Toni Preckwinkle

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Toni Preckwinkle
City of Chicago Alderman
In office 1991 – Present
Preceded by	Timothy C. Evans
Constituency	4th ward
Born	March 17, 1947 (1947-03-17) (age 61) St. Paul, Minnesota
Political party	Democratic
Residence	Chicago, Illinois  United States
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Website	City of Chicago 4th ward

Toni Reed Preckwinkle (born March 17, 1947) is an alderman in the Chicago City Council representing Chicago's 4th ward in Cook County, Illinois, United States. In addition to her elected role on the city council, Preckwinkle has the dual role as the Democratic Committeeman of the 4th Ward of the city on the Cook County Central Committee. As 4th ward alderman, she has neighborhood, municipal and regional roles in addition to her international role in the development of the prospective Olympic Village and Olympic Stadium, which are planned in and around her ward as part of the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid. She is a critic of current Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and ally of United States Senator and 4th ward resident Barack Obama. She is an outspoken Chicago politician whose actions and opinions are often noted in respected publications across the country such as the New York Times and Washington Post and has a reputation for being a progressive leader and being publicly accountable.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Aldermanic career 2.1 Political role 2.2 Political issues 3 Personal life 4 Notes 5 External links

[edit] Early life

Preckwinkle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and moved to Chicago to study at the University of Chicago. While studying there, she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees. After college, Preckwinkle spent 10 years teaching history in high school. She taught at several schools throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, including Calumet High School, the Visitation School, and Aquinas.^[1] During and after her 1987 campaign, she worked as a planner for the Chicago Department of Economic Development.^[2][3] By 1990, she had become executive director of the Chicago Jobs Council and become allied with R. Eugene Pincham.^[4][5]

[edit] Aldermanic career

[edit] Political role

Preckwinkle lost to Timothy C. Evans in both 1983 and 1987.^[6] In 1983, she was able to get enough support to force a runoff election.^[7] Evans was Chicago Mayor Harold Washington's City Council floor leader and lieutenant.^[6][8] Although both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times endorsed Evans in 1987 they described Preckwinkle as keen, persuasive, spirited, articulate, intelligent and independent and the Sun-Times hoped she would continue to pursue politics.^[2][9] Evans had previously been aligned with former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne, but Preckwinkle was endorsed by United States Senator Carol Moseley Braun and the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization.^[10] She lost in 1987 by a 77%-21% margin in the February 24, 1987 municipal elections.^[11]

In 1991, Evans, Preckwinkle and four others contested for the city's fourth ward alderman position.^[12] Preckwinkle was elected in 1991 as alderman for the 4th ward, defeating the 19-year incumbent alderman Evans, an appointee of former Mayor Richard J. Daley.^[13] The ward is adjacent to the Lake Michigan lakefront, and she is now serving her fourth term.^[1] The 4th ward includes all of the Kenwood and Oakland community areas, the northern portion of Hyde Park and the eastern portions of the Washington Park, Grand Boulevard and Douglas community areas on the South Side of Chicago. As alderman she is apportioned the same $1.2 million discretionary fund from the City as all other aldermen.^[14] In general, she is known for her accountability and progressiveness.^[15][16][17]

Preckwinkle is also the Democratic Committeeman of the 4th Ward,^[18] a powerful position within the Cook County Democratic Party.^[19] Each of the 50 wards of the city and the 30 townships of Cook County elect a Democratic Committeeman, for the Cook County Central Committee. These committeemen have a great deal of formal authority as the official governing body of the Cook County Democratic Party, which among other purposes endeavors to attract, endorse, and support qualified Democratic candidates for office.^[19][20][21]

She was among those who encouraged Barack Obama to make his first run for the United States Congress in 2000,^[22] and she was an early supporter when he ran in 2004.^[23] When Obama later became a United States Senator, Preckwinkle had a disproportionately large say in his Illinois State Senate replacement.^[24] She along with aldermen Sandi Jackson, Joe Moore and Ricardo Munoz are Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's fiercest critics on the current City Council.^[14] In 2004, she and Dorothy Tillman were the only aldermen to vote against the Mayor's city budget, and in 2005, Preckwinkle was the lone dissenter.^[25]

[edit] Political issues

Should the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid be successful, Preckwinkle will have a prominent role in its execution. Her ward will be the main host of the $1.1 billion residential complex, which is immediately south of McCormick Place and across Lake Shore Drive from Burnham Park and Lake Michigan, that would accommodate athletes in an Olympic Village. The structure will be redeveloped from a truck parking lot mostly in the Douglas and partly in the Near South Side community areas and that will become rental and condominium units regardless of whether the Olympics come to Chicago. She has already expressed her reservations about the current plan and will have a hand in plan revisions.^[26][27] Although Washington Park is partially located in the 4th Ward, the proposed Olympic Stadium will be located a few dozen meters outside her ward in the 20th ward. Of course, since the Olympic efforts would impact her district to the north and east, especially the part of the park in her ward, her opinion on the stadium plans will be relevant and she has expressed her reservations about the impact of the plan on public park usage.^[28]

On the City Council, she has championed set-asides for affordable housing as her signature issue and become known as a progressive member, independent of current Mayor Richard M. Daley with whom she dissented more often than any other alderman.^[29][30] The municipal ordinances she sponsored in 1993 and 1999 for affordable housing increased city expenditures on low and moderate income housing by 50%.^[31] In 2007, she pushed for increases in the Affordable Requirements Ordinance, already in effect, that mandate that housing developers using land bought at a discount from the city to make at least 10 percent of their housing units "affordable" or contribute money to an affordable-housing fund by increasing the percentage to 15 percent.^[16] The issue is considered a key element of the debate about ending homelessness in Chicago.^[32] She is considered knowledgable about the goings on in public housing by the national press who has cited her widely when she defended the maligned Vince Lane as the federal government took over Chicago's public housing projects.^[33][34]

She sponsored living wage ordinances that passed in 1998 and 2002.^[31] A 2006 living wage ordinance made Chicago the largest United States city to require big-box retailers to pay a "living wage." The ordinance requires companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 square feet (8,400 m²) to pay wages of at least $10 an hour plus $3 in fringe benefits by mid-2010. The minimum wage in Illinois at the time of the ordinance's passage was $6.50 an hour and the federal minimum was $5.15. Other U.S. cities with living wage laws include Santa Fe and Albuquerque in New Mexico; San Francisco, California; and Washington D.C.^[35]

In October 2007, it was reported that Preckwinkle had strongly opposed naming a landmark in the 4th ward for 1976 Nobel literature laureate Saul Bellow on the grounds that Bellow had made remarks that Preckwinkle considered racist.^[36][37] She also was opposed to the renaming of a stretch of street near the original Playboy Club "Hugh Hefner Way".^[38] Preckwinkle has been outspoken in support of the city settling the Jon Burge torture case instead of continuing to spend money litigating.^[39]

Another local controversy was Preckwinkle's 2006 decision to whitewash artistic and memorial murals at the 47th Street Metra underpass. Preckwinkle has apologized to offended local graffiti artist who had worked in 1996 with the permission of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs to create the murals that represented themes that included Latin-American, African, Mayan, Indian, and Native American spiritual practices.^[40] A year later controversy still surrounds the recreation of murals on the underpass.^[41]

[edit] Personal life

Preckwinkle is married to Zeus Preckwinkle, a teacher at Ancona school. The They both have 2 children. Her husband is caucasian, which at times has been a campaign issue.^[42]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• 4th Ward Map
• Preckwinkle's Biography
• Developing Government Accountability Report Card

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