Joe Kotlarz

26-year old Joseph Kotlarz defeated incumbent Machine Alderman John Marcin in a hotly contested 35th ward election on the city’s northwest side in 1983. 

He waged an energetic, anti-Machine campaign with the help of former State Representative Michael Holewinski, who later joined Harold Washington’s administration.

The new Alderman wavered, though, as Council members chose sides between newly elected Mayor Washington, a Black Reformer, and Alderman Ed Vrdolyak, leader of the White Machine faction. 

Kotlarz, representing a White, conservative ward, eventually sided with the Vrdolyak bloc, but not in time to snare the committee chairmanship and personnel budget that was awarded to his colleagues who had chosen sides earlier - he didn’t get those until later.

And in 1997, not long after having won election to the Illinois House, he was convicted of theft and conspiracy in a real estate scam.