Election season is here again—and with it, charges of voting irregularities, illegitimate candidates and hidden agendas.
And that’s just within one North Side neighborhood group.
With its annual board election nearing in March, East Lakeview Neighbors (ELN) doesn’t have thesort of problem Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. is having. But there’s controversy enough to go around, especially over the Chicago Cubs’ bid to expand Wrigley Field’s seating and add night games.
Last year, Wrigleyville businessman Jim Murphy and friends swept a hotly contested ELN election, defeating the board’s nominees with a completely new slate nominated from the floor. The upset sparked fears that ELN had been “hijacked” by individuals more concerned with selling beer and rooftop tickets than with protecting Wrigleyville’s safety and quality of life.
Current board chairman Murphy owns Murphy’s Bleachers, 3655 North Sheffield Ave., overlooking Wrigley Field.
Also elected to the ELN board were George Loukas, owner of the Cubby Bear and other Wrigleyville properties; Jerry Glunz, of the Glunz family of beer distributors; and Mike Lavelle, Murphy’s attorney. Both Glunz and Lavelle are tenants in a Sheffield Ave. apartment building owned by Murphy. Two more new board members are tenants in other buildings owned by Murphy.
Murphy also presides over the Wrigley Field Rooftop Association (WFRA). Rooftop baseball clubs are big business —Murphy told Sports Illustrated that he rents the rooftop of his building at 3649 N. Sheffield Ave. for up to $4,200 a game. Crain’s Chicago Business has estimated that the clubs take in $7.5 million each year.
Therefore, some long-time ELN members have worried that the group’s leadership has been using it as a platform for a narrow agenda—opposing the Tribune Company’s plans to add extra bleachers to Wrigley Field.
The planned 12-row extension would block the views from 14 rooftops on Sheffield and Waveland avenues—which could put several rooftop baseball clubs out of business.
“WANTED: A REAL ELECTION! WANTED: REAL NEIGHBORS LEADING EAST LAKE VIEW RESIDENTS COMMUNITY!” shouts a flier circulated by Karen Kennedy, head of the Alta Vista Block Club and a relative newcomer to ELN, who’s running for Murphy’s chairman position. Lee London, ousted from ELN’s presidency in last year’s upset, is running for vice-chair.
“For nearly a year Jim Murphy has served as president of East Lake View Residents [sic] and the Rooftop Owners Association,” the flier reads. “What has he done for us, the East Lake View Residents’ area?”
It then answers its own questions: Murphy has claimed night games are good for the neighborhood, even though residents oppose them. In public hearings on the Cubs expansion, Murphy ignores the matter of night game, choosing instead to focus on fighting the addition of bleachers [which would block the view from the rooftops, ending a lucrative business].
Also, charges the flier, Murphy has suppressed the true opinion of residents by refusing to deliver hundreds of comment cards to city officials. He’s pursuing “restrictive historic protection of his properties, rooftop clubs and other homes and buildings around Wrigley Field.
He’s manipulating the Wrigley expansion debate to his own ends, thus damaging ELN’s credibility in the eyes of the Cubs and its owner, Tribune Co.
“ENOUGH!” the manifesto reads. “IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE!”
Murphy he says he and his associates won the 2001 election fair and square.“We didn’t run the election. The election was run by Lee London,” Murphy said. “They’re used to having an election in somebody’s living room and having 12 people show up. ...they didn’t even notify some of the board members—including myself— when elections would be held.
“We chose to make it more of a public forum and get more people involved. That’s how you get political clou,.” Murphy said.
Though he said last year that he’d only serve one term, Murphy now says he’ll “leave it up to the present board of directors” whether he should go for a second term. He cites the Wrigley Field controversy as the reason. “I seem to be right in the middle of it, and I don’t know if interjecting a new person into the middle of that would be helpful at this time,” Murphy said.
London told Inside that a group of residents have distributed 900 to 1000 of the fliers so far. They’re also distributing what they’ve dubbed the “Real Wrigley Survey,” trying to ascertain residents’ true feelings on Cubs night games, the need for more parking, safety during night games and other issues.
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