Mayor's latest nominees to housing board blocked

This story has been updated to include a response from the office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

CHICAGO CITY HALL (WBBM Newsradio) -- Chicago aldermen have spiked Mayor Brandon Johnson's latest attempt to direct the operations of the Chicago Housing Authority, in the latest sign of division between members of the City Council and the Johnson Administration.

Tuesday's vote to block three appointments to the CHA board was driven by concerns from members of the Housing Committee that the mayor's use of a provision usually reserved for emergency legislation represented a violation of the spirit - if not the letter - of Council rules.

"These CHA appointments are not an emergency," said South side Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward), who was first to voice objections to the "direct introduction" of the nominations of John Bartlett, Hipolito (Paul) Roldan and Ramona Westbrook. "We are not co-equal if we have different sets of rules. We cannot allow this pattern to continue."

After the meeting, Northwest side Ald. Samantha Nugent, who's a leader of the Budget Accountability Caucus that crafted the spending plan that passed Council last year over the mayor's objections, noted that the latest nominations are among 19 "direct introductions" made by Johnson this year, apparently to head off the usual consideration process by members.

"How are we going to know something is a true emergency if everything's an emergency?" asked Ald. Nugent (39th Ward). "It's important that the Administration puts some thought into the nominees and socializes it with Council and builds collaboration versus shoving them down our throats like this."

The chairman of the Housing Committee, Pilsen Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, told reporters after the meeting that opponents of Mayor Johnson were preventing Council from exercising its duty to provide oversight of the city's public housing properties, suggesting that tenants deserved more.

"There are members of City Council who are more interested in politicking than doing their job," said Ald. Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward), who's a stauch ally of the mayor. "This is really shameful what City Council keeps doing to blocking appointments."

The mayor has been working for more than a year to put his stamp on the CHA, starting with his attempt to install retired Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. as the president of the agency, only to be thwarted when the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development ruled his experience on City Council and as a housing development owner required him to obtain a waiver, which was then denied. When the CHA hired former Washington, D.C. housing agency chief Keith Pettigrew as its president, the mayor dismissed board chair Matt Brewer, who since has launched his own campaign for mayor.

It now appears no CHA board appointments will be considered until at least September.

A spokesperson for Mayor Johnson responded to the developments by releasing a statement saying in part that his "highly qualified" nominees "deserve timely consideration," and that the administration's previous attempt to introduce a slate of CHA nominees were delayed by aldermen through a parliamentary maneuver. "To now disparage the very process that was followed is disingenuous at best and a dereliction of duty at worst," the spokesperson continued.