Joseph Gonzalez, the acting chairman of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, resigned Wednesday, one day after it was disclosed that several of the credentials which supported his appointment to the panel were false.
Gonzalez, 47, informed Christopher Hill, the city’s planning commissioner, of his decision on Wednesday morning, according to Hill’s spokeswoman, Susan Ross. She declined to comment on whether Hill had pressured Gonzalez to resign. But other city officials said that Gonzalez acted on his own and that his resignation did not represent an admission that the episode damaged his credibility.
The nine-member landmarks board, a division of the planning department, is an advisory body that recommends to the City Council whether historic structures should be protected from demolition. It has been the focus of controversy in recent years over developers’ plans to tear down older buildings on North Michigan Avenue. Gonzalez became its acting chairman earlier this year.
The Tribune reported Tuesday that a summary of Gonzalez’s career, which Mayor Richard Daley submitted to the City Council in 1991 when he appointed Gonzalez to the commission, contained several false statements, among them that Gonzalez was a licensed architect in Illinois and Wisconsin and that he was a member of the American Institute of Architects. The summary also said Gonzalez received his architectural degree from Oklahoma State University in 1973 although he received it in 1990, according to the university’s registrar.
The document was furnished to the mayor by the Chicago architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which Gonzalez joined in 1974. He resigned from the firm in October after he did not pass the architectural licensing examination in Illinois.
Daley declined to comment Wednesday on Gonzalez’s resignation.
