Crowded battle for 5th Ward seat, open for first time in 24 years

Rich Hein/Sun-Times file photo; Provided

A professional boxer, a religious charity director, a teacher and two lawyers are all vying to succeed retiring Ald. Leslie Hairston in the South Side’s 5th Ward — and that’s not even half of the total field.

With 11 candidates in all, the race for the seat — open for the first time in 24 years — is one of the most crowded on the Feb. 28 ballot.

The ward includes parts of the Hyde Park, South Shore, West Woodlawn and Greater Grand Crossing neighborhoods. 

The candidates vary in their approaches to such issues as public safety and affordable housing, but nearly all of them agree on one thing — the ward’s next alderperson should be more accessible and transparent to residents. 

“A lot of people are just tired of not having their phone calls returned,” said Robert Palmer, 62, a teacher running for the seat. 

Nearly every candidate named public safety as a top area of concern, with sales coordinator Kris Levy, political consultant Joshua Gray and attorney Renita Ward pushing for a greater focus on the ward’s youth in an attempt to lower crime numbers.

Levy, 51, says he prioritized public safety after talking with his teenage daughter, who lamented that she wasn’t able to “ride her bike until the streets lights came on like he did.” Instead of adding more police officers, Levy wants to add free girls softball and boys Little League programs in an effort to “create less criminals.” 

Gray, 39, shared a similar plan to add programs “kids want to be in” such as arts and basketball. 

Ward, 46, says school enrollment is declining, and she wants to focus on maximizing education resources. “I strongly believe that the youth are our future, and when it comes to safety, economic viability and education, youth really should be front and center,” she said. 

Professional boxer and business manager Dialika “Dee” Perkins, 41, is also against more police, but wants to add a Community Patrol and Response team composed of residents trained in dealing with mental health issues and conflict resolution or de-escalation. 

Marlene Fisher, 50, a security administrator at the University of Chicago, wants to allocate funds for violence prevention, victim support and CPS after school programs. 

Candidates Gabriel Piemonte, 54, and Wallace Goode Jr., 70, both say public safety can’t be addressed without looking at other issues in the ward. 

Piemonte, who challenged Hairston for the seat four years ago, says economic development and crime are closely related. 

He would shape his solutions to the ward’s problems on concepts that frame and fuel the national reparations movement, such as giving a percentage of city contracts to descendants of enslaved Black Americans.

“It is a problem on every level of government that we tend to avoid the complexities of the circumstances of Black Americans, who for 400 years have been passed over time and time again,” he said. 

Goode says issues such as economic development, safety and education all need to be addressed at the same time, saying: “How can you deal with violence without dealing with education? How can you deal with education without dealing with affordable housing?”

If elected, Goode plans to institute a “Marshall Plan” of sorts with leaders in different departments to tackle issues on his first day in office.

Several candidates outlined plans to improve the cost of living in the ward. 

Jocelyn Hare, 42, a higher education administrator, plans to centralize housing resources for renters and homeowners. 

Fisher says residents who receive any kind of assistance would have to complete a financial literacy program. 

Lawyer Martina “Tina” Hone, 60, plans to look for ways to turn renters into homeowners through pathways such as the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, a non-profit organization that provides special mortgages with no down payment or closing costs for those who qualify.

Desmon Yancy, 51, a religious charity director who was endorsed by Hairston, wants to figure out a way to help condo owners make home repairs that don’t translate into significant boosts in their property assessments.

Multiple rival candidates questioned Yancy’s lack of a voting history in the ward. 

He said he voted from 2004 to 2008 before leaving the ward, and then began voting again in the 2022 primary and midterm elections after moving back to the ward during the pandemic. 

 “It’s important for me to make sure that people understand my office is going to be extremely forward-facing, extremely open to having conversations with the community,” Yancy said. 

Gray says residents should know who the candidates were before they began running for office. 

“Community love just doesn’t appear overnight,” he said. “You have to have a history of loving the community.”