BRIDGEPORT — Fresh from filing nominating petitions with the city's board of elections, 11th Ward aldermanic hopeful Patrick Daley Thompson has debuted a campaign website and a splashy new video.
The 1½-minute video shows Thompson traversing the newly expanded 11th Ward, including street scenes from Pilsen and University Village.
The video, produced by Bridges Media, features Thompson talking about the importance of values while cameos of people and places — publisher and brewery owner Ed Marszewski, Taylor-Lauridsen and Palmisano parks, that $500,000 Canaryville sign on Halsted Street — flash by on the screen.
It's all accompanied by an uplifting piano score.
"Their needs become like my own family's," Thompson says of the ward's residents.
Notably omitted from the video and the campaign literature is the candidate's middle name.
Thompson is the nephew of both former Mayor Richard M. Daley and Cook County Commissioner John Daley and he's the grandson of former Mayor Richard J. Daley. Yet he refers to himself as "Patrick Thompson" in the video, and his campaign literature refers to him as "Patrick D. Thompson."
The website also lays out for the first time Thompson's platform, centered on arts, economic development, public safety, infrastructure, education and recreation.
Thompson, 45 and a corporate real estate attorney with a high-powered Downtown law firm, won his 2012 bid as commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
Now he's squaring off in the 11th Ward race against Canaryville law student John Kozlar, retired union court reporter John Tominello and Maureen Sullivan, a progressive activist who's picked up endorsements from a pair of grassroots Chicago groups.
Come February, one of those candidates will replace Ald. James Balcer, who's stepping down after 17 years in office, reportedly to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and medical complications from vertigo.
With his candidacy officially launched on Monday, Thompson said he's set to start canvassing "every precinct and talking to neighbors about my candidacy and more importantly listening to their concerns."
The election takes place Feb. 24.
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