It was not without reason that Joseph Gomez, a 25th Ward political consultant, surveyed the ceremony at Chicago`s City Hall Tuesday and remarked with understatement rare in local politics: ”This is a very historic day.”
”Here,” answered newly elected Aldermen Jesus Garcia (22d) and Juan Soliz (25th) during Tuesday`s Chicago City Council roll call, and as they did the first Mexican-Americans in the body`s 149-year history took up membership in the city`s most exclusive club.
”It will be a very different council,” said Mayor Harold Washington, a statement as prescient as it was descriptive of Tuesday`s historic meeting.
Five aldermen took their oath of office in Tuesday`s council session, all of them winners in last week`s special ward elections. Aldermen Robert Kellam (18th) and Miguel Santiago (31st) were incumbents. But for Garcia and Soliz and Percy Giles (37th), it was their first day in the council.
A sixth apparent aldermanic winner, Luis Gutierrez, was denied his 26th Ward seat pending court action later this week on a motion filed by his opponent, Manuel Torres. A seventh alderman, to represent the 15th Ward, may not be seated until after a runoff election April 29. Incumbent Ald. Frank Brady will face front-runner Marlene Carter, endorsed by Washington.
In a city where the Hispanic population is estimated at 16 to 18 percent, Santiago, a Puerto Rican, Garcia and Soliz raise the number of Latinos in the council to three. They are awaiting a fourth Hispanic alderman to join them, Gutierrez or Torres, who both are Puerto Ricans.
And while the Hispanic aldermen have said they are representing ”all the people” of their wards, it was their ethnic constituents who poured their emotion out for them Tuesday and stood witness to a victory won in the city`s polling booths.
Well before the formal swearing-in ceremonies began in the council chamber, mariachi players with wailing trumpets and bass guitars swelled the hallways with Mexican ballads and folk songs. The visitors` gallery was packed with Hispanic voters, many of whom chanted, ”Soliz,” and ”Chuey,” Garcia`s nickname, as the aldermen made their way through the chambers, representatives of a community with a new-found voice.
And just as there were two Mexican-American aldermen, there were two mariachi bands, one for Garcia of the Near Southwest Side Hispanic community of Little Village, who was endorsed by Washington, the second for Soliz of the neighboring Pilsen community, who was endorsed by the Regular Democratic Organization, but who calls himself an independent.
Earlier in the day, a three-member Illinois Appeals Court panel delayed the swearing-in of Gutierrez as 26th Ward alderman until at least Thursday, continuing to drag out the controversy that has raged since the start of the Near West Side ward race.
Gutierrez, who was backed by Washington, led Torres, who was backed by Ald. Edward Vrdolyak (10th) and the Regular Democratic Organization, by only 20 votes.
The Appellate Court panel is expected to rule Thursday on who should serve as 26th Ward alderman while lengthy court challenges continue. The ward`s current alderman is Michael Nardulli, who attended Tuesday`s council meeting. Nardulli did not seek re-election as alderman and was defeated in his bid for a Cook County Board seat in the March 18 Democratic primary.
Although Gutierrez had wanted to be sworn-in as alderman at Tuesday`s council session, he expressed confidence that he would be seated soon.
”They can only stop us so long,” said Gutierrez after learning of the Appeals Court order. ”We`re going to win this race. We`ve won it. They (the Torres camp) have lost at every step of the way.”
Gutierrez even entered the chamber several times to ”get a feel of the place” and shake hands with supporters.
At one point, he approached the railing that separates the audience from the council floor to shake hands with Aldermen Wallace Davis (27th) and Danny Davis (29th). Gutierrez saw Ald. Anna Langford (16th) approaching and climbed over the railing to greet her. But Michael Coletta, the council`s sergeant-at- arms and a former Army tank sergeant, rushed over to order Gutierrez back over the railing.
Both men were laughing.
Earlier in the day, Cook County Circuit Judge Eugene Wachowski denied a request by Torres` attorneys to order the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners not to certify the 26th Ward election results, which show Gutierrez to be the victor.
But he stayed the order to give Torres` attorneys time to appeal his ruling.
Wachowski also refused a request by Brady, who was forced into the runoff in his South Side ward, to hold another special election instead of a runoff. Brady claimed that nine polling places in his ward were left open after the official 7 p.m. closing time, voiding the election results. Brady had hoped that another special election would once again pit him against seven candidates, rather than just one, Carter, whom he will face in the runoff.
Late-closing polling places also are the issue in the 26th Ward.
On election night, Circuit Judge Joseph Schneider ordered 10 polling places to remain open for two hours beyond the official closing time because lawyers representing both Washington and Vrdolyak candidates said the polling places had opened late in the morning.
The judge also ordered that ballots cast in the 10 late-closing precincts be kept separate from the other ballots. But the order to keep the late ballots separate either was ignored or never received at some of the precincts, and most of the ballots were mixed with those cast earlier in the day.
Lawyers for both sides have produced written affidavits from ward residents claiming that the polling places opened on time or were late in opening.
The eventual outcome of the election in the 26th Ward is considered to be crucial in the ”Council Wars” battles between the mayor`s loyalists and the members of the Vrdolyak bloc, who have often stymied Washington`s administration for the last three years.
Washington forces picked up two clear aldermanic victories in the March 18 election–in the city`s 22d and 37th wards–and a Gutierrez victory in the 26th Ward would give the mayor 24 votes in the council.
Washington`s candidate in the 15th Ward runoff election is considered a favorite, and a victory there would give the mayor 25 votes and a crucial tie- breaking vote of his own.
But that political counting took a back seat Tuesday, as acrimony gave way to ceremony. For several minutes before the meeting began, aldermen, both friends and foes, shook hands with their newly elected brethren, patted their backs, and in general defied the council`s reputation as divisive and divided. It was a day for being welcomed to the club.
”I was a little nervous,” Soliz said after the session.
”There were no problems this first day,” Giles said.
Garcia was a bit more studied.
”It takes away the tension,” said Garcia, who sits two seats away from Soliz, once a close political friend. ”But now we`ve rolled up our sleeves. It`s time to work on the problems that confront the 22d Ward.”
Washington said the community was ”very grateful and gratified” with the election results.
But while political observers have placed the current council votes at 27-23, still in favor of Vrdolyak, who was absent Tuesday, the first vote for the new council was 42-0 on a $15,000 voucher for the Edgebrook Chamber of Commerce to provide economic development assistance to area businesses.
