BEVERLY — Ald. Matt O'Shea's successful re-election campaign in the 19th Ward centered upon his record.
With the municipal election over, O'Shea looked ahead. He now has four years to build upon a resume that already includes arranging for the financial bailout of the Beverly Arts Center and the construction of an indoor ice rink and gymnastics center in Morgan Park.
"We have a lot of work to do with economic development," O'Shea said in the moments after declaring victory Tuesday evening.
The following day, O'Shea discussed some of the specifics of his agenda moving forward, including cosmetic upgrades to the business districts along 95th Street in Beverly, 111th Street in Mount Greenwood and on Western Avenue in Morgan Park.
"The idea is if it looks pretty, people will want to come," O'Shea said.
The first of these projects will be the continued streetscape project on 95th Street from Leavitt to Damen avenues. That project is expected to wrap up this summer. In the spring, a similar beautification project will begin on 111th Street from Central Park to Homan avenues.
O'Shea is also hoping the completion of the Morgan Park Sports Center at 115th Street and Western Avenue spurs development nearby. The ice rink and gymnastics center is set to debut in the late summer.
Even with these developments, O'Shea expects some setbacks along the way. He's hoping a statewide law is passed to increase the minimum wage. He believes this will level the playing field with surrounding suburbs.
He also encouraged his constituents to continue to shop local, thus confirming the buying power within his neighborhoods on the far Southwest Side.
"We have to support what we have to get what we want," O'Shea said.
Public safety will remain a priority for O'Shea as well. Though he expects the pace of improvements to slow as burglaries, robberies, motor vehicle thefts were all down by more than a third since his 2011 election. Aggravated batteries were down by 25 percent for the same time period, according to numbers provided by his office.
"These crime numbers are fantastic," he said.
Keeping pace with these almost unheard of reductions in crime will be difficult, and O'Shea said there will certainly be incidents throughout his upcoming tenure. He vowed to continue to offer seminars to educate people on how to appropriately react when faced with a crime. He also encouraged residents to continue to call 911 whenever they see something suspicious.
As for education, O'Shea said he'll pursue the addition of a junior high school feeder program on the grounds of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences. This idea was first proposed during the campaign and is intended to ease overcrowding at the surrounding elementary schools in Mount Greenwood.
O'Shea said such a program would require constructing a new, separate building on the grounds of the magnet high school at 3857 W. 111th St. The newly re-elected alderman said he preferred this approach to placing seventh- and eighth-grade students in the same hallways as high schoolers.
Finally, O'Shea said infrastructure work would continue throughout the 19th Ward, including replacing many water, sewer and gas lines that are 100 years old or more.
He hopes to strategically target these problems, making a priority of areas where deteriorating streets sit atop old pipes. Ideally, this will prevent crews from tearing into newly paved roads to attack problems below grade.
Shortly after being declared the victor Tuesday — having received 72 percent of the vote — O'Shea reflected a bit.
"That's four years of my staff and I working hard in Morgan Park, in Mount Greenwood and in Beverly," he said.
If he's to be re-elected to a third term, O'Shea believes it will require this same level of dedication on his behalf.
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