1st Ward race is a referendum on police station closings and Alderman Joe Moreno

Anne Shaw considers the race of 1st Ward Democratic Committeeman to be about the closing of police stations (the 13th district and the 19th district stations) and the lack of fight by Alderman Joe "Proco" Moreno. Shaw contends that Alderman Moreno did not mount much of an effort to fight back against Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The 1st Ward race has become on referendum on police station closings and Alderman Joe "Proco" Moreno. In fact, Anne Shaw is considering a citywide ballot referendum to do just that, but first there is this 1st Ward Democratic Committeeman race.

A seminal moment in the 1st Ward Democratic committeeman campaign came before the petitions were even filed. Juan "Johnny" Elias, a protege of 1st Ward Alderman Joe "Proco" Moreno, urged Anne Shaw to drop out of the race. You are going to be a "spoiler" and you are going to ruin it for Moreno, Elias told Shaw back in December.

Anne Shaw got into the race anyway and for all the right reasons: the safety of her community. There is a growing feeling, fueled by Shaw's message to the community, that the community was abandoned by Alderman Joe "Proco" Moreno.

Jesse Ruben Juarez agrees. "He didn't lift a finger to save the station. He could have done more and he didn't."

Anne Shaw explains it this way, "I am running for 1st Ward Committeeman against Alderman Moreno based on the police station and public safety issues and that Moreno abandoned on us," said Shaw. In December of 2011, Shaw was attending a redistricting meeting in which Alderman Moreno attended and hosted, explaining the ward redistricting issue. After the meeting, she was approached by Juan "Johnny" Elias, a key political operative of Alderman Moreno.

"Johnny came running after me and gave me a 'schooling on Chicago politics 101' and told me in no uncertain terms that I should not work with current Cook County Democratic party Chairman Joseph Berrios who Johnny claimed is siding with Jesse Ruben Juarez because they know that Alderman Moreno would beat Jesse Ruben Juarez. He said I was a 'spoiler,' and because I am a woman and I don't know what I am doing," explained Shaw.

It seems this woman, Anne Shaw, is the one conducting class and educating Alderman Joe Moreno and Juan "Johnny" Elias. It was Moreno and Elias that challenged the signatures that Shaw collected to gain ballot access, and Shaw beat them back decisively. They also tried to knock off Jess Ruben Juarez, and were easily beaten back by him. Juarez has called the challenge "frivolous" and has a lawsuit in the works against Moreno and Elias, claiming this is a pattern with Moreno.

Anne Shaw has also considered a lawsuit, but at the moment is not a priority. Shaw agrees with Juarez that the challenge was also "frivolous" and aimed at scaring off this "woman who doesn't know what she is doing."

As one insider told me, "Ah, that was aimed at Shaw. Moreno knew he couldn't knock off Juarez, but he kinda figured that would scare off the girl."

But Anne Shaw doesn't scare so easily. Or give up on herself or the community. Anne Shaw has not lost sight of her goal, keeping Chicago's 13th district police station (and by extension the 19th district station) open for the safety of the community.

Shaw is firm on the subject of the police station closings and Alderman Moreno being the issue. "It is outrageous that my Alderman is still supporting the closure of the 13th District Police Station with the increase in violent crimes. No Alderman should support the closing of vital assets to the community, such as police stations and Alderman Moreno voted to close two police stations in the 1st Ward, the 19th and the 13th."

Shaw goes on about Moreno. "At the same time giving himself a raise to $112,000 a year. He still has his full time job, in addition to his job as alderman. We all know that the alderman’s job is really a demanding full time job and not a part time job, so I can’t see how he justifies giving himself a raise with the poor economy, the closing of police stations, and the cut in library services."

"It’s also telling as to Moreno’s priorities that he has no trouble standing up to the Mayor when it comes to giving up over $1 million a year in discretionary spending money, but closing two police stations is no problem to rubber stamp"

Alderman Moreno had promised to make the 13th district building a community space with a police presence and that he was going to use his "menu money" to achieve this purpose. Now it appears that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is working toward stripping aldermen of even that benefit that aldermen have enjoyed since the early 1990's, when it was implemented by Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Anne Shaw is running a real grassroots campaign, recruiting one voter at a time, raising small amounts of money from a large group of  disenfranchised voters, knocking on doors, making phone calls through phone banking.

She is still reeling about the demeaning manner that she was treated by Moreno and Elias and she feels it is because she is a woman. Even the media, in the form of NBC Ward Room reporter Ted McClelland, who has written a second piece on the race and ignored Anne Shaw completely. McClelland had to add this line to the story, in a recent column. The story was wrongly titled, All the Hot Committeeman Races.

*Dear reader: we've added Anne Shaw to this post.

This is what he added to the piece.

*Also, Anne Shaw is running in the 1st district. We added her name to this opinion piece about the most interesting races after much correspondence from her supporters.