Hilario Dominguez
Hilario Dominguez ran for election to the Chicago City Council to represent Ward 25 in Illinois. Dominguez lost in the general election on February 26, 2019.
Dominguez completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. Click here to read the survey answers.
Dominguez responded to Ballotpedia's unique candidate survey for 2019 Chicago candidates. The survey questions were developed with input from more than 100 Chicagoans in the months preceding the 2019 election. Here is one selected response:
"We must fight to provide housing, healthcare, good jobs, and a clean environment to every person living in our city. To accomplish this, we must ask wealthy corporations and developers to pay their fair share."
Click here to read more of Dominguez's responses.
Elections
2019
See also: City elections in Chicago, Illinois (2019)
General runoff election
General runoff election for Chicago City Council Ward 25
Byron Sigcho-Lopez defeated Alex Acevedo in the general runoff election for Chicago City Council Ward 25 on April 2, 2019.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Byron Sigcho-Lopez (Nonpartisan)  | 54.2 | 5,224 | |
 | Alex Acevedo (Nonpartisan) | 45.8 | 4,414 | |
| Total votes: 9,638 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
General election
General election for Chicago City Council Ward 25
Byron Sigcho-Lopez and Alex Acevedo advanced to a runoff. They defeated Hilario Dominguez, Aida Flores, and Troy Hernandez in the general election for Chicago City Council Ward 25 on February 26, 2019.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Byron Sigcho-Lopez (Nonpartisan) | 29.2 | 2,885 | |
| ✔ | | Alex Acevedo (Nonpartisan) | 22.1 | 2,182 |
| Hilario Dominguez (Nonpartisan) | 20.8 | 2,056 | ||
 | Aida Flores (Nonpartisan) | 19.4 | 1,912 | |
 | Troy Hernandez (Nonpartisan) | 8.5 | 835 | |
| Total votes: 9,870 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2019
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Chicago 2019 Candidate Survey
Hilario Dominguez completed Ballotpedia's Chicago candidates survey for 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Dominguez's responses.
Low-income families do not have the same choices, options, or alternatives when it comes to public school. How can this be addressed?
First and foremost is equitable funding of all public schools in Chicago. It’s unacceptable that schools in the same public school district should be so different in terms of the services and opportunities provided to their students based solely on the wealth of their neighborhoods. Beyond that - the GoCPS portal is inaccessible to many disadvantaged families who may lack home computers or internet access necessary to navigate the portal. The city should partner with local non-profits embedded in the community to engage hard-to-reach communities to ensure all students have the same opportunities.
How would you address inequality within and between schools?
I believe that we must fund all of our neighborhood schools fully and equitably so that every family has access to a great school in their community. We can increase school funding by passing the Garza-Cardenas TIF surplus reform ordinance to ensure that TIF funds are spent on improving our schools rather than subsidizing large developments like “the 78”.
How can public schools better support their teachers and work more productively with the teachers’ union, parents, and the community?
As a former public school teacher and CTU member as well as a current LSC member at Whitney Young, this issue is a top priority for me. The first step to ensuring that CPS is working productively with parents and the community is to establish an elected representative school board, made up of parents and members of the community. Furthermore, Local School Councils (LSC) have long been a cornerstone of parent involvement in their neighborhood schools and the city should deepen its investment to further incentivize parents to actively participate in LSC meetings by creating a small discretionary budget for each LSC to use on outreach and engagement with the school’s community.
What do you believe are the greatest needs of kids in school today? How would you prioritize these needs and address them?
In low-income neighborhoods students don’t have access to jobs that can turn into careers – Chicago should partner with unions to expand apprenticeship programs and partner with corporations and non-profits to expand summer jobs opportunities. Also, many kids on the South- and West-side have experienced trauma from either being a victim of or a witness to violence – at least 1 mental health counselor in every school, trauma-informed training for all teachers. We also need to make sure that all students who speak English as a second language receive the support they need in terms of fully trained ESL educators and relevant coursework.
What are your proposals for supporting children before and after school? What would be your ideal afterschool programs?
Each neighborhood school should be empowered to fully engage with local non-profits and community leaders to provide diverse before and after school opportunities for kids that include access to sports and the arts. Each school should provide activities and services to keep youth engaged in meaningful activities that spark their imaginations and create opportunities for them find and explore their passions. The programs should run until at least 7p.m. when parents who work double shifts are able to pick up their kids.
Do you believe that there is corruption in Chicago politics, such as pay-to-play practices when the city awards bids? If so, how would you address it?
It would be easier to deny the sky is blue than to deny there is corruption in Chicago politics. Pay-to-play is something which has been enshrined by machine politicians such as Ed Burke, Danny Solis, and Eddie Acevedo. I would address it by ensuring that all bids are competitive and that the inspector general is required to review all city contracts. Moreover, I would institute term limits to limit the growth of entrenched power and patronage. I will also institute community-driven democratic processes, such as participatory budgeting and community-driven zoning, that will eliminate the ability to use prerogative to provide favors for large donors and the politically connected.
How would you make the city’s policies more responsive to community input instead of donors or special interests?
First and foremost, we need campaign finance reform. I support a small donor matching program that will eliminate the incentive for politicians to take money from big developers and corporations. Moreover, I believe in the need for community-driven processes that democratize decision making at the community level.
How would you handle the “recurrence of unaddressed racially discriminatory conduct by officers” identified in the U.S. Justice Department’s investigative report of the Chicago PD published in 2017?
We must institute a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) that gives the power to hold officers accountable to the communities they serve. Appropriately addressing issues such as lack of accountability and the "code of silence" within CPD requires oversight that is democratic, independent, and community-based.
How would you address criminal justice issues such as prison reform and the reintegration of formerly incarcerated persons into city life?
We must apply the principles of restorative justice to every part of the city, county, and state criminal justice systems. That means the abolition of cash bail and minimizing prison sentences/restricting prison sentences to violent offenders who pose a direct and irresolvable threat to public safety. We must also build on the success of the “ban the box” initiatives by helping the formerly incarcerated with job apprenticeship programs and transitional jobs in the public sector to help build resumes and reduce recidivism.
How would you address the displacement of people of color and long-term residents from their neighborhoods?
Beyond working with allies in the state legislature to lift the ban on rent control, I would continue my support for cooperative housing initiatives and work to create city programs that help with routine maintenance of historic buildings for property owners to minimize the erosion of home ownership in vulnerable communities. We must also create and maintain affordable housing by instituting community benefits agreements for new developments.
How would you care for the most vulnerable Chicagoans?
We must fight to provide housing, healthcare, good jobs, and a clean environment to every person living in our city. To accomplish this, we must ask wealthy corporations and developers to pay their fair share.
How would you ensure that development benefits residents in their neighborhoods and not solely the developers and other interests?
I intend on implementing community-driven zoning in the 25th Ward, so that the residents of the ward determine what gets developed and where, rather than wealthy developers that profit from displacement. I will also work with the communities of the 25th Ward to ensure new developers provide parking, green space, sufficient levels of affordable housing, and local jobs.
How would you distribute revenue fairly between neighborhoods?
We need to shift the strategy from equality to equity, with each neighborhood receiving the funding it needs to fully provide for the needs of all residents with the understanding that disadvantaged communities may face more complex challenges requiring public support to overcome.
How do you propose to resolve the city’s underfunded pension plan for city employees?
In order to overcome our city's financial challenges, we need to shift the tax burden from working families to corporations and the very wealthy. This means we need progressive revenue, such as TIF reform, a corporate head tax, a downtown commercial real estate tax, a La Salle street tax, and more.
What’s your opinion on tax increment financing (a program that funds development using any additional property tax revenue that results from an increase in appraised property values)? What, if any, changes would you make to the use of TIF?
TIFs have the potential to be a valuable tool to move Chicago towards becoming a more equitable city. TIFs can be used to invest in historically under-resourced neighborhoods, to invest in under-funded neighborhood schools and to invest in meeting our pension liability. We must stop irresponsible give aways to large private developments and fight to use our tax dollars for the public good.
Would you be in favor of freezing property taxes, at least for low-income households, so that people can stay where they are living?
Yes, I believe that there should be a property tax freeze for low-income households and long-time residents, especially in neighborhoods like Pilsen, Chinatown, and McKinley Park where property values are rising substantially and property taxes help accelerate the exodus of long-time residents.
How will you address public health concerns such as contaminated drinking water, rat infestation, and lead poisoning?
Chicago is in desperate need for a massive infrastructure reinvestment to completely modernize its water infrastructure. It’s inexcusable that a world-class city right on Lake Michigan can’t guarantee safe drinking water for all its residents. Modernizing our infrastructure will also help alleviate any rat infestation issues.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2019 Elections
External links
Footnotes
| |||||||||
