Posted by Hal Dardick at 12:27 p.m.
A coalition of reform-minded Chicago groups today launched a new government accountability Web site it hopes will educate voters in advance of next year’s city elections.
Developing Government Accountability to the People debuted its new site the same day it issued its second city government report card, giving Chicago an overall grade of D.
The organization issued a similarly poor report card four years ago, prior to the 2007 election that brought some new faces to a City Council still largely controlled by Mayor Richard Daley.
The group hopes that its new report card and the Web site will have an impact next year, said University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Dick Simpson, a former independent aldermen involved in the report. All 50 aldermen and the mayor’s job are up on the ballot.
“It’s also a report on the individual alderman, who they are, what they are doing in their communities and, when the site us upgraded, where they’ve gotten their campaign contributions, and what their voting pattern has been,” Simpson said. “This should allow each community to hold its aldermen more accountable than they have been able to in the past, and should have some impact on the mayoral election, as these are probably the issues that will probably stand out in the mayoral election of 2011.”
The site has a section on each alderman and his or her voting history, a “tool kit” that explains government programs and laws like the Freedom of Information Act and a page with reports on basic city issues.
The organization’s leadership panel includes Alianza, the Coalition to Protect Public Housing, the Heartland Alliance, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, the Lugenia Burnes Hope Center and the Pilsen Alliance.