Chicago City Wire

Brent McCollum-Ottinger is one of a growing chorus of voices speaking out against the radicalism of 49th Ward Ald. Maria Hadden.

McCollum-Ottinger, a 49th Ward resident who moved to Rogers Park from the Detroit suburbs in 2019, says the ward and city are in decline due to policies he believes undermine public safety and encourage fringe political activism.

“Chicago’s just the worst place imaginable," McCollum-Ottinger told Chicago City Wire. "I’ve never seen people so unbelievably nuts." 

McCollum-Ottinger was registered as a Democrat when he moved to the city, but noted that being a Democrat in Michigan is quite different from being one in Chicago.

"In Chicago, [Democrats] openly admit they’re communist,” he said.  

Shortly after moving to the 49th Ward, McCollum-Ottinger said things started to go off the rails. 

In 2020, he said rather than addressing the issues negatively affecting the 49th Ward, Hadden advocated for rioters. 

“2020 was a very eventful year for Chicago, with the whole COVID and then the massive riots,” he said. “It started because I looked on—because I’m interested—who is my alderwoman, and I got on the page. [Hadden] is encouraging the chaos downtown and her general stance.”

“So I basically started to do the only thing I felt I could do and started complaining on her alderman’s page,” he said. “It really upset people there. I started commenting, and then she has this fan club that’s all over her page, acting almost like simulating real public support. You go on, ‘Maria,’ and it would start upsetting people.”

McCollum-Ottinger, who is openly gay, said he is particularly concerned with Hadden’s tendency to frame all criticism against her as rooted in “racism and homophobia.” 

“Any time you criticize her—when I first talked about what really got me commenting on her page—because she said anyone who criticized her, it all stems from racism and homophobia,” McCollum-Ottinger said. “And I'm gay, so I would always be like, ‘You don't represent me, Maria,’ and I guess that really set them off.”

In 2019 Hadden was elected to represent Chicago’s 49th Ward, defeating 20-year incumbent Joe Moore. 

Hadden’s campaign page notes her focus on identity politics. 

“Hadden is the first Black, queer woman elected to Chicago City Council,” it reads. 

Reflecting on the backlash he received for his anti-Haddden stance, McCollum-Ottinger shared one label that stood out.

“They gave me a title,” McCollum-Ottinger said. “They called me ‘the self-loathing right-wing homosexual of Rogers Park,’ which makes me laugh. That was their little moniker.” 

Like other opponents in the ward, McCollum-Ottinger said Hadden allows open harassment on her Facebook page, even permitting violent rhetoric to persist on her official page.

As opposition to Hadden grew, McCollum-Ottinger connected with others who shared his concerns and began scrutinizing her financial ties.

“Once I got friends with other people who didn’t like her as well, we went through the financials,” he said. “There would be someone commenting—this guy, Jim Connors—he’d be like, ‘Great job, Maria.’ I would respond with comments like, ‘In full disclosure, you should tell people that you’ve received $18,000 from Maria over the past year,’ things like that. We had a lot of people commenting, acting like cheerleaders who were financially connected to her. It all culminated and got really bad in the same year Brandon Johnson got elected, when someone ran against her.”

Ultimately, McCollum-Ottinger got involved with the campaign of Belia Rodriguez, who ran against Hadden in the 49th Ward in 2023, finishing second. 

Many ward residents said that during the campaign Rodgriguez’s supporters were harassed and doxxed by Hadden and her supporters. 

“We all got doxxed, my address was on there,” McCollum-Ottinger said. 

He and others believe the decision to release their information came from within Hadden’s office. 

“It's a very small list of people who could have gotten this, all this information,” McCollum-Ottinger said. 

He added that a reporter for gay newspaper the Windy City Times was interested in doing a story on the doxxing incident but backed down over loyalty to Hadden.

“A reporter from Windy City Times was very interested in writing an article about the doxing,” he said. “And she had written the article. She thought it was a great angle and da-da-da, because it was the gay newspaper. And she’s like, look, you’re harassing somebody else who’s, you know, a gay and a gay candidate, and she had got me down and she called me back—and her editor wouldn’t let her run the story because they love Maria Hadden.”

Subsequently, concerns over censorship and transparency in social media communications have also emerged with McCollum-Ottinger at the center of the dispute. 

The deleted post, authored by McCollum-Ottinger, drew attention from Buxton and other residents who questioned whether an elected official should have administrative control over a community discussion group.

“Why was Maria Hadden allowed to delete this post by Brent McCollum-Ottinger?" Vaughn Buxton said in a February 2023 message. “Allowing the Alderperson to delete truthful posts should be against your guidelines and she needs to be removed as an admin from this group.” 

McCollum-Ottinger says he was twice banned from Facebook without explanation. 

Fellow 49th Ward resident Vaughn Buxton alleged Hadden had a critical Facebook post deleted from the Chicago's 49th Ward Connection Facebook group. 

Buxton, a child sexual abuse survivor who has been repeatedly called a pedophile by Hadden's supporters, claims Hadden’s office enables online harassment by allowing defamatory comments on her official page. 

He alleges Chief of Staff Lesley Perkins is aware of, or involved in, a smear campaign using fake profiles. 

Despite repeated complaints, Buxton says neither Hadden nor Perkins acted, prompting him to file an ethics complaint over what he calls politically motivated intimidation.

“Do we have definitive proof that they’re her supporters? No,” Buxton previously told Chicago City Wire. “The only way we'd have the definitive proof is sending a subpoena to Facebook to get the email for the account setup.”

An anonymous 49th Ward resident who was doxxed and harassed online after supporting Rodriguez over Hadden in 2023 accused Hadden’s office—particularly Chief of Staff Lesley Perkins—of enabling a pattern of intimidation against critics.

Meanwhile, during Hadden’s six years in office, conditions in the 49th Ward have worsened, according to McCollum-Ottinger and other residents. 

Both McCollum-Ottinger and his husband have been mugged in recent years. 

In the case of his husband’s mugging, the alleged offender was released from jail and immediately mugged someone else.

“He was charged, what he did was when he cut off the ankle monitor, he mugged another person,” McCollum-Ottinger said. “And then he went to jail to court, but then he just got time served after victimizing two separate people.”  

Reflecting on his time in the 49th Ward, he expressed deep concern over what he described as a troubling level of tolerance for illegal behavior.

“I've just never seen criminal activity accepted so much in any place I've lived,” McCollum-Ottinger said. 

He said he also fears riding the "L” out of concern for public safety. 

“I have seen so many things on that train that I'm just done, I won't ride it anymore,” McCollum-Ottinger said. 

Prior to the George Floyd riots, life in the 49th Ward was more peaceful, according to McCollum-Ottinger, but afterward, things have been very different.

“Before the riot, after it happened, it’s like something flipped and everyone became more bold,” he said. “Combined with the Safe-T Act, nobody cares. They don’t care about getting caught now with a lot of things.” 

For McCollum-Ottinger, the broader sense of disorder quickly became personal, showing up in everyday places where she once felt safe.

“There are too many panhandlers,” he said. “If you’ve got a panhandler outside and you’re not trying to get rid of them, you don’t want my business. I don’t want to be harassed at the door. This guy threatened someone with a knife, asking for money. Then he goes into the Jewel to tell the manager, and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we call him the Stabby Guy.’ And he’s still hanging out there.” 

In his view, a lack of accountability and support from city leadership has driven businesses away, leaving neighborhoods to bear the consequences.

“People wonder why businesses keep leaving,” he said. “They don’t feel like they can get help. I don’t believe the police can get anything done. The police can’t do anything. Maria [Hadden] criticizes them, then the business fails, and then they leave. Marshalls left that shopping center. Too much was walking out the door.”

In recent years McCollum-Ottinger and his husband bought a campground in Indiana where they live seasonally in order to get out of the city. 

When he does stay in the couple’s condo when back in the city McCollum-Ottinger said he is very careful with his surroundings. 

“I don't even walk in my neighborhood,” he said. “I will go nowhere in my neighborhood, I won't even walk around my block. I've got a car, I go back to the car, get in the garage. If I could sell, I'd be out of Chicago now.”