Controversial Ald. Shiller calling it quits

Controversial Ald. Shiller calling it quits
By LAURA WASHINGTON LauraSWashington@aol.com
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
August 2, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/2555872,CST-EDT-laura02.article


An alderman no more. After a long guessing game among enemies and allies alike, Helen Shiller is hanging it up. Shiller, who has represented Uptown's 46th Ward since 1987, tells me she will not run for re-election.
It's a landmark moment for the most controversial, provocative and misunderstood member of the Chicago City Council. In nearly a quarter century in office, Shiller moved from radical activist/provocateur to budget expert par excellence.

The news will unleash political aspirations and expose true colors. There are already four candidates officially angling for her seat in the 2011 aldermanic elections -- and maybe more to come.

The Richard M. Daley-haters despise Shiller for her accommodationist ways. After years of fighting City Hall, she had an epiphany. She learned she could get more for her constituents by working with the mayor, rather than hurling brickbats from the peanut gallery.

"When I became alderman, this was an area that was totally disinvested in every way you can imagine," she recalled over coffee on a sultry afternoon at Cafe Descartes, a funky caffeine haven in the Loop. "We had one of the worst sewer systems in the city. You couldn't walk down almost any sidewalk. We had potholes everywhere."

On July 20, her beloved Wilson Yards development was inaugurated, after 12 years of dogged infighting and economic calamity. The public/private partnership includes a new Target store, a $32.3 million affordable-housing development for senior citizens, and another 80 units of affordable family housing. The project was boosted by $52 million in tax increment financing funds, a sore point for Shiller critics.

Shiller is a TIF booster. "Let's deal with how we find new revenues to deal with these problems," she said. "Whether it's education, or it's affordable housing, or it's safety and security. We are in a period of diminishing resources because of the economy. ... [It's] the only growth area."

She claims a legacy of preserving 5,000 housing units, improving the local schools, opening the city budgeting process, recycling and infrastructure improvements.

Most Chicagoans just want their aldermen to get the garbage toted, make the street lights work and plug the potholes. Opponents say her ward services were suspect, yet Shiller's grit and gumption got her elected six times.

Shiller is a wonk with a heart. Her longtime mission (which she has always struggled to communicate) is to protect the least powerful. She is guided by "a sense of justice," she said.

"You get to it by putting yourself in other people's shoes and figuring out how to have the broadest impact," she said, "and to impact the problems from an institutional point of view."

Many of the shoes in the 46th have morphed from Hi-Tops, dusty work boots and frayed flip-flops to shiny loafers and designer pumps.

Not every Uptowner is guilty, but some are looking only to boost their property values. Shiller has stood in the way of the capitalist, Not-in-My-Backyard crowd. The NIMBYs don't like it.

Shiller, 62, argued that her decision to retire from the City Council does not signal a surrender to the shrill, demonizing and obstructionist politics that has been the ward's calling card for far too long. She plans to continue her role as a budget and policy maven and champion of people on the margins. She will write books and pursue neighborhood and education advocacy projects.

She is done with the grind of everyday governing.

My sources tell me that as many as seven Council members will not stand for re-election. Shiller may not be the only one headed for the door.