Entries associated with the tag "Brendan Reilly":

It’s safe to say that most of those present Tuesday morning for the meeting of the City Council’s building and environment committees didn’t grasp every last detail of what was being discussed. Among the less-than-illuminated were the six aldermen expected to vote on it.

When, for example, the 42nd Ward’s Brendan Reilly asked for further explanation, an official from the city’s Department of Buildings told him: “Basically we’re trying to follow the IECC 2006, and basically we give our permit applicants two ways to apply, and one is prescriptive. And the prescriptive method basically follows this little chart, and this little chart basically tells you what you have to have your building systems at if you’re going to comply with the code, and if your building systems have these ratings you comply automatically. And these ratings are, for ceilings, it would be an R value of 49. For fenestration it would be a U-factor of 35….”

This prompted laugher, rave reviews of the official’s algebra skills, and ultimately joy and relief that the city was coming together to get this done—whatever, exactly, "this" might be.

In fairness, though, city officials did patiently try to explain what all the jargon translated into: a revision of the city’s building code—based on two-year-old federal guidelines—that should reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save Chicago residents money, and (believe it or not) clarify requirements for developers and builders.

The revised codes, it turns out, would apply to new construction projects starting next April 22, which is Earth Day. Under the codes, officials said, developers and designers could either follow “prescriptive” rules requiring improved insulation and reduced energy loss; or they could achieve goals by “performance-based criteria”—by upgrading their heating and cooling systems with things like more efficient furnaces and better-designed windows.

In addition, buildings with flat roofs would be required to use materials that reflect more light and heat. Dark roofs help trap energy that forms an “urban heat island” on warm days, forcing buildings to consume more power for cooling.

Tests have shown that the new standards might add about 1 percent in construction costs but save 12 to 15 percent in heating and cooling bills, according to city officials. “This is going to result in a net savings in a very short period of time for everybody, but especially low- and moderate-income families and seniors,” said Richard Monocchio, the acting commissioner for the Department of Buildings.

Cutting the energy wasted in buildings could have other far-reaching impacts, as Department of Environment commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna noted. About 70 percent of Chicago’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the energy used to heat and cool buildings, and she said implementing the new code would alone slash our carbon dioxide production by more than a million metric tons in the next 12 years. City officials believe the city needs to cut its CO2 output by at least 15 million metric tons in that time to have a chance of avoiding drastic environmental problems.

Aldermen moved from befuddlement to enthusiasm about what they thought they were hearing, especially after testimony from the leaders of several construction, real estate, and environmental groups. Not only did all of the speakers express support for the changes, but most pointed out that dozens of other cities and states have already implemented similar codes, and by next year the federal government is expected to create new guidelines that go even further.

“This isn’t a groundbreaking step—it’s something that’s been done around the country,” said Brian Granahan, an attorney with Environment Illinois. “It’s not something where we’re on the cutting edge as in some other areas.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” said environment committee chair Virginia Rugai, who to at least one reporter didn’t sound so sure. But she and her colleagues had heard enough to unanimously approve the ordinance, sending it to the full council for consideration.

After the meeting, Malec-McKenna said it had taken the city about ten months to get input from real estate, construction, and environmental organizations and craft the new codes. “No, it’s not radical—the wheels of government sometimes move slower than you’d like,” she said. “But it was important to do the process right and get everybody at the table.” This way, she said, it will be easier to get their support when it’s time to make the codes even more ambitious, perhaps as soon as next year.

Lobbying by the Children’s Museum and mayor’s staff obviously had a bigger impact over the last few weeks—especially the last few hours—than the push from 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly and other opponents of the museum's Grant Park plan.

A couple of aldermen said Wednesday that mayoral aides offered them administration help for projects in their wards in return for their votes. While horse trading is part of politics, some of the projects probably would have—and almost certainly should have—received city help without the promise of a vote on a citywide issue. As one alderman put it: “I just wonder if they cashed in for too little.”

But this is why the mayor and his team are good: they don’t just ask (or tell) people how to vote. They also provide the goodies to help the decisions get made—and the arguments that can be used to defend them.

Way back when, Mayor Daley and allies like Father Pfleger suggested that opponents of the museum plan were essentially racist for not wanting black and brown kids in Grant Park. That didn’t go over too well, so the arguments kept changing. By the time of Wednesday's vote supporters were reciting another line: the museum will offer poor kids the chance to expand their horizons by getting out of their neighborhoods and visiting the city’s front yard, which some aldermen referred to as the city's "back yard." (The fact that schools already can—and do—take field trips to cultural institutions downtown was generally left unmentioned, as was the thought that they can currently visit Grant Park at any time.)

Shortly before the vote an alderman and a mayoral staffer each made versions of this argument to me. Then, during the debate on the council floor, almost every alderman who spoke in support of the museum plan offered a variation of it. I can’t state for certain that cheat sheets were circulated. And in fairness, opponents of the plan shared some arguments too. But the sudden frequency of the cultural enrichment defense was odd if it wasn’t planned. Some examples:

Billy Ocasio, 26th Ward: “I envision parents having the opportunity to spend the day to take their children to the greatest backyard the city ever had: Grant Park. It is our greatest backyard. It is a backyard a lot of our children don’t get to go to very often. It is a backyard where they could run, observe, and explore things they’ve never seen before. Our children in our poor communities of the city may never have a chance to get down there. If you talk about the neighborhoods, our children need an opportunity to explore. Our children need an opportunity to see the rest of the city—to get out there and imagine and be creative. That’s what this provides them. This is our backyard—let the children come here and kick the ball around.”

Emma Mitts, 37th Ward: “Why shouldn’t our children be able to have the opportunity to go and experience the cultural diversity that this city has? You know, if I’d had that opportunity when I was a child I think I would have had a better life. But now I’m not going to deny these children that opportunity.”

George Cardenas, 12th Ward: “I took my family to visit Grant Park. I wanted to do my homework—I wanted to make the right decision. So we went there. I took my two daughters. It was a Sunday, and we’d just had breakfast. And to me, it was important because it was for my daughters that I was going to be making this decision. And I stood in Bicentennial Plaza, looking toward the lake, looking south toward Grant Park. And I said to my daughter, ‘Isn’t this beautiful?’ And she said, ‘Yes, Papi.’ And that to me was showed me what this was about.”

Toni Foulkes, 15th Ward: “I have to agree with my colleagues—it’s all about the children. I remember when I was young, going to see the King Tut exhibit. My friends and I took the Green Line downtown by ourselves. That one ride got me out of my comfort zone, going somewhere else by myself. Kinds in our communities like West Englewood need to get out of their neighborhoods.”

Ike Carothers, 29th Ward: “I come from a community where I really believe young people will relish the opportunity to come downtown. … And my colleague from the 42nd Ward, I’ve got to tell you, I hope you’re buying us all lunch, because this debate has kept us here a long time.”

Forty-second Ward alderman Brendan Reilly says he didn't get very far when he sat down with officials from the Chicago Children's Museum earlier this week to talk about potential sites for their new facility. They're only interested in one: Grant Park.

"They've refused to consider any other locations, and they've defined their parameters so narrowly that it will be practically impossible to find a place for them anywhere but Grant Park," he says.

Reilly opposes the museum's plan to build a new facility in the park because he believes it would violate a century-old city commitment to keeping the space clear and open to the public. Last month he wrote museum CEO Peter England and board president Gigi Pritzker-Pucker a letter asking them to consider other sites proposed by people from across Chicago, including downtown locations like Northerly Island, the old post office, the Riverwalk, and the South Loop. "I am writing to ask the Museum to review this list of suggested alternative locations and provide me with your evaluation of these potential sites," he wrote.

The alderman says the alternatives were rejected out of hand. "They didn't really offer specifics," he says. "They just said, 'No, those aren't suitable.'"

Spokeswoman Natalie Kreiger says the museum took the time to look into alternatives months ago. "Before we even focused on Grant Park, we did our due diligence and looked at a number of sites, and we found that Grant Park was the only one that met our criteria," she says. Those specifications include a central location, access to public transportation, and room for parking.

The museum doesn't see any reason to compromise. "We're going to pursue this site," Kreiger says. She adds that it's "fair to say" the museum is prepared for a political or legal showdown.

Reilly says he's been spending a couple of hours each day trying to build and retain support among other aldermen, who would have to defy the mayor to back Reilly. Meanwhile, the museum just hired a big public relations firm to help drum up support and has been busy doing its own lobbying in the City Council. "We have a lot of people and consultants working for us in a wide variety of ways," Kreiger says.

This just in: an alderman decides not to cave.

Forty-second Ward alderman Brendan Reilly has helped forge an agreement that allows Children's Memorial Hospital to proceed with its plans for a new facility in Streeterville--and requires it to conduct additional studies on the safety of a proposed heliport, a demand made by neighborhood residents.

"If there's anything left on the table we weren't able to solve, I don't know what it is," Reilly said Thursday afternoon, just before the City Council's zoning committee approved the hospital's plan with Reilly's support.

Reilly said this with a tone of both relief and weariness. After months of deliberation, negotiations between the hospital and members of the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR) finally ended with a deal Wednesday afternoon. Along the way, supporters of the hospital--most notably Mayor Daley--accused SOAR and Reilly of insensitivity to the needs of sick children for daring to express concerns about traffic congestion and the proposed rooftop helicopter plan. 

Even when the deal was done, neither side was completely satisfied. Mary Kate Daly, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said its team had conducted a series of safety studies already, and the new ones will add to the cost of the $850 million project. "But in the spirit of compromise, we're going to do it," she said.

"We're happy that Children's has recognized there's still a lot of work to be done," countered SOAR's Patty Frost. But "we still believe it shouldn't get zoning approval until it's determined [the helipad] is safe." 

The hospital earlier agreed to produce updated traffic management plans every year to address SOAR's concerns about congestion in the area, which includes the Mag Mile, the MCA, and Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Under the new deal Reilly agreed to support the zoning change the hospital needs for the project--necessary because the City Council almost never approves zoning amendments without the local alderman's consent. In return the hospital agreed to the kinds of additional studies that experts hired by SOAR had recommended (read their conclusions here and here).

The full City Council is now expected to approve the zoning changes at its February 6 meeting. Then the additional safety studies will be conducted and forwarded to the Illinois Department of Transportation, which has final say on the helipad plan. Meanwhile, the hospital expects to break ground on the project this spring.

Reilly vowed that he'll be monitoring the plan at each step. And he admitted that the whole process seems a little ass-backward. "Logic would dictate that the state would do a safety review and say, 'Yes, it's safe,' before we can move forward [with the zoning approval]," he said.

When 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly agreed last month to back plans by Children’s Memorial Hospital to build a new facility downtown, he had one condition: that hospital officials review the safety of a proposed rooftop helipad with a pair of outside experts hired by area residents.

Mayor Daley responded a couple days later by suggesting that Reilly and critics of the plan were more concerned about noise the helicopters would make than about the lives of children. In a subsequent interview, Reilly politely returned the put-down. “I knew the mayor was supportive of the helipad portion of the project,” Reilly said. “Our only real difference of opinion here is that I think the city has an obligation to show that this is not a risk to public safety before we approve it.”

Behind the political jousting, there do appear to be serious questions. The two experts commissioned by the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR) are not exactly slouches. One of them, Mark Eugene Doub, is a former aircraft accident investigator and trainer for the U.S. Department of Transportation; the other, Thomas C. Corke, is a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at Notre Dame. 

The hospital’s plan [PDF] “paints a very rosy picture of rooftop heliport operations” though it would require pilots to “fly into a hostile physical environment,” Doub writes in his analysis. According to him, the hospital’s plan doesn’t provide adequate emergency landing space, and the proposed helipad is too small and, at 411 feet, too high to be safe for certain helicopters and weather conditions. He concludes that “Children’s Memorial Hospital has not addressed all of the issues necessary to operate this heliport in a manner consistent with current aviation safety practices.”

Corke focuses on a study of area wind patterns commissioned by the hospital. Parts of the hospital’s study, Corke writes, “are contrary to all good engineering approaches” and simply lack reliable data. This study “cannot be used by anyone—including Children’s Memorial Hospital or the City of Chicago—to conclude that it would be safe to use the proposed rooftop airport.”

Julie Pesch, a spokesman for the hospital, notes that its wind study was conducted by Rowan Williams Davies Irwin, a renowned international wind and environmental engineering firm, and that leading aviation consultant and airport planner Landrum & Brown also worked on the helipad plan. “They tell us it’s safe,” she says. “Safety is always our biggest concern.”

She adds that neither Doub nor Corke actually collected data on the conditions of the area—they simply reviewed and critiqued what the hospital's consultants did. “It’s not like they went out and did their own noise and wind studies.”

The City Council’s Committee on Zoning is scheduled to consider the plan on January 24, and if it passes, the full council could vote on it as soon as February. At that point, Pesch says, the Illinois Department of Transportation would conduct its own safety analysis. “But they can’t do it unless the city allows us to build.”

Traditionally the City Council doesn’t approve projects that don’t have the local alderman’s consent, but if Reilly ends up rejecting the helipad plan—he says he doesn't expect to, though the conversation he asked for hasn’t taken place so far—Daley might start lining up the votes to go around him.

Pesch doesn’t foresee any snags. “We’re confident we’ll be allowed to have the heliport,” she says.

He didn't call them racists this time.

But this week Mayor Daley chastised Gold Coast opponents of a helipad Children's Memorial Hospital wants to build as part of a new facility on Chicago Avenue east of Michigan. Some area residents have raised concerns about the safety of helicopters taking off and landing from the area, which is packed with residential and commercial high-rises. The mayor, though, insinuated that their questions were petty next to the possibility that kids could be saved, according to the Sun-Times. "So, once in a while, we have a helicopter landing. Why? To save your child -- not your child, in a sense. But your child really. Another child coming from another city [who] does not have a Children's Memorial Hospital. ... We will look back in 20 years what we did with this new and wonderful hospital."

The area's alderman, Brendan Reilly, says he's tried to serve as a moderator between the hospital and the residents. Last week Reilly signed off on the helipad plan on the condition that transportation and safety specialists for the hospital and a residents' group sit down and talk. The construction schedule for the new facility won't need to be changed regardless of how the helipad issue is resolved, he says. 

Reilly's had an intense first six months leading the 42nd Ward. This summer, over the objections of some powerful real estate and business interests, he effectively killed the plan of one of the ward's key institutions, Northwestern University, to sell its historic Lake Shore Athletic Club building to a developer that wanted to tear it down and build condos. Earlier this month Northwestern announced it would sell the property to another developer that will turn it into upscale residences for seniors. 

And earlier this fall he sided with nearby residents and announced his opposition to the plan of the Chicago Children's Museum to move from Navy Pier to Grant Park. The museum, he said, would create traffic problems and use up park space that's supposed to be forever "free and clear" of development. In response a worked up Mayor Daley ripped into Reilly and other opponents, suggesting they were really concerned that minority kids would be visiting their neighborhood: "You mean you don't want children from the city in Grant Park? Why? Are they black? Are they white? Are they Hispanic? Are they poor?"

If the museum scrap is any indication, Reilly shouldn't expect the mayor's help in smoothing out differences over the helipad.

Museum officials continue to lobby other aldermen to support their plan, Reilly said in an interview, while he's made it clear he'd like to sit down with Daley and come up with alternatives. "We've heard nothing from the mayor yet," Reilly said. "We've reached out to his office on three separate occasions, and we still haven't had any response." 

Jacqueline Heard, the mayor's press secretary, shrugged off Reilly's comment. "I'm unaware of that," she said. "I can't respond to something I haven't heard about."

Leaders of the City Council's Independent Caucus are still talking crazy: they say want to conduct budget and legislative research beyond what's provided by the Mayor Daley's staff and council committee chairs, who tend to be mayoral allies. And now they say they're close to hiring a staffer to help them out.

"A lot of folks think it's a really good idea to have someone to rely on for information besides what the administration provides us," said 49th Ward alderman Joe Moore, one of the leaders of the still developing group of more or less progressive-minded alderman. "It's by no stretch of the imagination meant to be antagonistic to anybody, but we think the City Council is actually a separate branch of government and needs some independent information."

Moore and his council allies realized that again during this fall's budget hearings. They met with outside experts and consultants to talk over how to scrutinize and analyze the Daley administration's proposals. But most of the rookie "independents" stayed quiet during the hearings and appeared overwhelmed by the hundreds of pages of budget documents in front of them. The veterans offered only modest alternatives, and did so too late in the process to have an impact. In the end Daley agreed to cut a little spending and reduce tax hikes from his original plan, but that was mostly the result of pressure from his traditional council friends.

The caucus, a fluid group of around a dozen aldermen, has been getting together before meetings of the council's finance committee. Last week they decided to accept an offer of "seed money" from an unspecified outside source and to come up with specific proposals for organizing an office and hiring at least one staffer, according to several aldermen who attended. In the past officials with the Service Employees International Union have said they were prepared to help fund the caucus. "Certainly our friends in organized labor will help, and we'll look other places as well," Moore said.

But neither Moore nor fellow caucus leaders Toni Preckwinkle, of the 4th Ward, and Ricardo Munoz, of the 22nd, will offer a timetable or any more specifics on when the hiring or formal organization will happen--probably because they don't have any yet themselves. "We've decided to go ahead and figure out how to fund staff support," Preckwinkle said.

Between the lines, aldermen say that getting an independent/progressive/sometime-opposition bloc together has been slow and tough--or at least slower and tougher than initially expected. Call them smart or write them off as wusses, but several aldermen who've worked with Moore, Preckwinkle, and Munoz on particular issues, such as police accountability or affordable housing, have shown only tepid interest in appearing to join a group created as a Daley alternative. Others say they don't want to give up their independence to the Independent Caucus any more than they want to hand it over to the mayor.

"I'll sit in sometimes and be briefed on what's going on," said 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly. "But yeah, I'm doing my own thing."

A few weeks ago, new 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly swore that plans to demolish the historic Lake Shore Center, at 850 N. Lake Shore, were not a "fait accompli," despite the wishes of a couple of his ward's power brokers, property owner Northwestern University and developer Fifield Companies.

Turns out Reilly wasn't just talking tough. After weeks of outcry from preservationists, Reilly announced today that he's not going to back the NU-Fifield plan. That makes it very unlikely the city will go ahead and approve it.

"Throughout this process, Northwestern and Fifield have argued there is absolutely no economically viable reuse option that could save the Lake Shore [Center] from demolition," Reilly was quoted as saying in a press release. "Frankly, I am not persuaded by that argument. After meeting with many experienced architects, zoning attorneys, developers, and urban planning consultants, I believe economically viable reuse options do, in fact, exist (or can be developed) for this property and that every effort should be made to preserve and re-use the historic Lake Shore [Center]."

Reilly thanked the big boys whose multimillion-dollar plans he just sank, saying "we simply do not agree on what is the most responsible use for this property."

Responsible? That word wasn't invoked very often under the "Why not?" approach to building destruction and high-rise development under Mayor Daley's former downtown aldermen, Burton Natarus and Madeline Haithcock. While Reilly has taken pains to announce that his upset of Natarus this spring doesn't mean he's anti-Daley or anti-business, he used today's announcement to vow that developers will actually have to justify their plans before he signs off on them. 

"As I continue to review development proposals for the 42nd Ward, I will do so in an open, objective and transparent manner," Reilly said in his statement. "Each project that I review will receive careful consideration and I will work hard to carefully weigh each decision by balancing the needs of the business community with the needs of local residents and the best interests of the city of Chicago." 

Whatever you think of Reilly and his bluster, it should be noted that this last comment is PR-speak for a middle finger directed at Natarus.

New 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly sent out an e-mail to his supporters yesterday that includes the following paragraph:

"In his inaugural address, Mayor Daley expressed a sincere desire to work with the newly elected aldermen to address our top priorities. I'm pleased to point out that the Mayor has already made government ethics reform a top priority, agreeing to abide by the Shakman decree against political patronage, and pledging to work with City Clerk Miguel DelValle to open up city government by broadcasting all city council meetings via the Internet. I look forward to working with Clerk DelValle and the Mayor on this issue as a member of the City Council's Ethics Committee."

Sure, it's a press release carefully constructed to sound nice. And certainly the alderman of the central business district needs to have a sound working relationship with the mayor. But if this isn't simply ass-kissing political BS--if it's any indication of the tone, style, and political approach Reilly will bring to the council in the next four years--the mayor and the machine Democrats who keep most of the seats warm in that esteemed chamber have to be just as eager to "work" with Reilly as he is with them. That's because they're going to get all the loyalty they had from his predecessor, Burt Natarus, without the hassle of having to listen to circus-act tangents or occasionally well-informed skepticism. 

For starters, the Daley inauguration speech most of us heard last week didn't express a desire to work with new aldermen as much as it chastised them in advance about engaging in "never-ending debate" and "endless politics." This from a mayor who still engages in endless politicking, as his sudden "agreeing to abide by the Shakman decree" illustrates. For years Daley fought the Shakman decree, telling voters that the city no longer engaged in patronage hiring, firing, or promoting. When federal convictions of some of his patronage organizers and the court-ordered appointment of a hiring monitor showed that he was oblivious or lying, he still resisted Shakman; the chair of the aforementioned ethics committee, Daley loyalist Richard Mell, buried a proposed resolution [PDF] introduced by aldermen Joe Moore and Ricardo Munoz that called on the administration to settle the case. Yesterday, at last, the administration was forced into an agreement by politics: not even Daley can afford to appear completely unconcerned about ongoing federal investigations, mounting legal costs, and the recent election season that sent Reilly and eight other rookies into the City Council.

Reilly didn't need to kiss Daley on the cheek in his e-mail update, any more than he needed to declare war on him. He's been in office less than two weeks. Yet he went out of his way to work in his praise of Daley. 

But the alderman said in an interview this afternoon that I've got it wrong. "Some people have taken [Daley's] speech to mean, 'Don't make any waves.' But I saw it as saying, 'Let's not get into the partisan bickering you see in Washington,'" he said. "I will be the first to say that healthy debate is a good thing that leads to better government. When the mayor and I disagree, I will make my voice heard."

Still, Reilly said he sees eye to eye with the mayor on most issues. "I'm hopeful we can have a positive working relationship," he said.

Meanwhile, his e-mail avoided mention of the controversial plans to knock down the Lake Shore Center. Reilly said several public meetings on the proposal are scheduled over the next couple of weeks, and he'll be listening to resident input before making a final decision. "It is not a fait accompli," he said. 

I once asked an alderman if I could talk to him about Chicago’s independent politicians. “Have you found any yet?” he asked me. They were hard to come by at that time—about three years ago—and they’re still not plentiful. But more of them might start surfacing after yesterday.

For starters, Richard Daley may have won by a huge margin, but the raw (and unofficial) totals show that few voters were enthusiastic about him or the race. Daley has never won a mayoral election with so few votes--317,266, with 98 percent of the precincts reporting. While Dorothy Brown ran a campaign that was far too conservative and low-key (not to mention underfunded) to compete, I’m not sure anyone thought she would finish under 100,000 votes.

In the City Council races three incumbents lost outright: the 7th Ward’s Darcel Beavers, who’s only held the seat for a couple of months, after being appointed to replace her father; the 20th Ward’s Arenda Troutman, whose campaign imploded after she was charged with bribery last month; and the 42nd Ward’s Burton Natarus, who’s best known for his off-center speechmaking (on anything from comic books to wake in the Chicago River) and attempts to legislate cleanliness and social order.

It’s not at all clear what priorities their replacements will bring to the council—or, more to the point, how likely they will be to part ways with the mayor. Brendan Reilly, Natarus's usurper, has vowed to work closely with Mayor Daley, and more importantly, the 42nd Ward produced more than 10,000 votes for the mayor, one of the highest totals in the city. That means Reilly will likely be under pressure to go along with the administration when contentious issues come up.

In the 20th Ward Troutman was defeated by Willie Cochran, who was backed by Bishop Arthur Brazier and the Reverend Leon Finney Jr., two of the most powerful figures on the south side—and big-time Daley supporters.

Seventh Ward alderman-elect Sandi Jackson is the most likely of the three to go her own way, since she owes her seat to her husband, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., an ambitious would-be mayor and occasional critic of Daley’s. For years the ward has been dominated by proud machine Democrat William Beavers, the city chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. But last night his daughter polled less than a third of the votes cast, and Daley garnered 53 percent of the ward’s mayoral votes—a majority, but one of his shakiest performances in the city.

Of the 11 wards that will have runoff elections, independent-minded aldermen are most likely to come out of the 15th, 16th, 21st, and 49th wards. Daley had underwhelming support in the 15th and 16th, where union-backed Toni Foulkes and JoAnn Thompson were the top finishers yesterday. Twenty-first Ward incumbent Howard Brookins Jr. hasn’t had the smoothest relationship with the mayor over the last four years; his opponent, Leroy Jones Jr., is an official with the Service Employees International Union; and the 21st’s voters are among the most Daley-skeptical in Chicago, giving Dorothy Brown and Dock Walls their highest combined total (6,807) of any ward. In the 49th Ward, where alderman Joe Moore will face activist Don Gordon, voters have elected independents since 1979.

On the other side, no alderman has been more enthusiastic about his love of the mayor than the 12th Ward’s George Cardenas, who routed union-backed opponent Carina Sanchez. But that doesn’t mean his ward is as crazy about Daley as he is. The mayor won the ward handily, but received fewer than 4,000 votes there, one of his weakest showings anywhere. And while Cardenas helped Daley sustain his veto of the big-box minimum-wage ordinance last fall, 83 percent of 12th Ward voters backed a nonbinding referendum favoring a “living wage.”

Add it all up and the list of potential independents looks something like this: incumbents Toni Preckwinkle (4th), Fredrenna Lyle (6th), Ricardo Munoz (22nd), who all won reelection outright; Foulkes (15th), Thompson (16th), and Moore (49th), should they win; and Brookins or Jones (21st). On certain issues the mayor’s declining support—or aggressive federal investigators—could embolden aldermen Manny Flores (1st), Billy Ocasio (26th), Ed Smith (28th), Tom Allen (38th), and Helen Shiller (46th), who’ve all shown flashes of independence. If they win runoffs, expect Pat Dowell (3rd), Scott Waguespack (32nd), Alderman Rey Colon (35th), and Naisy Dolar (50th) to join in the fun every so often.

Of course, all of these people could decide that it’s just easier to let the mayor do his thing while they stick to securing the money for new speed bumps in their alleys. It’s happened before.

Brendan Reilly, one of the challengers to 42nd Ward alderman Burton Natarus, just released a television ad where a narrator asks, "What's up with the City Council?" before slamming incumbent aldermen for, among other things, spending "tax dollars to block corruption investigations" -- a reference, I believe, to the Daley administration's legal fight (with the council's consent) against a court-appointed hiring monitor and the Shakman decree itself, which is supposed to ban political hiring and firing.

When the ad gets to making promises, though, it presents its "bold new" candidate as a Daley ally: "Brendan Reilly will fight for a cap on property taxes, end the corruption tax, and work with Mayor Daley to make downtown a great place to live."

While it's a fact that the council has signed off on the Daley administration's choices -- sometimes through voting, sometimes through inaction or blissful ignorance -- it's also a fact that these decisions are made at the top. By touting Daley's name even as he condemns corruption that occurred on the mayor's watch, Reilly's already acting like a sitting alderman.