On election night reporters breathlessly relayed the astonishing news coming out of Logan Square: in the age of Daley, when the mayor’s aldermanic troops seemed unbeatable, Rey Colon, an independent, had managed to win. “If you’re a reporter who just shows up for election night, yes, you might be amazed,” says Kevin Lamm, a volunteer precinct coordinator for Colon’s campaign. “But we weren’t as surprised–we’d been working on this for eight years.”
Colon was also involved in the fight over the basketball court. Back then he was the Park District manager who’d worked with residents on the plan. “I can tell you right now that Vilma lost a lot by fighting those courts,” he says. “Put it this way: she gave people a reason to oppose her.”
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The city is required to draw new boundaries for its 50 wards every ten years, after the census, to guarantee that each ward has roughly the same number of residents, currently around 60,000. The 2001 “reapportionment” was overseen by Mayor Daley, who made sure the aldermen had a major say in designing their wards. And so the future of the 35th was in the hands of Colom.
“That was a huge break for us,” says Colon. “That was their first impression of Vilma, and they didn’t like it.”
By election day Colon had his own precinct operation of more than 200 workers. On February 25 they had two or three volunteers outside every polling station and one or two inside. “I had everyone come with cameras–you know, those disposable Instamatics,” says Colon. “That’s always been one of the favorite tricks of the machine guys–to intimidate people by taking their pictures. Well, we can take pictures too.”
Other regulars in the area blame Daley for the defeat. “The Daley fucking machine lay down on this one,” says one local politico with close ties to Mell. “They make the fucking Mafia look like kindergarten. I know how they think. They get you off guard, they slither through the grass like snakes, and then they bite when you’re not looking–you don’t even feel it. They wanted to dump Vilma–I don’t know why. But they did.”
