The 16th Ward: Daley Initiatives Hit Home in Englewood

By: Alysia TateSixteenth Ward Alderman Shirley A. Coleman remembers when some used to call her South Side community "the murder capital of the world." Sixty-eight people were killed in the 7th Police District in 1989, the first year of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration. That number jumped to 91 the next year, then 99.

In 1993, Daley launched the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy as a pilot community policing project. And murders in the 7th District, which includes Englewood and West Englewood, fell to 66 that year. In 1997, police recorded 55 homicides there, the lowest in 10 years.

Community policing has become one of the mayor’s strongest campaign themes. Police records show crime has fallen citywide and in Englewood by about 12 percent between 1988 and 1997. Daley is capitalizing on those trends, Coleman said.

"The entire CAPS program has been used as his publicity, his PR," said Coleman, the only black alderman so far to endorse U.S. Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Chicago). "I think CAPS has sometimes gotten more credit than it deserved."

The Englewood district, for instance, still ranks third among the city’s 25 police districts for murders and sexual assaults. But even Coleman, who faces as many as five challengers in her bid for a third term, conceded that reducing crime plays well there.

In three successful mayoral runs, Daley has shown more improvement in the 16th than any ward in the city, from nearly 3 percent of the ballots in the 1989 primary to nearly 36 percent in 1995, an analysis by The Chicago Reporter shows.

Precincts 36 and 27 include blocks stretching from 59th to 63th streets between Halsted and Morgan streets. Those precincts, which have been nearly all black since 1980, illustrate some of Daley’s gains: He won between 1 percent and 3 percent of the votes here in 1989, but polled between 29 percent and 41 percent in 1995.

That doesn’t surprise Anna R. Langford, the ward’s former alderman, an independent who served from 1971 to 1975 and from 1983 to 1991. Langford, 81, who still lives in her single family home on the 6000 block of South Bishop Avenue, has retired from politics and practicing law.

"Look at the way the streets are cleared and swept," she said. "They’re being paved, and a lot of these dilapidated buildings are being torn down."

Janie Thomas, who has lived here on and off since 1959, said she has seen more signs in the ward this year with the city’s "Neighborhoods Alive!" logo than ever before, all highlighting infrastructure and beautification improvements.

"That’s just cosmetic," said Thomas, who since 1989 has led the 7th Police District Steering Committee, a group of residents who, she said, meet monthly with police. "But I guess you have to start somewhere."

Daley’s campaign mailing tells 16th Ward voters he has invested $36 million to repair their streets and alleys and $3.9 million to help them buy and improve homes.

Some community leaders, however, hope voters will focus more on work left undone. Hal Baskin, a longtime resident and director of People Educated Against Crime in Englewood, finished second to Coleman in 1995 and is seeking the office again this year. Ollie R. Dixon, a former Chicago police officer, and Randolph Anderson Jr., a retired 16th Ward superintendent, are running for the first time. Candidates Nicole Peden and Cheryl Blackmond could not be reached for interviews.

"Most of the people in the 16th Ward and in black Chicago tend to do window politics," Baskin said. "They tend to look out their window and say, ‘What have you done for me lately?’"