Another piece of Chicago’s industry moves to far sout’east corner of city

Reports of a company that shreds scrap metal choosing to locate along the Calumet River in Chicago’s 10^th Ward really isn’t that surprising.

Remnant of Republic Steel plant whose site will someday have a scrap yard. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

What caught my attention in the reports about General Iron Industries is that the scrap yard is leaving its current location, which is along a portion of the Chicago River in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

WHILE I REALIZE that Lincoln Park hasn’t always been the upscale place for Chicago’s excessively wealthy to live (and at one point in the 1960s was close to evolving into an ethnic enclave for people of Puerto Rican descent), it makes me snicker that such an industrial company was ever located there to begin with.

It is a reminder that lakefront (and riverfront) property once was viewed as prime sites for industry. You could bring in your raw materials on barges and dump your waste into the water.

That is, until all those pesky environmentalists started spewing their rhetoric about the need for clean water and public health. How times change!

Which is why I’m sure General Iron is moving on from their long-time site. They’re no longer going to have to listen to the complaints from area residents who can’t stand the sight of piles of scrap lying around near their million dollar-plus homes and the stench of certain metallic odors that can waft through the air.

Salt piles amongst area's cleaner substances

NOW, THEY’RE LOCATING to a place that long has been a prime location for all the kind of industry that no one – if they can at all avoid it – wants to live in proximity to.

Specifically, they’re moving to a site along the Calumet River in the East Side neighborhood; that part of Chicago where you’re south of Lake Michigan altogether and the eastern boundary is State Line Road (a.k.a., the Illinois/Indiana border). They’re actually going to be on part of the site that once was Republic Steel – the site of that Memorial Day 1937 labor protest that ended with police beating dozens of picketing union members and killing 10 of them.

Along the Calumet River

It is a place where the locals are used to certain foul stenches wafting through the air. But since they don’t have “million-dollar homes” in places like the East Side or South Deering, the political people don’t seem to care. Where else would one find a sub-neighborhood literally known as “Slag Valley” because of the piles of iron slag and petroleum coke that lie out in the open near homes – no matter how much the locals complain.

I’m familiar with the area because it is the part of Chicago that is my birthplace. Specifically, the South Chicago neighborhood, but I have cousins who live in all the other neighborhoods that comprise the 10^th Ward.

I KNOW FULL well how paying a visit to certain members of the family can be an unpleasant experience – and not because those cousins are annoying. It’s because the stink can be overpowering, and the sight of waste can be unpleasant.

Of course, this attitude is because much of the industry that sparked development of such neighborhoods has long withered away.

There no longer are steel mills working round-the-clock, and local residents justified the unpleasantness of the environment as evidence that they had working-class jobs that actually paid a living wage.

I am the grandson of two such men who worked in steel mills for a living, which is how my family developed an attachment to the area – it was near their jobs. Some of the old-timers who remain claim that old days of pollution were bearable because it was evidence they were employed.

BUT NOW THAT the jobs aren’t so plentiful, some people want to act as though we ought to be thankful for the few that remain. And may well try to act as though complaints about pollution are somehow elitist rants by people who have to right to think of themselves as elite.

When 10^th Ward Alderman Susan Sadlowski Garza says, “we’re tired of being the city’s dumping ground” (as she told the Chicago Tribune recently), I’m sure certain others in Lincoln Park are coping the attitude of “better you than me” in terms of having to cope with pollution.

Envision one-time police car soaring through air

How polluted is the part of Chicago my family hails from? One can’t help but note the continued failure of plans to turn the one-time U.S. Steel Southworks site into something economically viable – with some hints being that the pollution remaining from the plant that closed over a quarter-of-a-century ago is too toxic for serious development.

A place that too many Chicagoans regard as something utterly ignorable – except for when they stumble onto the old “The Blues Brothers” film and once again see that car-jumping scene over the 95^th Street bridge – which is only about 2 miles from the site where General Iron plans to set up its new home by 2020.

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A mere 33-vote lead and declining; could Rahm ally retain aldermanic seat?

The aldermanic run-off election for the 10^th Ward (far Southeast Chicago) is getting closer and closer as people try to figure out whether Alderman John Pope actually lost his bid for re-election to a fifth term in office.


Pope, who has been an alderman since 1999 and either is credited, or trashed, for being a solid supporter (100 percent, Pope critics claim) of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, got the largest number of votes back in February, but not enough for a majority.


WHICH IS WHY he had to endure a run-off election against Susan Garza, a counselor at Jane Addams Elementary School in the East Side neighborhood and an official with the Chicago Teachers Union.

It would seem that most of the people who backed one of the other five aldermanic candidates in February united last week in their opposition to giving Pope a chance (if he makes it through another full four-year term) to be a 20-year alderman.

Because when all the votes in the 36 precincts of the 10^th Ward were counted following Election Day, Garza had an 89-vote lead. She went so far as to declare herself the winner.

Although Pope was more low-key, realizing that this election in a part of Chicago often ignored by the rest of the city (although which I pay attention to because it’s my birthplace, the South Chicago neighborhood to be exact) could still swing in his favor.

IT WAS, AFTER all, just an 89-vote lead – so close that both candidates could accurately say they got 50 percent of the vote (Garza rounds down, while Pope rounds up).

There also were the dreaded absentee ballots, dreaded at least by those who want simple election outcomes that are known by about 9 p.m. on Election Night. Most definitely not those where we have to wait until the April 28 deadline for the Chicago Elections Board to complete its canvass.

For what it’s worth, by the end of the first day of counting absentee ballots, Garza was down to a 44-vote lead.

The elections board’s website indicates that by the resumption of counting on Monday, Garza has a 33-vote lead over Pope – 5,797 votes for Garza to 5,764 votes for Pope.

COULD WE WIND up with coming days chipping into that lead more and more to the point where Pope winds up the victor because of those people who wanted to cast ballots, but for whatever reason couldn’t make it to either an early voting center or a polling place last week?

After all, it takes only a one-vote margin to win an election. Who’s to say how funky the counting could get?

It is what motivated Garza’s supporters on Saturday to hold what they called an “End Corruption!” rally outside of Pope’s aldermanic office on 106^th Street. Accusations were tossed out by Garza backers about how Pope backers harassed and threatened people, while also mailing in absentee ballots that had been time-stamped prior to the April 7 election date.

Even though the rules say that the key to a valid absentee ballot is that the postmark on the mailing be prior to Election Day. So ballots could still, theoretically, be showing up and wind up being counted. A stamp on the ballot wouldn’t mean anything!

UNLESS YOU BELIEVE the incumbent alderman is engaged in a conspiracy with the U.S. Postal Department, this one may be a bit of a stretch. Although the whole concept of votes still coming in and being counted relies so much on the public trust that it is no wonder some people are willing to believe the worst.

It is why Chicago Sun-Times reports are intriguing about how the identity of those who cast absentee ballots from the 10^th Ward were inadvertently revealed. Making it possible theoretically that someone is trying to keep track as to which people voted the “wrong” way and need to be punished.

So for that ward most of us only notice on those occasions we’re looking down on it while driving through the Chicago Skyway, we don’t know the final count yet.

We’re going to have to wait and see whether it is Pope or Garza who winds up filing the request for a formal recount of Election Day results.

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EXTRA: On the shores of the Calumet (lake/river), 89 votes is victory margin

That final precinct is in. Aldermanic hopeful Susan Garza has an 89-vote lead over 10^th Ward Alderman John Pope. Some 5,747 ballots cast for Garza, compared to 5,658 for the incumbent, according to the Chicago Board of Elections.


The Chicago Teachers Union official and educator who campaigned on a platform that Pope was nothing more than a lackey for Mayor Rahm Emanuel may well have won!


OF COURSE, THERE’S also absentee ballots that may, or may not, change the vote margin. And the loser may well demand a recount, what with how close it is.

Although Garza gathered Wednesday night with supporters at Viveros, 9500 S. Avenue L, for what seems to be as close to a victory party as one can have without tempting fate.

“Our campaign will remain vigilant in observing the process by which (absentee ballots) are handled and counted, so the voice of the people is not stolen,” Garza said.

As for the 16^th Ward, Toni Foulkes has a 112-vote lead over Stephanie Coleman, Chris Taliaferro has a 500-vote lead over 29^th Ward Alderman Deborah Graham and 43^rd Ward Alderman Caroline Vickrey has a six-vote lead over Michele Smith. All with all precincts counted, the city Elections Board says.

SO IS ELECTION Day over? It depends on who you ask.

The ultimate “expert” on this issue may well be actor John Belushi’s “Blutto Blutarsky” character from “Animal House” when he screamed, “Did you say ‘over?’ Nothing is over until we decide it is!”

, in hearing the voices of people who have been ignored for so long, we together were able to upset the status quo and chart a new path for the forgotten 10th Ward," Garza said early Wednesday."Absentee ballots have yet to be counted completely, and our campaign will remain vigilant in observing the process by which they are handled and counted, so the voice of the people is not stolen."A Press Conference has been scheduled.....
WHEN: Tonight April 8th, 7:30PM
WHERE: VIVEROS - 9500 S. Ave.  -30-

EXTRA: Why can’t it be over?!?

I’m sure it’s frustrating for political operatives – you go through the rigamarole of a campaign season, exchange the political blows, the people express their will by voting.

Yet after all that, we still don’t know who won!

THAT SEEMS TO be the case in four of the city’s 50 wards. There are aldermen who don’t know if they have to begin planning for the next four years, or the next couple of weeks as they should clear out their offices and transition into the next part of their lives.

No ward, it seems, is any tighter than the 10^th – that part of Chicago at the far southeast corner filled with lots of contaminated industrial sites and where Indiana is merely the other side of State Line Road and NOT some esoteric concept.

Alderman John Pope, who has been in office since 1999, had 5,465 votes cast for him, compared to 5,472 for Susan Garza – a counselor at Jane Addams Elementary School and an official within the Chicago Teachers Union whose father was a long-time head of the United Steelworkers Union local. So close that both candidates can legitimately claim to have 50 percent of the vote – 50.03 percent and 49.97 percent.

There is one precinct (out of 36 in the ward) where votes still have to be counted, and Garza supporters are optimistic because it seems it is the East Side neighborhood precinct that contains the school itself, at 10810 S. Avenue H.

IT IS A precinct that, back in the Feb. 24 municipal elections, gave Garza 60 percent voter support, with Pope and the other five candidates running then taking the remaining 40 percent.

Garza backers said Wednesday they’re fairly sure they will take that precinct and wind up with more than a seven-vote lead.

Although they say Garza herself plans to wait about a week before any kind of election announcement is made. So we don't know yet if the ward that was the one-time political base of the Vrdolyak clan yet also has had a significant Latino population for decades will finally get its first Latina (by marriage) alderman.

For one thing, there is the potential that absentee ballots were cast in the 10^th Ward, which will still trickle in during the next coming days. Who’s to say a slim Pope lead won’t crop up? They also expect that since the election results will be close no matter what, that a recount of the votes will have to be done.

SO WHILE CLAIMS can be made that the City Council that Mayor Rahm Emanuel will have to deal with during his next term will be less sympathetic (so far, no one who ran for alderman as an Emanuel critic has lost), we don’t know the exact composition of the 50 aldermen.

As Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey said Wednesday of the Election results, “the mayor didn’t win the run-off election as much as he survived it.”

On the South Side, the 16^th Ward had a potential Emanuel opponent, Toni Foulkes, leading Stephanie Coleman by 50.96 percent to 49.04 percent. To the west, 29^th Ward challenger Chris Taliaferro is leading Alderman Deborah Graham 52 to 48 percent.

While on the North Side’s 43^rd Ward (including the Lincoln Park neighborhood), incumbent Alderman Michele Smith has just a bare 50.38 percent to 49.62 percent lead over Caroline Vickrey.

SO LIKE IT or not, this election cycle isn’t over yet. April 28 is the date that the Chicago Board of Elections has to complete its canvass and tell us the final official results – so that the transition to the newly-elected officials can take office at noon on May 18.

By then, we will be able to transition directly into the 2016 election cycle, for which some candidates already have started to campaign.

Ah, you have to love the never-ending campaigning for political office!

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“Boss” Rahm, or “Boss” Burke; Is there really a political difference?

It seems that Willie Wilson enjoys the thought of himself as some sort of political powerbroker – the guy behind the scenes who gets to pick which officials get to have government authority to do things.

At least that was the impression I gained from reading the Aldertrack political newsletter, which on Wednesday reported that Wilson – the failed mayoral hopeful who already has publicly backed Jesus Garcia for the April 7 run-off election – now has nine preferred aldermanic candidates.

HE HAS CERTAIN preferred City Council candidates whom he’d like to see win election in their own right. According to the newsletter (which truly has been a gem of the ’15 election cycle in terms of keeping me informed about the candidates across the neighborhoods), Wilson wants aldermen Emma Mitts of the 37^th Ward and Natasha Holmes of the 7^th Ward to win.

In seven other wards, he wants the incumbent alderman to lose to the challenger who was able to force a run-off election.

As the newsletter points out, Mitts and Holmes publicly back the idea of Rahm Emanuel’s re-election to another mayoral term, while the others (including outspoken Garcia/Karen Lewis supporter Susan Sadlowski Garza in the 10^th ward) all want the concept of “Mayor Chuy” to become a reality.

What caught my attention about all of this was the reasoning that Wilson campaign manager Rev. Gregory Seal Livingston gave for the endorsements – Willie wants aldermen who won’t necessarily rubber-stamp the mayor’s thoughts as eagerly as the current City Council backs Rahm Emanuel.

“THE ENDORSEMENTS ARE not based on mayoral allegiance, but on the importance of having a strong council, weak mayor system,” Livingston told the Aldertrack newsletter.

Aside from the idea of anyone caring what the campaign manager of a failed candidate thinks, I couldn’t help but be concerned about what could come about if such a thought were to be carried out to its natural conclusion.

An all-powerful group of aldermen thinking they are above reproach and acting in ways that would not necessarily be beneficial to the public interest.

Now I know that in theory, Chicago city government is structured in exactly such a way – with the City Council having the authority to govern the people and the mayor serving a lesser role.

THAT CONCEPT WAS long-ago trashed in reality as the “machine” of old made sure that the kinds of people who generally got picked to be alderman were the ones who knew how to follow orders!

Put a strong personality in as mayor, and aldermen become a rubber stamp for mayoral delusions of all kind.

But I can see where a strong personality in the City Council could wind up becoming just as dominant over city government to the point where things would become just as absurd as they often become now. Just as how I fear that an "elected" Board of Education would put the board's composition into the hands of the political hacks.

The way that long-time 14^th Ward Alderman Edward Burke uses his seniority and influence over city government to dominate the City Council’s actions can be almost as intimidating a presence as that of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s control over Illinois state government through his domination of the House of Representatives. Is that what we want to encourage at City Hall?

HECK, LET’S BE honest. That period which many of us remember as “Council Wars” (a.k.a., the Harold Washington years) was technically an example of a “strong council” using its authority over the mayor.

Athough I’m sure only the most delusional of us would think that the mid-1980s and all the racial baiting that dominated the local political scene was an example of “good government” at work in Chicago.

I’m sure that Wilson, on some level, has some sort of fantasy in which the 50 aldermen act as independent agents of thought representing their home communities in trying to get city government to act appropriately.

Which is about as nonsensical a concept as those Chicago Cubs fans who think that their favorite ball club ought to have had many World Series titles throughout the seasons with the collection of athletic stiffs they have fielded in the past.

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Rauner, Emanuel both likely to be tagged with United Steelworkers strike

Oil refinery workers represented by the United Steelworkers union across the nation – including at the BP refinery in Whiting, Ind., near the Illinois/Indiana border – have been on strike for more than a month; and that could become an issue that our top political people are likely to get tagged with if the Chicago Teachers Union gets its way.

The teachers union issued a statement Monday saying it fully supported the striking union members, who walked off the job Feb. 1 when they were unable to come to agreement on new health and safety regulations at the refineries.

THE LABOR DISPUTE began in Texas and has spread to 15 facilities across the country. None are technically within Illinois, although that Whiting refinery is capable of generating a stink that sometimes can be sensed – depending on how the wind blows – at the far southeast corner of Chicago.

The teachers union decided to show labor solidarity by reminding us that our new governor is not all that sympathetic toward organized labor and that Bruce Rauner “attacks Illinois unions and worker compensation laws that keep workers safe.”

The union didn’t mention Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Monday’s statement, but I’m sure it is just a matter of time before they start smacking him with anti-union cries – considering how clear union President Karen Lewis has made it that she wants "Anybody But Rahm" to be mayor and that she supports the bid of Jesus Garcia in the April 7 run-off election.

“It is incumbent upon Illinois political and business leaders to reject the race to the bottom promoted by the anti-union attacks of Gov. Rauner and instead recognize the rights of workers and the importance of their unions to mitigate negative externalities in the workplace and beyond,” the union wrote.

I’M SURE THAT Rauner (and Emanuel) backers will contend that this particular strike doesn’t impact Illinois and ought to be considered irrelevant to our local issues.

But when one comes across as hard-core anti-labor as Rauner does, it is only natural that he’s going to get bashed by some of this strike’s particular trash talk.

Particularly if they think it can result in political support from people who already are wary of trusting the new governor and the incumbent mayor.

“Illinois political leaders can address the widening gulf between rich and poor in the state and the nation by actively promoting unionization, halting the attack on worker pensions and demanding higher taxes for the wealthy,  an approach that has dramatically improved state budgets for the people of Minnesota and California,” the union wrote.

ALTHOUGH I WONDER if bringing up those states is counter-productive, since the kind of measures Rauner has mentioned to bolster the Illinois economy seem to be moving us toward the “right-to-work” laws in places like Mississippi and Alabama – which imposed them out of an ideological belief that the existence of unions WAS the problem that business interests should not have to address.

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the teachers union would find some solidarity with the steelworkers union. One of the teachers union’s area vice-presidents is Susan Garza – who also is the 10^th Ward aldermanic candidate in the April 7 run-off and the daughter of long-time United Steelworkers local President Ed Sadlowski.

They will keep up the rhetoric meant to fight back against the governor’s rhetoric that is meant to demonize labor. Even if it means bringing up a strike that technically isn’t local.

I’m just waiting to see and hear what they will say if it turns out that gasoline prices wind up increasing significantly in coming weeks since about one-fifth of the nation’s refining capacity is impacted. It’s Rauner’s fault that we could be paying near $4 per gallon for gasoline, except for the part of the equation that can be blamed on Rahm!

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Will ’15 run-off be a boost for Latino political empowerment in Chicago?

Mayor Rahm Emanuel deserves one bit of credit as he begins campaigning for re-election in the run-off election to be held April 7 – he seems to have a clue as to what the political challenge is before him.

He needs to appeal to Latino voters, and on Election Night Rahm used Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., to introduce him – a Latino face talking up Rahm, and even reverting to the Spanish language for part of it.

A REMINDER TO those Latinos who voted for Emanuel in Tuesday’s municipal elections who are now going to face pressure to vote in the run-off for Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

Who is going to try, amongst other tactics, to make this the chance for the roughly 30 percent of Chicagoans who are of Latin American ethnic origins to assert ourselves politically and elect “one of our own” to the mayor’s post!

I believe that if Garcia hadn’t have done as well as he did in the first part of this election cycle (34 percent of the vote, when many polls had him finishing with somewhere between 17 and 24 percent political support), we wouldn’t have heard from Gutierrez.

It was, after all, an odd match-up – the fact that Gutierrez backed Emanuel’s re-election was more a statement that he thought none of the challengers had what it took to be mayor.

LET’S NOT FORGET that when Emanuel served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama, he was the one that was the brunt of Gutierrez’ constant attacks on Obama’s failure to address immigration reform.

The perception amongst many Latino activists is that it was Emanuel not wanting to be bothered with the politically divisive issue – and that he was willing to let a significant Latino concern (many perceive opposition to the issue as a sign of disrespect in general toward the Latino segment of our society) be continually put on the backburner to try to appease conservative ideologues.

Emanuel as mayor has had to address Latino concerns and try to win over those in Chicago who are primarily of Mexican and Puerto Rican ethnic origins.

Now, Emanuel is going to have to run for re-election against a progressive-minded Democrat (the mayor is more centrist, no matter what the conservative ideologues want to believe about him) born in Mexico and raised in the ethnic Pilsen and Little Village enclaves.

ALL OF THAT is going to come into play during the next six weeks until the final municipal election. That is why Gutierrez got trotted out to be Emanuel’s face!

Gutierrez should be acknowledged for a bit of honesty Tuesday night – he admitted that back in 2011, he was amongst Emanuel’s opponents and was among the roughly 60 percent of Chicago Latinos who voted for one of the two Latino candidates (Gery Chico and Miguel del Valle) who were seeking the post.

Now, he’s going to be amongst the people trying to persuade his constituents to take Rahm seriously. It makes sense for him to be a key player in coming weeks.

Because when one looks at maps of Chicago showing which mayoral candidate prevailed in each of the city’s 50 wards, it becomes clear that Emanuel was the winner across the city EXCEPT for those Southwest Side Mexican-oriented wards and the Northwest Side Puerto Rican-based wards.

THEY ALMOST MATCH up perfectly with the parts of Chicago that are within the weird-shaped congressional district that makes Gutierrez the chief political representative for Latino people.

There are a couple of exceptions – Garcia also prevailed in the 49^th Ward of the Rogers Park neighborhood and the 10^th Ward at the far southeast corner of Chicago that contains some of the city’s oldest Spanish-speaking enclaves.

In that latter ward, there also was a run-off resulting from the aldermanic election – 10^th Ward Ald. John Pope will have to face off against Susan Sadlowski Garza, a career educator and official within the Chicago Teachers Union.

Pope is either praised or criticized within the ward for being an Emanuel backer (a 100 percent voting record of supporting the mayor), while Garza follows the lead of union President Karen Lewis in backing Garcia.

I MENTION THAT ward because it seems Garcia took a slim margin in the mayoral race (48 percent, to 38 percent for Emanuel), while in the aldermanic race Pope prevailed with 44 percent of the vote, compared to 24 percent for Garza.

That would make it seem that there were at least a few (the ward is 63 percent Latino) people who cast their ballots for both Garcia and Pope. Could it be that at least a few of those Latinos will wind up finding it within themselves to back Emanuel come April 7.

City-wide, Emanuel took about 37 percent of the Latino support, compared to just over 52 percent for Garcia. If Emanuel can’t gain a good portion of the remaining 11 percent Latino vote, then he is destined to be a mayoral one-termer just like Michael Bilandic or Jane Byrne.

While Chicagoans at-large will have to endure at least four years of stupid Star Wars-themed jokes about our new mayor’s nickname.

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Regarding mayor, does anyone care?

I have sensed for quite a while that this year’s mayoral election cycle isn’t exactly getting the people of Chicago all worked up into a political frenzy.

Based on figures from the Chicago Board of Elections, it would seem my observation isn’t that far off – even though I have heard from some diehard backers of the mayoral challengers who insist that contempt felt for Mayor Rahm Emanuel is going to turn out the masses to vote against him!

BUT THE FIGURES reported by the city elections board indicate the number of people who have bothered thus far to show up at polling places across the city for early voting is barely over half the total number who voted early in the 2011 municipal elections for mayor.

Admittedly, there are still a few days left for people to cast ballots in advance of Tuesday’s Election Day. But not that many.

My guess is that 2015 will go into the local history books as a record low for voter turnout. The reality of electoral politics is that when few people bother to vote, the establishment candidate (meaning Emanuel) winds up winning.

He’s got the campaign cash to ensure that voter turnout efforts find the kind of people who don’t have hang-ups about his first four years as mayor AND get them to actually show up to vote.

IT SHOULD ALSO be noted that the 2014 election cycle for governor had record-high numbers of people who used early voting centers, but then produced merely an average voter turnout overall because the number of people who bothered to show up at polling places was pathetic.

Those who cared enough to vote have already bothered to do so. This isn’t exactly a repeat of 1983 when record numbers of newly-registered black voters turned out to put Harold Washington in Hizzoner’s office.

Although it’s interesting to read that mayoral hopeful Willie Wilson is claiming to have polls of his own that differ from all the others because he says they’re ignoring large numbers of black voters who are all peeved by Emanuel’s actions.

But even his own poll shows him finishing in third place – which would still make him a “loser” since only the top two vote-getters advance to a run-off election in the event Emanuel only gets 49.99999 percent (or less) of the vote.

WHAT WE HAVE is an election cycle in which apathy rules. The few wards where there are significant numbers of early voters (according to the elections board) are the ones in which there are competitive aldermanic races.

In the one ward I’m paying particular attention to (the 10^th, down on the city’s Southeast Side – I was born there and have relatives who still live there), it’s probably more significant that candidate Susan Sadlowski Garza is backing Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for mayor, rather than that he’s supporting the former Chicago Teachers Union official for alderman.

Even she may wind up splitting the support of opponents to incumbent Alderman John Pope with the five other challengers – thereby making it possible for Pope to gain a fifth term in the City Council through the same apathy that could keep Emanuel as mayor.

People are resorting to whatever tactics they can conceive of to try to stir up interest amongst the apathetic.

WHICH PROBABLY BEST explains the rant that Garcia engaged in earlier this week – saying the teachers union will go on strike again IF Emanuel is re-elected as mayor. Or the fact that Wilson put out a statement Wednesday saying he wants some direct face time with President Barack Obama, who will be in Chicago on Thursday to back Emanuel AND tout the new Pullman National Park.

Does this mean we need Chuy in order to ensure the teachers don’t walk off the job next fall and cause mass aggravation for parents of children whose daily routines would be disrupted by such a strike?

Or is it really just about reminding us of the fact that Emanuel’s tough talk provoked the teachers union into a week-long strike back in 2012 – and that some of the union officials have long memories and are just as capable of carrying a grudge as is the mayor?

Six more days until Election Day, and 41 more until the run-off – and then our collective migrane headache comes to an end. At least until the ongoing Hillary Clinton “will she or won’t she” kicks into high gear for 2016.

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