“THE PHILOSOPHER POL”

May 21, 2006

Chicago Tribune Magazine

The philosopher pol

Rick Kogan

After nearly 20 years in the city council, Helen Shiller says she has learned to be patient

Spend an hour or so listening to Helen Shiller talk in her 46th Ward office in the heart of Uptown and it is easy to come away believing that she is not only a world-class conversationalist but as much philosopher as politician.

"You have to remember that people have different roles and responsibilities and that doesn't make them enemies but makes them have to focus on different things," she says. "I try to put myself in other people's shoes and realize that even in the most mean-spirited nonsense there is an ounce of truth. You need to address that truth, because it is part of the whole. It creates tension but that's a healthy dynamic and should be expected. It's like a symphony. When it works well, it's beautiful."

That is the kind of viewpoint that can come after nearly two decades in office. Planning to run again next year-"And none of my elections have ever been easy," she notes-the 59-year-old Shiller has been one of the City Council's most well known and controversial characters. She was on the cover of the Tribune Magazine in a 1996 profile by Patrick Reardon, a story headlined "Tough Lady."

Unlike many other aldermen, Shiller has been written about often. So you may already know that she was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens and Long Island; graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison with a degree in history and considerable experience in the anti-war movement; moved to Chicago in 1972, where she worked as a photographer and reporter, opened a graphics firm and became a high-profile and passionate community activist. She ran two not-very-enjoyable and not-at-all-successful campaigns for alderman and had to be convinced to give it another try in 1987.

"I came to this job kicking and screaming. What did it was Harold [Washington] asking me to run. I couldn't say no," she says.

Maybe you also know that she took ballet lessons as a child, has a son from a previous marriage (Brendan Shiller, now an attorney) and frequently visits her 91-year-old mother, who lives in Manhattan.

Her ward, which includes Uptown and parts of Lakeview, is among the city's most intriguing, a colorful mix of rich and poor, mansions and rooming houses (to see a map and a photo of Shiller go to www.cityofchicago.org and click on the "Your Ward and Alderman" link). The fellow in Osgood's photo is Samuel Hicks, dressed up to promote an income tax service right around the corner from Shiller's office on Broadway. "My goal has consistently been to preserve the opportunity for this to remain a diverse community, economically, racially and ethnically," she says.

That aim, her concern for those living at society's margins, has led to steady criticism. "My opponents have always labeled me a development blocker," she says. "But I am of the belief that development can be done without massive displacement."

I ask her how she may have changed during her years as alderman.

"I am more patient," she says. "I am kind of a perfectionist. I'll beat myself up 10 times a day: 'Am I really hearing what everyone is saying?' 'Am I staying true to my core self?' I have a zillion ideas a day and I used to try to do every one of them. I drove my staff crazy, not that I still don't. But now I think I have the patience to let things mull and brew, the patience not to jump too early, not to be reactionary, to remember there are a lot of stakeholders in our community."

The conversation moves to schools and eventually wanders to matters outside the ward and the city. "My mother watches the news every night and it upsets her, what's going on in the world, and she's right," says the alderman. "The world we are in is a very uncertain place. I have the sense that things are happening over which I have no control, that there are madmen running around this planet."

I ask her about hope. Do people have reason to hope for a better life?

"It all depends," she says, "on who you are."
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