I have just received a report that legal efforts to keep the name of the Cicero Equality Committee Party candidate for Cicero Town President on the February 24 ballot have been successful. Cicero Police Officer Roberto Garcia, who is challenging Town President Larry Dominick (a known Rethug with unsavory ties) to bring an end to some 85 years of unchecked corruption in that community (located immediately west of Chicago), had been knocked off the ballot by a group of local officials loyal to Dominick, who cited a town ordinance that requires police officers to resign their jobs before seeking elected office there. That objection to Garcia’s candidacy was overturned by a Cook County Judge earlier today.
What does this mean, and how can Kossacks help out? More below the fold.
first some background. Most municipal elections in Illinois communities are not Democratic vs. Republican contests. They are either non-partisan elections, where candidates run without any party label (such as has been the case in Chicago elections for the past decade) or run with a local party label. In Cicero next week, voters will choose a Town President (Mayor), Supervisor, Clerk, Collector, Assessor and two of the four Town Trustees (the other two Trustee posts are not up for another two years). Garcia leads the Cicero Equality Committee Party ticket, comprised almost entirely of Democrats (there is one Republican on their ticket who has rebelled against the policies of the Dominick administration).
Dominick is more than a Republican in a town where Republicans have controlled the municipality forever. He is a thug who has disregarded the Constitution and has continually intimidated the rights of a community that is now estimated to be 85-88% Hispanic.
In some ways Cicero has changed greatly over the past quarter-century. Once populated by white ethnics (mainly of Czech and Bohemian ancestry), the town's proximity to Chicago led Al Capone to move his base of operations in the mid-1920s, following the election of a reform mayor in Chicago. Capone took over the town in his typical manner, personally beating up the town's mayor on the steps of the Town Hall. For all intents and purposes, corruption in Cicero has remained there ever since.
Cicero was a Republican bastion from the outset, as its citizens were told that the town government was their protection against the big, bad Democrats across the Belt Line Railroad tracks in Chicago. The hatred intensified in the years after World War II, when areas of Chicago's West Side started to become the home of African-Americans. When a black man moved into Cicero in the early 1950s, the rioting by the locals was so intense that it shame a Klan rally with envy (the man was lucky to get out of Cicero with his life).
But while Cicero blocked any attempt of blacks moving in from adjacent neighborhoods across the line in Chicago, the aging of the community left the back door open for growth from the Mexican-American community of Chicago's Little Village neighborhood (which borders Cicero to the east south of Ogden Avenue). Over the past two decades the town became increasingly Hispanic and increasingly Democratic. By last November, Cicero had become so Democratic on the national level that it gave Barack Obama, a man who would have been advised not to try to walk down Cicero's streets at night in the 1980s, won 79.18% of the vote, his sixth-best percentage out of the 30 suburban Cook County townships.
But at the local level not much has changed. In an effort to keep the Mexican-American voters of Cicero as ignorant as possible about what is going on, the Dominick administration enacted an ordinance to ban free newspapers for being distributed in the Town of Cicero (with violators facing a fine of up to $750). Of course this affront on the 1st Amendment is selectively enforced... publications that paint Dominick and his cronies in a positive light are still welcome in town, even if they are free to the public.
What would the candidates of the Cicero Equality Committee do differently if elected? I'll let them explain it, from the CEC website:
OUR CONTRACT WITH CICERO RESIDENTS
To respect the rights of all Cicero residents and to treat everyone fairly, honestly and equally.
To provide a better education for our children by completely restructuring the Cicero Public High School and Elementary School system for the benefit of the students.
To require all recreation facilities to be pollution and toxic free property for the safety of our families and to create better and larger open space recreation areas.
To replace the current car towing and impounding system with system of resident phone notification of parking violations, car relocation (not towing), and reduced fines.
To eliminate gang influence and crime on the streets and in our schools by enforcing current laws and impounding and auctioning off and cars or homes used in gang or drug crimes.
To reduce the property tax bills of homeowners and businesses by reducing wasteful government spending, ghost payrolling, pinstripe patronage and white collar crime.
Also by seeking the repayment of over $12 million dollars in fees paid to the law firm of Cicero Town Attorney Michael Delgaldo and the public relations firm of Cicero Town spokesman Dan Proft.
To stop the hiring of relatives, friends, business partners and political workers on the government payroll for unnecessary jobs that require little or no work. Every government position will be a necessary function filled with an employee who delivers a days work for a days pay. All government job opportunities will be posted on the Town of Cicero website on a daily basis for all residents to apply.
To respect the rights of women in the workplace and to prosecute any Cicero government official or employee who sexually harasses a female government employee.
To investigate how $60 million was spent to construct a new office building for the Larry Dominick administration when the construction budget was only $50 million. Over $10 million dollars was wasted or stolen on a building that already has construction problems.
To establish a new order of government by consensus which includes all requires all elected government officials to participate in the decision making process which will be open to the public – in person, through the media and with the internet.
The Garcia ticket has some other specific proposals, in an effort to serve the people of Cicero, rather than the entrenched politicans:
Specifically, the Board of trustees will required to approve all of the following administrative actions after 3 of 5 full-time administrative elected officials (President / Clerk / Collector / Supervisor / Assessor) approve the action:
- Any expenditure over $10,000;
- Any hirings, firings or assignment employees;
- Any contracts or aggregate series of contracts to a single source over $10,000; and
- Any appointments and assignment of duties of professional service contractual employees.
TRANSPARENCY / ACCOUNTABILITY
The Cicero Equality Committee candidates will institute a system of transparency in government, and thereby encouraging accountability, by posting more government information and documents of the Town of Cicero on the official government website. This will include budgets, audits, expenditures, employee / department statistics and salary rates, employment opportunity availability, non-proprietary contract information, ordinances, and proposed ordinances. Meetings of the Town of Cicero Board of Trustees will be televised and webcast to allow increased access and inclusion of Cicero residents.
In addition, Cicero Equality Committee candidates will invite the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office to locate satellite offices within the Town of Cicero government complex so that they may more easily conduct investigations into past misconduct by government officials. In addition, these same law enforcement agencies will be allowed full and complete access to Town of Cicero records and employees to conduct any and all inquiries into suspected misconduct in the future. When you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
It is an open secret that the feds are looking into Larry Dominick's administration. Federal agents have reportedly taken a number of town records, and there is much speculation that Dominick could eventually join former Town President Betty Loren-Maltese as a resident of the federal prison system.
So who are the candidates running on the Cicero Equality Committee ticket:
ROBERTO GARCIA for Town President
VICTOR P. ARMENDARIZ for Town Clerk
MARCOS CARDENAS for Town Collector
RUPERTO "BOB" ALEJANDRO for Town Supervisor
FADIA TAMER ACUÑA for Town Assessor
ANGELICA GUERRERO for Town Trustee
CYNTHIA MARTINEZ for Town Trustee
So how can you help them out? That's easy. Just go to the campaign website, http://www.cec2009.com/... In addition to the standard electronic donation link, there are biographies of the candidates and half-hour videos detailing the corruption in Cicero.
If you can help out, please do so.