A leading independent voice in the Chicago City Council. Alderman Scott Waguespack.
It was a night not unlike the one we will have tonight.
January in Chicago.
Wind chill around 20 below.
Hundreds of Logan Square neighbors, parents and students were crowded around the front doors of the Armitage Baptist Church for a hearing on neighborhood school closings. At the time, nearly every one of our neighborhood schools was on Rahm’s closing list of 300 schools.
CPS security was tight at the door. They were letting people in at an incredibly slow pace. I was certain some of the young kids or elderly were going to get hurt.
It was at that moment I spotted Alderman Scott Waguespack pull up in his car. “Alderman. Can you do something?”
As a Chicagoan, that’s not a question you ask with high expectations for what answer you will get.
But Waguespack did not disappoint.
All the doors opened wide and everyone got in safely.
That’s been his role as a leading voice of the small Progressive Caucus in the Chicago City Council.
His has been a voice against the corporate agenda of the Mayor.
He voted no on the Mayor’s budget.
So the Mayor will spend $2 million dollars to defeat the members of the Caucus.
Beginning with Scott Waguespack.
Members of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus have denounced the $2.2 million super PAC created to re-elect Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his City Council allies as a bullying attempt to stifle dissent by “taking out” its eight members.
On Tuesday, “Chicago Forward” proved them right by making two of eight Caucus members its first targets: Aldermen Toni Foulkes (15th) and Scott Waguespack (32nd).
In a costly direct-mail piece going out this week, “Chicago Forward” is targeting Waguespack for casting one of four “no” votes against a 2015 budget that raised the city’s parking tax again to generate $10 million needed to double the year-round army assigned to patch potholes and repair crumbling streets.
A second mailer indirectly targets Foulkes by lavishing her opponent, Ald. JoAnn Thompson (16th), with praise for bringing jobs, a Whole Foods and affordable and senior citizen housing to her impoverished ward and for being a driving force behind the recently approved plan to raise the Chicago’s minimum wage to $13-an-hour by 2019.
Foulkes and Thompson are running against each other, thanks to a new ward map that merged portions of their two wards.
Waguespack says the opening salvo shows how out of touch Emanuel is with voters’ genuine concerns.
We need to keep and expand the Progressive Caucus.
Fred Klonsky 
“In a costly direct-mail piece going out this week, “Chicago Forward” is targeting Waguespack for casting one of four “no” votes against a 2015 budget that raised the city’s parking tax again to generate $10 million needed to double the year-round army assigned to patch potholes and repair crumbling streets.”
Wait, this is *against* Waguespack? Unfortunately, I don’t live in his ward (or even in the City), but if I did, reading something like that would have me hustling to the polls to vote for him. I guess they’re counting on people associating “parking” with “rich folks”, but parking affects most people. Chicago parking rates are already obscene. Trying to get downtown with a family is practically prohibitive because of parking rates (and it’s not always easy or possible to take public trans). And even neighborhood parking is ridiculous. We can’t keep balancing the budget on the backs of ordinary citizens until the richest citizens pay their fair share. If we need more people to fix potholes (and we do), we need to find a permanent way to pay for it.
Too bad i cant say what i really think. Now wouldnt it be great if the other 48 wake up and say hold on now you cant attack 2 of our fellow aldermen. Will we be next? But then again thats a wild dream in a room full of so called well educated people that think on their own.
What does it say about a mayor who cannot stand even a few who do not agree with him on the City Council? Instead of inviting different ideas and opinions, he seeks to shut them out completely.
Remove Rahm!