Ald. Billy Ocasio’s HQ - 26th Ward

Transcript (Download)

Turn around and take a gas bill, light bill plus a state ID or a driver license.

And you argue the point.

That way the judge will turn around and sign the affidavit.

He will be able to vote.

That makes sense.

As far as like addresses and stuff at this point, like there's some addresses listed and aren't there? That are making lots now? That are actually don't feel like there was ever anything like that.

Anything there? And then there's also a couple that aren't listed that are there.

We just fill that in for me.

Right now it's a little too late.

I'm not able to do anything.

Well then do it.

What you start doing is when you guys see it like that, okay, and you've got buildings that used to be there and they're vacant lots, okay.

For your own records, you turn around, you put vacant lot, person has moved and everything.

Because then we're going to restart over again after this election.

And this is going to make your work a lot easier for you.

Because it's going to take a length of process before we can eliminate these people.

Now you've got to remember, you've got one person, the mother and the father living in that apartment, but then all their kids are married and live in other neighborhoods, but they vote out of that area.

Make sure you ask them that.

Do your kids, do they come over to this way to vote? If they've moved out of the area, but they're still listed on here, I should check to see if they're on the post sheets? Yeah, because then I could do absentee ballots.

Like I live in the first ward, okay, I'm having a house built in the 35th ward.

Now when I work my area in the 26th, what am I going to do? I'm going to ask for an absentee ballot.

That way I don't lose from the first ward, even though I live in the 35th.

This way these are pure fat folders for you.

That's what I've been doing is, on here when I hand these out, I list...

Are you having to walk them through Billy? Um, what do you mean? Are you having Billy walking? Well, he had already walked that precinct before I even started working on it.

This is actually Jesse's precinct.

But Felipe had felt that they needed to be there.

So I got out there and had been working on it.

But Billy had already...

Gordon Hammett had already gone through a lot of that area.

But it's still funny because, see he gave me some streets.

He kind of restricted, he gave me the right to access properties, properties, yeah, Jesse with fences and stuff like that.

That's when you come in here and make your phone calls.

And the best way to do that is, you know, a lot of people, they'll give you opinions.

They won't give you the honest opinion.

You tell them you're doing a survey, you know.

At the same time, while you're doing that, when you go over there, then you tell them you spoke to them and all this.

And you would like their opinions.

I do that with mine and I've only been working a year and a half.

Is your opinion based on, like, a poll you mean? No, their opinion on the services they have received from Davey and their opinion on the services they've received from Billy Ocasio.

And believe it or not, because you're saying it's a survey, it is something that they'll be so honest with.

Oh, Richard hasn't done anything, you know, and Billy hasn't done anything.

But then they'll turn around and say, oh, Billy, yeah, he's done this and that.

And then they'll turn around and say Billy did the same thing.

The funny thing about it is this precinct is an old male precinct.

A lot of people don't know that it's part of the 26 ward.

I was on diversity talking to a few people and they were 26 ward.

Well, my section is part of the 33rd ward, too, okay? What I did was I started to turn around and walk around and started just talking to the people.

If they gave me that precinct six weeks and I carried everybody but one candidate, you know, that shows that I did a lot of footwork.

So that'll do the same thing for you.

And all I do is, I'm not going to lie to you, all I work is from 3 .30 till it starts getting dark.

Then I stop working.

So before you know it, by the time it's campaigned, if I have 586 people right now I have over 300 people I've talked to.

And that's only five, six, seven houses a day.

But each of them get mine.

They have mine.

I've been putting my number in a pager here.

So, you know, there's a number if you want to call the office, you come back.

If you want to just contact me.

They usually like talking to someone they can relay the face to.

You know, so I've been listing my numbers here where they can reach me.

And also get a hold of my office.

We deal with all the sanitation here.

And that's about the biggest problem everybody has.

In fact, there was some mention, I've got some notes elsewhere about garbage.

Oh, we've had over a thousand cars towed.

Just in my precinct.

Which is not even a mile.

By the way, my name's Frank Rodriguez.

But from Bloomingdale to North, Campbell to Ward to Western, I had 23 cars towed.

Now you figure if that's only in that little section what you might have in your area.

Give us a call.

Thanks for your help.

What you doing? What am I doing? Well, he's new.

He doesn't really know how the ball is growing.

So he had a few questions and asked for my advice.

So I gave it to him.

You know, hopefully it works to his advantage.

How did you learn all this stuff? You seem to know a lot.

Well, I've been dealing with it since I was 14 years old.

And I have my ups and downs about it, you know.

A lot of times I enjoy it.

I'm not obligated.

I'm not told I have to be there or anything like that.

I just been doing it.

Sometimes it excites me.

When I'm a little tired, then I let them know and they take care of it.

But the majority of the times they give me a precinct.

They gave me this one precinct and I carried it in six weeks.

And I beat the people that have been there for nine and a half years.

This time people got them to know me.

They know how to get a hold of me.

Precinct captains, you know, a lot of people say, oh, they're there for election.

And then after election you can't find them.

Well, I'm one they can find at all times.

Each block has a captain of their own.

So the captain has my beeper and has my home phone number.

The people themselves have my work phone number.

And they call me and, Carmen, you know, you think you can pass by? I have coffee, breakfast at their homes.

What do they want? Well, I deal with sanitation, you know.

So most of my people have a road and control problem, garbage, abandoned cars, gang bangers, things like graffiti and everything like that.

So generally where I work, I have easy access to all those services.

So we don't have that kind of a problem.

What's this got to do with electing somebody? I mean, how does somebody calling up about graffiti have anything to do with the mayor? Well, the mayor is the one that brought out the program.

And I think by him doing this, the gang bangers themselves go out there at night and they draw their signs, right? We get a graffiti blaster form.

We have the owner sign it.

And we send it to downtown.

Downtown turns around, sends it to the graffiti blaster and the graffiti blaster.

One of us is going to get tired and it's not going to be the city.

It's going to be them.

What's the connection between a problem with graffiti or parking or whatever and electing somebody? What's the connection that the voter makes or the people out there? Well, what I see is when they have a precinct captain, okay, this is the person they rely a lot, very much on, on a lot of their services, okay? We, as precinct captains, rely on our officials to help us out, okay? Now, if the people call us, they call their Alderman's office, they call their downtown, the 745000 number, but they get to get a hold of somebody, okay? When you have the person like me that can come to your home and you tell me, Carmen, they came over, look what they did to my poor building, you know? It turns around and when it comes close to election, I've been with the 26 for so many years, we haven't supported bad candidates, okay? We've all worked, everybody seems to come out of this community.

And if you come out of this community and you work together with the community, people forget your last name and remember your firsts, okay? And if you've driven through these neighborhoods, you see the problems we're having, the gang bangers writing their names and their logos on the wall.

It's so nice to see that it's up and then it's gone within a day or so.

So they have somebody they can relate to and have an easy communication with.

And this is what they're looking forward to, you know? So they stand there and they say, well, here she comes.

And I talk to them and I say, well, listen, because of Daly, now Daly has been in our ward so many times.

People, you know, they say politics downtown, okay? In this community, we don't care what's going on downtown.

We want to know what's going on in our neighborhood, you know? This is the first time that we're actually being to see the mayor.

The mayor has been here so many times, you know? And people are coming out of the woodwork to meet the mayor.

Now, to them, this is a very important man.

And, you know, you just can't walk into his door, but he's walking into our doors.

And people are coming out of the woodwork to meet him, to talk to him.

They're seeing this neighborhood come up again.

And it's becoming safer, slowly but surely.

It's a slow progress, but it is becoming safer.

We're seeing more police officers walking the beat instead of driving through the beat, you know? We're seeing gangbangers that used to, you know.

Can you just say your name for the camera so we can identify you? I'll give you a card that will tell you who we are.

My name is Carmen Cruz Martinez.

And your address? 1321 North Rockwell.

Chicago? Chicago, Illinois.

606 -22, and I've been living here 43 years.

So I've seen the changes.

What's your official position? I work for the Bureau of Streets and Sanitation.

I am a precinct captain in the 23rd Precinct.

They're supposed to meet here, but I want to be out there, so they're going to meet me out there.

I'm going to take that all the way to court.

When you see the viaduct, you know, then you know you only got two more days.

They're off in January or something.

I don't know if that's a problem.

Thank you, Leroy.

What if I talk to a person on the phone for five minutes and they wait in line? Yeah, that's a longer time.

I'll put it right there.

So, I'll have all these artists in.

Next day, you can take me in.

That's what I'm actually doing.

But you know, I'll take you in.

You can start the work.

I'll start the cameras.

Thank you very much.

He's out of the line.

He's out of the line.

How you doing, big guy? How you doing? Okay, let's switch.

We got the heavy hitters coming over here.

How you doing? How are you? Hi, guys.

How are you? What's up? Oh, my brother.

What's his name? Well, I don't know.

How you doing? What line? I'll put it up by three.

You three guys up together? All right.

Jimmy and Messina have been with us.

He's on his way.

Well, he sent the four of us to stay together.

That's why he sent us up here.

We'll work it out somehow.

What we'll do is probably split up one precinct in two parts.

How's that? Okay.

You got all one car? Or is Jimmy coming in his car? Jimmy's on his way.

So, we'll do it that way.

We'll take one precinct, split it into wall sheets in two.

Two guys will team up and two guys will team up.

Does that make sense? Okay.

That way you guys can keep an eye on what's going on.

How do you spell your last name? O -O -N -G.

O -O -N -G? I know you.

How are you? Good.

What's your first name? Joey.

Joe, I'm going to team you up with Eddie Formas, sir.

Just take a seat.

Now, let me write it on the sheet what his name is and everything so I can record it.

Does that know this guy? Yeah, he's like a race horse.

He wants to get out there and do some work.

He's been up since four, you know.

What I'll do is when I get two more guys, if you see two other guys from here, don't sweat it because I'll team them up on part B of your area.

Anything I can explain to you about how this works? All right.

Eddie maybe can explain it to you, the wall sheets and the absentees and everything.

Grab yourself a blue pen, right? You got it.

Okay? I'll take care of it.

See you a little bit later.

Hey, how are you? I'm good.

How was your trip? Good.

How are you? Of the 32nd precinct.

You guys can, no problem, pages one through eight and nine through 14, they're right adjacent to each other so it's not where you're going to be like four or five miles apart or anything.

Maybe you can team them up that way.

You want to take your brother -in -law with you? Yeah.

Either way, it doesn't matter.

Then Messina and Jan will go together.

In these days, somebody's going to get it right.

Okay, now the original one is, nobody's been marked so I can give you a regular pencil.

What I'm having them do is use the other markers in blue so that way they don't confuse the Okay? Okay.

You didn't like that one? I ain't got my name on it.

It doesn't matter.

Here's some 32, Budinski.

You got part A or part B, Tommy? I've got A.

A? Where's Elston Avenue? What's the address on Elston? 28.

I would take it east of here, go to California and take it up to hit Elston.

I lost them here.

You're at 3400.

Yeah, what's Elston? Well, Elston runs diagonally.

That's the fun part.

Sit down with Alex, Joe, right over here.

Rockefeller, you worked with him last Sunday.

How you doing? Okay.

I think I always find this street I never heard of.

Well, I figured they give you the one diagonal.

North, north there.

I've never heard of that street.

Wait and watch this.

I need a one -point check.

It's all I did then.

It would be really important to get them to, okay? You see there's a report sheet in there? Let me show you that.

When you come back in.

Since we're, you know, I've got about four staff people here, I'm going to help you a little bit make the report.

That's a duplicate.

Don't mess up with that one.

That's why I put it on.

I'll get you everything you need over there.

I'll read you the word again, okay? This thing right there? Yeah.

In other words, the total amount of contacts, precinct, regular report.

Yeses, nos, not sure, window signs.

Let me find out if we have any seating team members with an absentee.

Anything else, like any complaints they have, or let's say if you find that a person's not registered, get their name, address, and phone number on here.

That way for later on when the registration opens up again, then we can do it, okay? Okay.

We have the sheet.

They want to explain for the camera.

Not too much though.

Plus, minus, in essence, when you go to the door, you're going to introduce yourself as a Daly Ocasio volunteer, Alderman Ocasio running in the 26th floor.

Introduce yourself, give them literature if we have it.

In essence, have a short conversation with them explaining the race.

You want to end up with the question with them saying, can Alderman Ocasio and Mayor Daly count on your support on February 28th? They would answer yes, mark the plus, no, the minus, and the unshared mark the zero.

If they need any absentee ballots, mark that.

If they need any window signs, also mark that.

If they have any special requests, just put it on as far as a complaint with a water problem, street sanitation, or whatever.

Mark it on there and we'll forward that through the ward.

How long has he been in the Alderman? He's been in the Alderman one time already.

He took over for Alderman Gutierrez, who is now a Congressman.

Appreciate it, you guys do a good job and take advantage of the weather.

Is he backed by Gutierrez too? No, we're not concerned with that right now.

I know, but a lot of people say that.

They won't ask you that.

But in essence, since Gutierrez is the man who recommended him, I'm sure we can say that Congressman Gutierrez recommends him highly.

Okay? All right, thank you.

Okay, appreciate it.

We'll see you later.

Two floors underground.

What does triple zero mean? It's in the two.

What is this for? It's for public TV for next year.

Known for our politics, I would say.

One of our finer points.

See we got Canada, off, fucking, I don't know.

You want to just hit that one for now then? That's a two.

Let's meet at 2700 North on Artesia then.

We'll figure it out from there then where we're going to go, okay? Artesia is right...

This is a duplicate thing.

This is the old touch down.

This is the best place to get started at.

Don't touch them.

At least if you get a point to start with, it's easier once you get there.

Yeah, why don't we meet at 2700 North Artesia.

Artesia is right by Western.

It's one block off of Western, so it's right past Poulton.

We got to go back this way then.

Poulton is 2400 North.

Where do we go, New York? Or the jam? The jam is right over there.

How you doing, guys? I'm gonna get in there.

Get the hand on that, right there.

What are the faces? What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna split up.

What we have here is five precincts.

See what it's going to be.

Five precincts.

I'm going to split them all up in like halves.

So it'll be like A and B.

You guys are familiar with the plus minus and everything we've been doing in the absentee ballots and all that.

The alderman here is Alderman Ocasio.

So in essence, when you introduce yourself, you're a representative of Mayor Daley and Alderman Ocasio.

We want you both names here.

So in essence, it'll be the same.

Let me have all your names again and then what I'll do is I'll get this stuff ready together and I'll call you guys Ocasio and Water.

Let me have your names one more time.

Wilkinson or Wilkerson? Okay, give me about five minutes.

I'll get your folders together and we'll send you the bears right out.

So I know how many you have.

Just two cars so I can split you in two anyway, right? We'll fix you up as much as we can.

Yeah, Perino working here.

I mean over there, usually over there on the walking.

Yeah, this is 26.

Well, I understood 10 and I know the rest.

Eight people, something or other.

They're going to be quite brisk and flabby.

What are you guys going to be doing? We're going to be painting.

Going door to door, can't say that's not a sign.

So you're not going to move forward, huh? No.

These came into help.

Are you guys going to work together? No, I'm waiting for my partner.

They're going to work, I don't know.

We're waiting for him.

You've done this before? Yeah, been doing it for about four weeks already.

Do you like it? Oh yeah, that's fun.

It's for the kids.

I'm taking it right there.

Do you have any new buttons? What do you mean? No, no.

Those are great.

Hey! Hey! On North Avenue? Where? Oh, you know why? Because that's Rivera's house.

But I got it tomorrow.

Stay walking up, right? You want some balloons? Yeah.

This will be my phone raiser for now.

All right, Paloma, you want some balloons? Yeah.

How many balloons? Those balloons are supposed to be filled up already.

You can't be handing empty balloons.

I handed out on the phone raiser.

We're going to have it.

You want some balloons? Yeah.

Luis, you want some balloons? Yeah, but I wanted a full one.

Ah, your wife filled them up for you.

The Caps Program? No, but you know...

Two more guys in there.

You got the helium.

With the helium, they stay real nice.

I did it last night.

What I'll do, I'll give you the whole precinct.

Instead of breaking it up, I'll give you guys the whole thing for that reason.

Listen, by the time you got there, people are going to be going out shopping and stuff.

You want to get them? Yeah.

So you're going to go with number four.

Precinct number four.

I'll give you just one folder.

You guys will work together.

This will be the other half of it.

Okay? Make sure you use that balloon.

Take another one with you.

Take two of them with you.

Okay? Now why don't you take a few windowsigns if you want? A couple of windowsigns.

Okay? That's pretty busy here.

If I get one more Spanish guy, I'll go on to 18.

Otherwise it's gorgeous.

Appreciate it, huh? Thank you.

Identifier

V.2026-05-0003

Date Of Production

1995

Abstract

Precinct volunteers are shown working at Alderman Billy Ocasio's 26th Ward headquarters. Interview with precinct captain Carmen Cruz Martinez. Al Padalino interacts with precinct workers.

Color

Color

Reel/Tape Number

1/1

Language Of Materials

English

Format

Cassette Tape ➜ Betacam SP ➜ 30 min.

Subject

Political campaigns

Related Collections

The Center For New American Media: Chicago Collection

Related Places

North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago ➜ Humboldt Park

Main Credits

The Center for New American Media (is production company)

Participants And Performers

Padalino, Al (is participant)

Martinez, Carmen Cruz (is participant)

Rodrigues, Frank (is participant)

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