Controversy in contested elections surfaces 
at NAACP Oak Park forum

By ERIC LINDEN

On the same day that Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W.
Bush clinched their parties' presidential nominations, candidates from
more uncertain campaigns debated in Oak Park.

And on the same day that Atlanta Braves baseball pitcher John Rocker
made his first appearance in a game since his racially and culturally
insensitive remarks in Sports Illustrated magazine, a candidate in Oak
Park made some remarks some villagers found insensitive, at least.

The occasion for those and other events came at the March 14 candidate
forum sponsored by the NAACP Oak Park branch in the council chambers of
Oak Park village hall, Lombard Avenue and Madison Street. Attending were
most of the candidates in contested elections involving Oak Park in the
March 21 elections.

Taking center stage were the three candidates in the Democratic primary
for the 7th State House District, which includes most of central Oak
Park, part of Forest Park and part of Chicago's Austin community to the
east of Oak Park, and also the four candidates in the Democratic primary
in the 8th State House District, which includes parts of southeast and
north Oak Park and other parts of Austin. There are no Republicans on
the ballot in either one of those districts, so the Democratic primaries
in the 7th and 8th Districts all but assure the March victor of winning
the general election in November.

A few other candidates from other races, including Oak Park favorite
William Cousins Jr. for the Illinois Supreme Court from the 1st
District, attended the NAACP forum, as did Berwyn resident R. Benedict
Mayers, a self-proclaimed white supremacist who is seeking the
Democratic nomination for the U.S. Congress from the 3rd District, which
takes in the part of Oak Park south of the Eisenhower Expressway.

Mayers did not discuss or was asked either about his previous
unsuccessful endorsement of a referendum asking if Cook County residents
should send American blacks to live in Africa or about his alleged
support of the beliefs of noted white supremacist Matthew Hale. At the
Oak Park forum, the candidate did, however, draw the loudest negative
reaction from the predominantly black audience when he called for
government officials to give black prisoners the option of staying in
U.S. prison or being freed if they agree to live in African countries.

"Why don't you go back to Africa?" was one comment shouted at Mayers'
prison suggestion from the audience that filled the main level of seats
in the council chambers. "Boo" was another word called out to Mayers,
who was alone among the candidates at the election forum to
unconditionally endorse the use of vouchers to have government offset
the cost to parents of children who attend private or parochial schools.

The main portion of the forum, however, was discussion in the two
contested races for local state representative. All the candidates in
those two races attended and sat answering questions at the
semi-circular table where the Oak Park village board normally conducts
its regular meetings. In the 8th District, incumbent State Rep. Calvin
Giles, who is seeking re-election, was joined by challengers Clarence
Thomas, a community activist who has gained several newspaper
endorsements in the race; LaShawn Ford, a teacher in the Chicago Public
Schools; and Grady Jordan, a retired educator who ran unsuccessfully
against Giles for the seat four years ago.

For the 7th District seat, incumbent State Rep. Wanda Sharp of Maywood,
who was appointed to fill a vacancy in 1998; Oak Park resident and
attorney William B. Sullivan; and Maywood resident Karen Yarbrough, the
owner of an insurance firm who narrowly lost the 7th District Democratic
primary primary in 1998, addressed the issues in their race.

Sullivan has been endorsed by Pioneer Press, which publishes several
weekly newspapers in the 7th District, including the Oak Leaves in Oak
Park, and by oak-park-journal.com. Yarbrough has gained endorsements
from the the Oak Park weekly newspaper Wednesday Journal, the Tribune
and Sun-Times Chicago daily newspapers and the Independent Voters of
Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO)

"People are looking for a change," said Yarbrough, who won 45 percent of
the 7th District Democratic vote in the campaign two years ago against
then-State Rep. Eugene Moore. Since then, Moore has been named and
elected to the post of Cook County Recorder of Deeds, and then he named
Sharp to succeed him in the state legislature. As Moore's appointee,
Sharp follows past practices favored by him and by Democratic Party
regulars.

Yarbrough, who in recent years has been involved with the Oak Park YMCA,
said 7th District residents want greater contact with and performance
from their representative. Sharp countered that she and other
legislators are needed as "facilitators," and she said the 45 percent
vote for Yarbrough two years ago was not against Sharp but against
"another candidate," which would be Moore.

"I'm a child of diversity," said Oak Park native Sullivan, who with
Mayers were the only two white candidates at the Tuesday night forum. If
elected, Sullivan said, he will bring "leadership, cooperation and
partnership" to the position. Sullivan also said he would work to unite
Oak Park into one house district, down from the current four districts
in various parts of the village

"I think have done an adequate job (as state representative)," said
Giles, who has been in the seat for six years and who is the nephew of
convicted former Chicago Ald. Percy Giles, responding to criticism from
election opponents, from some residents and from media organizations,
Giles said, he works hard to serve constituents, even if he, admittedly,
does not have a very public appearance schedule.

"I am very busy representing your interests in Springfield," said Giles
citing service on several committees and with other legislative duties.
The state representative said he was most proud of legislation he
sponsored to make it illegal for the state of Illinois to give the death
penalty to any resident who has been diagnosed as mentally ill. The
Chicago Sun-Times has been rated Giles as having the third worst voting
attendance in the Illinois House.

"I did not feel we were being served adequately," Jordan said of why he
decided to again challenge Giles for election. Jordan, who retired in
1995 as a district superintendent for the Chicago Public Schools, said
residents of the 8th District deserve to have a representative who, like
Giles, tends to legislative matters, but also one who also keeps in
contact with constituents and who has an active presence in the
community.

Ford said key issues for him include improving the "failing" public
schools. responsibly dispersing some $8 billion from the recent tobacco
industry settlement and finding the best uses for the state government's
estimated $1 billion budget surplus.

"The operative word here is `representative.' ... I think in terms of
how would I like to be served,' said Thomas, an operative of U.S. Rep.
Danny K. Davis and a former employee for the City of Chicago in the
Mayor's Office of Employment and Training. In that agency, Thomas worked
with Carolyn Hodge-West, now an Oak Park village trustee. Both she and
Davis are supporting Thomas' candidacy, as is the IVI-IPO.

The NAACP forum had been scheduled for previous dates, but did not come
off until Tuesday. Because of the changed schedule, officials said,
neither Democrat Davis, whose district includes River Forest, most of
Austin and Oak Park north of the Eisenhower Expressway, did not attend
the forum. Also absent was Democratic U.S. Rep. William O. Lipinski,
whose 3rd District seat is the one that Mayers, the white supremacist,
is seeking to hold.

But attending the forum in Oak Park were Cousins, presiding judge of the
Appellate Court who is seeking election to the high court against, among
others, Morton Zwick. The latter judge has come under fire for airing
television commercials that allegedly mislead the record of an opponent
who is not Cousins. In Oak Park, the court nominee came out forcefully
against racial profiling, the practice of having police indiscriminately
detain blacks in the name of crime reduction. All the other candidates
also decried the practice.

Other candidates attending the forum and praising the NAACP Oak Park
branch were Robert Dallas, one of two Republicans running in the primary
election to represent the 7th District and oppose Davis in the fall
election; a representative of Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine,
who is seeking election; Todd Mayers, the Illinois Republican Party's
public outreach chairman and who represented the campaign of Gov. Bush
in the state; Illinois Appellate Court Justice Shelvin Louise Marie
Hall, who is seeking retention on the March 21 ballot; and Dorothy
Brown, a candidate for Democratic nominee for clerk of the Circuit Court
of Cook County.

As a final act at the election forum, moderator Gloria Smith of Oak Park
asked the candidates who remained to give "a one word answer" to her
question of whether they supported the current moratorium on the death
penalty put in place recently by Gov. George Ryan.

Not all gave a "one word answer," but all except Mayers answered yes. He
called the death penalty a deterrent to serious crimes.