Safety, Unity Debated In Hill Alder Race

Public safety and community cohesion are issues at the heart of an aldermanic race in the Hill between the first-term incumbent and a retired school social worker and local party co-chair who previously served as an alder in the late 1970s.

That race is in Ward 3, where Alder Ron Hurt faces off against challenger Maria Rodriguez during this coming Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Neither candidate won the endorsement at the Democratic Town Committee convention this summer; both have petitioned their ways onto the ballot.

Hurt, a 47-year-old pastor at Deliverance Temple Pentecostal Church on Congress Avenue and a native of Roanoke, Virginia, had a single-word response when asked about the accomplishment he is most proud of from his first two years representing Ward 3 on the Board of Alders.

“Unity,” he said. ​“In the Hill, we’re working together. We’re working together.”

Public safety is a persistent source of concern in his neighborhood, he said. He said he has worked with his constituents and the local police department to make sure that there is a more consistent police presence in the Hill s. ​“Keeping it safe,” he said. ​“Neighbors are doing their job of calling on help when they need something.”

If reelected, he promised, he will focus on affordable housing and more employment opportunities in the Hill.

“I want to continue the work that I’ve started in making the Hill a safe and a viable neighborhood,” he said.

Rodriguez, who was born in Puerto Rico, has spent the better part of the last half-century living in the Hill. She said she doesn’t see or feel the unity in the neighborhood that Hurt was touting.

She currently serves as the co-chair for the Democratic Party’s Ward 3 Committee, and last served on the then-named Board of Aldermen from 1976 to 1978 representing Ward 4. Rodriguez said she worked for three decades as a social worker for the local public school system, and retired in 2010.

She’s running for alder now, she said, because she is tired of hearing time and again from neighbors who have a problem and don’t know who their alder is or where to turn at City Hall for help.

“I hear a lot of complaints,” she said. “‘Who is my alderman? To where should I go with my complaint?’” She said that she and indefatigable Hill problem-solver Hector Miranda frequently pound the pavement of the neighborhood, knocking on door after door to get to know the ward’s constituents and to encourage civic participation at all levels.

If elected, she said, she wants to bring back a 1970s-style means of voicing neighbors’ concerns to City Hall: rallies and protests outside the mayor’s office itself.

At the top of her list, she said, is advocating for a Hill youth center, more after-school programs, and employment opportunities for the neighborhood’s teens.

“We don’t have a place for youth to get together,” she said. ​“There’s nothing.”

She said she opposes the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center’s plans to relocate an expanded version of the Grant Street in-patient rehabilitation services to Howard Avenue. The health center never ran those plans by the community before getting Board of Zoning Appeals approval, she said.

“I am against that completely.”

She also disagreed with Hurt, saying that the neighborhood is no safer now than two years ago. ​“I’m afraid of the killings going on in the whole city,” she said. The answer, she reiterated, is more services for city youth.

“Why are the kids doing these things?” she asked. ​“They don’t have any recreational activities. They don’t have anything to do.”