43rd Ward Remap TRUTH

Wow! The emails sure have been flying all over the 43rd Ward about the proposed remap featuring an extremely motivated Alderman Michele Smith stoking a fire under seven of the ten neighborhood associations within the current boundaries of our ward. The battle is between the "For A Better Chicago" map presented by the Chicago City Council's African American Caucus and the "Taxpayer Protection Map" presented by the Latino Caucus. While I am sympathetic to the neighborhood association's desire to not be remapped, I have a very big problem that's been glossed over by Smith's efforts. Her desired map, the "Taxpayer Protection Map" should actually be called the "Egan Out Map". Take a look how steady her remap hand is with a straight line Northern border on Diversey from the lake to Sheffield and another perfectly straight line from Diversey to North Ave. That's when Smith's cartography gets a little creative, especially when it comes to the Southeast corner of the ward, where I live. It would be hard to believe she suddenly got the hiccups when it came to looking at the 35th precinct where my family and I reside, because the zig zag is kind of strange given her excuse to fight the map she opposes. She says it would be tough to deliver daily city services with all the zig zags the other map has. But a politically motivated gerrymander in the corner of HER map, which eliminates the candidate she so narrowly defeated in 2011, seems to be OK and no concern about the delivery of city services. Take a look at the map for yourself. There will be a remap meeting on Wed., Jan. 11th at the De Paul Student Center (2250 N. Sheffield Ave.) at 6 p.m. Something tells me Smith's presentation won't be focused on HER back-room, old school Chicago machine political move of gerrymandering her opposition into a new ward. Her rhetoric will be all about continuity... but I hope people will see through the smoke and understand this effort is all about the continuity of her political career.