UKRAINIAN VILLAGE — Pool noodle, water slide, hockey stick — however you describe it, Chicago’s new 36th Ward will be one of the most gerrymandered in the city’s history.
Historically located on the Northwest Side, the ward was dramatically redrawn in last year’s remap process: It’s now a sliver that covers eight miles from Montclare down Grand Avenue to Ukrainian Village and West Town.
Four candidates ran in the Feb. 28 election to represent the ward in City Council. Incumbent Ald. Gilbert “Gil” Villegas and challenger Lori Torres Whitt advanced to the April 4 runoff, which Villegas won. He holds about 57 percent of votes cast, according to unofficial results.
Villegas was first elected to City Council in 2015. As alderperson, he’s pushed for a guaranteed basic income program and to reinstate the City Council’s Office of Veterans Affairs, among other initiatives.
The outgoing chair of the City Council’s Latino Caucus, Villegas previously served as Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s floor leader, a position he quit in early 2021. The retired Marine and self-described “pragmatic progressive” also unsuccessfully ran for Congress last year.
Villegas is retaining part of the Northwest side turf he’s represented for two terms while adding thousands of new constituents in Ukrainian Village and West Town — and along the narrow sliver of Grand Avenue that connects the two areas.
In a Friday interview with Block Club, Villegas described the redrawn 36th Ward as a “barbell,” because “we’re going to show how strong we are as a community,” he said.
City Services
In September, Villegas opened what he called a “satellite ward office” at 2246 W. Chicago Ave. in Ukrainian Village to connect neighbors with city services, even though he did not yet represent the area in City Council.
The move was met with mixed reactions from neighboring alderpeople, but Villegas said Friday the office has completed more than 100 service requests for simple issues like replacing garbage cans and tree trimming. He said he’ll tackle infrastructure projects like street paving when he’s officially the area’s alderperson after May 15.
Villegas plans to continue operating the Ukrainian Village office as well as his main headquarters at 6560 W. Fullerton Ave. to serve the eight-mile 36th Ward.
The Chicago Avenue office will be open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday after he’s sworn in, Villegas said.
“It was either have two offices on the west and east or have an office right in the middle. But I think that given the fact that the way it’s set up is like a barbell, [it] just made sense to have two offices on each end,” he said.
Public Safety
Villegas said he’s committed to solving the root causes of crime and touted his support for Lightfoot’s Invest South/West initiative to bring resources to disinvested communities across the city.
But Villegas said that his No. 1 priority is fully funding the Police Department and working with district commanders in his ward to respond immediately when crime does happen.
“I’m not going to defund the police. We’re going to make sure they’re funded at the proper level,” he said.
That includes helping secure funding for cameras and license plate readers in parts of the ward that are experiencing upticks in crime, Villegas said.
During the campaign, Villegas also pledged he’d work to reopen the 13th Police District station in West Town. It was closed in 2012 as part of a citywide consolidation of police resources.
Some West Town neighbors have long been concerned they don’t receive adequate police attention because the 12th District — which covers parts of the neighborhood — is headquartered several miles south near Pilsen.
Villegas last year started gathering petition signatures to sponsor a ballot initiative in support of a referendum to reopen the 13th district. He said more than 1,000 people have signed.
Villegas said that should be enough support to get the initiative on the ballot in the 2024 election, but in the meantime he will push Mayor-elect Johnson to allocate resources for a satellite office.
Villegas said that could be an uphill battle: The Police Department has more than 1,000 vacancies, and Johnson has repeatedly said he doesn’t believe more officers will keep Chicagoans safer.
“I’m going to bring it to [Johnson’s] attention, but if he decides that he has to go in a different direction, then I’ll take a look at legislation or through a budget amendment to try to figure this out,” Villegas said. “If ultimately he decides to go a different route, then so be it, but I know that on my end, I’m going to make sure that I’m living up to what I’ve told voters. … I’m going to try to make every effort to try to get a satellite office back in the 13th District.”
Development
Alderpeople hold outsize power over their ward’s zoning changes, which are often sought by developers looking to undertake large projects.
Villegas said he plans to continue a “community-driven” approach to development in the 36th Ward. He’ll hold public meetings on any project that include over six residential units, he said.
“The developer, when he or she’s coming into a community, they’re there to improve a site, make money and then move on to the next project. The neighbors ultimately are there and stuck with whatever it’s being built,” he said. “So, I always want to get their feedback.”
That includes working with neighborhood groups in West Town and Ukrainian Village, who often weigh in on zoning changes and other proposals.
Villegas said he tries to get at least “80 percent” of neighbors onboard before pushing a development forward — although there have been times when he’s overridden community opposition on affordable housing projects.
“There’s sometimes NIMBY-ism that comes into play, so we want to make sure that as a citywide approach that we’re keeping in mind that we want to make sure that every community is affordable,” he said.
Infrastructure
Shortly after the new ward maps were revealed last year, Twitter users and Villegas himself suggested there could be a silver lining for what the 8-mile long 36th Ward: It will now be easier to build protected bike lanes along Grand Avenue.
Villegas on Friday said he’s still open to the idea, but he wants to see how it could fit into a larger citywide bike grid that could act as a “highway system” for cyclists.
“What we’re seeing is having every alderman piecemeal it together just isn’t working,” Villegas said. “I think that Grand Avenue is a good road to look at, given that you could go from Elmhurst all the way down to Navy Pier, and so there’s a good opportunity there to use it as a way to draw folks from suburbs into the city.”
The alderperson also supports keeping the bus-only lanes on Chicago Avenue in West Town and Ukrainian Village, but he said some “reeducating” is needed for drivers who ignore the bus markings.
Villegas said he’ll also keep in place his participatory budgeting process, which allows ward residents to vote on how to spent $1 million of the $1.5 million in “menu money” each alderperson is allocated every year. Historically, alderpeople spend menu money on infrastructure projects at their discretion, but participatory budgeting has gained popularity in recent years.
Villegas said his office will work with community representatives to craft ideas for ward improvements and open voting in the fall ahead of next year’s budget allocations.
City Council
Villegas was part of a group of alderpeople who pushed through a series of new rules and committees lat month in a bid to give the City Council more independence from the mayor.
The measures grew the number of City Council committees from 19 to 28, enacted rules and allow alderpeople to appoint their own committee chairs.
The City Council has long been a rubber stamp for the mayor, who historically has appointed political allies to lead committees. Committee chairs hold enormous power over whether legislation receives a hearing and vote in the council.
Last month’s reorganization vote came just five days before the April 4 runoff, timing that was heavily criticized by some opponents. But Villegas said the meeting’s timing was intentional, so it didn’t seem like the push for independence was in response to whoever was elected Chicago’s next mayor.
“We wanted to signal to our colleagues that are coming in, but also to the residents of Chicago, that we were that were a co-equal branch of government and that we need the necessary tools in order to make sure that there’s a check on the executive branch,” Villegas said.
New committees include ones on aging, tourism and state and federal legislation.
Villegas Friday said the additional committees will lead to better oversight of how city departments spend money — and denied so many were created to trade chairmanships for votes.
“I think the 28 committees that we put forward and proposed allow us the ammunition to make sure that that as the mayor is proposing a budget, that it’s actually a budget that makes sense,” he said.
It remains to be seen if the new committee structure and rules will stick: Alderpeople will have to approve the measure again after the new term starts in May.
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