Mayor Brandon Johnson faced another round of grief from the City Council Tuesday over his appointments to key public boards.
A special meeting in the council Housing Committee was quickly upended when Ald. Pat Dowell protested the direct introduction of three commissioners to the Chicago Housing Authority board. Dowell, Johnson’s Finance Committee chair, condemned what she said was a pattern from the administration of abusing the direct introduction process rather than taking the usual steps to bring proposals to the body.
“These CHA nominations are not an emergency, and this administration continues to thwart the rules of order and procedure of the City Council as outlined in this document that we all voted on, and we cannot allow this pattern to continue,” Dowell said.
The committee voted 9-9 to sustain Dowell’s motion to block the introductions. It was the latest backlash to the Johnson administration’s handling of board appointments amid the mayor’s recent power struggle over CHA leadership.
The conflict stems from the agency’s 10-member board revolting against Johnson in March to appoint Keith Pettigrew, former leader of the public housing agency in Washington, D.C., as the next CEO. Though the Board of Commissioners is appointed by the mayor, he failed to replace expiring members quickly enough to wield control and install his ally, former Ald. Walter Burnett, to the post instead.
Now, Pettigrew has been serving in the role since April with a clause in his contract that requires a supermajority vote to fire him for cause during the first year.
The three nominees up to a vote on Tuesday were John Bartlett, former executive director of the Metropolitan Tenants Organization; Hipolito (Paul) Roldan, founder and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Housing Development Corporation; and Ramona Westbrook, founder of Brook Architecture.
But even if they were approved by the full council, that would likely only get the mayor to seven allies in the board. He needs eight to wield the supermajority to replace Pettigrew. Burnett did not respond to questions Tuesday on whether he’s still interested in leading the CHA.
Johnson attempted to put forth two other names in April, Consuela Hendricks and Rafael “Ralph” Caro II, but their nominations got sent to the council Rules Committee, where legislation often goes to die.
One of the commissioners whose term is expiring, former board chair and now-2027 mayoral candidate Matthew Brewer, released a statement Monday night condemning Johnson’s “round of political maneuvering.”
“This fits a pattern,” Brewer wrote. “When the Mayor treats leadership appointments as political chess pieces rather than governance decisions, talented people take notice — and they think twice before taking city jobs where their tenure depends on staying in someone’s good political graces rather than doing good work.”
Also Tuesday, members of the council Transportation Committee are expected to weigh the mayor’s proposed picks for the boards that govern the Chicago area’s mass transit systems.
Transit funding and reform legislation that took effect in June requires the mayor to nominate appointees to serve on the boards of the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace and the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, the new oversight body for Chicago area mass transit. All current transit board members’ terms expire Sept. 1, when their replacements are expected to take over — giving the mayor a relatively tight timeline to get his nominees seated.
Board members are allowed to be reappointed, and most of the mayor’s nominees already serve on one of the region’s transit boards.
Johnson’s re-nomination of attorney Lester Barclay, the CTA board’s current chairman, drew some sharp criticism in the lead up to Tuesday’s meeting.
Barclay, who was first named to the CTA board by then-mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2021, has criticized aspects of the transit reform law — namely, the increased oversight it gives NITA over the CTA. Johnson nominated Barclay to serve on the boards of both the CTA and NITA.
In a statement last week, Kyle Lucas of the advocacy group Better Streets Chicago called Barclay’s nomination to the NITA board “profoundly baffling.”
“Barclay’s leadership on the Chicago Transit Board spanned the pandemic, where riders saw on full display what a lack of oversight means for their day-to-day: ghost buses and trains, long waits, and problems ignored until they become longstanding crises,” Lucas said, adding that “the reforms in NITA are only as good as those who will implement them.”
