Allegations fly between Stone, Silverstein in bitter 50th Ward runoff

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50th Ward Ald. Bernard Stone, a 38-year incumbent, expresses resentment that opponent Debra Silverstein is implying he’s too old at 83 to do the job. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times

Updated: April 22, 2011 12:17AM

Bernie Stone is a 38-year incumbent who has allowed his Far North Side ward to slip while falsely claiming he’s being pushed aside because of his age.

Debra Silverstein may be a CPA, but she has nothing but “experience in the field of being a housewife” and would be a “tool” of two powerful men: her ward committeeman husband and Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel.

Such are the allegations that are flying in the 50th Ward runoff between the City Council’s elder statesman and a challenger 38 years his junior.

Silverstein is married to state Sen. Ira Silverstein (D-Chicago), who unseated Stone in the 2008 race for Democratic ward committeeman, with Mayor Daley’s help.

Now Silverstein is trying to complete the coup by installing his wife as alderman — with a $55,228 assist from organized labor and $18,000 from Emanuel’s new political action committee.

Stone is the only incumbent alderman whom the mayor-elect has chosen to oppose.

“Maybe he feels I’m too old. Maybe he feels he can’t control me. Probably a little of both. He wants a puppet in the City Council and he knows damn well I’m not gonna be a puppet,” Stone said, arguing that Debra Silverstein’s election would concentrate “too much power in one household.”

“The overriding issue is whether I’m still capable of being an alderman: ‘He’s getting too old. It’s time for a change.’ She’s basing it on age . . . She told one individual, ‘What happens if he dies during the term? After all, he’s 83.’ Damn right I resent it. So should every other senior citizen.”

Silverstein says she’s been “extremely careful” not to make an issue of Stone’s age. If anybody’s guilty of offensive behavior, it’s Stone — for accusing a certified public accountant of being “nothing but a housewife” hosting “ice cream socials,” she said.

“It’s time for a change doesn’t necessarily mean it has anything to do with age. It’s time for a change because our ward is falling apart. We have gangs and prostitutes. My daughter witnessed a drug deal not too far from our house. Constituent services are ignored. Nothing is getting done,” said Silverstein, 45.

“We have the most diverse ward in the city with Indians, Muslims, Pakistanis and Jews. We’re a diamond in the rough. We could be an international marketplace. It needs to be another Lincoln Square or Chinatown. But it’s not being promoted at all.”

The 50th Ward stretches from Howard to Peterson and Kedzie to Ridge and includes Rogers Park, West Rogers Park and a small portion of Peterson Park.

In Round One, Stone got 4,305 votes, or 37.5 percent, down from his 48 percent showing in 2007. Silverstein got 3,864 votes or 33.6 percent.

If Stone loses the runoff, it will end a colorful run for Chicago’s second-longest-serving alderman.

Stone followed Edward R. Vrdolyak into the Republican Party for a failed run for recorder of deeds, only to rejoin the Democratic Party. He led the fight against the 1992 World’s Fair and built a wall along Howard Street between Chicago and Evanston.

Along the way, Stone sponsored Chicago’s condominium conversion law and ordinances mandating seat belts on school buses and forcing landlords to maintain temperatures of at least 63 degrees overnight.

But Stone is most proud of having championed the gut-wrenching parade that finally gave Chicago’s Vietnam War veterans the welcome home they so richly deserved but never got.

“We led the way toward changing the atmosphere. . . . That was a major groundbreaker,” he said.

One of Stone’s greatest regrets is his vote for the 75-year, $1.15 billion deal that privatized Chicago parking meters. Silverstein hammers him for it every chance she gets, arguing that a steep schedule of rate hikes tied to the deal has caused local merchants to hemorrhage customers.

“People don’t want to put that kind of money into parking meters to run into a bakery to buy a loaf of bread, so they’re going elsewhere,” she said.

Stone countered, “If I could go through life without making a mistake, I’d be a perfect person. But we all make mistakes.”