Joseph Gonzalez, acting head of the city panel charged with safeguarding Chicago’s architectural treasures, resigned Wednesday, the latest appointee of Mayor Richard Daley to quit in the wake of ethical controversy.
The 47-year-old Gonzalez, an award-winning designer, left the non-paying post one day after the Tribune disclosed that his appointment to the panel, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, had been bolstered by false credentials.
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A one-page biography, which Daley submitted to the City Council in 1991, stated that Gonzalez was registered to practice architecture in Illinois and Wisconsin when, in fact, he was not. The summary also misstated Gonzalez’s educational background and wrongly said he was a member of the American Institute of Architects.
Though Daley initially defended Gonzalez, saying “he’s done a tremendous job,” the mayor declined to comment on the resignation. It follows a spate of ethical controversies at City Hall, which has forced Daley to impose tougher ethical guidelines for his own staff and to pressure the City Council to adopt beefed-up standards for itself.
In each instance, the Daley administration has left little time for the scandals to fester; the person under fire has either immediately resigned or been promptly reassigned.
However, the city official who administers the landmarks panel said Gonzalez was not pressured to resign by Christopher Hill, the city’s planning commissioner, and that his resignation did not represent an admission that the episode damaged his credibility.
“He was not forced out,” said the official, Charles Thurow, the city’s deputy planning commissioner in charge of landmarks.
Gonzalez, who left the prestigious Chicago architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill earlier this year, did not return telephone calls.
His two-paragraph resignation letter, addressed to Daley, said in part:
“As you are aware, there have been many stories and allegations regarding my professional credentials. In that light, I do not wish to become a distraction from the important work of the Landmarks Commission.”
The 9-member landmarks board, a part of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, is an advisory body that recommends to the City Council whether historic sites and structures should be protected from demolition.
It has been the focus of controversy in recent years over developers’ plans to tear down old buildings on North Michigan Avenue. Gonzalez became its acting chairman earlier this year after serving as vice chairman.
Ironically, Gonzalez needed none of the disputed credentials to be on the commission. Its members, who typically include real estate developers and lawyers as well as designers, are not required to be licensed architects. Nor must they hold an architectural degree.
The biography Daley submitted to the Council in 1991 stated that Gonzalez got his degree in architecture from Oklahoma State University in 1973–when, in fact, he received the degree in 1990 after an incomplete was expunged from his record, according to the school’s registrar.
In addition, the biography suggested that Gonzalez completed the Loeb design fellowship at Harvard University in 1989, when in reality, he was awarded the coveted fellowship but did not finish the non-degree program, according to its administrator,
In an interview last Friday, Gonzalez attributed the discrepancies in his resume, which was furnished to the mayor by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, to mistakes made by a careless marketing department. He explained that he was so focused on design that he did not pay close attention to the many papers crossing his desk.
But a former member of Skidmore’s marketing department challenged Gonzalez’s version of events, saying that Skidmore partners typically were called upon to review their credentials when the firm was preparing proposals for prospective clients.
The former employee, Tessa Craib-Cox, who ran the firm’s marketing department from approximately 1987 to 1990, said in an interview Wednesday: “During the time that I worked there, I don’t think we were sloppy. . . . The partners had every opportunity to review facts and stuff that went out.”
She added: “I always remember Joe as being detail-oriented and very specific about things and wanting things to be right. He did not strike me as a person who would do something like this.”
A native of New York, Gonzalez joined Skidmore in 1974 and was elevated to the rank of partner in 1986.
Among the major buildings designed or renovated under his direction are the new Symphony Center, the Chicago Civic Opera House, the Ravinia Music Festival complex, the 303 W. Madison St. office building and the Downers Grove corporate headquarters of catalog-merchandising giant Spiegel Inc. Several of the jobs have won national and local design awards from the American Institute of Architects.
For years, it didn’t matter that Gonzalez was not a registered architect. Before 1995, Skidmore was an Illinois general partnership, which meant that its members could practice if at least two-thirds of them were licensed. As long as the legal stamp of a registered architect appeared on blueprints, an unlicensed architect could legally design a project, as Gonzalez did.
But the rules changed in 1995 when Skidmore became a New York limited liability partnership, requiring all partners to be licensed.
Gonzalez said he gave up his Skidmore partnership when the shift occurred, but members of the firm–which has offices in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington and London–have suggested that he misrepresented himself with regard to other credentials.
Earlier this week, for example, Jeffrey McCarthy, a partner since 1990, said of the errors on the Gonzalez resume that was sent to the City Council in 1991: “He had ample opportunity to check it out. He should have brought it to our attention.”
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In June, Gonzalez took a leave of absence from Skidmore in order to study for and take the Illinois licensing exam. He said he passed all but the structural engineering section of the 9-part test. During his leave, he said, he decided to quit Skidmore and work instead for a medium-size firm on medium-size projects. He resigned from Skidmore in October, but has yet to join another firm.
Thurow, the landmarks commission administrator, said he was disappointed that Gonzalez had resigned because Gonzalez had done an exemplary job, especially in reviewing proposed changes to buildings that were official landmarks.
Thurow said Albert Friedman, a real estate developer, would succeed Gonzalez as the panel’s acting chairman because, as its secretary, Friedman is the next highest-ranking member of the commission.