In the 9th Ward...

I noted in another post that the incumbent there Ald. Anthony Beale seems to have strained relations with his pastor, the man who helped elect him, Reverend and State Senate James Meeks. Today I find this post about how his opponent, Earick Rayburn (a former teacher in the Chicago Public Schools), is latching on to this vacant lot on 115th and Michigan where promises were made and broken.

Let me just say thru AlderTrack I found Rayburn's campaign website. I have an eye for looking at educational qualifications and it doesn't always matter that much. But I must say I am impressed that he went to the University of Chicago and came back to a ward that is largely struggling. The 9th Ward of Chicago basically encompasses the areas of Pullman, Roseland, and West Pullman.

Anyway this info largely comes from the Chicago Reader...

Earick Rayburn, a former teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, has been circulating pictures of a large vacant lot at 115th and Michigan. “The lot represents one of the biggest broken promises made to constituents of the Ninth Ward in the last eight years,” he says. “It’s a symbol of Anthony Beale’s leadership.”

“My opponent wouldn’t know of my efforts in the ward—because he just moved back into the ward two years ago,” Beale responds. “He hasn’t been to any of the meetings on this.”

The lot wasn’t always vacant. In the late 90s it was occupied by the Roseland Plaza Shopping Center, which had a laundry, restaurant, hardware store, and Christian bookstore. In 1998 the Reverend James Meeks, pastor of the nearby Salem Baptist Church, began talking about getting a supermarket to move to the neighborhood, and he and Salem’s attorney approached the shopping center’s owner, Samy Hammad, about buying it. According to court records, by 1999 Hammad thought they’d worked out a deal for $3.5 million.

That same year Beale, a Salem member, was elected alderman and pledged to support Meeks’s efforts to get a supermarket for the site. That August Mayor Daley met with Meeks at the site’s bookstore. Meeks later testified that they didn’t talk about the shopping center, but Hammad maintained that they did. By September the sale to Salem had stalled.

Beale says Hammad was the problem: “The owner was very uncooperative about bringing in a quality store.” Beale says he then asked the city to invoke eminent domain laws. A month later, claiming the site was needed for development, the city condemned it, offering to pay Hammad $2.5 million. Hammad sued the city for the $3.5 million he said he’d been promised by Salem, and he accused Meeks and Beale of engineering the condemnation so the church wouldn’t have to foot the bill. In a brief his lawyer wrote, “Reverend Meeks was able to persuade the Alderman he helped elect, who is a member of his church, and the City to condemn Mr. Hammad’s property.” Meeks’s attorney says there was no such deal.

The case dragged on until 2004, when the city agreed to settle, paying Hammad $3.1 million. The existing businesses were forced to move— Beale says many of them went to other locations in the neighborhood—and last year the shopping center was demolished.

Beale says that a supermarket chain is on the verge of committing to move to the site and that a Wal-Mart is planning to open a store a mile and a half away, at 111th and I-94. “We should have not one, but two grocery stores by 2008,” he says.

Rayburn says he’s heard that before. “We’ve been promised and promised,” he says. “The grocery store—that’s the number one question anytime the alderman comes around. People are looking for some accessibility and follow-through.”

Beale says Rayburn is just getting desperate for something to campaign on: “He’s looking for an opportunity—and he’s running because he’s unemployed and he’s looking for a job.”

To that last quote, OUCH!!! And when I saw this lot torn down I was surprised. It was somewhat thriving although for a long period the shopping center was largely shuttered. I think I should have pictures of them too.