1.
Updated at 10:04 PM CDT on Monday, Apr 6, 2015
In addition to a hotly-contested mayoral race, Chicago voters in an
unprecedented 19 wards will vote in aldermanic runoff races Tuesday.

2. According to Chicago’s 20th Ward aldermanic challenger Kevin Bailey,
incumbent councilman Willie Cochran may never have been forced into
a runoff April 7 with him if he or his staff would have been more
attentive to their voicemails.
• Alderman 20th Ward
After moving to the 20th Ward, Bailey and his mother – who works on
her son’s campaign along with other volunteers – both say that they
called up Cochran’s ward office to offer their help with various
concerns for their ward.
Bailey, a 27-year-old civil engineer with a background managing
railway work, says he wanted to work with youth within the community
but never heard back from Cochran or his staff. Ditto for his mom, who
says she also never heard back when she called for assistance on some
issues within their ward.
• Aldermanic Runoff: 20th Ward
“I was new here, and had some ideas for helping out in the ward so I
called the Alderman, but I never heard back,” Bailey tells Ward Room
one morning at his campaign headquarters on South Ashland, a week
before 20th Ward voters would decide between he and Cochran for their
next City Council representative.
“Eventually, I just decided to try and do things on my own,” he
continued.
• 19 Chicago Aldermanic Races Go to Runoff
Bailey claims that his mind didn’t immediately go to challenging
Cochran for his seat, however.
“I wanted to see who else might be interested in running,” he said. “I
met with a number of people who were considering running, and some

3. of whom did end up running, but I didn’t really like what I heard from
them in terms of the reasons they wanted to get office.”
• Get to Know Your Ward: 20th Ward
Cochran is a two-term alderman who also faced stiff competition four
years ago. The former police officer claims success in getting more TIF
money for his ward, and raising money from private companies to go
towards funding of things such as youth centers, but he has also been
rated as one of the more business-friendly members of the city council.
Bailey, who came in second with about 21 percent of the vote in the
Feb. ward race and forced a runoff, says that Cochran is inaccessible to
residents, is beholden to business interests and has not done nearly
enough to secure smart TIF spending in his blighted ward.
“I think TIF is good, if it is used for its intended purpose of encouraging
development that increases employment in areas that otherwise
wouldn’t get it,” Bailey says. “But it isn’t being used that way. Our
ward represents a fraction of a percent of all city employment. The TIF
money that is being spent here is being given entirely to one or a few
organizations. For example, one organization is being $30 million to
create a community center.”
“Do you know how many different people and groups there are in the
ward, trying to help people?” Bailey asked, before continuing. “I know
one individual who is offering music classes for kids for, I believe, $12
an hour. The going rate for quality music lessons is much more than
that, but he’s discounting to help out.”
Bailey said he’d rather spread out millions of dollars to a number of
efforts, to people like that, than give it all to one group.

4. “Do you know how much even a tiny bit of that TIF money could help
someone like that music teacher increase their programming and reach
more kids?” Bailey added.
Bailey is also critical of a “land grab” by Norfolk Southern Railway and
the city to buy up over 100 parcels of lands in the Englewood
neighborhood at what his campaign and some community groups have
said are steeply discounted prices.
“People have been displaced from their homes, and been given a
fraction of what their homes and land are worth,” Bailey claims.
Though he is relatively new to the 20th Ward, Bailey says that the key
to his bare-bones, grassroots campaign’s success so far has been his
eagerness to make and keep personal contact with residents.
Bailey’s says his fluency in conversational Spanish has also been useful
for his outreach efforts. Though many 20th Ward neighborhoods are
majority black, it also includes parts of the Back of the Yards
neighborhood, which has a large Mexican-American population.
Bailey says he first felt traction among young voters, like himself,
though he’s since been able to make inroads among the elderly, as well.
“If you try and talk to young people about coming out and voting, you
get brushed off by a lot of them,” he says. “But when you start talking
to them about police brutality, and things going on in Ferguson, then
they want to talk. They’ve realized that things like that won’t improve
unless we get involved and change our leaders and how cities and
police departments operate.”
To that end, Bailey’s platforms include police department reform
proposals like civilian elected police oversight committees. Getting his

5. fellow young people interested and connected to his campaign was one
thing, but gaining the support and trust of voters closer to his
opponent’s age took more time.
As seems to be the center of most of his ideas, Bailey said thoughtful
conversation helped.
“When I first started meeting with some of the older folks in the ward,
they were nice but told me, ‘You’re just a baby, you’re only 27, what
could you do?’” he recounts. “[But] when I reminded them of how
Martin Luther King Jr. accomplished so much even at the ages of 25
and 26 they said, ‘Really? He was? Hmm…’ It isn’t to say that I’m like
Dr. King, but the point is change doesn’t happen when people wait until
they are older to try and do something. There is no time to wait; we’ve
got to start acting now.”
A week ago, Bailey’s campaign seemed to have gained enough ground
to at least make the runoff compelling to watch.
Near the end of our conversation with him, the challenger says he’s just
received a message from an ally of the campaign with new poll
numbers that showed him just eight points behind Cochran, with a good
amount of undecided voters left, as well.
That seemed like good news but Bailey says the news “just makes me
want work harder.”
Of course, winning elected office is one thing, but being an effective
leader who can avoid being coopted and manage to actually get things
done is a whole other – and a much more difficult beast.

6. Bailey says he knows that, and has thought a lot about how he’d
manage to work gradually yet effectively towards all the things he’s
said he will during his campaign.
Though he isn’t naïve about his chances of changing the whole system
right away, Bailey says he believes maintaining the same type of
connection and constant communication with residents that he has
during his campaign, as a sitting alderman, is what he hopes will buy
him understanding, patience and continued loyalty from constituents.
The former railway systems manager says that he would use the same
leadership approach he always has, even when he was in a much
different line of work.
“There were times where I had to oversee 500 people when I worked on
the railway,” Bailey explained. “I’d show up as one of the youngest
guys, and sometimes one of the only black people, in a very mixed and
diverse group of people. If I would have showed up and talked down to
people or just introduced myself by giving orders, no one would have
listened.”
“I would just get in line like all the workers, pick up the tubes with
everyone, and do the work,” Bailey said. “I’d learn how things were
getting done, how they were being managed and what the problems
were. Then, later, when I’d work to get certain things reformed and
changed, sometimes I was able to. But even when I wasn’t, I’d make
sure I communicated with the guys there all along the way. I’d tell them
honestly, ‘I tried to get this, you saw me try. You saw me working here
with you. I wasn’t able to get it done, this time.’
“When people see you out there with them,” Bailey continued. “And
when you keep them in the loop on decisions being made about their
lives and future, they understand, and they are patient.”

7. Bailey’s opponent Cochran could not be reached for comment by the
time this piece ran Wednesday evening.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Kevin-­‐Bailey-­‐Says-­‐South-­‐Side-­‐Needs-­‐
Change-­‐298775491.html