The same week concerns have been raised about top city positions going vacant, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot today announced she’s nominating a familiar face, Annette Nance-Holt, to be the city’s first woman fire chief. She’s a 30-year department veteran. More than a decade ago, her 16-year-old son was shot to death on a CTA bus while shielding someone from a gunman.
Illinois’ public health director and Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s deputy in charge of health care said during a hearing this week that state veterans affairs officials misled them about the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home. The Tribune’s Rick Pearson has been covering the fallout.
This week’s vote by congressional Republicans to remove Wyoming U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership post highlighted the GOP divide. U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Channahon Republican who leads the “Country First” political action committee, supported Cheney. Republican U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, of Oakland in east-central Illinois, remains steadfast in her support for former President Donald Trump, and has caused some controversy along the way. Miller said the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney was out of step with the Republican Party and it was time for someone else to fill her leadership position.
“But not all Illinois Republicans in Congress have established their brands,” reporter Kelsey Landis at the Belleville News-Democrat writes. The three other GOP members of Illinois’ congressional delegation have sat on the fence during the intra-party battle.
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The Tribune’s Gregory Pratt writes, “Hackers recently stole a cache of thousands of city of Chicago emails that were electronically transferred from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration to the Jones Day law firm.”
Asked about the stolen emails at an unrelated news conference earlier this week, Lightfoot raised questions about their veracity and said the hackers unsuccessfully sought ransoms from both the law firm and City Hall.
Some highlights, courtesy of Pratt:
*Top staffers wrangled with messaging centered on blown deadlines with the federal court-mandated police reforms. They also discussed what to do about proposing a civilian oversight panel for the Chicago Police Department, something the mayor promised to do in the first 100 days of taking office but so far has not.
*“Lightfoot’s City Hall team last summer considered defying Pritzker’s indoor dining ban. Top staff members even scheduled a meeting to discuss how such a move would play out,” Pratt writes. It didn’t ultimately happen, but the mayor did criticize the governor over re-instituting the restriction as COVID-19 cases rose. It would be one in a number of chapters where the mayor and governor were seemingly out of lockstep on COVID-19 response.
ALSO: Lightfoot canceled her baiduhai subscription over reporting she didn’t like, Block Club Chicago reports. Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens is asking the mayor to reconsider.
Ransomware attack hits Gary; FBI, Department of Homeland Security handling investigation: A city spokesman confirmed the attack, but declined to comment on when the attack began, how the ransomware was introduced to the system or the exact number of servers and computers affected, citing the ongoing investigation. Carrie Napoleon has the full story in the Post-Tribune.
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Lightfoot appoints first woman to hold the post of Chicago fire chief
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From Gregory Pratt: “Mayor Lori Lightfoot has chosen Annette Nance-Holt to become the first woman ever to lead the Chicago Fire Department, she announced at a graduation ceremony for paramedics on Friday.”
The announcement comes the same week John Byrne and Pratt chronicled the list of vacancies in top city posts, including atop the Fire Department.
Lightfoot took to Twitter, writing: “I’m proud to announce that Annette Nance-Holt will make history as not only the first woman but the first Black woman to serve as Commissioner of the Chicago Fire Department. After more than 30 years of service, she’s the right choice to lead the department into the future.
Nance-Holt said in a statement: “The Fire Department must have membership and leadership that mirrors the communities it serves every day. As a child, I never laid eyes on either a female firefighter or a firefighter of color.” Full story here.
Small fraction of nation’s fire department chiefs are Black women: In February, the New York Daily News reported there were just six Black women leading fire departments across the United States. Women make up just a fraction of the nation’s fire department payroll, according to the Daily News, adding that of the 300,000 firefighters nationwide, just roughly 4% are women.
The Tribune’s Rick Pearson writes: “Illinois’ public health director and Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s deputy in charge of health care said Thursday they were misled by top state veterans affairs officials when told COVID-19 procedures were being followed that could have slowed or prevented a deadly outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home in November.” Full story here.
“We believed the home was following all the recommended protocols and that the appropriate steps were being taken to address the cases,” Illinois public health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said during an Illinois House hearing over a scathing inspector general’s report on the outbreak.
Deputy Gov. Sol Flores said VA officials showed no urgency in selecting a senior administrator to oversee health care practices at the state’s veterans homes — a post that has been vacant since the fall of 2019, a year before the outbreak.
During his run for governor, Pritzker and other Democrats criticized former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner for his administration’s handling of repeated outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease at the Quincy Veterans Home, where 14 veterans died.
Asked by Republicans what grade Flores would give Pritzker and his administration’s handling of the LaSalle outbreak, she said she would give management of the home an “F,” but would not grade herself or the administration.
A proposal that would ban employers from punishing workers for getting the COVID-19 vaccine during work hours, following a similar policy passed by the city of Chicago last month, was introduced before the Cook County Board of Commissioners on Thursday.
Under the plan sponsored by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, employers must allow staff to get vaccinated on the clock without retaliation and would have to compensate them for their time, up to four hours per dose. The law would go into effect July 1 and would last until the Cook County Department of Public Health deems the threat of COVID-19 has subsided. More about that and other county government and politics news here.
McHenry County Board to vote on effort to stop imprisoning immigration detainees in county jail, the Tribune’s Robert McCoppin writes.
This week’s vote to sack Wyoming U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership post in the House offered another look into a Republican Party divided along pro-Trump, anti-Trump lines.
Two of Illinois’ five Republicans in the House have been vocal about their feelings toward Cheney. After a closed-door voice vote to remove Cheney, U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger said he backs her. U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, meanwhile, said Cheney was out of step with the party and shouldn’t be in a leadership role.
But the remaining three Republicans in Illinois’ congressional delegation were relatively quiet.
“U.S. Reps. Mike Bost of Murphysboro and Rodney Davis of Taylorville remained firmly in the middle” if you’re using the Cheney vote as a yardstick.
Bost, Davis and U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood of Peoria did not return calls seeking comment on how they were voting. Crickets. Politico’s Shia Kapos reported that Davis said he missed the vote but would have supported Cheney.
What’s next? Illinois’ population drop in the U.S. census, means the state will lose a congressional seat.
Exactly which seat disappears remains uncertain until redistricting, the once-a-decade redrawing of the state’s political boundaries, is complete. It’s in the hands of Democrats, who hold the majority in the Illinois General Assembly.
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As Landis of the Belleville News-Democrat points out, there’s been a lot of speculation that redrawing the maps will erase a Republican seat, possibly merging Miller’s and Bost’s districts. Such a move would set the two up for a primary battle. Read more here.
RELATED: House Republicans elect Trump defender Elise Stefanik to No. 3 post after ousting Cheney. The Associated Press has the full story here.
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