In Defense of Aldermanic Prerogatives

I've always been impressed by the role aldermen play in Chicago.  I'll forever remember attending a Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference annual meeting several years ago where Toni Preckwinkle took questions.  One of our neighborhood's citizens started asking her something about the mailboxes in her ward and I thought to myself that the alderman would certainly punt on what's obviously a federal question.  Quite the contrary!  Not only did Ald. Preckwinkle discuss the issue, but it turned out she had a protocol for dealing with postal issues, including monthly meetings with the postmaster for the area.

That's one-stop shopping for political issues.  For any problem that occurs in your ward, you can call the alderman and there's a good chance (s)he'll intervene on your behalf.  I've lived in several big cities and this is, generally speaking, the most customer-friendly process I've encountered.  In other places, it's just you, Joe Citizen, trying to meander thru what's often a byzantine process, dealing with municipal agents more worried about making a mistake than solving your problem.  Here, the middleman, the alderman, has a stake in things.  Get your concerns addressed by the city and she may get your loyalty come election time.

Who in the world would argue for changing that?  Richard Gill at Hyde Park Progress:

First: the Chicago system of placing the Alderman between the resident and the city is abominable. This system inserts a third party simply to relay a request. It is time-consuming and it invites errors in communication. It also makes a citizen dependent upon (and grateful to?) a politician, and that invites real problems. If 311 really functions as it should, why is the aldermanic intermediary necessary?

The first clause of that last sentence: "If 311 really functions as it should..."  Right.  In theory, you shouldn't need an alderman.  In theory, communism works.  But down here on the ground in really big cities, you need a middleman.  (And in the next paragraph Gill admits that he believes his request was relayed by the alderman's office in a timely manner.)

The crew at Hyde Park Progress have come out forcefully against Leslie Hairston's re-election.  Don't expect me to defend her.  I agree with their gripes about her fetish for ample automobile parking.  It's the only thing I strongly dislike about her, but to me that's a huge deal.  But Chicago is called "The City that Works" for good reason.  Aldermanic prerogatives invite accountability.  Replace the alderman, not the system.

Comments

[Aaronberlin]

Except that aldermen almost never get replaced. I'm glad you've been fortunate enough to have good experiences with Toni, but there are way too many areas in which an alderman can act as an unaccountable, bureaucratic choke point. All too often licensing in Chicago calls for an alderman to sign off on particular activities in their ward, without the kind of predictability we'd hope to see from government. Maybe that kind of predictability only works "in theory" but I tend to think that's setting the bar too low. It's the kind of system that basically cries out for the use of graft and influence-peddling to get anything done, and the basically uncompetitive nature of these local races makes it even more likely that you'll see this kind of behavior.

[withrow]

Aaron, check out this Reader link on the aldermen. Click on each and notice how many won their positions by beating incumbents, including both Toni and Leslie. They tend to stick around IMO because they fit their wards, but I feel the competition is adequate.

http://www1.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/citycouncil/

Concerning licensing (and property taxes and zoning), yes, you've found a weak point in my argument and the system. I should have confined my defense of aldermanic prerogatives to municipal services where the citizen fits more snugly into a customer role. That is, the city should perform a service and the key thing is for the customer to extract that service from the city.

The Chicago system is weakest in transparently regulating the city's constituents. My guess is that there are first just too many regulations and aldermen take advantage. But I also have an open mind on whether zoning & property tax functions might be better accomplished in a completely different manner. It might actually make sense to see if market mechanisms would work better in a system that abolished private ownership of land-- the city would then lease out parcels long-term. I'm not advocating that at this stage, just saying it bears some looking into.