Anne Shaw, Candidate for 1st Ward Alderman

Candidate Full Name: Anne Shaw

Office: 1st Ward Alderman

Survey Questions (Character limit of 2,000 per response)

1. What is the most important issue that you will address in your ward?

Public safety is the single most important issue in this campaign. I am running in large part because the incumbent, Alderman Joe Moreno, supported the closing of the 13th and 19th district police stations. This has resulted in increased response times to emergency calls and increased crime in the 1st Ward. An alderman who worked to reduce the number of police officers in the ward should not continue serving.

I also support our public schools and our teachers. The incumbent Alderman appeared on Fox News nationally to criticize our teachers, and has been a long time and strong supporter of charter schools. I think our teachers do a difficult job, and we should be supporting them. And while I support having some charter schools as a way of experimenting with education policy, right now 1 in 5 of our schools is a charter school. We recently closed over 50 neighborhood schools, but are expanding the number of charter and other specialized, limited enrollment schools. I believe the City needs to work on making our traditional public schools good schools, rather than closing them in favor of privatized options.

Last, I support creating an environment in the First Ward that is conducive to the creation and success of small businesses. The First Ward have a number of advantages in today's economy - a diverse population, good technical infrastructure, and areas suitable for light manufacturing. I will work to leverage these assets with good policy to create new jobs in the Ward.

2. What are your plans for helping fight crime in your ward?

One of the major reasons I am running for alderman in the 1st Ward is that Alderman Moreno supported the Mayor in closing down two police stations in the area. This has led to longer response times and an increase in crime. Recently, the alderman seems to have realized his mistake and now calls for a partial reopening of the station. However, it's too little, too late. Any alderman who supports cutting the number of police officers in his own ward does not deserve re-election. The city as a whole needs more police officers, and I support proposals to hire more police and fire personnel.

I support increasing the number of officers on the beat and reopening the 13th District police station. I also recognize that fighting crime requires that we provide good schools and good jobs in our communities, and I pledge to work to support neighborhood schools and economic development in our community.

I support legislation that would give the Chicago Police Department more time and discretion before approving a concealed carry permit. I support limits on gun sales to one a month, particularly to residents of one city (such as Chicago) who travel to another place to buy a gun. I support expanding the places in which concealed carry is not allowed to include all establishments that serve liquor instead of just those at which 50% or more of their sales are from liquor.

3. What, if any, city assets would you consider privatizing to raise money?

Privatization of government services has not really achieved results and savings. While there may be some services that can be better handled by the private sector, I oppose any proposal that undermines accountability and/or relies on reducing wages and benefits to achieve cost savings.

4. Do you support or oppose the vote to increase the minimum wage in several steps to $13 an hour by 2019?

The recent increase in the minimum wage is a good start towards getting a living wage into the hands of workers, but we still have to look at what we can do for small businesses which face many of the same financial pressures as their employees. I am most concerned about providing a business environment in which small business can effectively compete in the neighborhood against cookie-cutter corporate outlets.

5. Are you in favor of Chicago's Red Light Camera program?

There is a basic mistrust of traffic light and speeding cameras by the residents of Chicago because it has never been clear that the program is about safety rather than revenue. I think we have to be clear in our budgeting and in the placement of the cameras that the program is not about revenue. Our budget should not be balanced on projected increases in traffic fines by cameras, and the decision on placing cameras cannot be based on the revenue that camera may produce.