Gracefully dropping out

The Machine elected Marilu Hedlund 48th Ward Alderman in 1971 and community groups found her pleasant to work with, as she aided their efforts to address community problems. She occasionally voted with Independents in the City Council, but mostly on insignificant matters, so that voters who had been accustomed to the previous Alderman’s anti-administration record would not think that she was blindly following Machine dictates.

What community activists observed, though, was that whenever Hedlund helped them succeed at something, Democratic Ward Committeeman Martin Tuchow appeared to undo it behind the scenes. And her assistance came to an end when she crossed swords with Charles Swibel, the powerful Chair of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA).

Swibel was a major fund-raiser for Mayor Daley and a college chum of Tuchow’s. Hedlund, he felt, was interfering with CHA operations and he wanted her gone.

So, Daley ordered Tuchow to dump Hedlund in 1975 and replace her with Arnold Levy, a 43rd ward resident who had run an aggressive, yet losing campaign, the previous year in an effort to reclaim the State Senate seat that had been won by Dawn Clark Netsch in 1972. Levy moved into the 48th ward to an apartment in Tuchow’s building.       

Community leaders were angry about Hedlund being dumped, although the official line was that she had chosen not to run again (For obediently dropping out, she was rewarded with a seat on the Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals). And they were outraged that an Aldermanic candidate would be brought in from another ward, as if a qualified person could not be found from among the nearly sixty thousand residents of the 48th.

Several community leaders met and agreed upon Marion Volini as their candidate. She faced Levy, Republican Dennis Block, and Seymour Weiss. Levy finished first but fell short of the 50% required to avoid a runoff election. Block edged Volini for second place and then won the runoff. Volini remained neutral in the final contest.