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AUSTINWEEKLY news ■
Vol. 33 No. 3
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Westside Branch NAACP returns to its roots,
January 16, 2019
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
@AustinWeeklyChi
PAGE 11
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F d makes Ford k th the ballot, page 8
West Side pols sound off on Burke charges Amara Enyia, Taliaferro most vocal in calls for deep changes to City Council By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
On Jan. 3, Ald. Ed Burke (14th) — the Chicago City Council’s longest-serving alderman and former chair of the powerful Committee on Finance — was charged with attempting to extort a Burger King franchisee, delaying the permits to renovate a location in Archer Heights in order to pressure them to hire his law firm for handling their property tax appeals. While Burke has since stepped down as the finance committee chair, he continues to serve as alderman, and he is still running for re-election. But the city’s political landscape is not as placidly business-as-usual, with some West Side political figures wading into the sea of reactions and critiques that has been created in the wake of the bombshell indictment. A number of elected officials and mayoral candidates called for ethics reforms designed to avoid abuses of power, but the proposal presented by Amara Enyia, the executive director of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, is so far the most sweeping yet. She called for banning aldermen from working other jobs while in office, giving the mayor and the Office of Inspector General power to investigate aldermen without restrictions, audit and review no-bid contracts to see if they violate any laws, and move some “executive and administrative functions” to city departments. See BURKE on page 6
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
Sounding off
Demonstrators chant last Saturday, Jan. 12, during a Mute R. Kelly protest outside of his studio on Justine Street in Chicago,. Read opinions on the R. Kelly fallout on pages 4 and 7.
Lightford named senate majority leader State senator becomes first black woman in the role
By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
A longtime African American lawmaker is making her own history just as Democrats are set to begin a historic era of dominance in Springfield. State Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-4th) was recently named Senate Majority Leader, making her the first African American female to hold the
position and among the highest-ranking elected officials in state governance. The Jan. 9 appointment also solidifies what may have already been the case — Lightford, whose district includes parts of the West Side, including Austin, is arguably the most powerful black elected official in Illinois not named Preckwinkle. During an interview on Jan. 13, Lightford, 50, described how her new position
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fits into the larger Senate hierarchy. “It’s like the Illinois Senate’s equivalent of president and vice-president,” she said. “You have the senate president [Sen. John Cullerton] and he has his majority leader. Under the majority leader are five assistant majority leaders while underneath them are the caucus chair and the caucus whip.” See LIGHTFORD on page 10
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