SOUTH CHICAGO — A 10th Ward aldermanic debate briefly ground to a halt Tuesday night when candidate Susan Sadlowski Garza’s mother interrupted to chide Ald. John Pope for insinuating her daughter had not paid her taxes.
The debate at Our Lady of Guadalupe’s San Juan Diego House for the Youth, 9129 S. Burley St., was raucous from the beginning, and organizers couldn’t seem to keep the crowd from heckling both candidates.
But the conversation about affordable housing in the South Chicago and East Side neighborhoods derailed the debate when Pope said that Garza was not up to date on her taxes.
“I’m Susan’s mother, and she paid all her taxes,” yelled out Garza’s mother. “I’m ashamed of you, John.”
The crowd of about 175 erupted, calling out that one of the ground rules for the debate was no lying in church.
Despite another ground rule against applause and comments, organizers could not stop the audience from repeatedly calling both candidates “liar.”
Both candidates took their lumps from the crowd crammed into the tiny church.
Garza’s plan to address crime in the ward with a neighborhood watch and a promise that crime would drop when jobs came in fell flat with a crowd that included several police officers still in uniform.
But Pope took the heaviest beating from the crowd that skewed about two-thirds in favor of Garza despite promises for more money for police and stricter gun laws.
Many in the crowd seemed unwilling to give Pope any credit for reductions in petcoke dust, a byproduct of nearby oil refineries that sometimes sweeps through parts of the neighborhood.
“We’ve taken strict, aggressive action to address petcoke in our community,” Pope said, prompting a new chorus of “liar” from many in the crowd.
Garza struggled to get a toehold on the petcoke problem too, with the only cheers coming when community groups focused on pollution were credited.
She tried to capitalize on strong feelings of camaraderie amongst neighbors, saying she would give the community more of a voice in decisions at City Hall.
“The incumbent is old school — he doesn’t trust people to know what they want,” Garza said.
Pope countered that Garza was deferring to the community because she lacked a plan.
He said he offered a real path forward for the ward, “or we can move backwards, fewer cops, more guns on the streets, higher property taxes and no vision.”
The debate, the last scheduled event with both candidates, ended with both pledging to meet with a plethora of community groups within their first 30 days in office.
Voters in the 10th Ward head back to the polls on April 7.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
