Confronted for the second time in as many months with the future of police discipline, aldermen deferred voting on a contract measure to allow officers accused of serious misconduct to have their disciplinary cases heard behind closed doors. They separately voted to approve $8 million in settlements, including a wrongful death and police misconduct case.
The unexpected move not to vote on the controversial clause in the Police Department contract prompted the head of Chicago’s police union to stand up in City Council chambers and shout “get your checkbooks ready,” in a possible nod to what he has said will be an expensive court fight over the dispute.
The delayed vote is the latest in a monthslong back and forth between City Hall and the Fraternal Order of Police, which threatens to further erode Mayor Brandon Johnson’s relationship with the city’s largest police union.
Aldermen were expected to vote on the matter at the very end of Wednesday’s meeting. When Ald. Gregory Mitchell, 7th, moved to adjourn without a vote, police supporters Raymond Lopez, 15th, and Anthony Beale, 9th, tried to force a vote. Their motion failed.
In December, by a vote of 33-17, aldermen voted down the arbitration provision at Johnson’s behest. That same meeting, they approved an economic package that gave rank-and-file officers 20% raises over four years.
The conflict began with arbitrator Edwin Benn, who last year awarded officers accused of misconduct the choice to remove their cases from the Chicago Police Board’s docket and instead have them decided privately by an outside third party. It was part of a dispute during broader contact negotiations between the city and the FOP.
The union’s president, John Catanzara, said the new option brought his union in line with many others across the state and vowed to fight for that right in court, which he anticipated would be costly for the city.
Catanzara was in council chambers for Wednesday’s meeting. After it concluded without a vote, he stood up and shouted “get your checkbooks ready.”
Critics — including leaders of the Police Board, the mayor, and accountability advocates — have said the change would significantly undercut the public’s trust in the city’s oversight process. Police Board hearings are open to the public, and the board’s decisions and rationale for the most serious disciplinary cases are also made publicly available. Misconduct cases overseen by a third party would be conducted in private sessions.
Those critics ultimately won in the December council vote, sending their decision right back to Benn.
Benn almost immediately rejected their decision, saying the vote amounted to a violation of the council’s oath of office and warning the city “cannot prevail” if the matter ends up in court.
“Such a challenge will be an impossible task for the City to successfully achieve and the City’s arguments to overturn the arbitration requirement of the Final Award will not prevail,” Benn wrote in a supplemental opinion released earlier this month. “The City’s high hurdle is clearly established by the courts because the courts give great deference to interpretations made by arbitrators.”
“Challenges to arbitration awards, Benn said, can only be brought if an arbitrator “was without or exceeded its statutory authority; the order is arbitrary, or capricious; or the order was procured by fraud, collusion or other similar and unlawful means.”
None of those circumstances apply to the ongoing contract dispute, Benn said. “Now please don’t throw away potentially large sums of taxpayer money that could be used better elsewhere than on a legal fight you cannot win which you are undertaking to make a point that you have already made,” he urged, also chastising council for casting the arbitration process in a negative light.
In a statement earlier this month, Police Board President Kyle Cooper said if Benn’s decision were implemented, it would “disrupt a system that has effectively promoted transparency and accountability in handling serious cases of police misconduct in the City of Chicago for over sixty years,” and added “when police disciplinary cases are funneled through private arbitration, officers either evade punishment altogether, or their recommended sentences are routinely reduced by as much as 50%.”
The City Council also approved a package of settlements totaling nearly $8 million. The proposed settlements include a $5 million deal with the family of a man who Chicago Fire Department paramedics incorrectly declared dead. The man’s family alleges the false declaration left the man brain dead before he was taken off life support.
Johnson’s introduction of an ordinance that would effectively ban natural gas in new buildings was immediately sidelined Wednesday, when a group of aldermen sent the ordinance to the rules committee, a tactic to delay immediate consideration. The ordinance, championed by environmentalists and opposed by the gas lobby and construction industry, sets zero-to-low emissions standards in an effort to curb carbon emissions.
Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, praised the legislation as “the first baby steps, making sure that we can have a cleaner, more affordable and healthier future.”
But Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, is pushing for a resolution to further examine the effective ban, citing concerns with the cost and reliability of heightened reliance on electricity.
The council also approved Johnson’s pick to run the city’s planning department, Ciere Boatright. The former vice president of real estate and community development at the real estate development and investment arm of real estate firm Clayco, she will be in charge of the city’s major real estate developments and tax increment financing program.