Paul Struebing for 41

Paul believes in Chicago. He believes in our people. He believes in our ability to care for our communities, to improve our neighborhoods, and to achieve big things. As the son of a union carpenter, Paul has handled luggage at O’Hare, repaired bicycles and worked on countless job sites. He understands hard work. But he also knows that communities, like buildings, reach great heights because of the combined strength of their parts, rather than the strength of a single individual or beam. The only way that our community can overcome the challenges we face is by confronting them together. We deserve an Alderman who shows up for all of us, takes the initiative, and takes responsibility.

That’s the leader Paul intends to be for the 41st Ward. Join us – and let’s get to work!

The son of a union carpenter with deep roots in the 41st Ward, Paul has worked on the tarmac at O’Hare, repaired bicycles, and is now an attorney raising a daughter with his wife, Katie in Edison Park. He serves as the vice president of the Edison Park Community Council and on the Ebinger Local School Council. In these roles, he has led efforts to make streets safer for all road users, fought against the proliferation of vape shops, and worked to bring more trees to the neighborhood. Paul believes that local government can and should have a positive impact on the lives of city residents and will fight hard to make sure that city government works for residents of the 41st ward.

Achieving a sustained decrease in violent crime will require a multipronged approach that focuses on improving policing and addressing long standing issues facing at-risk communities. Paul will call for the city to fill officer vacancies, promote more officers to detectives, and invest in technology while also — where possible — safely transitioning mental health crisis response to mental health providers and multidisciplinary teams that can connect people in crisis with appropriate services while allowing officers to focus on deterring and solving crime. In addition to these solutions, we must prioritize violence interruption programs and improve education and employment opportunities across the city.

In addition to crime, the 41st Ward is plagued by unsafe street design, increasing traffic injuries and fatalities, lead in our water, the proliferation of vape shops that target our youth with addictive chemicals, and so on. On City Council Paul will promote road design that prioritizes safety over speed and continue to fight for the regulation of tobacco products, for clean drinking water for all residents, and for full funding of our police and fire departments.

As a product of public schools and the sibling of a public school teacher, Paul is deeply invested in the success of CPS, whose enrollment has dwindled by nearly 100,000 in ten years.

The local neighborhood school, Ebinger, where Paul serves on the Local School Council, lost more than 100 students over the course of the pandemic. Going forward, we need CPS to fund all schools in a manner that does not necessitate overcrowded classrooms to maintain school budgets, and to continue to hold schools harmless for student enrollment lost during the pandemic. To minimize the risk of needing to return to e-learning in the event of a future pandemic, CPS should take steps to retrofit school buildings to improve ventilation and filtration.

Helping our neighborhood flourish will take investment and vision. We need to improve our commercial corridors to support existing and new businesses, dedicate resources to our neighborhood schools, libraries and parks, and address quality-of-life issues including flooding and loss of tree canopy. As well, we need sustainable property tax relief that does not cut vital city services or underfund pensions earned by city workers. To accomplish this, we will have to consider other revenue sources, focusing on those that lessen the burden on working families, like the revenue for pensions created by the Bally’s Casino project, while also seeking additional federal support to fund projects that are vital to the national infrastructure and economy.

In the 41st Ward, the Guardian recently reported that nearly half of all drinking water tests performed were positive for lead. No Chicagoans should be consuming lead with their drinking water. The pace of service line replacement is unacceptably slow and must be drastically accelerated — yet Paul’s opponent voted against lead service line replacement. All options for increasing the rate of replacements should be considered — including, but not limited to, raising the income cap for participation in the equity (no-cost) lead service line replacement program, providing graduated assistance to help cover costs for those with incomes above the current income cap, and implementing more efficient and cost-effective methods for performing replacements. The city should also consider allowing approved private contractors to perform replacements under the equity lead service line replacement program. The city should also consider replacing lead service lines as a matter of course when replacing water mains.

How do you solve a problem like the CTA? For a start, severe understaffing is a major contributing factor to unreliable service. The CTA must fill nearly 1,000 operator vacancies, improve its arrival tracking, increase security throughout the system, and ensure that services are available, consistent, and reliable in every neighborhood across the City. But the CTA won't solve all of our transportation problems. We need to make sure that our neighborhood streets are safe for all road users, regardless of transportation mode, or age, and prioritize the interests and safety of residents over the speed of those passing through.

Over the past 8 years, the 41st has been left behind. Business vacancies have increased. Property crime has skyrocketed. Ward residents are indisputably less safe than they were when the current alderman was elected. Yet the current alderman Napolitano has missed nearly a quarter of required meetings and failed to bring desperately needed resources back to the Ward. He has repeatedly voted to make our neighborhoods less safe by voting against enforcing speed limits, opposing regulations on tobacco products targeted at children, opposing lead service line replacement, and voting against funding our police

and fire departments. Although he claims to be fighting for city workers, he has voted to defund their pension funds to the tune of more than $3 billion. Alderman Napolitano has failed to deliver for the Ward while repeatedly voting against the interests,

security, and safety of its residents. By contrast, Paul will show up, work with, and work hard for everyone in the Ward to

address the issues that we face.

The 2023 Chicago Elections are on FEBRUARY 28TH!