Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Will Guzzardi: from reporting news to making it
ELECTIONS '12: Special to the online edition of Windy City Times
by Kate Sosin, Windy City Times
2012-02-15

This article shared 4303 times since Wed Feb 15, 2012
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


In August, the associate editor at Huffington Post Chicago announced in a special online post that he was kicking his news habit.

Will Guzzardi, a 24-year-old North Carolina native, resigned from the post to run for state representative of the 39th District, a giant leap for an unlikely candidate. Guzzardi, a self-identified community organizer and LGBT ally, will face off against five-time incumbent Toni Berrios, daughter of Democratic giant Joseph Berrios. The district includes parts of the Logan Square, Avondale, Belmont Cragin and Hermosa neighborhoods, where Guzzardi has spent the past few years living and volunteering with community groups.

Windy City Times caught up with Guzzardi to talk about what prompted his plunge into politics, his feelings on Occupy Chicago and why LGBT rights are an unequivocal priority for him.

Windy City Times: So you are a journalist-turned-politician—not the jump that most people make. What prompted you to run?

Will Guzzardi: When I was working for Huffington Post, our staff was really small, and I wrote about a lot of issues facing our city. But I also wanted to make a point to write about some of the community organizations, in particular, in Logan Square but also in neighborhoods all over the city that were doing great work. I wanted to use my role in the media to sort of shine a spotlight on the work that they were doing.

After I wrote enough of these stories, they all starting sound the same- that the leaders of these organizations were saying to me "Will, we're struggling here. We're trying to provide services for the most vulnerable people in our community, and we get budget cut after budget cut year after year. We can't keep doing it…" Those leaders felt like they didn't have an advocate at the state level who was standing up for them… That's what prompted me to run.

WCT: Where do you see the misplaced priority in terms of budgeting?

WG: I think the priority is actually on the revenue side. We have a really regressive tax structure here in Illinois, one of the most regressive in the country that people who are in the bottom 25 percent of wage-earners pay three times more of their income to the state in taxes than the top 1 percent of wage earners do, which is backwards.

WCT: So, you want to tackle the flat-tax?

WG: Absolutely, yes.

WCT: People must be asking how a 24-year-old journalist is qualified to be a state representative.

WG: I think that people in the community are looking for a new kind of leadership. They're looking for leaders who will listen to their concerns, who are engaged in the community, willing to get out there, be active, listen to what's going on and then go out there and fight for folks and tell the stories about what is going on in our neighborhoods. That's what I'm offering to folks when I talk to them at their doors, and that's what gets people really excited.

WCT: What are the most pressing issues facing your district?

WG: People want to see better public schools for our kids. I've spoken with families that are struggling to pay their mortgage and at the same time, having to work overtime to try to get their kids into private schools because they simply don't have faith in their neighborhood schools, and we have to change that. Public safety is another issue you hear about all the time. People want to make sure that our communities are safe, that our families and our seniors feel comfortable in their homes. The third big one is the economy. We have to get jobs going for folks here in the state of Illinois again.

WCT: And you have worked on some of those issues as a community organizer.

WG: In terms of education, while I was a writer at the Huffington Post, I also worked teaching after school programs at schools across the city. That provided me with a real insight into the needs of the education system.

WCT: Do you support Occupy Chicago?

WG: Absolutely. I think the frustrations that we're seeing echoes the same frustrations that I see every day when I knock on doors and talk to people. It's that the wealthiest people in our society and the insider politicians are lining their own pockets, and they're passing the burden onto the rest of us.

WCT: You consider yourself an LGBT ally, correct?

WG: Absolutely. I think we need to achieve full equality for LGBT people in our community across this state and across this country as soon as we possibly can. I think it has to be a priority for our elected officials.

WCT: Have you done organizing around any LGBT causes?

WG: When I was working at Huffington Post, that was a big issue for us in our coverage, that we cover the LGBT movement, in part because my co-editors were gay.

It's an issue that speaks to me personally as well. My brother lived in New York City for many years, and he's gay. We celebrated together when New York came with its gay-marriage legislation. Our state is lagging behind many other parts of the country, and it's time for us to step up to the plate.

WCT: Has having a gay brother informed some of your support for the community?

WG: Absolutely.

WCT: Would you have voted for civil unions in Illinois?

WG: I would have voted for civil unions. I think that civil unions are a first step. We need full marriage equality in the state, and we need it now. Frankly, there's no equivocating on the issue as far as I'm concerned. It's a point where there is a clear distinction between myself and my opponent. … In the last election cycle, she was very equivocal. She was not willing to come out and support full marriage equality. She said that she would need to ask her constituents and see what they had to say about it. I think this is an issue where there is no middle ground. We have to have full equality, and we need it immediately.

WCT: What do you think the issues are facing LGBT people in our state?

WG: The biggest issue facing the LGBT community is the persistence of discrimination. It happens in big ways, and in small ways, in obvious ways and in subtle ways. But discrimination is still very much alive in our community and in our country.


This article shared 4303 times since Wed Feb 15, 2012
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Thailand parliament passes landmark marriage bill 2024-03-27
- On March 27, Thailand's parliament approved a marriage-equality bill by an overwhelmingly large margin—a landmark step that moves one of Asia's most liberal countries closer to legalizing same-sex unions, media ...


Gay News

Kara Swisher talks truth, power in tech at Chicago Humanities event 2024-03-25
- Lesbian author, award-winning journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher spoke about truth and power in the tech industry through the lens of her most recent book, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, March 21 at First ...


Gay News

Wyoming is latest state to ban gender-affirming care for minors 2024-03-24
- On March 22, Wyoming became the latest state to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors, The Hill noted. In doing so, it joined 23 other states that passed laws restricting or banning the treatment. Legislators in both ...


Gay News

Chicago alder proposes renaming street after Obama 2024-03-22
- Openly gay Black Chicago Ald. Lamont Robinson has proposed renaming Columbus Drive after former U.S. President and city resident Barack Obama, media outlets noted. The street stretches through the Loop from East Grand Avenue to DuSable ...


Gay News

Congressional Equality Caucus on FY24 bills passing the house 2024-03-22
--From a press release - WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02), released the following statement after the House successfully passed the final funding bills for Fiscal Year ...


Gay News

WORLD Uganda items, HIV report, Mandela, Liechtenstein, foreign minister weds 2024-03-21
- It turned out that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam traveled to Uganda on Feb. 19-27, per The Washington Blade. He visited the capital of Kampala and the nearby city of ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Va. marriage bill, AARP, online counseling, Idaho items, late activist 2024-03-21
- Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed bills protecting same-sex marriages at a state level, surprising some, WRIC reported. The bills—passed out of both chambers along mostly party lines—will require clerks ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ candidates Marcelino Garcia, Precious Brady Davis win primary elections to keep MWRD seats 2024-03-21
- Marcelino Garcia and Precious Brady-Davis, the two openly LGBTQ+ incumbents in the race to keep their seats on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), won their primary elections and will move on to the general this ...


Gay News

Small LGBTQ+ candidate pool nevertheless scores some important victories March 19 2024-03-20
- Relatively few openly LGBTQ+ candidates were running in the March 19 Illinois Primary Election. But there were some significant contests in play at the local, state and federal levels. Openly gay Ald. Ray Lopez (15th Ward) ...


Gay News

Gay Irish prime minister to step down 2024-03-20
- In a surprise move, openly gay Irish Prime Minister (or Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar has announced his resignation, citing "personal and political, but mainly political reasons," according to CNN. Varadkar said he felt he was no longer ...


Gay News

Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council sets a new course 2024-03-18
- Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council held its first meeting of the calendar year on Feb. 28 at City Hall in the Loop under the leadership of the recently appointed chair Jin-Soo Huh. The LGBTQ+ Advisory Council is ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Missouri measure, HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, judge, Texas schools 2024-03-15
- In Missouri, a newly proposed law could charge teachers and counselors with a felony and require them to register as sex offenders if they're found guilty of supporting transgender students who are socially transitioning, CNN noted. ...


Gay News

PASSAGES: Former Chicago Commission on Human Relations chair Clarence Wood 2024-03-13
- LGBTQ ally and former Chicago Commission on Human Relations (CCHR) Chair and Commissioner Clarence N. Wood died March 5. He was 83. Wood was born April 14, 1940, in Alabama. While primarily raised in Alabama, Wood ...


Gay News

Longtime LGBTQ+-rights activist David Mixner dies at 77 2024-03-12
- On March 11, longtime LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activist David Mixner—known for working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign but then splitting from him over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT)—died at age 77, The Advocate reported. ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ Victory Fund remembers co-founder David Mixner 2024-03-12
--From a press release - Today, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund President & CEO Mayor Annise Parker released the following statement on the passing of LGBTQ+ civil rights activist and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund co-founder David Mixner: "Today, we lost David Mixner, a founding ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.