Mayor Brandon Johnson faced another round of grief from the City Council on Tuesday over his appointments to key public boards.
The council Housing Committee meeting was upended when Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, 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.
Later Tuesday, members of the council Transportation Committee advanced the mayor’s picks for the boards that govern the region’s mass transit agencies, including the Chicago Transit Authority — though not without some hand-wringing about the directly introduced appointments.
After the housing committee meeting earlier in the day, Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, the committee’s chair, argued the move by Johnson opponents to block the nominations was about politics, not procedure.
“It’s really shameful what City Council keeps doing, blocking appointments so that we continue to allow, in my opinion, CHA to continue to operate without any accountability,” the 25th Ward alderman said. “They’re playing politics with people in public housing.”
The objectors have been broadly impeding Johnson’s agenda with parliamentary procedure to prevent votes even when the mayor goes through the usual steps, Sigcho-Lopez added. He also did not believe Johnson abused the rules because he as the chair accepted Johnson’s move.
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Ald. Sam Nugent, 39th, cast a critical vote against Johnson’s move in her capacity as mayor pro tempore, a position the mayor picked her for at the start of the term that has recently haunted him.
After the decision, Nugent said her opposition was “process-oriented” and called Johnson’s use of direct introductions, meant to be used in emergency situations, “a great abuse.”
“How are we going to know when it’s a true emergency when everything is an emergency all the time?” Nugent asked.
She added she was “equally upset” about Johnson’s directly introduced transit appointments that were scheduled to be voted on later Tuesday, but she did not plan to oppose those because of a fast-approaching deadline.
Outgoing Ald. Marty Quinn, 13th, said Johnson has tried to directly introduce legislation 19 times in the last month. He called on aldermen to continue voting down the mayor’s direct introductions.
“I think this is a clear sign that the City Council is a real legislative branch,” he said.
In a statement Tuesday, the mayor’s office said the CHA nominees were “highly qualified” and “deserve timely consideration.”
“The administration followed the established process by introducing a new slate of CHA nominees for consideration,” Johnson’s office said. “Those appointments were then referred to the Rules Committee through a parliamentary maneuver intended to delay executive appointments, as was demonstrated again today. To now disparage the very process that was followed is disingenuous at best and a dereliction of duty at worst.”
The conflict stemmed 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 former 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 Matthew Brewer, who is running for mayor, 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.”
Later Tuesday, members of the council Transportation Committee advanced the mayor’s transit board appointments, which are expected to be considered by the full council on Wednesday.
Transit funding and reform legislation that took effect in June requires the mayor to nominate appointees to serve on the boards of the CTA, Metra and Pace and the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, the new oversight body for Chicago area mass transit set to replace the Regional Transportation Authority. 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.
Like the mayor’s CHA appointments, his transit appointments were directly introduced, prompting frustration from aldermen.
Transportation Committee member Scott Waguespack, 32nd, said he was disappointed in what he described as the administration’s “abuse of the City Council rules of order” but acknowledged the time pressure to get transit board members seated.
“Our backs are up against the wall to make sure that out of the box, the people that are being appointed here today can get to work with NITA,” Waguespack said.
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Transit board members are allowed to be reappointed, and most of the mayor’s nominees already serve on one of the region’s transit boards.
In the lead-up to Tuesday’s meeting, Johnson’s renomination of attorney Lester Barclay, the CTA board’s current chairman, drew some sharp criticism from transit advocates including from Better Streets Chicago Executive Director Kyle Lucas, who called Barclay’s nomination to the NITA board “profoundly baffling.”
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.
Barclay preemptively addressed concerns about his views on reforms mandated by NITA in remarks to aldermen Tuesday.
“Let me be clear,” he said. “I support the reforms enacted by the new law and fully embrace the spirit of regional coordination that they represent. At the same time, I believe successful regional governance depends on strong service boards.”
The Transportation Committee’s vice chair, Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, questioned Barclay further about his views on transit reform before laying into Barclay about the leadership of former CTA President Dorval Carter, who stepped down under pressure about a year and a half ago.
Barclay chaired the CTA board during the final years of Carter’s tenure.
“We had a full two years where members of this council and members of the public wanted to see the CTA president removed because of lack of safety and reliability,” Vasquez said, recounting aldermen’s trouble in compelling Carter to testify before them at the time and expressing frustration that Barclay had not done more to hold Carter accountable to the riding public.
“My concern is more in your role on the CTA board not having that same level of accountability and transparency for someone who didn’t have the respect of the actual riders,” Vasquez said.
Barclay said he understood Vasquez’s frustration and pointed to his own past efforts to engage with aldermen as well as to encourage CTA leadership to meet with members of the City Council.
Ultimately, Vasquez was the only no vote on Barclay’s nomination.
The mayor’s other NITA board nominees include current RTA board members Dennis Mondero, an attorney and a former chief administrative officer for the CTA; Natasha Jenkins, a labor and employment attorney; and Oswaldo Alvarez, executive director of the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation.
Also nominated to serve on the NITA board is Dee Atkins, the chief of community engagement and equity at Thresholds, an organization that provides healthcare and housing to people with mental health or substance abuse issues.
Mondero is nominated to serve concurrently on the Metra board, Jenkins on the Pace board and Alvarez on the CTA board.
To serve only on the CTA, the mayor renominated Michael Eaddy, a pastor. Karen Tamley, CEO of the disability rights organization Access Living, is nominated to serve on Pace and Christian Diaz, an affordable housing developer, is nominated to continue serving on the Metra board.
Aldermen advanced their nominations through committee Tuesday. Waguespack and Nugent opposed Diaz’s nomination.
Johnson’s proposed picks come as the transit legislation takes away some of his power over the executive appointment process at the CTA, which has been led since early 2025 by an acting president, Nora Leerhsen.