Action Bulletin Spring 2018

Independents’ Day Dinner Features Mayoral Candidate Forum

by David K. Igasaki

The Action Bulletin is published quarterly by theIndependent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization1325 S Wabash #105Chicago IL 60605

Stephen SternState Chair

Aviva Miriam PattEditor

Contents:

Page 174th Annual Independents Day Dinner

Page 2State Chair’s ReportBoard Election

Page 3 An Independent Thought

Page 4Book Review

Page 5Mike Holewinski Memorial

Page 6National Affairs

Page 7Community ActionLegislative Action

Our annual Independents’ Day Dinner will be held on Thursday, July 19 at the Ukrainian Cultural Center, 2247 W. Chicago Avenue in Chicago. A reception will begin at 6:00pm followed by dinner and program at 7:00pm.

The featured program will be a Mayoral Candidate Forum to which all active candidates for Mayor of Chicago in the upcoming municipal elections will be invited. The format will be similar to last year’s Gubernatorial Forum.

We will also be presenting our organizational awards at the Dinner. The Legal Eagle Award will be presented to the Travel Ban Attorneys who provided pro bono legal counsel to the protestors at O’Hare Airport protesting Trump’s Travel Ban and, later, set up an ongoing crisis help line. Recognition will be given to the attorneys coordinating the team: Sufyan Sohel of CAIR; Iman Boundaoui of Drinker, Biddle, and Reath; Jamie Friedland of Latham and Watkins; and Matt Pryor of the Cook County Office of Shakman Compliance.

Longtime activist and member Timuel Black, who is celebrating his 100th birthday, will be presented with the Harold Washington Award. The Young Leadership Award will be presented to March for Our Lives - Chicago. Congressman Luis Gutierrez will be presented with the Leon Despres Award. The Barbara Merrill- Rudy Lozano Labor Award will be presented to Roberta Lynch, Executive Director of Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

Special recognition will be given to State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie and Cook County Clerk David Orr, who are retiring after many years of public service and many years working with IVI-IPO.

Fun will be had by all! It will also be one of the first opportunities to meet, hear, and ask questions of the candidates for Mayor of Chicago.

Tickets are $100 for members and $115 for non-members. You can also purchase Bronze Sponsorships for $300 (includes 2 tickets and a 1/4 page ad), Silver Sponsorships for $600 (includes 4 tickets and a half page ad), and Gold Sponsorships for $1200 (includes 10 tickets and a full page ad).

You can RSVP at www.iviipo.org.

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As we enter the final quarter of our year I want to highlight a few significant accomplishments as well as address a few significant upcoming events.

First, concerted efforts by our Board and members have resulted in placing the organization on sound financial footing. This has allowed the organization to pursue goals and projects that we were forced to lay aside for a while due to

financial constraints. One such project that we are very proud of is that in November of 2017, for the first time in over 5 years, we resumed publication of this newsletter, not only by mailing hard copies to our members, but also emailing in electronic format to our extensive distribution list and being made available to the general public through our website. We view it as essential in pursuit of our goal of informing both our members and the general public about our activities, positions (as illuminated in our articles) and our endorsed candidates, as we strive to achieve our core mission of “pursing social justice through good government”. A large part of the credit for this accomplishment goes to our Newsletter Editor Aviva Miriam Patt.

Second, we are equally proud of our precedent setting endorsements in the March primaries detailed in our last newsletter. Not detailed was the extensive review and revamping of the various questionnaires to which we require candidates of all levels of government to respond (a process that will no doubt be repeated in our next round of endorsements). What also may not have been obvious in our prior newsletter is that we endorsed candidates in 70 contested offices throughout the state and reviewed many more contested offices where we chose to make no endorsement. The primary credit for this goes to our Political Action Committee and ultimately our State Board Political Action Chair Al Kindle.

We look forward to the next few months being equally important in terms of the organization’s pursuit of its historical role since 1944 of endorsing candidates that we hope will advance progressive issues and oppose efforts to undermine them. There will be many contested races both in the general election in November as well as in the municipal elections in February of 2019. In anticipation of this, during this year’s Independents’ Day Dinner on July 19th we are planning a Mayoral candidate forum, similar in format to last year’s successful Gubernatorial candidate forum (for those interested in getting an early preview of the positions of the many candidates aspiring to lead our city).

We will also be gearing up for endorsements for the general election as well as the municipal elections in February of 2019 which will determine the direction that we will go in to address the numerous critical problems and financial issues at the Municipal, County, State and National level. Thus, next year will be a critical year for IVI-IPO in pursuing our core mission, leading to a final very important upcoming event, which is the nomination of the Board that will take charge of our organization in August of this year. Our members will decide who will serve on the State Board as well as the Chapter Boards for this upcoming critical political year for our State and the Nation.

Ballots for the Board election will be mailed to our members July 2nd and must be received in the IVI-IPO office by 5pm July 23rd If your membership has expired you should renew it as soon as possible (and certainly no later than before the ballots are mailed) so you can have a voice in choosing the leadership of IVI-IPO in this pivotal year. These are exciting and critical times. We need and aim to be prepared to meet the challenges this organization was originally created to face 74 years ago.

State Chair’s Reportby Stephen Stern

The recent Illinois primary election was historic for the progressive movement—locally and nationally. Our Revolution Illinois/Chicago helped deliver major victories for nearly all of our endorsed candidates in Cook County. These victories are re-shaping the political landscape—changing the Democratic Party, and positioning us well for the upcoming Chicago mayoral and aldermanic elections.

A few highlights:

Fritz Kaegi for Cook County Assessor We organized early to bring attention to the corrupt Cook County property tax system and assisted in putting together a coalition that help deliver a historic win for Fritz over the longtime Assessor and former Cook County Democratic Party Chairman. Now the real work begins of fixing a broken system that over taxes minority and poorer homeowners while delivering major tax breaks for big corporations and the very wealthy. Our Revolution will continue to be part of the fight until this injustice is fixed.

Chuy’s teamWe enthusiastically supported Chuy Garcia for Congress, Alma Anaya for County Commissioner and Aaron Ortiz and Delia Ramirez for State Representative, who all won their races. In the cases of Alma and Aaron both were dramatically outspent by their opponents but won because of a far superior indigenous ground game. Both knocked on every targeted household door and defeated machine democrats!

Illinois will send Chuy, a national leader on immigration reform, to Washington DC at a critical juncture for this movement.

Young Aaron Ortiz defeated long-time incumbent Dan Burke, one of the most powerful machine committeemen, whose brother is Alderman Ed Burke, chairman of the Chicago City Council Finance Committee and Donald Trumps tax lawyer in Chicago. The Burke’s are on notice that their form of machine politics will no longer be tolerated on the southwest side. Ed Burke will not be the 14th ward Alderman come next May.

Alma Anaya also defeated the daughter of machine State Senator Martin Sandoval and will replace Chuy on the Board of Commissioners. Among Alma’s priorities is campaign finance reform and small donor match.

In a heated four-way race Delia Ramirez won nearly 50% of the vote. Delia is rooted and ready to fight for a progressive income tax and tackle income inequality.

Brandon Johnson for Cook County CommissionerA public school teacher and organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union Brandon will champion the interests of working men and women from his seat on the Cook County Board. All progressives should look for great things from this dynamic, seasoned leader as Brandon hits the street running.

Ram Villivalam for State SenateRam defeated twenty-year incumbent State Senator Ira Silverstein and will be the first South Asian-American elected to the state legislature. He was supported by a wide coalition of labor groups, community organizations, and elected officials.

All of these campaigns were won with hard work and knocking on door, making phone calls, using digital media, direct mail and more. Although many were outspent by their opponents, they prevailed because of the volunteer base that they built.

Our Revolution is the organization that grew out of the Bernie Sanders for President campaign which in Illinois won 81 of 102 counties in Illinois, 14 out of 30 townships in Cook County and 25 of 50 wards in Chicago. After our primary victories, we are now looking forward to the 2019 Mayoral and Aldermanic elections in Chicago where we intend to be involved, supporting candidates, walking precincts, holding press events and raising money for endorsed candidates.

We will make Bernie’s platform of: Medicare for All, raising the minimum wage to $15/hr, free college tuition at public colleges and universities, campaign finance reform, criminal justice reform, changing tax policy to make millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share and more part of the campaign. We look forward to working with progressive organizations like the IVI-IPO to bring progressive change to Chicago and Illinois.

An Independent Thought by Clem Balanoff, Executive Director, Our Revolution Illinois

IVI-IPO is all about participatory democracy. Our members discuss and recommend policy positions, vote on candidate endorsements, and engage in local action through

their chapters. Members also directly elect the Board of Directors and officers who implement our policies and oversee the day-to-day management of our organization.

Balloting for the Board takes place in July. If you would like to run for a position on the Board, please complete the nomination form that you have recently received (or will soon

receive) in the mail and return it to the office by Monday, June 25 at 5pm.

And if you have not paid dues since April 2017, be sure to do it now!

Like our Facebook page Our Revolution Illinois, or go to our website (still in construction) at

ourrevolutionil.com Hope to see you join us on the progressive campaign trail as we fight for a more just and caring America.

GET INVOLVED.

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When Gabe Klein left his job heading Chicago’s Department of Transportation in 2013, I said (in a post on my blog) “good riddance.”

I saw him as a bull in a china shop, installing bike lanes a mile a minute in dangerous places and in unaesthetic ways. I saw him disrupting the gorgeous symmetry of some beautiful downtown streets by unbalancing the traffic lanes and the parking lanes in favor of the bike lanes.

I saw Divvy bike racks—his glory be—as metal hunks of litter, installed alongside some of our beautiful landmarks (the Chicago Cultural Center, for one) marring some of the deepest beauty in Chicago, all so that tourists could rent them and ride on busy downtown sidewalks (totally illegal) while sightseeing—and sometimes even knocking us citizens in the keister while they did it.

He seemed to forget that bicycles are often ridden by sociopathic maniacs; and that pedestrians and public transportation riders are protecting the environment from big carbon just as well as bicyclists.

In any case, Divvy and the bike lanes seem to be a huge success. And I’m a dinosaur.(And get off my lawn, Dennis!)

I received a copy of Klein’s book, Start-Up City a while back at a Chicago Loop Alliance breakfast; Gabe Klein had come back to the city I thought he ruined to speak. And until recently, I put it aside.

Klein has written a handbook about getting new and unfamiliar things done in the private and public sectors for people who may understand technology and the future but who may work in a stodgy bureaucracy that’s resistant to new things.

Early in the book, he tells the story of the bike lane installation along Pennsylvania Avenue he supervised as head of the Washington, DC Department of Transportation (one of many jobs he held before he came to Chicago).

Due to his own neglectful supervision (he admits it), Klein reacted the same way I did when I saw the bike lanes installed on the Printers Row portion of Dearborn Street. He saw Pennsylvania Avenue as dangerous and asymmetrical. The difference is he was able to fix the problem before it was too late in DC. Albeit at greater expense.

Klein’s book is interesting. On one hand, he fancies himself a dedicated public servant who thinks outside the box and who understands the delicate dance of getting the public, the bureaucrats and the unions and other civic institutions working in sync to bring new ideas and new ways of doing things to life.

Even for a skeptic like me, the book illustrates his impressive knowledge and personality. As far as his understanding of the future, the last chapter of his book is a short, must read that sounds like science fiction, but I know it isn’t. I sat transfixed as I read how life will probably be (dominated by virtual reality, holography, and few possessions) and how soon it could arrive.

(Perspective: I remember when an editor asked me to write a story 35 years ago for Crain’s about a new technology that was about to hit: voice mail. I talked to sources but found it totally impossible to

understand what it was or how it would work.)

Klein, however, “tells” rather than “shows” a little too much in his tome. For a young person with energy and ideas, who may be looking at this book for guidance and solid how-tos—rather than platitudes and inspiration—it may fall short. Although Klein does include to-do lists here and there that may suffice for certain readers.

As for the nuts and bolts of what to say and do when trying to institute new things in a city that may be rotting, not taking advantage of its greatest assets—and being run by the old

guard, protecting old guard stuff, the book may fall short.

Why? In Klein’s world, it seems he was lucky, prescient, and the powers that be always seemed to be where he was—at the right place at the right time. Like a Jimmy Stewart movie. He was a guy who was noticed. And the book is heavy on telling us rather than showing us how he really did it.

Klein “explains” things by explaining the stages of his career: retail bikes, technology start-ups, a stint in the car-sharing business and cofounder of the first all-natural, electric-powered multi-unit food truck company in the US, as well as the aforementioned stints as head of the transportation departments in Washington, DC and Chicago.

Is he just a whiz kid? A new-age genius who appears on a certain kind of radar? Is it a mystery as to what mayors Adrian Fenty of Washington DC and Rahm Emanuel saw in him? Or does it all make perfect sense?

He also tries to explain “process” by demystifying things like financing municipal projects. Like the “secret” work he did bringing subsequent sections of the Chicago’s Riverwalk to fruition. While no one was paying much attention, Klein explains that he arranged unusual federal loans and got it going under everyone’s nose. Which makes for interesting reading. But exactly how it all went down isn’t really explained.

(continued on page 6)

“Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream things that never were and say, “Why not?” - Robert Kennedy

Michael S. Holewinski, long time independent leader and proponent of Illinois manufacturing, passed away June 19, 2017.

At 23, Mike ran for Alderman against an entrenched machine incumbent against a status quo that favored political insiders. Mike’s fourth place finish only whetted his political appetite.

In 1972 when Dan Walker began his campaign for Governor, Mike signed on because he believed the Democratic Party had lost touch with its base. He helped Walker win several northwest side wards in his upset primary victory and in defeating Republican incumbent Richard Ogilvie.

Continuing to follow the dream of reshaping the Democratic Party, Mike was part of the Singer/Jackson 59 delegation that unseated Mayor Richard J. Daley’s slate of candidates at the 1972 Democratic convention in Miami.

These bellwether events catapulted Mike into a leadership role in the independent political movement. In early 1973, he was founding member of the 35th Ward IPO, which served as the organizing arm for future independent political efforts.

A year later, with a minuscule budget of $11,000, he and the 35th Ward IPO cobbled together a volunteer team of friends, neighbors and community activists to take on the Daley Machine candidate for State Representative. Mike’s winning campaign demonstrated the power of visionary ideas could move people to step up and say, ‘we can do better.’

Mike quickly earned a reputation as thoughtful and hard working. He won “Best Legislator” awards from Chicago Magazine, the Sun-Times, Illinois Environmental Council and the IVI for his work on behalf of the disadvantaged, passing legislation prohibiting mortgage redlining and reforming the nursing home industry.

In 1983 it took courage for someone from the white, ethnic northwest side to back an African American candidate for Mayor. But never short on political courage, Mike stepped up to help elect his friend and legislative colleague Harold Washington. In an incident that brought the racially charged campaign to national attention, Mike joined Washington and former Vice President Walter Mondale at a Palm Sunday mass at St. Pascal’s Church where they were met by hundreds of screaming protesters.

Mayor Washington appointed Mike to serve as the liaison to the City’s Police, Fire and Health Departments and to lead administration effort on ethics. He served until 1988 when he left to take over Ace, the family business, upon his father’s retirement.

In an industry notorious for its discharge of pollutants, Mike was determined his company would lead by example. Ace invested heavily in pollution control, eventually winning numerous environmental awards. He grew Ace from a small electroplater serving Chicago’s lighting industry into a national company with a diversified product line, doubling Ace’s employees and expanding sales threefold.

Believing the exodus of U.S. manufacturing jobs unacceptable, Mike became an active member of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, serving as Board Chairman from 2012-14, a position that saw him work on several key bipartisan business reforms.

Mike is survived by his wife of 46 years, Mary, and their son Jeffrey, who Mike was proud to see take the helm of Ace Industries. His daughter, Ann, preceded him in death in 2000.

Our community is better off because Mike Holewinski dared to follow Bobby Kennedy’s dream. Join us at a memorial service honoring his remarkable life on Sunday, July 15th, 4 p.m. at the Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence in Chicago.

Contact mikehmemorial@gmail.com for more information.

Remembering Mike Holewinskiby William Darr

Save the date

Copernicus Center

5216 W. Lawrence

Chicago

Sunday, July 15th

4:00 PM

honoring our friend, Mike Holewinski

Have a memory of Mike? Want to leave your thoughts? Visit bit.ly/mikeholewinski for lasting memorials.

Contact us at mikehmemorial@gmail.com

Mike Holewinski MemorialP.O. Box 961Orland Park, IL 60462

1947-2017

REMEMBERING A REMARKABLE LIFE...

Mike Holewinski

BOOK REVIEW Start-Up City by Gabe Klein with David Vega-Barachowitz

By Bonnie McGrath

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Opinion: Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW)

Civil service employees serve daily in providing good government. Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW), May 6-12, is a time set aside to recognize our men and women in government.

This diverse workforce consists of highly talented individuals with the responsibility to improve the lives of the American people. They ensure a clean environment, safeguard the food we eat, protect our communities from violence, stabilize and grow the economy, come to our rescue after disasters, teach our children, and in many other ways make our lives better.

The nation in particular is fortunate at this time to have a seasoned federal workforce in which I served and represent, to rely upon for day-to-day operations of the country.

The general public expects the government to be operated with some measure of formality, and compliance with uniform, fair and equitable standards. Lost in all the editorials and headlines are the activities of the federal employees in place who manage to get things done absent any consistent policy. Agency missions are being accomplished in accordance with current law, rule, and regulation.

As a reward for the service performed by federal employees, the President and Congress instead looks in the 2019 Budget proposals to cut their pay and diminish their retirement benefits, eliminate collective bargaining, and terminate them without notice or opportunity for appeal. Renewed efforts to outsource functions to the private section are being considered.

Mail is being delivered, passports are issued, laws are enforced, parks are open to visitors, etc., all is normal without direction from political appointees with little or no experience in their assigned areas. For all the attention given to Washington, eight-five percent (85%) of government operations take place outside of there.

Public safety and security, inherent functions of government, in no measure have been reduced or diminished.

In answer to those who seek to denounce civil service, the federal workforce, it should be noted, is not “under investigation” for any potential violations, although those who employees are expected to answer to presently are. Any federal employee who is the subject of an investigation normally has any administrative authority temporarily removed, with their projects re-assigned, or is placed on administrative leave.

Federal employees get their jobs, and advance in the ranks, through a process called merit staffing, and not through political favoritism, and have their performances rated and reviewed annually.

Situations like the one we currently find ourselves in only serve to demonstrate to the public the value of a having a core of experienced employees who are able to perform their functions with little or no direction.

www.ichv.org or www.facebook.com/ILGVP

IVI-IPO On the Issues

National Affairs Committee ReportBy Charles Paidock, Committee Chair

and RVP, NFFE, National Federation of Federal Employees

Interested in working on legislative issues? Email iviipo@gmail.com to volunteer for the National Affairs (Congress), Legislative Affairs (Illinois General Assembly) or Community Action/Municipal Affairs (Cook County and Chicago) committees

Start-up City (continued from page 4)

The strongest chapter in the book—the one that truly engaged my imagination—works because it contains a strong analysis of the currently nascent self-driving car industry, which most of us know very little about. Klein truly understands the details of what “they” want to do.

He paints pictures of a world in which there are no automobile fatalities (whereas the current automobile culture accepts them as a necessary evil), a world with minimal parking lots, a world where small electricity-fueled cars transport us where we need to be with little inconvenience, little danger and no impact on the environment. (And no chatty cab driver disturbing your reading or computer work while in transit.)

He shows us a world that is far from a world ruled by fuel-inefficient transportation and ugly concrete roads and highways that have become so dominant in our lives.

It’s embarrassing that anyone ever fell for the gas-guzzling, fume-spewing philosophy of a car in every suburban garage decades and decades ago, and the industry that held (and still holds) up the underpinnings.

But 50 years from now, I suspect there will be new Gabe Kleins looking down their nose at a world that the old Gabe Kleins saw at another point in time as the future.

Visit my blog: http://www.chicagonow.com/mom-think-poignant

Support for a Fair Tax in Illinois continues to grow.

The State Journal-Register recently published an opinion piece by Ryan Croke, Executive Director of the Illinois Network for Independent Living (INCIL). In the article, Croke explains that through his work in the disability field, he’s seen the financial anxiety of striving to live independently compounded by financial stress created by our unfair tax system.

Tasha Green Kruzat, President of RBC member Voices for Illinois Children, lays out a powerful case for the Fair Tax in a recently published piece in Crane’s.

But it isn’t just INCIL and other members of the Responsible Budget Coalition that recognize the benefits of a Fair Tax. In a recent piece published in the Chicago Reporter, support for a Fair Tax is front and center.

The Civic Federation, a non-partisan government research organization, has labeled Governor Rauner’s recent budget proposal as “precariously balanced,” and notes that the plan does not address the bill backlog. The Civic Federation has said that they “cannot support” Rauner’s recommended budget due to the “various aggressive assumptions” of $1.8 billion in savings or additional revenue. They say, “It is not clear whether these assumptions are backed up by contingency plans.”

With the bitter experience of the two-year budget impasse still hanging in the air, legislators, service providers, and impacted people are waiting anxiously to see if the General Assembly and the Governor can agree on a balanced budget. Considering the impact that the budget impasse had on service providers across the state, it’s no wonder that all eyes are watching the budget negotiations unfold. But as writer Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller pointed out in a recent article, “I mean, seriously, we always make such a big deal out of state budgets, but this is a routine, mundane matter almost everywhere else.”

Keep Building Pressure for a Fair Tax and Full Budget

With just under three weeks to go in the legislative session, we must continue to generate momentum for a Fair Tax and build pressure to ensure that our state legislators deliver a full year, fully-funded budget with no new cuts by the end of May. Use our update take action tool to send both messages to your state Representatives and Senators. Share the tool with your own subscriber list, so we can fill their inboxes with our demands!

Take Action Now

https://fairtaxnowil.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/FTNFactsheet_8.5x11_revised.pdf

Legislative Action - Report from the Responsible Budget CoalitionIVI-IPO is a member of RBC, a diverse coalition of more than 300 organizations concerned about state budget and tax issues.

The March 20th primary amplified voter interest in three areas: Rent Control, Legalizing Marijuana, and Preserving ACA Benefits. Rent Control, even if limited to Chicago, is public policy that needs to be generated from the State Legislature. The referenda which passed overwhelmingly in the 29 wards for which it appeared on the ballot indicates popular support for Representative Will Guzzardi’s bill (HB 2430) which would repeal the State’s preemption power and allow Chicago and other cities to implement controls on rent. IVI-IPO Board endorsed the bill at our May meeting and we are officially part of the grassroots effort to achieve passage.

IVI-IPO has long supported the legalization of marijuana and more recently, endorsed proposals to clean the slate of those who have been convicted of possession, use, and distribution of cannabis products. As the State moves toward legalization, we will call for diversification of the industry to ensure more ownership and operations of local distributors and retail stores by Black and other minorities.

Beyond the referenda issues, IVI-IPO is working with the The Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA), a broad-based coalition of community organizations committed to making our neighborhoods safer, improving police practices and accountability, and transforming the relationship between the Chicago Police Department and the communities it serves. The City of Chicago has been conducting hearings on four ordinances that have been introduced in the Council. In addition, the City Club of Chicago held a forum that included a panel of the President of the Fraternal of Police, Aldermen Roderick Sawyer, Harry Osterman, and Ariel Reboyras. The GAPA ordinance provides for civilian review and oversight of police actions. This proposal, which is vehemently opposed by the FOP, would add an additional level of review for civilian complaints, including the option for the oversight Board to hire and fire the Police Superintendent.

IVI-IPO continues to monitor the progress of our endorsed legislation and will alert you when constituent lobbying or other action is needed.

Community Action By Marc Loveless, Committee Chair

Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization1325 S Wabash #105Chicago IL 60605

“If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time.”

- Dorothy Height

For more information or to buy tickets, sponsorships and ads, visit our website

www.iviipo.org