Maria Hadden, Rogers Park's alderperson, votes alone on Foundry Park and argues process on the debt rule
The 49th Ward's Maria Hadden was the only no on the $201.6 million Foundry Park TIF, then called the 30-vote borrowing rule a distraction. A profile.
On Sept. 23 the Chicago City Council approved up to $201.6 million in tax increment financing for Foundry Park, the 31-acre riverfront site between Lincoln Park and Bucktown, by a vote of 49 to 1. The one was Ald. Maria Hadden (49th Ward). She did not speak on SO2026-0027166; she asked to be recorded as a no and the record gives no reason. An hour later she stood to report her own committee's ordinance, SO2026-0027165, which removes data centers from an exemption in the City's building energy benchmarking law and requires the water department to hand over water use data for large buildings. It passed 50 to 0.
Three weeks later, on Oct. 14, she gave the longest speech of her fall. The Council was deciding whether to override Mayor Brandon Johnson's veto of O2026-0026270, Ald. Marty Quinn's rule requiring 30 votes for City debt. Hadden had voted no on the rule on Sept. 29 and said she would vote no on the override, which failed 33 to 17, one vote short, the Sun-Times reported. The two moments show the same alderperson: willing to stand alone without a word on a development deal, and willing to spend ten minutes explaining a vote the Mayor's side already had.
She argues about how the Council decides, not what it costs
Hadden's floor speeches rarely contest a dollar figure. They contest the process. On Oct. 14 she opened by praising the debate itself.
"this is a body that's supposed to deliberate. We're supposed to debate. We're supposed to challenge one another, and we are supposed to look at the way things work and make recommendations to change them if we think they're not working."
She then told the story of participatory budgeting, the process she volunteered for in the 49th Ward under her predecessor and later ran in other wards, and turned it on colleagues who had brushed aside talk of power.
"those who frequently dismiss talk of power in this body, it's because you've probably always had the privilege of power that you haven't had to fight for it."
"I have seen in my work in many a city in this country, as a good governance advocate, I've often seen good governance used to undercut the progress being made from minority voices."
She called the rule a distraction from the City's debt problem, said the crisis traced to decisions made under Mayor Daley, and said she was interested in charter reform instead. Then she turned to the Mayor: the override fight would not be happening, she said, if the fifth floor had better relations with the Council, according to the Sun-Times.
The same instinct shows in small moments. On Sept. 23, when Ald. Anthony Beale (9th Ward) moved to change the next meeting date without saying why, she pressed him twice.
"just getting some amendment and not telling 49 other people is a little frustrating."
She votes with the Mayor's side, with exceptions she picks herself
Since the term began in 2023, our record holds 92 divided roll calls. Hadden voted yes on 78, no on 12 and was absent for two. On the 49 divided items the Mayor sponsored she voted yes 47 times, was absent once and voted no once: Foundry Park.
Her 12 no votes cluster. Two were on ShotSpotter in May and September 2024, when she said it was wrong to hand that contracting authority to the police superintendent, ABC7 reported. One was the June 2025 curfew ordinance for mass gatherings, which passed 27 to 22. Three came on Dec. 19 and 20, 2025, when she voted against the Council's alternative revenue ordinance, the management ordinance and the 2026–2027 general obligation bond ordinance, which our summary says authorized up to $1.8 billion in borrowing.
That last vote sits oddly beside Oct. 14: she voted against the City's borrowing in December and against making borrowing harder in October. Her speech was the answer. The problem, she argued, is not the vote count but who has been left out of decisions for generations.
On Sept. 29 she voted yes on the parking meter ownership transfer, SO2026-0025407, and gave her clearest account of why she ran.
"I lived in the city through that parking meter deal, through school closures, mental health clinic closures, terrible decisions. I sat outside the fifth floor and held protest signs. I did not appreciate aldermen or Chicago City Council, and I thought the body of people before I was in it were making total terrible decisions. And it was a rubber stamp council."
What Ald. Hadden has filed this term, by category
Source: City Clerk · as of Oct 21, 2026
Non-routine matters introduced this term, by the Clerk's category. Source: City Clerk.
In Rogers Park, the process politician says no to buildings
Hadden unseated Joe Moore, who had held the 49th Ward seat since 1991, in February 2019; CBS Chicago reported she had founded the nonprofit Our City Our Voice, sat on the board of the Participatory Budgeting Project and took no developer contributions. She won a second term on Feb. 28, 2023 with 73 percent over Belia Rodriguez and Bill Morton in a race Block Club said was dominated by homelessness and public safety, with both challengers saying she had not done enough on either. The ward is most of Rogers Park and a sliver of West Ridge; its page is at /ward/49.
Housing is where the community process cuts both ways. In 2022 she approved a 72-bed men's shelter at 7464 N. Clark St. over residents' objections about a nearby park and security, citing the operator's 40 years of experience, CBS reported. Rodriguez attacked her in 2023 for denying upzoning requests, saying nothing affordable had been built in four years, according to Block Club. In October 2024 she rejected a six-story building with 11 affordable units at 7728 N. Sheridan Road after more than 180 neighbors joined a meeting and raised density, nine parking spaces and traffic; the developer had argued the density kept rents down, Block Club reported. In May 2026 the Council approved the 80-unit Howard and Paulina project she backed, which some neighbors had criticized for concentrating affordable housing north of Howard, Block Club reported.
The 2023 race also produced an ethics complaint, filed by a Rodriguez supporter, alleging improper contributions from a business seeking to lift a liquor moratorium. Hadden called it frivolous and politically motivated; the Board of Ethics works in private and had made no finding public, Block Club reported. Our record shows street-by-street package goods moratoriums are her most common ward legislation: 13 such ordinances passed since 2023.
A ward crisis becomes a citywide ordinance
Her legislative pattern starts at home. After three women died in May 2022 at the James Sneider Apartments, a senior building on Rogers Avenue where residents had complained of heat, she called management's response infuriating and promised cooling rules, NBC Chicago reported; the Council passed her cooling ordinance unanimously that June, according to CBS. Data centers followed the same path: the benchmarking ordinance first, then a one-year moratorium, O2026-0028856, introduced with the Mayor on Sept. 23. She told the Tribune she does not want a ban and is not trying to stop infrastructure, calling the pause a safeguard while rules catch up with the city's 39 data centers, the Tribune reported. Zoning chair Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward) sent the moratorium to the Rules Committee and called it political because it is popular, and the Data Center Coalition said it signals Chicago is closed for business, the Sun-Times reported.
The ICE operations on Clark Street brought the pattern to the floor on Sept. 23, when she praised Protect Rogers Park, the volunteer group that Windy City Times reported patrols the neighborhood.
"When the Trump administration sends unauthorized agents in masks to steal people from the street, they're not just stealing those people and their lives and their futures, they're actually stealing from all of our futures."
What to watch
The moratorium is parked in Rules with no hearing. Three Hadden items are pending: a resolution urging the General Assembly to pass the POWER Act (SR2026-0028728) and one on heat mitigation and cooling centers (R2026-0028725), both introduced Sept. 23, and a bird-friendly building design ordinance (O2026-0024083) in committee since March. On Oct. 14 she told the new budget director to expect her list in budget season. The next regular Council meetings are set for Dec. 8 and 9. The ward votes again on Feb. 23, 2027.