Uptown
Rents are inaccessibly high in parts of the 46th Ward, more affordable housing is needed, and allowing developers to duck that responsibility is unwise. They should be required, in almost all cases, to provide the full percentage of required affordable housing — in return for government subsidies — at a development, not allowed to simply chip money into an affordable housing fund. And as for that, TIF funds, the primary form of a subsidy, should not be granted to a developer as part of a complicated swap to pay for repairs on a park district field house, a deal Ald. James Cappleman supported. Our endorsement goes to Marianne Lalonde, a scientific research consultant with a PhD in chemistry from Northwestern. She is president of the Lakeside Area Neighborhood Association, a member of the Clarendon Park Advisory Council, and on the associates’ board of Sarah’s Circle, a women’s homeless shelter. As a member of the Committee to Save Uplift High School, she helped select the school’s new administration. Also running are Erika Wozniak Francis, a teacher; Justin Kreindler, the director of a nonprofit organization; Angela Clay, a human resources analyst; and Jon-Robert McDowell.
