The Race to Be 32nd Ward Alderman
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- WBEZ
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- WBEZ (Chicago, Illinois)
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- cpb-aacip/50-78gf25n1
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- Description
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- Full disclosure: I've lived in the 32nd Ward for nearly 9 years. That's just about as long as Ted Matlak has been alderman--he was appointed by the mayor in 1998. So at this candidates' debate at DePaul University in January I was both reporter and constituent. (crowd applause) Sitting on the stage were Matlak, Scott Waguespack and Catherine Zaryczny. Most of the questions had something to do with zoning and new construction, and Alderman Matlak was ready. 32nd Ward Alderman Ted Matlak: The biggest issue facing the ward right now is that the 19th century neighborhood that makes up most of the 32nd ward is being replaced by a 21st century neighborhood. Matlak knows what he's talking about: his family has owned a house in the ward since the 1880s, and he knows the geography of the area very well. Before he held the seat, he worked his way up from intern to chief of staff in the office of his predecessor, 32nd ward alderman Terry Gabinski. But since he's been in office, he's overseen dramatic change. Matlak: That encompasses not only people's homes and individual residences--it encourages transportation, parks and basically we are building the neighborhood now, like it or not, that's gonna exist for the next one hundred to two hundred years. That's just it---a lot of people say they don't like it. And they don't like Matlak's way of laying down the law. After the debate, Matlak was gracious when I introduced myself --and he agreed to be interviewed for this story at a later date. But that was before his name was linked to a Water Department employee--charged with circulating petitions on city time for the 32nd ward Organization. Since that story broke, neither Matlak's staff nor his recently hired campaign manager have returned repeated phone calls. I'm not taking this personally. But that wasn't the case for a group of Roscoe Village residents, who organized a meet-and-greet for challenger Scott Waguespack at a local bar. Here's fed-up neighbor Joan Carver. Joan Carver: How many of us have sat in that meetings and heard Alderman Matlak say, I'm the decision maker, I'm the alderman, and go out and make a decision that was directly opposed to what we had all agreed to in the meeting --anybody hear that? (applause fades down.) Scott Waguespack is on unpaid leave from his job working for the mayor of Berwyn, who ran on an anti-patronage platform. He now lives in Bucktown-- on the west side of the ward-- in the house his mother grew up in. And he's personally experienced the number one complaint he's heard from voters. Scott Waguespack: You know-everybody wants to see development in the ward--they want to see smart growth, they want to see it balanced. But when you wake up in the morning and you have some guy in a backhoe pounding on the pavement, or pounding into the ground next door to you, or knocking down the building, and your house is sitting there shaking, and your windows are rattling, what else are you going to do but jump up, call the alderman's office and say what the hell is goin' on here? And get the response oh, we don't know, we'll check into it--why don't you call 311? Waguespack says he wouldn't tolerate spot zoning--where individual projects are greenlighted without neighborhood involvement. But there's another significant way Waguespack and the other challenger, Catherine Zaryczny, are trying to be the anti-Matlak. (sound of car keys, car door opening and slamming) On a painfully cold afternoon, Zaryczny takes me to stand in front of her grandparents' former house on Rice Street in the Ukrainian Village. On a map, this area is the bulb-like southernmost end of the ward. It's connected to the other neighborhoods by a skinny strip--that's barely a street and a half wide. Zaryczny grew up down here and is fluent in the ward's languages-Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, with some Italian and beginner's Arabic thrown in. She says one day when she was about seven, her grandmother was sweeping this sidewalk when she was approached by three men who tried to hand her a campaign sign. But her English wasn't great, so she refused. Catherine Zaryczny: And I remember they walked off with their signs. They were going from door to door and literally telling people put this up. And-we went inside the house. Within about ten minutes we're in the kitchen making tea, and we hear a crash--we run to the front room there's a brick through the front window. And my most vivid memory is my grandmother on her hands an knees, She was shaken up she was crying, she was sweeping glass off the floor. And that was my first introduction to the Democratic Organization here in Chicago. As a trial attorney and former public defender, Zaryczny admits the men and the brick are connected by circumstantial evidence. But she and Waguespack have both gotten more direct discouragement. That's ranged from threatening 1:00 AM phone calls to Zaryczny's cell phone to flyers calling Waguespack a "wannabe lawyer" with a "fancy website." Still--like Waguespack--Zareczny say's she's more interested in communication than mudslinging: If elected, she says she'll do a block-by-block survey to learn what unaddressed problems are bugging people. She's got one herself: a seven-or-eight-house long puddle of standing water that reappears every spring. Zaryczny: The neighbors less than affectionately call it Lake Matlak. In the summertime it's teeming with wildlife--unfortunately there are millions of mosquitoes that swarm and breed in the stagnant water in the summertime. Zaryczny says she's been calling Matlak's office about the water for three years--and adds that if it had been cleared up, she might not be running. Now, both challengers are betting that the number of voters who are fed up with Matlak outnumber the ones who are loyal to him--and to the 32nd Ward Organization. I'm Diantha Parker...Chicago Public Radio.
- Media type
- Sound
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: WBEZ
Editor: Drew Hill
Producing Organization: WBEZ
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
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Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ-FM) and Vocalo.org
Identifier: (unknown)
Format: audio/mpeg
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- Citations
- Chicago: “The Race to Be 32nd Ward Alderman,” WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 2, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-78gf25n1.
- MLA: “The Race to Be 32nd Ward Alderman.” WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 2, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-78gf25n1>.
- APA: The Race to Be 32nd Ward Alderman. Boston, MA: WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-78gf25n1