- Credibility:
KENWOOD — Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th) will be soon be moving to a newly constructed ward office later this month, five months after being elected to City Council.
The office will be located at 948 E. 43rd St., next door to Next Man Up Spa.
The freshman alderman has been sharing progress updates on the buildout of his new office on social media. According to a recent video, Robinson hopes to move into the storefront in mid-September.
In the latest video, the alderman can be seen standing in front of a wooden frame as a construction worker drills in a corner a few feet away.
“We wanted to have a brand-new office that reflected the way we want the 4th Ward to look. Beautiful, modern and clean,” Robinson wrote in an earlier post.
Robinson has been operating out of his City Hall office since the April 4 runoff in which he beat Prentice Butler, former Ald. Sophia King’s longtime chief of staff.
The office is about 1.5 miles from King’s office. King, who took office in 2016, spent her final year in an unsuccessful bid for the Mayor’s Office.
It is unclear what 4th Ward neighbors should expect to see in the new office; Robinson did not respond to requests for comment.
Robinson is among the only first-term alderpeople who have not yet opened ward offices.
Fellow South Side Ald. William Hall (6th) also has pledged to open his ward office this month at 8050 S. King Drive in Chatham. Hall has worked primarily out of City Hall, but frustrated neighbors have questioned when the newly elected official would open a local office.
Ald. William Conway (34th) conducts ward business out of his City Hall office, but it’s across the street from the neighborhoods he represents.
Robinson is well versed in the area. He represented the 5th District in the Illinois House of Representatives from 2019 until his City Council election, his district overlapping with parts of the 4th Ward like the Near South Side and Bronzeville.
His replacement in the House, Rep. Kimberly du Buclet, took over Robinson’s former district office at 5048 S. Indiana Ave.
Robinson, who left the state legislature last year to vie for King’s seat, is the first openly gay Black City Council member and the ninth overall.
Robinson told Block Club in March that he’s focused on strengthening commercial corridors within the ward, believing that is the key to improving public safety.
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