Maria Hadden: A new voice for Chicago's 49th Ward

In what seems to be a seismic shift in Chicago’s 49th Ward, the 28-year incumbent, Joe Moore, now has a challenger: 38 year-old Maria Hadden an Ohio native, with extensive community work: organizing and educating citizens on how to govern the often murky world of local politics, a thankless task, but also one that has given her a vision to reshape the leadership for one of Chicago’s most racially and economically diverse wards.

Avoiding the frigid winds of February, she agreed to a telephone interview, where I asked her, straight off, what her much heralded desire for transparency meant, and how she could achieve it.

“I’m talking about a commitment to have the 49th residents to have the same information that I have, and I want to make people know how things work; we have to engage the electorate,[that is] something important in a democracy.”

“One of my role models is former Alderman Dick SImpson, his vision and commitment to the people; I want to give them a booster shot, and take what they say to a higher level, and reach out to them.”

Newcomers to Chicago politics are usually swept away by the sheer inertia of the bricks and bats, not to mention, the bickering. Hadden seems undaunted by the challenge, and self-identifies as a process person, with a strong desire to effect change, particularly in Rogers Park, an area that has seen population shifts across the black and white divide, and where some middle class professionals often feel, in moments of private confession, that they are marooned, waiting for the area to be transformed to a northern extension of tony Lincoln Park.

Some have questioned, maybe undecided voters, to media responses, exactly what experience would prepare her for the role, and should she get elected.

To answer that question, she led me on a well-traveled journey of ‘ten years with non-profits and participatory budgets, working with community groups, in both the US and Canada, helping to train, educate citizens. . . plus decision making, including two weeks in Jackson, MS, with their city budget; and, working with aldermanic staff, teachers in high school, in [such places] as Detroit, Denver, and New York City, to make government better, and increase local public services.”

In Chicago, she has also “worked with Aldermen throughout Chicago to design participatory budgeting processes around Aldermanic menu money, school budgets and TIF funds.”

With a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Ohio State University she also earned an MA in International Public Service Management from Chicago's own DePaul University.

As if this was not enough, Hadden’s website also says that she “currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Black Youth Project (BYP) 100, and Voqal. BYP is an organization of activists aiming to create justice and freedom for all Black people through the principles of leadership development and inclusivity using Black, queer, feminist lens. Voqal is a nonprofit that uses technology and media to build an educated, empowered and engaged public.”

Within that transracial volume of work I described what others in the media have pointed as her “outside the box approach”, or perhaps better described as an “out of the ward” approach, one that encompasses city wide issues, and not those that are solely ward specific,  offering something unique, and that Chicago has not seen before.

Hadden emphasized that is “a deliberate course from my past work, and in my ward, where we have not looked at this, but instead turned over the decision making to the city executive, the mayor, but, there are these issues, the pension crisis, a failing infrastructure, and there has to be accountability, there are 50 aldermen, and we need to increase that level of responsibility to the people of Chicago, and help solve the bigger issues, instead of looking only at one person, the mayor making [city wide] decisions.”

One of the biggest issues facing both aldermanic, and mayoral, candidates is public education, specifically keeping neighborhood schools open, limiting charters, and enriching quality, and resources, for the nation’s second largest school system, which prior to last year, had a much lower per-pupil funding cost, that many observers, and residents, saw as inequitable for its mostly black and brown student population.

In the 49th, two elementary schools, last year, Kilmer and Gale, had severe physical plant issues that resulted in lead paint exposure, along with leaking roofs, and other horrors that had one Kilmer parent, Dawne Moon, telling Chalkbeat.org, that it was “not currently a safe environment.”

“Moon, a Local School Council member, complained of rusted lockers, “bathrooms that smell like urine, even after they are cleaned,” temporary covers over holes in the roof that keeps water from pouring into classrooms, and of bricks falling from the ceiling in the school’s gym.” 

Later, after media exposure, Kilmer received monies needed to fix the roof, estimated at $5 to $10 million, but only after the principal and parents complained that their school, of whose academics they praised, was severely neglected.

Hadden emphasized that “this is an important issue in the 49th ward, and that the school system, and especially K-12 schools are well funded,” and noted that there have been “decades of neglect.”

She noted that while there is an urgency to keep schools safe and well-funded, was one important aspect, but, that also an aldermanic intervention can take the form of harnessing parents, and CPS to help with “another reboot; and at the local school council level, we want solutions.”

That discussion, led, of course, to the increasing demands over the last few years for an elected school board, an issue, that concerns many parents, and lawmakers, that has been well covered, and which she supports, both an unadulterated version, but also noted that she would “also support a hybrid.”

Expanding on the need for education reform, she stressed the need for “an equitable democratic process” one that would contribute to “predictable results, being democratic, as well as equitable and diverse, using participatory budgeting.”

Hadden was quick to point out that this task “should not be taken lightly” and that “a strong process” had to be central to the prospects of local political and racial domination, a possible result, that Simpson had warned of in earlier interviews.

Repairing revenue deficit is a major plan in her platform, on all levels, and one possible source promulgated by newly inaugurated Governor J.B,. Pritzker as well as state Sen. Heather Steans, as well as State rep. Kelly Cassidy, and that is marijuana legalization.

Steans previously said, “In a regulated system, the money would go into the cash registers of licensed, tax paying businesses. [where] It would generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year in new revenue for our state. Prohibition is a financial hole in the ground, and we should stop throwing taxpayer dollars into it.”

Cassidy added that given the current dire financial situation in Illinois, the legalization and taxation of marijuana could help fill the much needed revenue gaps in the state budget.

In Colorado, marijuana sales generated about $70 million in revenue during the first year of legalization.

Hadden has given her support to the idea, and when I mentioned that at the recent Women’s Mayoral Forum, sponsored by Chicago Women Take Action Alliance, mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot, gave mixed support to the idea, saying that “Colorado is not Illinois” and that further study is needed, and was not entirely convinced of its efficacy, she replied, true to her centrality, that the regulatory process “should involve more people,” but also stated that while she, like Lightfoot, was okay with further study.

Consistent with her style, she asserted that the financial results should contain an equitable distribution of funds, humorously noting, that “the hardest thing with Colorado was what to do with all that money.”

In closing, I noted that many of my more jaundiced associates and, even some friends, all longtime Chicagoans, noted that at one time, Joe Moore, among other aldermen, such as Helen Shiller, had mellowed out, after time, and like the former, had actually become less of the rebel, and more of the establishment.

Asking point blank, if she this might be her, if elected, and that, later on, maybe four or more years, if ward residents, might be saying, “Oh, gosh, let’s get rid of Hadden, she’s just like the rest, now part of the machine.”

Responding with much laughter, she said, “No, I don’t think so, that’s definitely a constituent statement - from the people -- I love people . . . and I am being honest, I know the challenges, this is a difficult job, and with a definite shelf life, but I’m not yet among those with a long history of reform, I know that I’m young, but I want to keep myself close to residents, and always be accountable; and I am thinking of people like David Orr, when he was part of the Harold Washington administration, so this is not a new tradition of reform, that I want to be part of.”