At 31 years old, openly gay Todd Connor would be the youngest official serving on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Chicago's Board of Commissioners, the group that overseas management of Chicago's water supply and approves a budget of more than $1.6 billion.Connor will be on the ballot alongside approximately 10 other Democrats vying to fill three open positions on the board. He says his business management background would bring a perspective the board needs to make more efficient use of so many public tax dollars.
Windy City Times: What drew you toward running for Metropolitan Water Reclamation District ( MWRD ) commissioner and wanting to make a difference in terms of water treatment—particularly since it's an office with such low visibility?
Todd Connor: I think I have a fresh perspective to offer this agency and that's important for a variety of reasons: one, because of how much money gets spent—$1.6 billion—which is more than the CTA, and when you're an agency of that size spending that amount of money you want to make sure you're asking the right questions and doing that in a disciplined manner with a very concrete understanding of what the goal is. And the other part of this is the goal is to clean the water and there's opportunity to do that better. … So to spend that amount of money and not get that outcome is what has sort of always motivated me and drawn me into public service—is looking at the money we spend and the outcomes that we get.
WCT: Had you always had your eye on the water reclamation district or was it something that you discovered and said, "Here's something where I think can apply my skills and what I want to do?"
TC: I've always been politically active and was actively volunteering for campaigns through the congressional special election and got to know one of the incumbent commissioners, Debra Shore, and we had a conversation about the water reclamation district and I frankly didn't know a lot about this agency. I was curious and I went to few meetings and observed, and came to the conclusion that I had something very distinct to offer which is private-sector experience that was not being represented, which was management.
Having been a management consultant working with places like NASA on how to achieve outstanding results, that's a perspective I think that is helpful to this agency and after observing a few meetings I came to the conclusion that I had a lot of specific questions that I wanted to ask that were not being asked that I would be in position to do as an elected commissioner.
WCT: Not many people are aware of the MWRD and the role it plays managing and treating our water and sewage. What issue facing the MWRD do you see as being worthy of the most public concern?
TC: Disinfection of the Chicago-area waterways is an issue of huge concern to the public. We don't disinfect our sewage effluent comprehensively, and all the information is on our site. Disinfection is an issue for us—people would be irritated, people would be I think angry to learn that millions of dollars are being spent fighting the Illinois EPA [ Environmental Protection Agency ] . Millions of dollars are being spent fighting clean water standards. We're the only urban environment of the largest 23 discharges in the United States that does not comprehensively disinfect its sewage. The consequences of [ not having these standards ] are as, of yet, sort of unknowable, but they're vast.
WCT: I get the sense from your campaign that a lot of the problems the MWRD has are due to complacency. Say you were the only new progressive commissioner elected to the board. How would you effectively go about trying to "change the culture" of the agency?
TC: As one of nine commissioners you can really begin to substantially change the dialogue; you can be the one voice asking very pointed questions of staff. Your job is not to run the agency, your job is to—like a board of directors does with companies—go and ask the staff and challenge them and make sure they're doing their homework, making sure they're getting the best value for the money that they spend [ and ] that they've looked at a broad range of solutions, not just one.
So the way you execute that function is by asking a lot of questions and that's exactly what the commissioners need to be doing. … I think one of the other issues right now is that there is no press coverage and there's no coverage for a variety of reasons. One is that there is no controversy … We need to go and talk about things like Asian carp. I think part of the issue is it's so out of the head that there is no story for the media and, so, part of this is we've gotta elevate the profile of this agency. You do that by asking tough questions, by getting in front of issues and being a voice for those issues—things like Asian carp, water quality, taxation—and then having votes and beginning to create a record for the agency that the public can begin to engage with.
WCT: What involvement have you had in the Chicago or greater gay community over your lifetime and in what ways has the LGBT community been supportive of your campaign?
TC: The gay community has been an extraordinary base of support. They really rally for their own and I've seen that and it's incredibly heartfelt that they've been so enthusiastic and helpful with volunteering and giving; it's been an extraordinary outpouring of support … I do get a lot of questions about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and that's probably been the biggest thing for me. I was in the naval reserves until 2008 and was never public with my sexuality and it's not intrinsic for me to be very public with my sexuality … but I want to be an advocate for LGBT issues as well; it's important to me, it's a fairness issue. What we want in government is fairness. We want fairness in our military, which means ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell, we want non-discrimination policies that are robust and treat people fairly, treat all of us fairly. I'm happy to have the opportunity to use this as an opportunity to talk about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and other issues people have asked me to comment on.
WCT: Obviously, corruption has been in the news a lot in this state lately. Do you think transparency and accountability in this agency are just as or even more important to voters as the environmental issues we're facing?
TC: People care about corruption because it costs them money in real terms. Every time we don't competitively bid, every time we give a contract to a buddy, it costs us more as taxpayers; both in terms of the money and in terms of the buddy as your contractor may not do as good of a job as if we had opened it up to the marketplace. So insider dealing, corruption—it has cost us real money, it's a huge issue, I've always cared about it—that's why I worked for the inspector general—so people are really hungry for candidates that represent a reform message and a good government message. I do think it's an important message this year.
Our message is "clean government, clean water" because it's both of those things. The extent to which we're focused on the right things which is supporting our environment, we'll have a good government structure to support that. Any time we deviate from that—focusing on patronage—is taking our eye off the environment. These things are absolutely related: Every time we spend money [ and ] every time we overpay for a contract there is a dollar that we're not spending on cleaning the environment, so you have to be focused on the right things.
