It’s nice when the boss remembers your birthday or inquires after your health. But that doesn’t make us less incredulous over a Wednesday Chicago Sun-Times report that Ald. Derrick Curtis, 18th, a famously enthusiastic supporter of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, is rethinking his political support for Lightfoot because of a variety of personal slights, including a failure to call him when he was stuck in hospital, reportedly due to a low blood count.
“If we were in a relationship, she should have contacted me,” the paper quotes Curtis as saying. “I deserved some type of call or conversation just to see how I was doing. Just checking in on me. That’s what friends do.”
We wish Ald. Curtis the best of health. But we have news for the alderman. He is not in a “relationship” with the mayor that requires her to call him and stay in constant touch with his personal feelings.
As the elected representative for 18th Ward voters, Curtis should offer his political support to the candidate for mayor he believes best represents the interests of his constituents and the city as a whole. Whether the current officeholder calls him before the nurse checks up on him is, shall we say, not germane to the people’s business. And it’s the people who are Curtis’ real boss.
Lightfoot, whose staff later insisted that the mayor and the alderman are good pals who swap photos of each other’s “grilling exploits,” may have cooled on being too chummy with Curtis after the Chicago Board of Ethics slapped the alderman with a $1,000 fine last summer. And it’s not exactly breaking news that Lightfoot is not always the touchiest and feeliest of politicians. Curtis should count himself lucky the two have apparently bonded over deep-fried turkey.
Given that this is a political season, the story likely suggests more than first meets the eye. Still, if we take Curtis’ comments at face value, it’s a reminder of how much babying some aldermen seem to expect from the mayor, often as a condition of their political support.
Tending to the feelings of aldermen hardly is Lightfoot’s first responsibility. She has a city to run.
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