Chicago
By DAN LOGAN

Alderman Simpson's Ward Assembly - political organization of the future ?

MAYOR DALEY'S recent election victory was a fluke.

Now that I have your attention, allow me to explain. While power structures in most American communities are fragmenting, Chicagoans gave one man — Daley — another mandate to exercise virtually unlimited power. In that sense, his victory was a fluke.

All over the country, citizen organizations are bringing people closer to government. Responsive to their constituents, government organizations are reaching out to those citizen organizations. I believe people and government are eventually going to join hands in a new, hybrid kind of organization.

There's no better example of the organization of the future I'm talking about than independent Alderman Dick Simpson's 44th Ward Assembly. Simpson calls it "a cross between representive democracy and town hall democracy." With its formation, he gave a considerable amount of his power back to the people who elected him.

Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus, in 1968 formed the Independent Precinct Organization (IPO), a group of precinct workers active in several Chicago wards, to "open up the election process." The IPO does precinct work for candidates endorsed by a two-thirds vote of its members.

In 1971, when the IPO endorsed him for alderman in his Northside lakefront ward, Simpson pledged to "open up the governmental process" by creating the 44th Ward Assembly. At the end of 1972, delegates — two from each of 63 precincts and one from each community organization active in the ward — were elected for the Assembly's first yearly session. The Assembly began meeting every Sunday night in a local church.

Not wanting the Assembly to be ineffectual, Simpson gave it power. He signed a covenant promising that a two- thirds vote would direct his vote in the City Council, direct him to introduce a measure in the Council, or establish a program in his ward office.

At its first meeting, the Assembly showed that it has a mind of its own. When Simpson tried to introduce independent candidates running in the approaching primary. Assembly members objected to using the Assembly as a campaign platform. Simpson had to admit, "The chair is in error." Now only elected officials are permitted to address the Assembly.

In its three years of existence, the Assembly has been responsible for some solid achievements. It directed Simpson to introduce a successful ordinance banning trucks with oversize loads from the ward's side streets. It presented the Park District with a plan for new parks and playlots, three of which have already been approved. And it established a ward fair.

The Assembly's most important accomplishment has been creating Simpson's third experimental organization, the Community Zoning Board. Consisting of seven members appointed by Simpson with the concurrence of the Assembly, the board holds hearings on zoning variances and zoning map changes. Although it has no legal standing, none of its decisions has yet been overruled by a downtown board. Simpson has introduced an ordinance to give all 50 wards similar community zoning boards — and with zoning power. He sees the proposal as a realitic legislative solution to the many zoning scandals in recent years.

At the very least, the Assembly makes possible a vast increase in popular participation. It lets people know what government is doing and finds out what they think about it. And their response is geared to specific governmental solutions. "One of the biggest pay-offs of the Ward Assembly process," says Simpson, "is the development of new community leaders who for the first time understand how government works and frame their requests in terms of governmental programs. Instead of wanting a pothole fixed, they want a street repair program. They know what the budget and laws are like."

The Assembly gives Simpson "a whole platform of ideas worked out in detail. The ideas have already been, hammered out as compromises in the community, so the alderman is certain of a community base of support."

The Assembly's problems, on the other hand, have been relatively minor. "There's a constant stream of new ideas," says Simpson. "One of the biggest problems is that implementation in City Council takes six months to a year — if we're lucky enough to get something implemented. The Ward Assembly can spin off proposals at a much faster rate. We need to keep the ideas down to a rate that can be absorbed. Secondly, the Ward Assembly is not as good as most community organizations in acting as a pressure group."

Simpson has received inquiries about the Assembly from a New Jersey congressman and legislators from Michigan and Georgia, but not from Chicago's Democratic organization, According to Simpson, the Assembly is "somewhat antithetical to the ethos of the current machine. It opens up a series of discussions about accountablety. No longer do orders flow from the top down. The machine finds the Ward Assembly troublesome because it flies in the face of the notion that party leaders can best decide policy and, transmit it to citizens."

I've got a hunch that more ward assemblies — and similar organization — are going to trouble the machine even more in the future. ž

158 /Illinois Issues/May 1975