name is Greg Hinz. In my day job, I work for Crain’s Chicago Business as a

political writer, and on behalf of the Sandburg Village Association, thank you all

for coming out on what’s a little better of a night, but still not a perfect one. I

think on behalf of all of us collectively, I’d also like to send my thanks to former

Alderman Dick Mell and his cartographic crew at City Hall for developing a ward

that is truly incredible for mixing a place beginning in front of a wall

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] comparison. There was a map out front, for those of you

who are in our ward that aren’t aware that this ward, this ward goes all the way

down from the Water Tower Place up here, that snakes over the river, picks up

Ukrainian Village, parts of Bucktown, a few other things, the Clybourn Corridor,

then it snakes back down, picking up a little more of the Ukrainian Village, then it

ends up at Chicago and Oakley, about, if you trace it the long way, about five

miles along the way. It is truly an impossible piece of real estate, and why any of

these people are running for the job to represent it, I don’t quite understand, but

then, hey, that makes politics. We have a predetermined speaking order which

we’ll follow a little later – there was a drawing – but in the meantime, let me

introduce the candidates who’ll have, say something about it, so you know who

they are. OK [UNINTELLIGIBLE], first candidate is Cornell Wilson, nice to

meet you, sir. He’s an attorney and a Marine Corps veteran. Then we have Stacey

Pfingston, who has worked for not one but two aldermen, Bob Fioretti and Scott

Waguespack, and says her career is community advocate. Alyx Pattison is an

attorney. She used to work for Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. Steve

Niketopoulos is from the Ukrainian Village part of the ward. He has been active

in the Ukrainian Village Association; he is an educational TV producer. Brian

Hopkins is Chief of Staff to Cook County Commissioner John Daley, Mayor

Daley’s brother, and gets to work by bike, which I like. And Bita Buenrostro has

surely the most unusual story as to how she got here. She’s a native of Iran, came

here via Sweden. She’s been active in a variety of things. She’s an executive with

a restaurant management company, and she’s married to a Chicago police officer.

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So, with no further ado, we will let these guys tell you a little bit about

themselves. Our format for the night is each candidate will have three minutes to

introduce themselves, then we’ll take some questions that I will put to the entire

crew, then we’ll take some questions a little later; if you want to ask individual

candidates specific questions, you’ll be able to do that. The first candidate to

speak is Mr. Wilson. Come on up, sir.

CORNELL WILSON: OK. All right, first, thank you, Carl Sandburg Village, for making this happen.

Thank you, Greg, for agreeing to host and moderate this. Thank you all for

braving the cold weather to come out and hear us talk. This is one of several

events that we’ve done, and we’ll keep going, so you get a chance to hear us say a

version of the same thing three or four more times. But, I’m Cornell Wilson. As

Greg mentioned earlier, I humbly request your support for 2nd Ward alderman. As

he mentioned, I’m a Marine Corps veteran. I joined after 9/11, I served four

years’ active duty. I was deployed, stationed at Okinawa, Japan. I was deployed to

Iraq in 2007 as a platoon commander. I led forty Marines and sailors across Al

Anbar Province. I deployed once again to Djibouti, Africa, where I worked with

civil affairs teams to help build schools, build hospitals, deliver medicine, deliver

veterinary supplies for the livestock. I’m still in the Reserves. I serve with the

Great Lakes Naval Station as their logistics officer at Marine Wing

Communications Squadron 48, and I’ll be promoted to Major this spring, so that

can’t come soon enough for a nice little boost in the paycheck. As Greg

mentioned, once I got off active duty, I applied to Northwestern Law School, got

accepted, and that’s what originally brought me to the city. I was born in Camp

Lejeune in North Carolina, because my dad was on active duty as well. So, I came

to Northwestern, I fell in love with the school, fell in love with the city. It was the

best decision my ma ever made for me, to tell me to accept Northwestern, because

I didn’t know anything about it, and I came here intending to stay. I’ve lived in

the River North area for the past six years, and I work downtown for a small,

medium-sized firm, Ondrick and Harris, love them to death, and now I want to

transition to public service. Why? Because I believe in service. Just like when I

joined the Marine Corps, I had a plethora of options for me after graduating

college, but I wanted to serve my country, just like my dad did – he was in

Kuwait when I was graduating – and I wanted to learn the skills and leadership

necessary to be a Marine. I did that, I took away valuable life lessons, loved it,

and then transitioned to leadership skills. And now, “leadership”: what does that

mean to me? It simply means doing the things that you ask of your men to do for

you. There are times you have to go into combat and you say, “Young man, or

woman, I need you to go that way,” and you cannot ask anyone to do that without

leading by example, leading from the front, and taking responsibility on your

own. As a Northwestern Law grad, I’ve learned things about delving deep into the

law, understanding critical statutes, how they affect other levels of law, whether

city, state or federal levels, and the research skills honed there, and the policy

skills that were once again invaluable. I was a managing editor for the Journal of

Law and Social Policy, where I developed policy chops, reviewed documents

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from peers and professors who wanted to get published, and, once again, it just

really shaped who I am and what I want to do. So, I want to bring that to bear on

our city government. We have challenges in front of us. They require straight talk,

they require leadership, they require a commitment to learning the law and

pushing it forward in the best way possible, in service to you, the citizens. So, I

won’t use up all my time, because it can get boring at some point, but I hope you

will strongly consider me. I, once again, I humbly ask for your support. I want to

be your next 2nd Ward Alderman. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Thank you. The next candidate to speak is Brian Hopkins.

BRIAN HOPKINS: Good evening, everyone. My name is Brian Hopkins, and thank you, Greg Hinz,

for your services as a moderator tonight, and to the Sandburg Village Association,

and to Marcie Johnson especially for organizing this. As candidates, the six of us

agree on some things. One thing that we do agree on is that we are grateful to

have an opportunity to talk to a roomful of interested citizens and voters. That’s

what we’ve been trying to do separately and together for a number of months

now, and this is … I’ve lost track. How many forums have we had now? Six?

Five? Whatever. Would that be six more to go. So, we’ve so far been very

grateful for every opportunity that we’ve had to do this, so I want to thank the

organizers, and thank you all for being here tonight. A little bit about myself: as

Mr. Hinz mentioned, I have been Chief of Staff to John Daley, the Cook County

Commissioner, who chairs the Finance Committee. I’m currently on a leave of

absence from that position, but that is a position that I held for 20 years in Cook

County government. I started out as a budget analyst for the county, had the

privilege recently for the last four years of working under the leadership of Toni

Preckwinkle, who is a woman that I’ve learned a tremendous amount of as far as

public budgeting and public finance is concerned. Prior to that, I worked for

Dawn Clark Netsch, who was the state senator from this area. Many of you

who’ve been here for quite some time remember Dawn Clark Netsch, and what a

great leader she was. I had the privilege of working on her campaign when she ran

for governor, and I believe to this day we would be residents of a dramatically

different state if Dawn Clark Netsch had been elected governor when she ran for

that position in the ’90s, and I was fortunate enough to work for her and I learned

a great deal from her as well. Prior to that, I was the Director of the Illinois

Coalition for the Homeless. I worked on homeless rights legislation. I was proud

to have played a role in passing the first homeless voting rights act in the nation.

That’s something that every state in the country has since emulated in one form or

another, but we led the way here in Illinois, and that’s something that I’m very

proud of to this day. I have a degree in Political Science. I graduated from the

University of Illinois at Springfield, and shortly after that went to work for the

Illinois Senate. So I have a vast amount of government experience, but that really

isn’t why I stand before you today, and that isn’t why I believe that I’m the most

qualified candidate in this race. I’m running for a job because I want to do the job,

and, as a matter of fact, I’ve been doing the job for at least 16 years now. Like

many of you, I’m from a community of high-rises. I’ve represented my

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neighborhood, Streeterville, which isn’t very far from here, and I’ve lived in a

high-rise for over 16 years. That is a certain lifestyle that we all understand. We

chose that lifestyle, we chose to live in a vibrant urban environment, and we chose

a high-rise lifestyle as a matter of convenience. That’s very important to us. That

convenience is under siege right now in this neighborhood. We have some

development issues that I know the people here are very familiar with; we’ll

probably talk a little bit about that tonight. That is something that I’ve worked on

in Streeterville for over 16 years. I have worked with developers to try and

mitigate the negative effects of high-rise development in a high-rise community,

things like traffic congestion, things like ingress and egress and trash pick-up and

noise and all the things that we believe threaten the convenient lifestyle that we as

high-rise dwellers cherish. In addition to that, I’ve been a leader in the fight

against mandatory sprinkler ordinances. I fought to protect the refuse rebate,

which we are now in the process of losing. I think that’s a gross unfairness to the

residents who live in a high-rise building. You know, we’re told that our rights as

condo homeowners are not as important as the rights of single-family

homeowners. That is absolutely ridiculous. That is something that I have fought

vehemently against while I was President of S.O.A.R. [Streeterville Organization

of Active Residents], and it’s something that I pledge to continue fighting if you

choose me as your next alderman. I stand here before you today as someone who,

as I’ve said, has done the job of representing a community of high-rises for a

number of years, and I’m proud to put my qualifications out there today, and I

hope to earn your vote as the next alderman of the 2nd Ward. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Bita.

BITA BUENROSTRO: I hope you guys can hear me. I hope you’re not tired of all us thanking you all

night long for being here. Thank you for being here. Thank you, I’m sure. Thank

you. So, thank you again for being here. I personally think this is an amazing

right, to be able to stand in front of you and speak without being stoned. I’ll tell

you in a minute why. I was born in Iran. Because of the revolution, my family

was forced to be political refugees to Sweden. My father was executed for

standing up and speaking his mind, so to me it’s very dear and important that I

can actually stand here and speak to you. So, when I was 19, I got a scholarship to

come to Chicago to Northwest [sic] University, and I took it. Here I was, 30

dollars in my pocket, and barely spoke any English. As a matter of fact, I knew

two phrases: “It’s OK,” and “I’m sorry.” And it got me far. In 2004 I became an

American citizen. I took that to heart. I will spend the rest of my life to thank

America for giving me a flag to be proud of, and to give me a city to call home,

and for that, I will always work to make a difference. So as I was telling you my

story, I am a self-made, successful businesswoman that is an executive in

restaurant corporation that manages three successful restaurants. Service is in my

blood. That’s why I’m qualified. Because don’t let anybody kid yourself, don’t

kid yourself, this is a service-oriented job. It doesn’t matter what political group –

Democrat or Republican – you need your garbage picked. Right? You need the

Chicago police officers to be on the street. When 9/11 happened, nobody asked if

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you were Republican or Democrat. Everybody helped. I am qualified for this job,

because as someone who came with 30 dollars in their pocket, and made it and

became successful, I know what it’s like to be in charge of a budget. Being

responsible for 150 families, and those Christmases, it’s not an easy job. I created

neighborhood watch. My husband being a Chicago police officer, safety is very

close to my heart. I just was endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police and the

sergeant union group because they believed I was the candidate who’s going to

fight for the safety of our ward. Budgeting? Let’s face it, if I didn’t know how to

budget, I wouldn’t be in the restaurant business for 19 years. Because, how I look

at it, the constituents of this ward are just like customers. If the customers were

unhappy and they didn’t come back, I wouldn’t have three successful restaurants.

Unfortunately, you are kind of a hostage in this situation. For you to move and not

come back, it’s a big deal. But nevertheless, I believe you guys are paying too

much taxes, and you need to be taken and listened to. My job is to listen to you

and respond to you.

GREG HINZ: Your time, Bita.

BITA BUENROSTRO: Thank you. Sorry about that. I like people.

GREG HINZ: Steve Niketopoulos.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: All right, and one more time, thank you very much to everybody for being here

tonight, to Marcie and Greg for their help. So, I’m Steve Niketopoulos, This new

2nd Ward, as we’ve been talking about, stretches two and a half miles wide, all the

way down the spine of North Avenue to Ukrainian Village. Some people are a

little confused: they think it stretches all the way to Iowa. It doesn’t go that far,

but it does include a series of different neighborhoods, and one of the things that I

have had the most success at working between different neighborhoods and

uniting the idea for how to improve each other’s neighborhood, coordinating with

neighborhood associations, police departments, CAPS [Chicago Alternative

Policing Strategy] offices, and different wards. So, in some ways I was identified

as someone who should be considered running for alderman, so I am asking for

your vote, but it’s because I have a lot of experience in actually unifying

neighborhoods. The reason not only that I’m running for this ward is because I

live in the ward, but also because I see that this is a very specific issue of multiple

neighborhoods that we need to make sure that we have equal city services for

everybody across the whole way. In addition to that, I’ve gotten very familiar

with a lot of the things that have been going on here. I was in this room with most

of you, most likely, when we were talking about the redevelopment in the

building next to Germania, so I know some of the issues. I know that the majority

of the [James/Kilmer] condo association voted for it, but I did see that there was

some people that didn’t want to see that building come up. What I try to do is just

make sure that neighbors find a way to find that common thread to work together

on whatever the contentious issue is, but also stay educated, so I’ve built a

network of online communities. I’ve written newsletters. What I think is the most

important thing is to make sure everybody stays connected on what the issues are

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so that not only your representatives know how you feel, but also your neighbors

can all work together on some of the common problems. Now, my wife is a

teacher in Old Town, so I come to this area very often. I also want to mention I

have an extensive history of working with nonprofits and social service agencies.

As a TV producer, over the years I’ve done a number of series and hosted a series

of different TV shows on domestic violence, education, policy work for women’s

shelters. I’m happy to announce that this morning I was actually endorsed by the

Chicago chapter of the National Organization of [sic] Women, specifically

because of the amount of advocacy work that I’ve done. So, I try to look at what

the common issues are, where the education needs to go, and figure out ways to

unite people to work together for crime prevention and community building. I’m

very interested in this ward, and I think I know a way to make it so that everybody

feels lucky to be living in this ward, not disenfranchised because of the way it was

very undemocratically designed. So with that, I ask for your consideration as

alderman for the 2nd Ward. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Stacey Pfingston.

STACEY PFINGSTON: Good evening. It’s so great to be here among friends and the Sandburg Village

Association. I thank you, too, Marcie and Judy [Barnes]. It’s good that you’re

sitting right together. I appreciate you putting this event on tonight. I’m Stacey

Pfingston, candidate for 2nd Ward alderman. I formerly was working in the 2nd

Ward office as the Director for Community Outreach Constituent Services, and

that just developed my passion for serving constituents and taking care of your

needs, whether it was potholes or rat abatement or problem-solving on how we’re

going to alley and garbage pick-up along with delivering services to the residents.

I fell in love with the job. It has become my passion, serving you. You know, it’s,

many hours, it’s a long, hard job, 18 hours a day, some days. Always on the job,

even on weekends, and I love it. My background started with growing up on a

small farm about two hours south of here, Crescent City, Illinois, daughter of a

farmer. My mom ran our Cook County – sorry, Iroquois County Elections

Department of 18 years. And from them, especially my father, I learned the value

of a good, honest work ethic, from my mother, the value of good public service. I

went to Eastern Illinois University, where I received my bachelor’s degree in

design. Came up here almost immediately. I think I stayed home one night,

moved up here and have been here 18 years since. I live in the Gold Coast

neighborhood, I’m a neighbor to the Carl Sandburg Village, I’m right at Dearborn

and Goethe, and that was one of the best decisions I made. I really love the

community I live in. I started getting involved in community about 15 years ago,

and actually a gentleman that has a lot to do with that is here tonight: that’s John

Moore in the audience, a Sandburg Village resident; we befriended each other at

the L stop, Red Line stop. He told me about [UNINTELLIGIBLE] in Medinah

Temple were going to go, be torn down for a large high-rise development. All of a

sudden I joined him and a group of people, and we worked together to save that

building so that didn’t happen. That propelled me to want to study historic

preservation at the School of the Art Institute. From there I have been working in

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our communities for over seven years, advocating on behalf of our historic spaces

and places throughout Chicago. Actually, the building right across from us, two

buildings, Germania Club and the Village Theater, while working for Preservation

Chicago, we advocated for those to become Chicago landmarks. So, working in

communities, you know, politics is local, and you want better people to be

running for your representatives, you work with aldermen to save your historic

resources, you want transparent, good government that’s going to be for the

people and not special interests. That’s what got me into politics, working on

behalf of, you know, certain neighborhoods and buildings got me wanting to get

more role in politics. I started working on campaigns to get better leaders in

office; Alderman Waguespack, who has endorsed my candidacy. Working on his

campaign, seeing what he could be in [the Chicago City] Council, being an

independent voice, has inspired me to want to be alderman. I would love more

than anything to have your support. I know this job very well. I have experience. I

can hit the ground running. I will run a transparent, accessible and communicative

office for you. I will be your independent voice to bring your interests and no one

else’s, due to my background in community outreach and development and

preservation. I’ve seen neighborhoods become battlegrounds, and I’ve seen

developers want to take over communities. I will not let that happen. I will make

sure your voice is heard. I am not going to be accepting developer dollars, either

my campaign or when I’m in office. So I’m truly here to serve you and your

needs. I hope to have your support on October [sic] 24th. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: And, last but not least, Alyx Pattison.

ALYX PATTISON: Good evening, everybody. Thanks again, Sandburg Village. Marcie and Judy:

thank you both. Thanks, Greg, for being here tonight. Thank you all for being

here tonight. I know we’re going to probably talk about some issues tonight: rats

and potholes and things that maybe aren’t the sexiest issues, but I think it’s

actually a really beautiful thing that you’re all here. Participation in democracy is

key and critical, and I love being here and I’m thankful you’re all here tonight to

[UNINTELLIGIBLE]. So I want to tell you a little bit about who I am in order for

you to understand what drives me and why I want to be your alderman, and it’s

very personal. I am the quintessential “nobody nobody sent.” I moved to this city

17 years ago not knowing a single soul, and I moved here to work for a member

of Congress because I wanted to see change and I wanted to be a part of that, and

I, you know, I was 23 at the time and I’m 40 now, but I haven’t changed much.

I’m a pragmatic idealist, and I believe that when good people work together, that

it can make a difference in the lives of their neighbors and in the heart of the city,

and I’m a believer in that, and I, that’s something that I’m going to fight for as

your alderman, but it comes from a very personal place for me. I was raised by a

single mom and we struggled, and we, you know, I was always sort of critically

aware that we were on the edge, and I come from a working-class community, it’s

a mining town in Utah that, 6,000 people worked at a copper mine, 4,000 of them

were laid off all at once, so I’ve seen devastation in a community, economic

devastation. And there were times the government was there for me, whether it

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was, a couple times, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] off food stamps, or, you know,

reduced school lunch later when my mom got on her feet, and then later, Pell

grants or the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the reason I tell you that is because I

am somebody who believes in the power of government to help people, and to set

the table for all of us to be a success, and that’s, you know, profits for business or

that’s all of us, you know, having a good education for our kids, and so that’s,

those are the values that drive me and make me want to be here for all of you. I

have served, been an advocate as a lawyer and as a congressional aide, and I have,

I think I have a lot of experience in a lot of different sectors, whether it’s on

Capitol Hill drafting legislation to help people or on complex, large pieces of

litigation that have given me the background to look at the city’s budget and, you

know, toxic contracts, toxic rate swaps, CPS bond deals. I have litigated cases that

have prepared me to look at that and be an effective steward of all of your dollars

when I get to City Council. And I also fight for people. I’ve won asylum for

women from Middle Eastern countries who have been, you know, the victims of

or potentially victims of honor killing, and that’s what I’ll bring to the table for all

of you, whether it’s about potholes or it’s about our schools, you will have an

advocate in me, and that’s what I am, is a trained advocate, so we’ll get to know

each other a little better over the course of the night. Again, I appreciate all of you

being here. Thank you for that, and I’d love to have your vote on February 24.

Thank you.

GREG HINZ: OK. I’ve looked through the questions that were submitted. A little bit later I’m

going to ask people in the audience if they want to raise their hand and pose

specific questions to specific candidates, but for now we’ll give everybody a

chance to have at it. This first one, it’s going to be two minutes to answer. I’d like

to start at this end, just go straight across, state who you are, please. Use the

microphones that are in front of you; just pass them around. So we’ll start with

you, Cornell, and the first question is, it’s very clear, in looking through the

questions, that there’s a lot of concern in this portion of the ward about

development issues, some big projects pending, some controversy over them.

What is your general sense as to whether there’s room for more development in

the ward or whether in some ways you think it’s kind of reached its capacity, and

two, more importantly, how are you going to, what’s your decision-making

process going to be, how are you going to reach decisions as to whether to

approve or not approve proposals that are pending? Sir. Two minutes each,

please.

CORNELL WILSON: All right. First, let’s talk about the ward itself. If you haven’t had a chance to look

at the map, you know that this is a very various ward in terms of geography.

You’ve got the west end of the ward, where there’s more two-, three-story homes,

and you have the central part of the ward, which is a planned manufacturing

district, where you have the old Finkl steel plant along the north Clybourn

Corridor, and you have the east side of the ward, which is primarily more high-

rises, much more urban development to it. So the first thing I’m going for is to

understand that this is a ward with three fairly distinct sections, and you have to

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develop a plan with each of those sections. Each side will have different needs,

will have different goals, will have different ideas about what their ward will look

like. We did a forum just last week with the Wicker Park community, and it was

in the Wicker Park Lutheran Church, and you saw that across from that church

was homes. You go to my church, you go to Fourth Presbyterian, and you’ll see

across the street is the Hancock building. So they’re vastly different, and so we

have to work with the community groups and individual citizens to ensure that

development in each part of the ward matches what those citizens want. So, to

answer the question, let’s talk about process. My process is: any developer that

wants to come into the ward with a new idea, they must get buy-in from the

citizens around there. They must work with them, they must have a plan and, just

like we’re up here today presenting ourselves before you, asking for your support,

they need to come around and do the same thing. I’ll say that there are other

groups that have ideas about what they want those sections to look like, like North

Branch Works, and they have a plan. They have a plan for that entire area, and

those are things that I get behind, I can support, because they say, well, this is

what we will do for a regional plan, not just, I’m putting my building down and

I’m not being concerned with the rest of the citizens. So, that’s my answer for it,

is making sure that it identifies with the needs of the neighborhood and is

responsive to those citizens that live there.

GREG HINZ: Thank you. Stacey?

STACEY PFINGSTON: Thank you, Greg. My approach to development will be community life

development. For my background with historic preservation and working in one

of the neighborhoods, I’m very sensitized to new development coming in. I think

it’s great for economic purposes, but we need to make sure it’s going to fit within

our historic framework of many of our neighborhoods. We have a lot of historic

neighborhoods throughout this “New 2.” And so I will also meet with the

respective neighborhood groups and the residents will have several community

meetings on this, and it will start with you and your thoughts, and also we will do

growth plans 5, 10, 25 years out so we know not only how the developments are

going to affect our communities today, but we’ll look and see what is our vision,

you know, in the future? How do we want to grow? You know, there’s talk of

many high-rise density developments coming in, almost on a weekly basis now,

and I think the “New 2,” especially, is being affected by that, and so I think

putting plans in place, putting visions, our ideas down, or how we want to grow,

and how we want to be in the future from now, I think that’s going to be very

important that we have a plan in place, as well. And again, the community will

have a voice. I only will start with community, I’m not taking developer dollars or

special-interest dollars. I feel that I need to be making fair-minded decisions with

you in mind, and I don’t want to have paid influence. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Alyx?

ALYX PATTISON: So, I think the starting point for any development in the ward has to be where it’s

being located, right? On the west side of the ward, the very far west side of the

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ward, we have a real problem with quickly built, shoddy construction that I have

since learned is called “lipstick construction”: it looks gorgeous on the inside but

it’s got a lot of issues on the outside, and we as a city are not regulating that well.

Something like a [UNINTELLIGIBLE] place that water literally seeps into. So

those are issues that I’ll be sensitive to on the west side. Then you have the central

section of the ward where there’s likely to be a lot of development. What that is

going to be remains to be seen, but in the Clybourn Corridor, that planned

manufacturing district, we know that Finkl is leaving, we know that several

companies are leaving, there’s going to be at least 42 acres of 115 acres available

for development, so it’s a different question, and over here it’s a different

question, too. I would start with, largely, like the process you all

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] for the development on the corner. There are going to have

to be a lot of community meetings, developers are going to have to come to you

and get buy-in, and whatever they do in a neighborhood, it’s going to have to be

collaborative and respectful of what’s already there. As far as what I intend to do

as alderman, two things. First, I want to have a neighborhood bill of rights, so

there’s an expectation for how developers treat all of you, and Alderman Tunney

has a great – if you go to my website, you can see it under “Development” – he

has a checklist that he gave us permission to cite that requires that developers do

things like: they can’t start construction except after certain hours, they have to

stop before a certain hour, they have to shovel sidewalks, they have to keep the

porta-potties out of alleys. There are a lot of ways we can control developers’

impact on your life, on your daily lives, and I intend to do that as an alderman.

GREG HINZ: Wrap it up, please.

ALYX PATTISON: OK. The last thing I would say is it’s not just a neighborhood issue; it’s also a city

issue. We have to be cognizant that when new properties go up, that adds to our

property tax rolls, and we have to be aware that it’s an economic issue. We can

talk more about that.

GREG HINZ: Steve.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: All right. Thank you very much. Don’t want to lose my name plate so you don’t

forget who I am. OK, well, this is easy. It’s all about accessibility. The whole

point of what I’m trying to do with my office is be a very accessible alderman. It

should be very easy to come and talk to me about any of the development plans

that are coming up. What makes the most sense to me is: does the neighborhood

want it, OK? And does it have an accountable plan? Now with the Germania, next

to the Germania, across the street, you know, I know how hard it was to

coordinate all these community meetings, I know how hard it was for the condo

association to do that. You know, when I was in here – you see developers do

their presentations – I remember specifically a big projection behind me up on

this stage with just a whole bunch of cars, trying to suggest how many cars the

building would add to the traffic issues. That’s one of the issues that people are

worried about here, so you have to pay attention to what specifically the problem

could, the building could create with each intersection. Early this week I was at

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the Zoning Committee meeting for the Gold Coast Jewel projects right down

Clark Street, and one of the things that kept coming up was that people wanted to

see that redevelopment because it’s such a, kind of a sketchy corner, a blighted

street. So you see people want projects for different reasons, but does the

neighborhood want it and does it make sense? So you have to take the time to get

to know everybody, to talk about how it is affecting the different condo

associations and make sure the developer plays by the rules. I also am not

thinking you need developer money, I don’t feel like I need to, at any point in my

career, compromise any of my decisions by taking developer money. It doesn’t

mean that I ostracize developers, it just means that I don’t necessarily their money

to make my own mind up.

GREG HINZ: Brian.

BRIAN HOPKINS: This community has been victimized. You were victimized by the map in a

process that led to what we now call the “2nd Ward geography.” It was done

behind closed doors, it was done without community input, and we all have to live

with it. And this community has been victimized by a similar process that no one

is satisfied with. I’ve heard from the developers and I’ve heard from the residents,

and even the residents that are somewhat satisfied with the outcome, and even the

developers that seem to be getting most if not all of what they want, I do not feel

that the process that led us here was fair, was open, was transparent and was

organized. Getting a roomful of people together and then going ahead and doing

what you want to do isn’t community input. It’s really more of a charade than

anything, and it sometimes comes down to leadership. I believe that was lacking

in the process. This is something that I’ve been involved in for a number of years

in Streeterville, this is one of the reasons that I’m running for alderman, I’ve done

this before. The interests of developers and the interests of the residents generally

are not in tandem, at least at the beginning of the process, but there’s common

ground that can be found. The only way you’re going to find it, though, is with an

open, fair and transparent process that someone has to lead, someone has to

organize, and someone has to be there to steward the process through to a

conclusion. That is my pledge to you: if I’m elected as your alderman, when a

developer comes with an idea, and they will – we’re not going to stop developers

from coming up with ideas, even in areas that are already over-developed, like

arguably this community is now; there will be proposals, there will be ideas –

what I won’t do is tell the developer go ahead, just go run loose in the community

and make deals or make promises that you may or may not keep, and then come

back to me later on in the process and we’ll fill a room with people and see what

happens. That is unacceptable. A good development plan starts with a plan, and a

plan has to be detailed on a block-by-block basis. When I was President of

S.O.A.R., we oversaw a neighborhood development plan that was written by the

residents, and after that plan was done, we took it to the development community

and we said this is what we want, this is what the neighborhood would like to see.

If you as a developer have an idea that’s congruent with this, please come to us

with it; you’ll likely find a receptive audience. That’s the way to do it. It’s to start

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off working in partnership. It doesn’t have to be as contentious and as

controversial as we’ve seen recently in this neighborhood. There’s a better way to

do it, and as your alderman, I promise to bring that method to you.

GREG HINZ: Bita.

BITA BUENROSTRO: All right, we all know how the map looks like: it’s ugly. It was resolved out of a

political and personal feud, and I don’t ever want you, the constituents, to suffer

for that. One of the most important jobs an alderman has is to protect the character

of our neighborhood. Now, how do I do that? By listening to you. That’s my job. I

will be leading the conversation, and I have to make sure you guys that pay the

taxes, you are the one that keeps this neighborhood going, have to be happy with

what’s going on. We have to get the safety under control, we have to get the

traffic issue under control, we have … I am not a traffic engineer, but I’ll promise

you this: I will get the best one available just to make sure the density of this

neighborhood is what you expect. It’s not your fault that this map was drawn like

this. As the alderman, my job is to protect the character of your neighborhood.

I’m going to take it one step further, though. There is a lot of, many abandoned

building in this neighborhood, and the owners, which are usually banks, are

taking tax credit and getting money refunded to them because they can. One of

the things I will do, as your alderman, I will make sure that no building goes

down without a proper plan and the financial support that they need to move on.

There is no way that a building is going to stay abandoned in my ward for that

long of a time without being looked at. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Just let me hammer something out, I think I know the answer. Is there anyone on

the, anyone up here, who is accepting campaign contributions from developers or

developers’ representatives? You are. OK, any particular reason why?

CORNELL WILSON: Mine was the son of a developer, he’s not actually a developer himself. I just want

to be fully honest. He helped get a room for a fund-raiser, so, not actual money.

GREG HINZ: You?

ALYX PATTISON: I have accepted money. It’s a campaign. I believe that they have the right to

support whoever they’re going to support, and I think actually they’ve supported

several of us in the race, but I’ll leave it to them. I’ve never actually had that

conversation with any of them about any of the issues they’re interested in.

GREG HINZ: Brian?

BRIAN HOPKINS: I have accepted developer money. It’s a relatively small percentage of the total

amount of support that I’ve received. My number one campaign contributor is my

mother, and she’s not a developer, and one of the developers that’s contributed to

me most recently came to Streeterville several years ago when I was President of

S.O.A.R. with a development proposal which we promptly rejected out of hand. It

wasn’t right for the community, and we told him that. I haven’t asked him

specifically why he supports me for alderman today, but I believe the reason is he

felt it was a fair process that was in place, he trusted my judgment, and he thinks

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I’ll be a good alderman. I think that’s the reason why all the contributors, whether

they’re developers or whoever they may be, have supported my candidacy.

GREG HINZ: Let’s move to a different subject. Whoever gets elected alderman is going to have

to deal with one heck of a pension problem in the City of Chicago. The pension

sum is literally eating up the budget. The first deal that was reached recently by

the Mayor hasn’t yet resulted in a property tax increase but probably will. The

reason you’re paying more cell phone tax or any kind of phone tax starting

January 1st is to pay the city’s portion of that arrangement, yet the call is a

settlement for the police and fire funds unless current law is changed. The City of

Chicago, come next January 1st, will have to put in an additional $450 million a

year, which is an awful lot of money, even in Chicago, so we’re going to start

with Bita and work our way down, a minute and a half each on this: In general,

what would you do on a pension plan, and are you making any promises in terms

of tax hikes you will or will not support?

BITA BUENROSTRO: That’s a very good question. My husband being a Chicago police officer, I am

very in tune with that problem. This is a ticking bomb. This is something, the

issue was not created last year. This is an issue that has been created over 20

years, at least. These are the men and women that we made promises to, and we

need to keep that promise. With a new hire and new union employees, we can

reform a pension plan. The people that have made a promise and paid into this

obligation, they need to be respected and they cannot be violated. Starting by

being to pledge to you tonight, that I will not raise the property tax to solve this

issue. I will not do that, because you are already paying too much money for that.

So that’s my pledge; let’s get that out of the way. And another thing is, we have to

bring revenues. Also, this pension problem has to be faced, because if it doesn’t,

the rating of the City of Chicago will come down, and you all know what that’s

like. We saw what happened to Detroit. The banks that loan us the money can

come here and ask for that money back, by law. We have to give it to them.

GREG HINZ: Thank you. Brian.

BRIAN HOPKINS: A simple statement on a very complex problem: we have to solve the pension

crisis and I will not vote to raise property taxes as a solution to doing that. There

are alternatives. It starts with efficiency, it starts with reducing waste and

duplication in government. In my 20 years in government service, I’ve seen how

you can do that, most recently in the last four years under Cook County President

Toni Preckwinkle: she has saved millions of dollars by combining departments,

by eliminating unnecessary positions, consolidating government functions,

looking for greater efficiencies, purchasing reform. There’s all sorts of ways that

you can reduce the cost of providing the same amount of services that

government’s expected to provide. That’s first. We have to do that first and

foremost. There are alternative revenue sources around that I would be open to.

The telephone tax increase I thought was a good idea. There is a proposal to

possibly expand the sales tax to cover luxury goods and services; I’d be open to

considering that. A land-based casino in Chicago could bring in a tremendous

14

amount of revenue, and if it were dedicated, it could go a long way toward

solving our pension crisis. There’s a number of viable options available to help us

get out of the pension mess, and I would consider those options, but I won’t

consider a property tax increase.

GREG HINZ: Steve.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: Thank you. All right. That’s going to be a problem all night, I can guess. As a

first-time candidate, this is one of those things where I’m inheriting this huge

conversation. Thank you so much to all the previous administrations that just kept

pushing this problem down the road just for all of us. Basically four things, that’s

what I came up with. One, revamping the TIF [Tax Increment Financing] system.

Roughly we have $500 million a year that comes in through TIFs. Since 1986,

we’ve had $5.5 billion come in through TIF districts. Now, some of this money

keeps getting ported around, it’s very unaccountable, there’s never really a lot of

oversight as to where all this money ends up, so one thing I want to do is look at

revamping this TIF system. A temporary tax, I think that we could look at the

possibility of fixing these issues by instating three- to five-year temporary tax on

some these things I’m thinking of is statewide sales tax or potentially transaction

taxes. I’d have to evaluate with other aldermen which are the ones that have to

come first. I think that we got close to a Springfield progressive fair tax. I think

that when the General Assembly comes back, there’s a chance that we could see

that pass, and we’d see a lot more money flowing into Chicago, so there’s the

potential for that in the new year. And the biggest thing, really, is reprioritizing

city spending, potentially cutting city spending, looking at where money is going.

Do we need certain projects? There’s a lot of confusion over why things get

funded, you know, the interest rate swaps, the bad investments that we make –

this is all money that could be paying off this huge amount of pension debt, that ...

GREG HINZ: Time.

ALYX PATTISON: I want to start where Steve started, which is thank you to all the members of

council who came before us. This issue to me speaks really centrally to why I’m

running, and that is, we have to have a city council that starts to ask questions.

That, really, that’s the issues. Look at the budget and have their own presentation

for how the budget is proposed, and how we’re going to fund our city services,

and for decades we haven’t had a council that’s done that. We have had a council

that sort of, OK, Mayor, that’s great, let’s vote for it. And that’s the problem, and,

by the way, that doesn’t, when I say that, that’s not this mayor specifically, that is,

tome, a view of how government should work. There’s a legislative branch and an

executive branch, and they should vet things together, and it should be a give and

take to come to the best solution for all of you. The problem I have with

something like the telephone tax, it’s the same as the parking meter deal and the

Skyway deal: it’s a bandaid. It gets us a quick billion, and then we’re, it’s gone,

and there’s no structural solution that really gets us to the goal line. And the

problem with that is, at the end, you’re going to get stuck with a huge bill, and in

the meantime all these little bills along the way. What I would like to see the

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Council do is have a very thorough, robust debate about all of the tax proposals

that are on the table, whether it’s the LaSalle Street tax or a city income tax. I

don’t necessarily know what I think about all of them, but I think the debate is

important, and I want to get there, and only after all that is considered – and, by

the way, I also support a casino; I think it’s the right thing to do in terms of

bringing tourism to the city and revenue – after all those options are considered,

then we can possibly talk about a property tax. We have a lot of work to do before

we even get there.

GREG HINZ: But before you get to revenue, would you pay the pension debt or would you ask

one way or the other the employees to take less?

ALYX PATTISON: Well, I don’t think legally or either, I don’t think legally we can. Would you

mean, going forward employees or do you mean employees who have already

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] ?

GREG HINZ: Both.

ALYX PATTISON: Going forward employees, that’s a question of negotiations between the union and

the city, and that has to happen. Going backward, I think as a legal proposition,

that ship has sailed. The Illinois Supreme Court has spoken, not quite on this issue

precisely, but pretty closely, and they say that we owe those workers their

pensions. Now, if the unions renegotiate …

GREG HINZ: OK.

ALYX PATTISON: OK.

GREG HINZ: All right. Thank you. Stacey.

STACEY PFINGSTON: Thank you, Greg. I was disappointed not seeing this [UNINTELLIGIBLE] being

addressed in the 2015 budget. You know, we keep putting it off, like we’ve talked

about it and now we’re looking at 2016 that a pending payment coming. With

these pension issues, I also think that we’re going to be constitutionally obligated

to do this, and we need to keep good on that promise. I, too, before we do any

new taxes, I think we need a look at cutting waste, I know that, personally, from

working in the ward offices, that we’re doing a lot of hiring out, private

contractors, in almost every department, and we’re paying them way too much,

three times what they’re worth, that is, if they’re doing their jobs. I’m just going

to be honest. And so first we can look at waste, how we can run our state

departments as efficiently as possible. I would even be willing to put the City

Council on the table, you know, do we need 50 aldermen? Can we do with 35 or

25? That would cut some spending, as well. With pensions, I want to look at TIF

surplus, I want a complete audit of TIFs, I want to see how they’re performing. I

like an idea that I read David Orr, our Cook County Clerk, saying to take maybe

ten percent, if we take ten percent of the TIF projects off and put them on the

taxpayer payrolls, that alone is 30, 40 million a year. I think it’s going to be a

combination of things, so first, let’s look at TIF surplus, see what that gets us, I

am not wanting any type of property taxes. I say no property tax. Actually, I don’t

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like singling out any entity, but everything needs to be on the table and looked at:

LaSalle tax, community tax, property tax, but say No to the property tax, but one

thing I have been looking at the local city income tax, and I that if we do need to,

you know, have some type of tax, that we all should shoulder the burden and not

single out one entity over the other, and looking at a city income, local income

tax, at maybe a point five or one percent, you are looking at maybe three or four

hundred million, I think Joe Ferguson had a report on that, and that’s a good city

stream of revenue. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: What about the pensions themselves, though? Shouldn’t the, should people who

are retired, people who are still working, or people who are going to be hired,

should they be asked to take less than they get now?

STACEY PFINGSTON: Well, I think that those that are going to be hired, I think that we can do maybe

some negotiation on their contracts, but I think the ones that we are obligated to

pay, I think we need to make those payments.

GREG HINZ: OK. Cornell.

CORNELL WILSON: A lot’s been said, and I just want to see if I can help frame why this is so dire. So

in 2010, we have approximately $600 million worth of debt, and since that time,

we’ve cut that down to, this year we have $297 million worth of structural debt.

So then that was through one-time gimmicks, that was through raising the cell

phone tax, that’s from cutting the North State workers from 40,000 workers to

34,000 workers. So we’ve done a lot to get this debt down, but it’s all

meaningless now when it next year increases by $550 million. That’s how far in

the red we are, and it’s just going to keep going. You look at the pension fund and

the policemen, you look at the firefighters – they’re both funded below 30%. That

means it’ll run dry in a decade, and we are obligated to pay it. The Illinois

Constitution has a provision; it says you cannot diminish benefits of current

pensions, and that was spoken to our Supreme Court regarding a health care

matter, it’s still pending before the Supreme Court regarding the actual contract

negotiations that went down in Springfield for our state legislature. So we cannot

enact policies or fight for policies that we know are unconstitutional, which is

saying that current pensioners must decrease their benefits. So where does that

leave us? That leaves us with having to find revenue, having to further operate

efficiencies, and find efficiencies, find ways to get rid of it, but we’re talking

about City Council. That’s what we’re running for, so when we say things like we

want a state sales tax, that’s not up to us. That’s going to be negotiating with our

state legislators and representatives. We will talk about casinos; that’s going to be

working with state legislators to enact those things. Those are things that are

going to take time. When we talk of what actual City Council can do, I agree with

Stacey and I agree with Steve when talking about, first and foremost, TIF reform.

We have to look at funds that are available, approximately $1.7 billion worth of

money that sits in a pot, that we can act upon and put forward for our citizens. I

agree that property taxes should be the last thing that we should do, but the

Marine in me wants to give you some straight talk, that we cannot rule it out. We

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simply can’t. Our fiscal situation is too dire, and so, if anyone’s saying that it

won’t happen, that’s just not true. We can pledge not hope for it, but there’s 49

other people who are going to be voting in this City Council, and we have to get it

in order.

GREG HINZ: Thank you. One more question from me, and them I’m going to all put it up to

you guys. You’ll be able, I’m asking you to raise your hand. You can put your

questions, when I get to you, to the entire group or you can ask it to one or two

candidates individually. That’s up to you. We’ll do that for about 20 minutes,

before we get to closing statements. The last question from me is no more than a

minute each, and we’ll start with you and work our way down. Mr. Wilson, you

guys, important as this aldermanic race is, it’s not the only thing on the ballot.

Last time I looked, there’s a race for mayor, too. Tell us what kind of job you

think Mayor Emanuel has done or has not done, and tell us who you support for

mayor.

CORNELL WILSON: Thank you for making me go first. Luck of the draw. Fine. Hoorah. Well, we had

a lovely debate last week on CAN-TV, it’s on YouTube, I think you can find it,

and I’ll take the same thing I said there. Reaching out to all the candidates and

asking them what they’re going to do for the 2nd Ward, and I look forward to

hearing their responses at some point. But specifically regarding the job Mayor

Emanuel has done, I’ll be honest: he was handed a tough job. Well I guess since

2010 when he came in, we’ve had a $600 million deficit. At that point we had just

two years passed the financial crisis for the recession, so I’m not saying he’s done

a great job, I’m just trying to frame that he came into a terrible situation. So now,

what he’s done since that time, closed approximately 50 schools. Now, the hard

part is, you talk with some aldermen and -women, and they will tell you, yes, kids

are walking past schools to go to other schools. The difficult part is, did he sell it?

Did he say that they were doing it for these reasons and these are the right

reasons, and did he make the good optics on it? I don’t think he did. I think he

owes you all, at the very least, a friendlier persona, but he still every day owes

you competent leadership, and thus far, he’s working on it, and I’m going to work

with whoever’s in the mayor’s office. I guess, I don’t know, are we looking for a

grade? B-minus? I don’t know. We’ll see.

GREG HINZ: And you don’t have a preference?

CORNELL WILSON: I’m looking forward to the debates. I’m looking to see all their fleshed-out

agendas and all that makes a good mayor.

GREG HINZ: Stacey.

STACEY PFINGSTON: I’m also sticking to what I already have on CAN-TV from last week, so I

personally will not be supporting Mayor Emanuel, but you, of course, will be

making that decision for yourselves. I have a good relationship with Alderman

Fioretti, and also Chuy, and so I would look forward to working with either of

them in office, and if Mayor Emanuel gets in again, I’d be more than happy to

work with him to make sure the 2nd Ward is getting what they need. My main

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issue with Emanuel, and actually he’s starting to address it this last six months,

and I just wish he would have started addressing it from Day One, is a lot of

resources are continuing to go downtown, with so much money downtown still,

and, you know, our neighborhoods are [UNINTELLIGIBLE], our streets, our

parks, our trees need to be trimmed, so much of city services that he did promise

in the 2015 budget we’re going to put ten more million in city services, but take

care of our residents and also our neighborhoods. Let’s, you know, downtown is

great for tourists, and we need that, too, but there needs to be more balance. I

want him to share. I think that’s what part of it, I want him to share resources.

And then I have an issue with the process of the way he closed the 50 schools. It

should have been, you know, maybe ten, if that needed to be done, I think it

should have been done …

GREG HINZ: So you’re not for Rahm. Are you for anybody?

STACEY PFINGSTON: I’m sorry?

GREG HINZ: You’re not for Mr. Emanuel; is there a candidate you support?

STACEY PFINGSTON: I’m still, you know, looking into that, but, you know, like Rahm isn’t who I’m

going to be supporting for mayor.

GREG HINZ: Thank you. Alyx, your turn.

ALYX PATTISON: I haven’t made a decision, and it’s a mixed record. Mayor Emanuel, I think,

there’s plenty of good that I’ve seen him do, and, how did he put it? He said, “I

could be softer around the edges.” I like that, Mayor Emanuel, I think he could be

softer around the edges. I agree with you. I don’t agree with the way he closed

schools. I serve on a Local School Council, I’ve served on that council for four

years, I love those kids, and – almost four years – and those kids are walking

across a number of gang lines to get to school, and I don’t think, I think we could

have come up with a better solution perhaps. Gangs is not a reason to not close

schools, but we should have thought about the process and how we’re going to

handle them going forward. On the other hand, I am a huge fan of what the mayor

did with minimum wage in the city. I think it was the right thing to do, and I think

that was him showing his softer side, and I think he has done some great stuff

with parks. Ukrainian Village got a new park, Gold Coast got a new park, the 606,

the Bloomingdale Trail elevated park is coming on line, three-mile wide lane and

a commuter route, as well as that park, is going to bring foot traffic into the west

side of the ward. It’s a mixed bag, and I think probably almost everybody up here

will be listening to the debates before making a decision about who to vote for,

and I don’t like the shorthand. If you’re with the mayor, then you’re this kind of

person, or if you’re not, you’re this kind of person, so I probably won’t ever

answer it before Election Day.

GREG HINZ: Steve?

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: Quick answer: No, I will not be supporting Mayor Emanuel. Now, if you all vote

for me, I’m still going to work with him. We need to get our city services, and,

19

you know, you need to make coalitions with City Hall. That’s what I’m good at.

I’m good at working with people, but it doesn’t mean that I necessarily am going

to get in trouble by saying I don’t want to go through the Mayor. I think he’s done

a lot of good things for tourism. I personally loved seeing him take the Polar

Plunge – that was kind of satisfying to watch – but I think it’s unforgivable to

close so many schools, to close so many police stations, to increase the bond debt

and to push off pensions one more year. So, in that case, I’d like to see somebody

else at that job.

GREG HINZ: Thank you.

BRIAN HOPKINS: I’m going to agree with my colleague Cornell on this one. A B-minus, it’s a

mixed bag. There is some things that I really like that Rahm Emanuel did. The

606 is high on my list. I was an early supporter of that project when it was

proposed more than ten years ago. Rahm Emanuel when he was a congressman

did a great deal to bring that about to fruition, and it’s going to open next summer

and it’s going to be a great thing for the city, it’s going to promote economic

development in the neighborhoods that it touches and nearby, and bring tourism,

and it’s really an exciting thing, and it started out with a vision a long time ago,

and Mayor Emanuel did a great job in helping bring that to fruition. I also support

his early childhood, pre-K initiative. You know, we talked about, and then we’ll

probably talk about that in the questions, what to do about the crime problem.

Well, it starts with the root cause. If he can guarantee a good education for every

child in Chicago starting when they’re young, before they even get to

kindergarten, the long-term fruits will bear with decreased crime, and Rahm

Emanuel’s talking about that right now. It’s right, it’s the right thing to do, and I

admire him for it. One criticism that I have of him is in the first campaign when

he ran, he promised to put a thousand police officers on the streets, and, for a

variety of reasons, that didn’t happen. The deck was shuffled and police officers

were moved around, but a net increase of a thousand patrol officers did not

happen, and I think it needs to happen. It needs to happen today. It’s not too late

for him to keep that promise. If I’m elected alderman, I’m going to hold him to

that. It would benefit our community, so I’ll give him a solid B-minus and I’m

going to see how the debate plays out before I make my decision.

GREG HINZ: Bita.

BITA BUENROSTRO: More importantly, I don’t want my opinion to affect any of the constituents, so I

want everybody to get informed, and do their research, and make that choice on

their own. However, there are a couple of things I want you to remember. He

inherited a lot of problems from the last administration. I will not be a rubber

stamp for his issues. I do not like the red light camera. I do not people being stuck

paying tax. He promised us police officers; instead, he got us red light cameras. I

do not like him closing the schools, but at the end, remember, he had to make

some tough choices, and I believe, I wouldn’t go as far, B-minus I wouldn’t grade

him, I will leave that to you guys. By voting, you will grade him and see what he

has done as your mayor. Thank you.

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GREG HINZ: OK. We have time for a few questions from the audience. You can direct them to

one person in particular or the panel. Sir.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Yes. Is one of the problems with Chicago is that their [UNINTELLIGIBLE] vice,

and this isn’t supposed to be funny, but if you look at Colorado, they brought in

the marijuana legalization and are getting huge amounts of money from it, plus by

decriminalizing [UNINTELLIGIBLE], also the …

GREG HINZ: What’s your question, sir?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Well, I guess, how does everyone here feel about the decriminalization of

marijuana as a good way to bring some money into the city?

GREG HINZ: OK. I’ll consider that kind of a lightning-round question: Yes, No or Maybe, just

… starting with Bita. Why don’t you start and just go down the row.

BITA BUENROSTRO: I can see, Greg, you really like talking to me.

GREG HINZ: I do.

BITA BUENROSTRO: Ask me all the questions first. I do believe that will bring the criminal acts down

and I do believe that people that are in, that need medical marijuana, they have to

be able to get it.

GREG HINZ: So that’s, so that’s a Yes.

BITA BUENROSTRO: That’s a Yes.

GREG HINZ: OK. Sir.

BRIAN HOPKINS: Yes. With careful regulations and thoughtful restrictions. We’re not going the

Colorado route, we’re being much more diligent about it, and the regulations are

much stricter. I think that it’s a good thing.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: I think the State of Illinois has taken a lot of time on this, but we’re on the right

side of history. Obviously this is the way that the culture is going, so as long as

the distilleries, as long as they’re in neighborhoods they’re supposed to be. The

issue right now is everybody’s vying to get their own marijuana location. You’ve

got to make sure that it’s somewhere that makes sense or it could need that

business, so I think that there might be a little tighter oversight on that in the next

year. But …

GREG HINZ: OK, so under the right circumstances …

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: Yes.

GREG HINZ: Stacey? Oh, I’m sorry: Alyx.

ALYX PATTISON: Yes. Heavily regulated, monitored, and much like we’re doing in the city right

now with medical marijuana in certain locations, the zoning is tight, we keep it,

we keep it that tight, but Yes.

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STACEY PFINGSTON: I agree, with the way the [UNINTELLIGIBLE] right now with the medical

marijuana plants coming in, I think we’re doing the right things, making sure

precautions are in place, and we’re definitely monitoring them, so I think we’re

doing the slow and steady approach to this, and I think that’s the best way.

CORNELL WILSON: I think, make it six for six. I support it, with reasonable regulation, with

precautions, ensure we have enough police to monitor those store-fronts that are

going to have it. There’s quantifiable revenue. We’re talking about pensions, and

there’s revenue that we have. You look at Colorado, you look at Washington …

GREG HINZ: Well, all right, after the, after this meeting is over, we’ll go outside and take care

of our health. In the back.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: I’d be interested in hearing what each candidate thinks his or her most outstanding

attribute is as a candidate, and I’m not thinking about your good looks, et cetera.

GREG HINZ: Did everybody hear that? Mr. Wilson, you’re up first this time.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: Put your modesty aside and tell us. The single most …

GREG HINZ: Why you, what’s the best reason to vote for you.

CORNELL WILSON: I think, for me, while I value my time at law school, I am a practicing attorney, I

just got out of the Marine Corps. There I learned discipline, hard work and

dedication to mission accomplishment. I valued my time going to Iraq, honestly. I

didn’t support the war, but when they called me up, they said, “You have a job to

do.” I did it, and I was thankful to have those Marines take care of me for the

9,000 miles we drove, through the five or six IEDs [Improvised Explosive

Device(s)] we hit, I’m thankful we all got home safe and sound. So those – thank

you – those traits propel me and I hope to bring them to City Council.

GREG HINZ: Thank you.

STACEY PFINGSTON: I would have to say, especially for this gentleman: because I know this job. My

energy level, I have a very high energy level, which is needed for this job. I also

have a work ethic. Growing up in such a small town as I did, I started working at

the age of ten, part-time jobs. And I’m always working, and in this job, you’re

always working, you’re always serving, and I truly love it.

ALYX PATTISON: I think the thing that I would categorize myself as, first and foremost, is an

advocate, whether it’s working on Capitol Hill and drafting legislation to help

people, or being a, you know, in a courtroom or litigating a big case, or having a

pro bono case, I consider myself someone who wants to stand up and fight for

people, and that’s what I’ll do as your alderman.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: Thank you. That’s a very interesting question. When I went to college, I studied

cultural anthropology, so the biggest success that I’ve so far is figuring out how to

work with large communities and how to help redesign large communities so that

there’s more effective work being done for everybody and everything: crime and

community building, local business, everything. It’s about having patience,

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knowing how to take the time for everything, having a clear vision, all right? But

also having a formula that works and is organic for the neighborhoods, so I’m

sitting here today because I’ve been so successful in doing that, and that’s what

I’m trying to bring to the 2nd Ward.

GREG HINZ: Thank you.

BRIAN HOPKINS: Dedication. Dedication to service. Public service is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and

I started at a very young age. I was the kid in grade school who would organize

the class bake sale or participate in student government. Just, there’s an instinct in

me to just be of service. The term that we use in development that I’m sure

you’ve all heard is “best, highest use.” What is the best, highest use of a parcel of

land? Serving the public, whether it was through a government job or volunteer

work, is the best, highest use of me. It’s what I have to offer, it’s what my parents

taught me. I was raised in a home that taught the value of contributing to your

community. My mother was an election judge for over 35 years, my father served

on a Park District advisory board. They weren’t professional politicians, they

never were, but they were people that looked for ways to volunteer or get

involved in their community. That’s who I am today, that’s who I’ve always been,

and that’s who I’ll continue to be, regardless of what the outcome of this election

might be.

BITA BUENROSTRO: Thank you, Brian. I am truly an American dream. I am everybody’s

grandmother’s and grandfather’s story. I am privileged to be able to be a public

servant. My dedication, my commitment is what I’m bringing to the table, and the

love for the city that was never prejudiced to take me in when I didn’t have

anything. So for that, I will owe the rest of my life, and I will make it up to

Chicago, I promise.

GREG HINZ: OK. One more question. Here.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: I have a question for the panel. It would seem that there is a lot of anti-

development sentiment, but raising taxes is never usually a first choice either. Is

there anything that we could do to attract more businesses and more taxpayers to

carry the load of [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

GREG HINZ: You’re up first again. The question was, nobody likes high taxes, but there’s some

anti-development sentiment in some places. How do we attract more businesses to

pay the bills without over-developing?

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: Or residents, as well.

GREG HINZ: Or people.

BITA BUENROSTRO: I’m telling you guys, Greg really likes me, I can tell. Yes, property taxes is not the

first answer to the question. We do have an option. The TIF money, as my

opponents pointed out, they’re sitting there, and in a dire time like this – this is

emergency – we have to be able to use them. Also, as executive of a restaurant

corporation, I know how hard it is and how crucial it is to bring businesses to City

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of Chicago. One way we can do that is by very carefully licensed and located

casinos. I know some people may say, you know, but it is the option, and let’s

keep it open. Another suggestion I have: the City of Chicago does not do a good

job of collecting the owed tax. How about having an amnesty program, one time,

for people that owe the money to our city, coming forward and pay their tax.

That’s an option. Sale tax, adding tax to tobacco – I know smokers are already not

happy about this, but that’s an option. And just cell telephone fee, that we added

the fee to our cell phones. That was a good option that really doesn’t hurt as much

as the other stuff.

GREG HINZ: Thank you.

BRIAN HOPKINS: I never thought of myself as anti-developer. I’m anti-bad-development, and

there’s a distinction to be drawn there. If you’re a developer, as I said earlier, and

you come to the community with something that is congruent with a plan,

something that the neighborhood wants and needs, it promotes economic

development, it brings jobs, it brings new residents, it’s a good thing. The key is

to demand nothing less from developers. Developers are in it for a profit motive.

That’s the nature of the business that they’re in, and oftentimes the profit motive

drives them to suggest things that are not in the community’s best interests. You,

as a community, have to guide them back to a place where they can promote

something that’s going to not only be acceptable to the residents, but contribute to

the economy, and I support that. I also support a small business incubator, I

support a small business ombudsman program that can help fill some of the

vacant store-fronts that we have, and to bring new technology to expand

something like the 1871 technology incubator. There’s some very exciting things

going on right now with UI grads. That’s the future of this city. That’s what’s

going to bring jobs for young people who graduate from technology-based

programs. They can choose to stay here. They don’t have to go out to Silicon

Valley. They can stay here and we can create Silicon Prairie.

GREG HINZ: Thank you.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: OK, so, yeah, I’m concerned about developer accountability when it comes to

things like the kind of materials that are used. We need to really zero in on that.

But otherwise, I’m not trying to say I’m anti-development. If anything, I think

that the 2nd Ward has a really interesting opportunity with the Finkl Steel site right

in the middle of the ward, along the river. I tend to think that that should stay

mostly an industrial zone because it could bring jobs, and it can help potentially

redevelop some of the traffic patterns that you see with people trying to cross the

river, in the morning on the way to the east, or at night on the way to the west. I

see things from the point of view of neighbors, though, so I don’t want to find

new ways to tax people. It’s painful enough to live in the city as it is. I’m on the

Local School Council, my wife is a teacher. We had a meeting yesterday where

we were trying to figure out how to raise enough money between parents that are

already being charged a lot just trying to figure out how to do an eighth-grade trip

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at the end of the year. It’s tight with a lot of families right now, and I am not

interested in trying to make anything harder for people.

GREG HINZ: Thank you.

ALYX PATTISON: I love this question. I think this is one of the places where I thank Mayor Emanuel

has excelled, in terms of inviting Big Business to the city. What I would like to

see is sort of an urban, an urban recruitment program for people. And what I mean

by that is, in South Dakota and North Dakota and rural parts of the country, where

they’re missing lawyers or missing doctors, they have programs to recruit people

into those communities to fill those vacancies, and I think we should partner the

business strategy with a people strategy, and it’s, TIF gives a negative

connotation, but I’d sort of like to see us have a TIF for people. I mean, you

graduate from college, maybe you come here and you’re encouraged to buy

property, and maybe you have a reduced property tax for a while until we can

really start to really grow and develop struggling communities in this city. They

are struggling, and we can start to build new communities. I believe in that. I

believe in big ideas for the city, and I want to see us think about these kind of

problems.

GREG HINZ: Thank you.

STACEY PFINGSTON: I, too, think [UNINTELLIGIBLE] we do have an opportunity here, and Finkl has

been brought up. I personally would like to see Finkl also stay mostly a planned

manufacturing district. One idea I have stems from some advocacy work I’ve

done to try to get the Styrofoam trays out of the schools, Chicago public schools

lunchrooms. I would like to bring Chinette or some kind of manufacturer here to

create local jobs, to do a recycled fiber tray, so [UNINTELLIGIBLE] then they

can just, you know, drive them over to the schools and that would save the

schools money. It would create jobs and also be a great thing

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] for Finkl. We could do a mixed-use there at Finkl. One

thing I have in mind is something I saw when I was in Toronto, a distillery

district, and it was, you know, some light manufacturing, there were breweries,

there were restaurants, and only local businesses could be in there, and I think that

area could use that, with a lot of chains along the Clybourn Corridor, and I’d like

to see it a place for residents to go as well as tourists. I’m not anti-development

even though I am a preservationist at heart. I understand economics and, you

know, we have to increase the tax base, but I want smart projects within the

frameworks of our communities, and also I have an idea, you know, vacant store-

fronts in different communities that we have, I’d love to have meetings or focus

groups and tell me what you’re interested in, you know, what kind of services are

you in need of, what kinds of things you would like to see in your neighborhood.

Let’s talk it and see what we can do about getting those businesses to come to us.

Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Cornell.

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CORNELL WILSON: OK, I would agree with Brian. I don’t think anyone’s anti-developer. I think we

all just want responsible development, but with regard to your specific question

regarding encouraging jobs and business, let’s start small first, let’s look at the

actual 2nd Ward. So we’ve done our research for my campaign, and the greatest

provider of jobs in the 2nd Ward is the restaurant and entertainment industry. And

so we reached out to all of them and asked them what’s going on, what can you

use, how can we help them stay afloat for those critical first five years, and what

we did is we came up with a 22-point plan for initiatives and ideas, which I’m

happy to give to Greg, if he wants to publish it and put it out there, but it, how to

support them. Simple things like you go to every restaurant and they all have their

own WiFi network. Why can’t we create a citywide WiFi network, thereby

decreasing costs for all restaurants, and have them all have access to the same

technology. And then, if you want to talk bigger things, I fully support 1871, have

an incubator over there called The Bunker, which is veteran owned and veteran

run, and they have great ideas with regard to getting tech companies off the

ground, and the critical thing is, yes, they start here, they get their venture capital

money, and they do go over to the West Coast or the East Coast. We’ve got to

find out ways to make sure that they stay here, keep that home-grown talent here.

My roommate made it out tonight, and he has his own start-up, called Tiny Dots,

and he’s done a kick-starter on everything, he’s done all the right things, and I’m

nervous that when the venture capitalists come a-calling, he’s going to say, “Hey,

it was fun, and here’s the rest of the rent. I’m going to California.”

GREG HINZ: We’re almost out of time, one last lightning-round push, and I literally want on

this one a one-word answer: Yes, No or Maybe. Cornell, this one starts with you.

Elected school board: Yes, No, Maybe.

CORNELL WILSON: Sure, so …

GREG HINZ: One-word answer: Yes, No, Maybe.

CORNELL WILSON: Oh, OK. Maybe a hybrid school board. Let’s go for it.

GREG HINZ: Next.

STACEY PFINGSTON: Yes. More accountability.

ALYX PATTISON: Hybrid school board, elected and appointed.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: Absolutely yes.

BRIAN HOPKINS: Yes, hybrid.

BITA BUENROSTRO: Yes.

GREG HINZ: There you go. All right, we’re now to the last part of the evening. That’s closing

statements. We’re running a little long, so let’s say a minute and a half each.

We’re going to use the same order that we did last time, which means that Mr.

Wilson, you’re up first.

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CORNELL WILSON: Finally, thank you all for coming out. She seems to be leaving. We’ll miss you.

But the bottom line, I think everyone up here is looking for your support and has

the best interests at heart for this word, so I strongly encourage you to look at all

of our websites, look at our information that we’re putting out there, and

[UNINTELLIGIBLE] I think you should support me because of my background

in the Marine Corps, because I, my dedication to mission, accomplishment,

because of my background as an attorney that I took and practiced for a few years,

and we have, I think, one of the most comprehensive issues pages and lists all the

candidates, and I encourage to take a look and support me, and I humbly ask your

support for 2nd Ward alderman. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Brian.

STACEY PFINGSTON: Hi. Thank you also for coming out tonight …

GREG HINZ: I thought we were going to, I’m sorry …

STACEY PFINGSTON: I’m sorry …

GREG HINZ: No, we’re going to use the reverse order we had before.

STACEY PFINGSTON: Oh, OK.

GREG HINZ: Just to be fair, so that means Brian, you’re, you’re next. Same order we had at the

beginning, for the opening statements.

BRIAN HOPKINS: All right. Thanks again, Greg, for your duties as moderator, and Marcie and Judy

and the folks at Sandburg Village, and everyone for staying. Thank you very

much for listening to us. This has been an enjoyable experience. You know, the

people of this community are the winners of this debate. As bad as the map is,

that’s how good this panel of six candidates are. I consider it a privilege to be a

part of this. I’ve gotten to know my colleagues over the past couple of months,

and, you know, we make hard for you guys to pick among the six of us, and that’s

a good thing. So, my job is to make my case, and that’s what I’m going to do. I

want to be the next alderman of the 2nd Ward because I believe in this community.

I’m optimistic about Chicago’s future. At the same time, I’m very concerned

about some of the things that we talked about tonight, no just rampant

development, but crime is a concern for all of us right now, and that’s something

that’s motivated me for 16 years as a volunteer going to CAPS meetings night

after night and listening to the stories of people who were mugged or cars that

were broken into. We have to do something about that. We have to add those

thousand police officers. We have to get our budget in line. Right now we’re

spending 22% of our total city revenue on debt service and interest, and the

Government Finance Officers Association says it should be no more than 15%.

That’s unacceptable. As an alderman I’ll fight to bring fiscal sanity back to the

government, and I believe in this neighborhood. I’ve lived in this part of the ward,

on the east side, for 16 years, and I just have so much faith that we can solve these

problems together. I hope to earn your vote as alderman, and thank you very

much for listening to us tonight.

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GREG HINZ: Bita, you’re in the middle.

BITA BUENROSTRO: Truly, Brian is right, this has been an incredible journey, and I, it’s made the

campaigning very hard because I like everybody that is here. However, on

February 24, before you make that choice, I want you to ask yourself a question, a

couple of them: Do we need another career politician? Do we need another

attorney? I’m just saying. I’m just saying. This is a very diverse ward. Whose life

has showed, time after time, that she can come through of every diverse situation?

Republican or Democrat? Remember: this is a nonpartisan position. If you want

your garbage picked, I shouldn’t care. If you want your rats chased out of the

neighborhood, I shouldn’t care. If you want more police officers, I don’t care

what party you’re standing for. This is an incredible city. It really, truly is. What it

needs is a straightforward leadership, and that’s who I am. Thank you.

GREG HINZ: Thank you. Mr. Niketopoulos.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: Thank you, Greg, for doing such a good job of pronouncing my last name.

GREG HINZ: United Nations here tonight.

STEVE NIKETOPOULOS: Right, exactly. Well, yeah, thank you again, everybody. This has been fantastic.

What you will see from me as alderman is how much I share information with

you and how easy it is to meet. One of the things I want to do, because I know

this is a walking community, is I promise a satellite office in this neighborhood so

that it’s easy to come and meet me. Set days where you can come and meet me.

I’m going to have multiple ward nights, because the point of it is to make sure

that I’m representing and I’m there to talk with you about what your concerns are.

You’re going to see an increase in rat patrols. I met a neighbor down on Dearborn

a couple of days ago who told me that the rats were so bad in her alley that they

crawled into her garage, ran up and chewed off one of her power-steering belts.

Absolutely gross. We need to fund more rat patrols. Right now, if it snows, do

you know that they get pulled off that duty and they get pulled into garbage pick-

up. The city shifted around a bunch of different jobs to make it look like they

created new jobs, but in reality we’re far under-staffed. I love the newsletter that

you have with Sandburg Village. You’ll see more newsletter work from me, too. I

enjoy doing print newsletters. You’ll see more traffic studies. I know that there’s

a lot more that can be done for the area for pedestrian safety and for traffic safety.

You’ll see an enhanced safety program come to the neighborhood. That’s the

thing that I’m, one of the things that I’m most successful for is building a new

system of helping neighbors make sure that they feel safer in their neighborhoods.

So with that, I’m not an attorney, I’m not a career politician, I’m an educational

TV producer. I ask for your vote on February 24th or early voting starts February

9th. Miss Pfingston.

STACEY PFINGSTON: I’ve lived in this neighborhood for a few years now, and I know for several years

you felt disenfranchised, not just due to this new map change, but also you

haven’t had an alderman, I think, in many years here, but that would change when

I would be your alderman. I would be very hands-on. You’ll see me all around the

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neighborhood, whether I’m eating at 3rd Coast or I’m, you know, having coffee at

Starbucks, you can come up to me, you can talk to me about any issue you may

have. I’ll be very approachable and I’ll be hands-on and I’ll be present in your

community, at your meetings, at your events, that is, if you invite me. Unlike my

candidates, I have experience and the knowledge base and connections at

departments. I have ridden this ward many times with the Streets and San head. I

already have ten pages of notes of things I want to see done and changed. So I

have experience, background, and I feel confident that Day One I can certainly

start leading our ward. I also will be a fighter for you in Council, where I’ll be

your [UNINTELLIGIBLE] voice, I’ll be listening to you and your needs, and not

worried about special interests or anyone else. I will keep a critical eye on our

spending, and also I will be the leader that comes up with new solutions to old

problems such as the rat issue. I brought to the 2nd Ward a new idea from New

York: rat sterilization. We’re going to those test pilots I think in a couple of

months. Mayor Emanuel’s taken the credit, that’s fine, but if anyone ever wants to

talk about the rat sterilization project, I would love to tell you about it, very

exciting. So that’s what [UNINTELLIGIBLE] your new 2nd Ward leader. I hope

to have your support on February 24th or, if you vote early, starting February 9th.

Thank you.

GREG HINZ: And Miss Pattison.

ALYX PATTISON: Only in an aldermanic debate is rat birth control something we will talk about.

But it’s a good idea. So, don’t hold it against me that I’m an attorney. I think of

myself not just as an attorney, which I am, but also, like I told you earlier, I’m an

advocate, and I have a special affinity for your neighborhood in particular. I don’t

live in this neighborhood, but you were a favorite. Your Starbucks and your

supermarket were a favorite of mine in terms of collecting signatures, and I spent

a lot of hours talking with you. I see a lot of familiar faces in the room. Thank you

for stopping to chat with me. Thank you all for being here tonight. I want to be

your alderman for a very simple reason, and that’s because I want to serve. I, my

background has taught me nothing but that service is important and critical, and

you have an obligation to make a difference if you feel like you can, and I think I

can. So the advocate in me, it's, it’s born of my background and my training, and

it’s something I want to bring to all of you. You will see me in your

neighborhoods with pop-up off– more office nights, at your supermarket, I’ll

make it easy for you to come talk to me and to be accessible to all of you. And I

want to be a part of a reform movement that starts to put city government back

into your hands, and that’s going to start with my office. I intend to lead by

example on this. You're going to know where I am because my schedule is going

to, my official schedule is going to be on line. Recently, the city Legislative

Inspector General said that he was unable to track how staffs spent their time,

whether it was on political work or working for all of you as taxpayers, because

aldermen weren’t keeping time sheets. In my office, you will be able to walk in

and have access to those. So, I intend to be accessible, I intend to be an advocate

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for all of you, and I hope you’ll consider voting for me on February 24th. Thank

you.

GREG HINZ: Listen, give the candidates a nice hand. And give yourself a hand for being a

good, attentive audience. I’m sure that the candidates would be happy, if you have

particular questions, would be happy to stick around for a little bit, but please do

me a favor, because I know Latin School needs to get control of their auditorium

back, please do that outside the exit sign rather than in the auditorium. Thanks

very much, and, as they say in Chicago, “Vote early and often.”